I have already mentioned that I view Physical Education as a failure. I have explained some of the reasons for this. Now, I feel that it would be best to look for some ways to fix the problems the class and the schools' approach to sports provide.
One thing that I would really like to see is a disconnection between schools and sports leagues. The schools were never designed for sports, and it makes no sense to combine the two. I would prefer organizations such as parks and recreation departments (or perhaps a standalone organization) to take over the role. The local departments were set up with recreational facilities in mind, and they can provide more flexibility in offerings by allowing students from multiple schools join a combined team for less popular sports. This can ultimately lead to greater variety and increase the odds of children finding sports that they enjoy.
When it comes to teams, practices need to be more open. If someone wants to learn more about a specific sport, they should have learning opportunities without having to make a season-long commitment. The reason for this is that it can be difficult to justify a commitment when you don't even know a sport. Open practices are far better suited for those who want to understand a larger number of sports before locking themselves into a team. Additionally, it makes no sense to limit opportunities to introduce children to sports by making practices available to team members only.
Teams should not be too rigid. Similar in concept to open practices, children should have opportunities to play a sport without making a commitment to a team. Drop-ins should be welcome to join a game, and players should have some flexibility to join and leave teams in the middle of a season. Again, if a child wants to try a sport, why should we prevent him from doing just that?
Varsity sports need to be eliminated. During our youth, we should be more interested in recreation than finding the best players. If you want to play, we should not have to determine your skill level first. Developing recreational interest should be higher priority than finding the best athletes and fixating on winning the league. Additionally, telling someone they are not good enough for varsity can discourage a child. At that age, we should not be discouraging children who show an interest in sports.
There might be some flexibility with the elimination of varsity sports. It might work to create a higher level league with fewer athletes and taking the absolute best. This could be an invitational league based off of play at the normal level. Saying that you are not among the best is not the same as saying that you aren't good enough to make varsity, particularly in smaller schools that don't have much room for players below the varsity level.
Here I am talking about sports leagues when I was initially focusing on Physical Education. Why is that? It's because Physical Education should not exist. We need to bring this class to an end. Physical Education is too forceful and turns physical activity into an undesirable obligation.
When I was in school, I had the women's basketball coach as a teacher. She fixated on basketball as part of her class. I hated playing basketball. I can assure you that forcing me to play a sport that I can't get into has done absolutely nothing to get me to play other sports. While she was my worst Physical Education teacher, others made similar mistakes.
An argument can be made that Physical Education can introduce children to sports that they would not otherwise try, but there are better approaches than to take variable students and forcing them all to play the same sport whether they like it or not. This goes back to the parks and recreation arguments. Introductions to sports need to become broadly available.
Perhaps parks and recreation departments can develop programs for sports intros as a replacement, but the actual class has too many problems to salvage. You can't force a child to play a sport he hates in an attempt to get that kid to enjoy sports in general. While Physical Education does provide introductions to a number of sports that may not have been otherwise explored, it is also too forceful.
There are a couple other ideas that I want to explore, but these are not nearly as important to me. These ideas have drawbacks that I will explain.
I do not want sports teams to require good grades in school for participation. Poor performance in our destructive schooling system should not be enough to tell people that they are not allowed to explore physical activity. The drawback to this common sense concept is that a lot of schools would resist. If the threat to prohibit sports participation can't be used to push children into doing unrelated schoolwork, many schools will fight any attempts to make this kind of disconnection.
Similarly, participation in sports should not be required by the schools. I do not want to see schools tell a child that they have to join a sports team or participate in the introductions I mentioned in order to graduate. This gives the schools too much control, forces a maintained connection between the schools and sports, and makes participation more of an undesirable obligation. In some ways, this could be more problematic than removing requirements to participate. Schools like to monopolize their students' time. Without the connection, we would run the risk of the schools increasing their demands of students elsewhere. Most schools would be reluctant to reduce the length of their day so that their students can go elsewhere to play sports.
For these two grade-related ideas, it might be best to make them optional for now. If these ideas are forced, schools are likely to fight the changes, and I feel that the core changes are too important to risk the schools getting in the way.
One last thing. I have recently announced my new Idea Outlet. I will likely explore the sports world in one my projects. I might also include options with my Educational Rights project regarding how to provide sports within the organization until an acceptable alternative is developed.
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