No More
Mathematics/English on P.E. Classes
Kyungpook
National University
English
Education
Ryu
Hye-ran
What
comes to your mind when you recall physical education classes in the high
school? Maybe some of Koreans ironically bring the memories of studying for the
Korean SAT in the classroom instead of exercising in the gym. What was worse,
the allocated lesson hour for physical education is extremely low, about two
hours a week. These show how much the importance of the physical education held
low position. However, recently its significance is on the rise, being pointed
as the solution for the school violence among students and their depression.
Why don’t we see the case of the USA which emphasizes sports in school a lot?
One
of the EBS, Educational Broadcasting System, documentaries, named <School
Physical Education, Meet the Future>, dealt with the sports in school through
the Niles West High School. This school has a long history of school sports. It
was not difficult to see the records of winning various sports games and nice
gym including manifold fitness equipments. What was the most interesting is
that the school arranges the first lesson hour at 7:20 a.m. as physical
education, every day for an hour. It is said that it can affect in the positive
way by increasing blood flow rate through intensive exercising. In other words,
it can give energy to students, leading to high attention on other classes they
have.
The
teacher in the school emphasized that the change from learning skill in sports
to fitness classes. In other words, the change means skill-oriented program to
sports concerning healthcare. She gave an example as learning to play the
baseball. It was normal that teaching how well the student hit the ball was the
point of the class. However, it has been changed to elevate the heart rate by
baseball, resulting in the healthiness. Also, enough exposure of oxygen to
brain leads to activate the brain. Moreover, exercises play a critical role in
reducing depression and anxiety disorder. These show that the American physical
education classes also go towards pursuing health and emotional satisfactions,
rather than learning skills in sports. Additionally you can expect that these
changes in students’ emotional satisfactions can be a first step to solve
school violence issue.
Now
it is time for Korea not to let the increasing importance of physical education
classes become a temporary issue.
*EBS 다큐멘터리 <학교체육, 미래를 말하다>참고
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