Public schools everywhere banning mile run!

Tony wrote:

I remember the 600 yards in about 6th grade. ...

This is the sad state of kids' health these days.

i think it was 6th grade we did it as well.

if you want to see the sad state of kids (and adults) health, go to a water park and see how many chubby little 10 year old boys have bigger boobs than you wife.

the obesity in kids is stunning.

haha, "guess who's going to die!" a teammate and i liked to toy with people in the pe mile. one time, someone who would know how good we were tried to go out ahead of us. we slowly picked up the pace until he was panting and finally dropped off. in hindsight, maybe we should have been more respectful of how hard he was trying. aren't high schoolers asses?

Gym classes have gotten worse and worse over the years. My high school class maninly consisted of stretching for 30 mins followed by about 10 mins of doing whatever you felt like- which for girls meant mostly sitting in the bleachers and talking and even eating! BUT, even the fatasses still had to get out there twice a year and try the mile.

I have no problem with people getting fatter.

It just makes me look even better compared to all the fat asses out there.

f*** this country, im moving to ethiopia with geb and bekele

When i was in 7th grade, we had a kid collapse and die right on the track during the pe mile. he was in good shape too.

it was an unknown heart complex.

quite sad, really.

The end wrote:

Public schools around the US are actually banning the mile run for gym class because it is too "demanding" for the students. Even for the Presidential fitness test, there is a new option that takes the place of the mile for a "pacer test" which basically involves running back and forth in a gym about 10 times with REST inbetween. This is so pathetic!

I'd love to see some literature on this if anyone as anything out there.

i teach k-6 and can get about 90% of my 6th graders to run a mile w/out stopping. even a good amount of my first graders can run that far w/out stopping to walk.

this, information above, if true- is garbage!

I blame the American system of life. Our economy thrives on competition and we observe that in our daily work lives. That is why most of the innovation,especially in the world comes from the US (with the help of many Asian workers).

However, that same dedicated attitude for some reason does not apply to our bodies. I have colleagues that are incredibly tough workers but do not exercise at all. If they put 10% of the effort into exercising as they did into their job they would be fine. Lets face it, exercising is basically a punishment for Americans. How many times have people come up to you and looked surprised when you tell people you run for fun.

If the youth in this country do not become active it will affect their job prospects, health and happiness. To put it bluntly, if I am a job recruit and I have two equally qualified candidates with one being very fit and the other fat, I always choose the fit one. That person will cost the company less in health bills (hopefully) and generally will be sick less often, thus more productive for your company.

The take home message is kids need to be active when they are young to have a successful and fufilling life as an adult.

I have no problem either at the moment, other than the fact that they're raising the cost of health insurance for all of us

Let us seriously hope not universal health care legislation is ever passed, as if it were to become law, fat people would raise our taxes to unimaginably high levels

perhaps if insurance rates were cheaper for those who regularly exercise, people would actually bother getting in shape

Ha, another sign of how litigious our society has become too.

I remember running the mile for that Presidential fitness test Bush I put in place. Granted, I hated it at the time--but discovered I was actually pretty good at it compared to the usual sports 4th/5th graders play (baseball, football). I may have never known I had the skill otherwise...

I know I will get flamed really badly for this, but I actually have to say that for less physically gifted students, the mile run can be a very traumatic event. I know it was for me, because I wasn't in good shape as a kid. Yes yes I know I should have been in good shape, but the fact of the matter is having to run a full mile in front of ones peers is pretty psychologically scarring for the dorky/fat kids. Then again, I probably wouldn't have become a runner had I not been humiliated in gym class, so who knows. It wouldn't bother me, though, to see an option for the kids. Those who don't want to run the mile can do the pacer test. Having to run the pacer test instead of the mile is enough humiliation, in my mind.

Sorry, but yes, you should probably get flamed for that.

Psychologically scarring? good lord. I guess you favor the elimination of dodgeball, too?

We always went the full mile, even in 6th grade. By 7th, most of the kids were kinda pathetic, but there were 4 of us who went sub 5:40 I believe. Anyone remember the shuttle run? That was always a blast.

I would like to report in that there are some high schools where PE is still a highly competitive endeavor. One of our high school gym teachers would make fun of the fat kids who couldn't run, egg on the fast kids to race each other, and quite frequently participated in dodgeball trying to hit kids as hard as he could (he played minor league baseball). There was even a special class called PE elective for juniors and seniors. My class was 12 guys and we did the exact same thing everyday. Our teacher set up wrestling mats, pitching nets, etc in the batting cages and we played a hybrid of paintball and dodgeball for 45 minutes. Losers got humilated, headshots were encouraged, hell we even got into fights and the teacher didn't say anything until one kid got his nose busted up pretty bad and the nurse got real upset. My arm would be sore the rest of the day from trying to throw so hard. Kids got knocked off their feet sometimes they got hit in the head so hard. Everyone had bruises and welts. It sure was a great time.

a lot of kids are fat these days, I did the pacer test when I was in middle school and yes for the first little bit it was really easy, when yout got at about number 60 or so it started to get hard b/c the longer you went the faster your had to run back to the other cone and the shorter the break was. But most of the people he dropped out early on like at number 15 or just hit the number to pass which I believe as 35. But yes most people are really lazy these days. I am 20 now and am running D2. So I mean the pacer test an tell if your good for running, but I am becoming a gym teacher to make all those fat kids suffer.

Yeah, we had the 12-minute run too. This was in 1986.

Are they really banning the mile run in PE? This is the first I've heard of that. Is there a news story anywhere on this?

So, we are to understand that you ran a 55 400 in 6th grade after taking off "like a bat out of hell". And that you ran a 5:15 mile closing in 2:15 for the final 800????

I also like how you use "about" when referring to your grade, the 400 time and the 1600 time.

What a bs story.

Did anyone else think this was the most hilarious thing they'd ever read?

Actually, if you read a little closer, he's talking about highschool (hs).