The Sacred Subject In School

Maggie started speech last week. I guess the school finally decided they'd had enough of my begging and actually listened to Maggie speak English long enough to determine she can't say her "r's". Amusingly, her Spanish is flawless and since she's required to speak Spanish in the classroom, her little speech difficulty went undetected until I pointed it out to her teachers.

Anyhoo, in arranging for her twice weekly speech therapy, I had input into what subject she missed, and before I could state my preference the therapist added: She can miss anything but PE. The state requires she stay in that class. WTH?

Here's the reality: I could take her out of Math or Reading twice weekly for her speech class, but PE? Not happening. It doesn't matter that she plays soccer twice weekly and dances. It doesn't matter that she weighs 44 lbs soaking wet and slim cut clothes bag on her. It doesn't matter, basically, because there's money in PE and obesity prevention...so no missing PE. It's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Even more in our district, PE now has specialist teachers, it's own cirriculum and even a dedicated classroom at our school. (Don't get me started on the PE health cirriculum which had Maggie coming home to ask me if she was fat because she liked ice cream!)

PE (aka Physical Education for my non-American followers) has come a long way since I was a kid. Used to be our elementary teacher hooked a whistle around her neck, grabbed a ball and marched us out to the play yard for a game of 4 square or soccer or even tetherball. It wasn't about obesity prevention in my childhood. It was more of a teacher sanity insurance plan. Basically, we had PE every time we got too obnoxious in class. It worked fine.

PE's importance has been so inflated that when they talk about cutbacks at our schools, they only teachers protected were PE teachers. Why? Because the other teachers get prep periods when the kids go to PE.

Here's the truth: PE is the easiest class to supplement. In our city kids can play any sport under the sun and most programs offer scholarships to disadvantaged families. In fact, I know many sports organizations recruit scholarship kids locally since their scholarships go unfilled.

This whole PE thing is so silly that I've actually considered fighting this battle at the district level, but I'm deciding against it. The Magster is very happy in her Speech class. We're pulling her out of social studies and she's paired up with the nicest boy in her class, who has a similar issue. So, if I won my little fight and Maggie started coming out of PE, she would lose her friend and that just defeats the purpose of the battle. But really, the schools need to think about this policy. Because frankly, it makes no sense.