Is physical education a failure?

Many people feel that kids should be trained to be physically active much like the schools train people to be mentally active. Okay, so they don't actually train people to be mentally active. In fact, the schools have repeatedly proven themselves to be mentally detrimental.


If they screwed up mental, why did we trust them with physical? It makes no sense.

We are giving the schools additional opportunities to manipulate children in manners that are significantly different from everything else they were designed and perceived to have been designed to do. It never made sense to me that academics and physical activity are lumped together. I guess I shouldn't read into that too much. We are seeing roughly the same for both.

Among the ideas behind physical education is that exercise is an important part of healthy living. The hope is that forcing physical activity on children will make physical activity a part of their lives. Much like schooling trains people to hate learning, they appear to be training children to hate exercise.

The bottom line with physical education is that their establishment has corresponded to a decline in physical health. Obesity has become a big problem, and sedentary lifestyles are frequently referenced as a culprit. This means that physical education has had no real benefit.

Why hasn't physical education helped with obesity? It's because forcing kids to play sports takes away the enjoyment. That is not the best way to promote physical activity.