Should students take two or four years of gym?

Alexus Haris, Journalism 1 Reporter
February 22, 2012
Filed under Opinion & Editorial

Whether or not students should be required to take gym for all four years of high school is a topic often debated in the field of education. Physical Education includes health and driver’s education in ninth and tenth grade, but 11th and 12th grade would just be filled with exercising. Students would already have the basic knowledge they need. That’s why we should not waste time with four years of gym class.

Students don’t participate in gym for many reasons; some don’t because they are uncomfortable about their body. These kids don’t pass gym, so they have to continue until they pass two years. They can’t even graduate high school until they pass gym. Most of these kids who don’t pass gym the first time around eventually participate and pass gym. With only having the requirement of two year, you still have a chance to graduate. A four-year requirement would mean you can’t afford to fail a year because if you do then you would not be able to graduate.

With that being said, four of a standard 22 credit diploma would be for gym. Two of those gym credits could go toward taking a harder or more interesting classes like AP classes, sociology, psychology, or physics.

Colleges are not going to look at a student’s transcript and say, “Wow! This applicant has four years of gym.” The purpose of high school is to prepare you for college and four years of gym is not necessary to prepare you for college. Taking extra advanced classes would be more impressive and help prepare students for college.

Proponents of a four-year gym requirement need to take into consideration that students play sports and sports are more difficult than gym, freshman Kirsten Hanes explained. Therefore students that are participating in a sport should have the choice of being exempt.

Spotsylvania High School students believe there should be choices according to a poll conducted on Feb. 3, 2012. Seven out of ten students believe gym should be optional to those who play sports because they are already being athletic.

There are many factors to take into consideration when deciding whether four years of gym is positive or negative. It is understandable that gym forces students to be active and results in less childhood obesity.

Then you have to take in consideration that if a student messed up the first year and fails gym, they still have two extra years to pass gym class. If you had to take four-years of gym, failing one year would result in having to stay in high school and extra year.

School board officials need to understand that education is the most important thing in high school, not gym. With that being said, gym should be a two year requirement not four. School board officials need to reject the idea of requiring four credits of gym.