Freshman swimming requirement at Columbia

deborahg said:

He said he can't believe he worried about it when there is so much else to think about. 

That's an academic quarter's worth of wisdom right there.

I'm not sure what's the big deal???  So she can swim...ok this will be an easy marking period for her.  When I attended CHS way way back in the 70's swimming was a requirement.  The gym teacher split the class up into swimmers and non swimmers.  The class was offered in 2 semesters.  Those of us who could swim were given synchronized swimming in our class while those who were non swimmers received basic instruction in swimming.

Ditto what Boomie said. I hated swimming class. And unlike some of the experiences mentioned above, when I took it they didn't actually teach swimming. The girls stood at the shallow end and gossiped while the boys played some sort of game in the deep end with a ball. I made the huge mistake of actually trying to swim a lap (swimming in swim class, what a concept) and ended up being violently crushed against the side by a bunch of boys when the ball happened to be hit in my direction.  Take one self conscious teenage girl wearing what basically amounts to little more than underwear and add in a bunch of mostly naked guys and you can see why that left an impression on me. 

Add to that unruly hair that doesn't respond well to water (I had swimming 1st period) forcing me to spend the rest of the day with unruly frizz and it is easy to see why decades later I still hate the class with a passion.

I missed and/or was tardy to enough classes that one day Mr. Y said I had already failed and to not bother showing up any longer. I was so happy to hear that. Then I found out that while I did have to make up the gym credit, it could be made up with ANY gym class, it didn't have to be swimming. Huge relief.    

Swimming has been recognized as a life skill for many centuries.  The Talmud requires you  to teach your children to swim.

And so you should.   And leave the schools out of it!  

boomie said:

And so you should.   And leave the schools out of it!  ">

Could you explain what you mean about leaving schools out of it?  If a school has the facility to teach kids to swim, why shouldn't it? 

Why? Swimming is phys ed. It serves an academic function (movement breaks improve learning) and is no less valuable than other forms of exercise.

(responding to Boomie)

The state sets minimum requirements...towns can add more..so if state requires 3 years, town can still require 4.....i knew someone that graduated in the mid 90s...he said at that point only 3 years of PE were required and the school had an optional 4th year Honors PE class...that may have been a short lived reg.

Ideally swimming would be taught earlier.  It just seems logistically difficult in high school..especially with kids with long hair...even with a swim cap it seems problematic to get dry quickly..I hope the school is very warm.

In an era when child obesity is an epidemic, kids are more stressed and spend hours per day looking at screens, why is having PE such a bad thing?  

I don't think PE is bad, I just don't like the idea of one class being mandatory. For the majority of high school I was given some choice as to which PE classes I wanted to take. And when I took classes that I enjoyed I participated more fully and was more active than when being put into a class that I hated. If the point of PE is to encourage activity and exercise then it would make more sense to give the students more say in which gym classes they sign up for.  

I am not saying having PE is a bad thing.  Not at all.  And childhood obesity is a huge problem.   I was a good swimmer as a kid and even a lifeguard for a time.  But the swimming test process at CHS was brutal and caused a lot of fear and panic among some friends.  I just think it should be optional.  Plenty of other great activities to do.  Hell we had to use the uneven bars too.

And just to add, weight is 90% diet and 10% exercise. As the saying goes, you can't out train a bad diet. If you want to have any hope of addressing the childhood obesity epidemic then you will do more good by teaching hands on cooking classes.  

Pretty clearly, PE is having no effect on this problem.  In an environment where we are unwilling to properly fund education, PE is one of the first things I would put on the chopping block.

yahooyahoo said:

In an era when child obesity is an epidemic, kids are more stressed and spend hours per day looking at screens, why is having PE such a bad thing?  

Another reason requiring swimming is important is that many kids (especially kids who don't grow up with access to a pool or swimming lessons) get into trouble at the beach or even swimming holes, not understanding how dangerous water can be...if the swimming program teaches a few extra kids how to swim I personally think that is a good thing.

I always thought that the required freshman swimming might be an insurance issue for the school. Not that anyone told me that, it just made sense. Imagine if a student drowned in the HS pool and hadn't had lessons. If you have a pool, you should be teaching swimming to all who could be near it. That said, my kids hated swimming, but they survived.

mcb said:

I always thought that the required freshman swimming might be an insurance issue for the school. Not that anyone told me that, it just made sense. Imagine if a student drowned in the HS pool and hadn't had lessons. If you have a pool, you should be teaching swimming to all who could be near it. That said, my kids hated swimming, but they survived.

I never thought of that!  Makes perfect sense.

I believe that the content for Freshman PE is proscribed - swimming, health and two others.  Sophomore - Senior years there is some element of choice for the three quarters when they don't have health, although kids don't always get their choices.  (One of my kids kept asking for Project Adventure, but never got it until Senior year.)

A collegiate aside, a decade old, that nevertheless echoes some of the points raised in this discussion:

The College Graduation Swim Test Has Gone Belly-Up

It is possible to cite a lot of good reasons for a meaningful physical education component to public education.  But unless we are prepared to properly fund public education (we aren't even close to doing that right now), you have to ask whether or not we can afford PE.

We were required to pass swimming as a prerequisite for college graduation.  The final examination was heavy on physics.

mcb said:

I always thought that the required freshman swimming might be an insurance issue for the school. Not that anyone told me that, it just made sense. Imagine if a student drowned in the HS pool and hadn't had lessons. If you have a pool, you should be teaching swimming to all who could be near it. That said, my kids hated swimming, but they survived.

That doesn't make any sense. If a child drowns in the high school pool there is going to be a huge liability regardless of whether or not the student had swim class freshman year.

Also, the pool is pretty well insulated from someone accidentally wandering in there.   

boomie said:

And so you should.   And leave the schools out of it!  ">

LOL.  Exactly.

tjohn said:

It is possible to cite a lot of good reasons for a meaningful physical education component to public education.  But unless we are prepared to properly fund public education (we aren't even close to doing that right now), you have to ask whether or not we can afford PE.

Faced with the prospect this budget cycle of cutting 10 teaching positions it makes sense to explore giving PE credit to students on sports teams and making at least some of those reductions in PE faculty

boomie said:

mcb said:

I always thought that the required freshman swimming might be an insurance issue for the school. Not that anyone told me that, it just made sense. Imagine if a student drowned in the HS pool and hadn't had lessons. If you have a pool, you should be teaching swimming to all who could be near it. That said, my kids hated swimming, but they survived.

I never thought of that!  Makes perfect sense.

Try a lock?  And if they did have lessons and still drowned you'd better believe that lawsuit would be coming just as fast no matter what precautions (assuming offering a few one-off "lessons" even qualifies) CHS provides.

tjohn said:

It is possible to cite a lot of good reasons for a meaningful physical education component to public education.  But unless we are prepared to properly fund public education (we aren't even close to doing that right now), you have to ask whether or not we can afford PE.

I think removing PE would remove more future options than removing some academics.

I was a small skinny girl, was not very good at sports, and did not like PE. But I kinda learned to catch, throw, kick, hit, and pass ball, run, cut, use a hockey stick, frisbee, tennis raquet, bat, fencing equipment, and learned rules of multiple games, etc. 

I tried a few sports clubs in college, became quite good in one sport, and still play regularly. My life, and my current fitness level, likely would have turned out very differently if I hadn't been introduced to a wide variety of sports in PE. It gave me choices I may not have explored otherwise.

Yes, another good reason for PE.  But in an underfunded education environment, do we keep PE at the expense of larger class sizes and fewer course offerings?

sprout said:

tjohn said:

It is possible to cite a lot of good reasons for a meaningful physical education component to public education.  But unless we are prepared to properly fund public education (we aren't even close to doing that right now), you have to ask whether or not we can afford PE.

I think removing PE would remove more future options than removing some academics.

I was a small skinny girl, was not very good at sports, and did not like PE. But I kinda learned to catch, throw, kick, hit, and pass ball, run, cut, use a hockey stick, frisbee, tennis raquet, bat, fencing equipment, and learned rules of multiple games, etc. 

I tried a few sports clubs in college, became quite good in one sport, and still play regularly. My life, and my current fitness level, likely would have turned out very differently if I hadn't been introduced to a wide variety of sports in PE. It gave me choices I may not have explored otherwise.

Gundudad said:

Another reason requiring swimming is important is that many kids (especially kids who don't grow up with access to a pool or swimming lessons) get into trouble at the beach or even swimming holes, not understanding how dangerous water can be...if the swimming program teaches a few extra kids how to swim I personally think that is a good thing.

Trying hard to see how a child in landlocked Maplewood can be left unattended by his parents to drown in a beach or swimming hole.  And they DO have access... we have a community pool.  Parents of those few extra kids are free to avail themselves of lessons should they so choose without burdening the whole class with them.

tjohn: Can you clarify what budget changes you would make?

Primary expenses for districts include teacher salaries. If you remove the PE class, and thus, these PE teachers, are you proposing to replace them with academic teacher time for those periods? That's unlikely to result in any financial gain (and may increase financial stress on the budget) as you would then be paying out for the same time to different teachers.  

Or are you proposing we increase the available pool of funds by shortening the day (i.e., removing the PE period altogether)? Thus placing HS students outside of school for additional time each day. I could have used that time for mischief in HS... so I could see a result as a shift in the burden of our tax dollars to a need to increase the police force.

ctrzaska said:

Trying hard to see how a child in landlocked Maplewood can be left unattended by his parents to drown in a beach or swimming hole.  And they DO have access... we have a community pool.  Parents of those few extra kids are free to avail themselves of lessons should they so choose without burdening the whole class with them.

As a kid who couldn't afford to join the town pool, I'm aware that sometimes one can find ways to sneak in unsupervised.

Eliminate PE entirely and use the money for academics and to slow the pace of cuts in academic subjects.

Shorter school?  Yes, but we could start school almost 1 hour later so that kids could sleep a little longer as recommended by the experts.

sprout said:

tjohn: Can you clarify what budget changes you would make?

Primary expenses for districts include teacher salaries. If you remove the PE class, and thus, these PE teachers, are you proposing to replace them with academic teacher time for those periods? That's unlikely to result in any financial gain (and may increase financial stress on the budget) as you would then be paying out for the same time to different teachers.  

Or are you proposing we increase the available pool of funds by shortening the day (i.e., removing the PE period altogether)? Thus placing HS students outside of school for additional time each day. I could have used that time for mischief in HS... so I could see a result as a shift in the burden of our tax dollars to a need to increase the police force.