Physical education is a core component of any high schooler’s schedule. In the case of ETHS, students see every semester accompanied by a gym course due to the P.E./wellness graduation requirements. Such a requisite is due to Illinois School Code 105 ILCS 5/27-6, which mandates that students engage in a physical education course for at least 3 days per week. With obesity and lack of physical wellbeing rampant among the youth of the United States, and with Illinois documenting 15 percent of high school students as obese as of last September, the initiative that the state has taken toward student health is admirable.
However, when the code is enforced at ETHS, it can become more of an obstruction to some. Being a student athlete is an occupation that requires great diligence, one that requires a fine balance between the rigor of academics and athletics. Such a commitment molds students into healthier and higher-achieving scholars. ETHS’s administration has consistently prided itself on the higher average GPAs of student athletes than regular students.
“I would say that the physical health of athletes [is] better than that of your average student in high school,” said RJ Jhaveri, a student athlete for the ETHS golf, fencing and tennis teams. “The majority of sports require a decent amount of physical activity, and people’s love for sports pushes them to condition their bodies to get better.”
The athletes’ rigorous conditioning that develops cardiovascular and muscular endurance through drills, running, and playing their respective sports is more often than not equally as physically intensive or more than the quality of exercise that the school’s physical education curricula offer.
“If you take practice seriously, then there’s a lot more effort and exercise happening in practice than there would be in physical education classes,” Jhaveri said.
“I definitely think that compared to some gym classes that the school offers, [practice] is far more intensive,” added Max Matsis, a swimmer and water polo player. “You’re doing like an hour and a half of intense training, where in gym class, I could get by with lifting a weight once every 10 minutes.”
When student athletes hold themselves to such a physical standard, do the reasons behind the P.E. course requirements still stand in their case? Dedicating a block to P.E. for every high school semester undoubtedly restricts a student’s schedule.
To better serve the interests of the students and provide greater flexibility in curating our schedules, ETHS might have the block act as an additional elective rather than adherent to the physical education department. Such a system could allow for much more desirable schedules for student athletes, allowing more classes to be taken, advisory time to accommodate the tight workload of student athletes, or simply a free period for those who might feel overwhelmed with their regular obligations.
“I think I would have taken a different class that I was more excited about taking,” said Patrick Tu, a track and cross country runner, in regard to his first two years of gym at ETHS. “I’m not sure how much it was useful for me really, and I don’t feel like I really got a lot out of those classes.”
Some student-athletes also recognize that certain gym classes hold some merit for their sports, such as Sport Specific Training, or Strength and Conditioning.
“For right now, I wouldn’t drop my class because I like Strength and Conditioning class and I think it’s good for my sport, and I don’t really want to lift outside of school,” Tu said.
Others acknowledged P.E. classes that hold worth outside of just athletic performance or fitness, and are valued for the experience and character-building that they offer.
“Junior and Senior Leadership courses are good leadership opportunities,” noted Matsis. Along with Adventure Education, “those are all definitely opportunities that would still be worth it if someone wants them.”
The merits of the department demonstrate that such a proposal is not bashful towards the content of the physical education department. Rather, it strives to extend the sense of flexibility that ETHS’s course selection already offers, whether or not an athlete decides to continue taking advantage of the various opportunities presented by the school’s physical education courses.
Providing such an option might be achieved by a similar system to New Trier’s athletic participation program, which allocates a free period to varsity-level athletes. ETHS might implement attendance-tracking and extend the exception to all levels to let the system further ensue. An exercise protocol could be implemented for suspended athletes separate from regular practice, holding a mix of standard cardio and strength training exercises. Any odd cases could see students being transferred to a gym course in the middle of the year, similar to the conduct for transfer students. The system would ensure that students continue to receive adequate exercise in the face of unforeseen circumstances.
However, some sports that come to mind are questionable in the extent to which they prompt physical excellence. Sports like golf, bowling and table tennis, while requiring extraordinary skill, do not particularly challenge the human body. When discussing a sport’s ability to fulfill the fitness requirements that gym courses are created to achieve, it should be accepted that practicing the sport includes activities that promote an adequate level of fitness in participants.
“For golf, there is very little exercise,’ Jhaveri said. “There is very little cardio or exercise done in the sport. You would have to put in hours outside of the sport to condition yourself.”
This system could not be upheld for such a sport when the physical exercise is entrusted in the student’s additional conditioning outside of dedicated practice time.
“I think that some sports shouldn’t excuse you from gym,” Jhaveri said. “For sports that don’t require a lot of running and physical activity, you should still be required to do some sort of physical education.”
A reliable guideline to follow when evaluating a sport’s physical merits might be requiring that activities involving a high degree of whole-body movement or muscular exertion be practiced three times a week, similar to the state’s requirement for physical education classes.
Instilling a culture that promotes activity and wellbeing starts with youth, and P.E. is an excellent vessel for this effort in the midst of a health epidemic within almost all age groups of our society. But maintaining a passion for sports and finding joy in a life of motion is the superlative solution to living a healthy lifestyle, and students who hold themselves responsible to such a discipline should enjoy the choice of how to spend that 85 minute block to the best of their interests.
