According to Bill Frist, MD, greater physical activity in schools leads to better concentration in the classrooms. Read more here:
Inst of Med report: active kids=greater attention, faster cognitive processing, better performance on stand tests http://t.co/7ulDBMxoAk
— Bill Frist, M.D. (@bfrist) October 22, 2013
In conjunction with the theme of the London 2012 Olympics, the Joseph Whitaker school had their own dance themed opening ceremony!
Some children may groan about having to go to physical education class, and their parents may wonder if there is really a benefit to these activities. Indeed, there is. It is incredibly important for children to get exercise during the day for many reasons. Here, we address a few of these reasons and the benefits found from this exercise routine.
1. Physical activity: On simply a physical level, sports and exercise routines during the school day are incredibly important. Children need to get out of their school chairs and burn calories. Physical activity allows them to stay in shape, to learn about various exercise options that they might consider participating in after school as well, and to renew their focus for the classroom.
2. Psychological well-being: Along with the physical benefits of sport, there are many other benefits for the mind. The school day is quite long and students need to have a break sometimes. This break allows them to refocus their attention, burn off some energy and enjoy some physical exertion.
3. Team work: Assuming that the school teaches students about various sports, kids are learning teamwork and cooperation. Almost every sport teaches these skills, forcing students to pass the ball, to look out for each other and to balance their needs with the group’s need.
4. Following directions: One final benefit of team sports and sports in schools is that students learn how to follow directions. Certainly, they learn this skill in the classroom as well. Learning it on the field is one more way in which students learn to stay focused and to follow directions and these skills are very important.
The Harvard School of Public Health presents 20 exercise tips to stay fit. This is good advice for those who spend a lot of time sitting, especially students who are in school. Check it out here: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/tips-for-getting-exercise-into-your-life/
Check out this video on Clifton Hunter High School Sports Day 2013
Sports in school are extremely beneficial for many reasons. In elementary school, many children struggle with the long hours, getting cramped and restless while sitting at folding tables or desks. During recess the children get to stretch and refresh outdoors, but once they return to their stacking chairs and tables, they can quickly become lethargic and distracted.
Adding sports to the school curriculum is an excellent solution. The physical activity will help the children burn pent-up energy in an organized manner, and more than they would during free play in the playground. Sports also teach children discipline, confidence and social skills, helping them create teams and establish strong bonds both inside and outside the gym. The change of scenery also helps children re-focus their attention on school work later in the day thanks to a new flow of energy and hormones that boost concentration and confidence.
The scheduled gym classes and sports are not inconvenient for the children or their parents. In fact, parents are able to enjoy the fact that their child is getting sufficient exercise during their daily routine without having to worry about carpools and equipment for physical activities after school hours. The children are able to store a pair of sneakers and gym pants in their school lockers for easy access, and stay healthy and energized every day.
While some schools boast top of the line computer equipment, other schools pride themselves on having a greater focus on sports stuff. They may even have a swimming pool on site. Some schools have top basketball teachers, or even teach kids how to train to get into dance school for example. At the end of the day though, each school has some limits in their budget so it is important to see what they are spending most of their money on and how that fits in with particular child’s needs.
For example, if your focus is on the academia, you may not want your child to be sitting at banquet tables, using outdated computer software programs, or not having proper access to the classroom blackboard (which these days is actually a digital board but it is still the same idea).
The type of resources the school chooses to have will impact your child from K-12. Remember how important outdoor resources are as well. So many people focus on the academia and leave the sport to chance. But at the end of the day, it is important to give children a start into the world of fitness and correct nutrition at an early age and that can being – positively – through playing sports at school.
It makes sense to us of course. Now a study has found that exercise may help kids do better in school.
Another benefit of physical activity: Exercise may help kids do better in school. http://t.co/MdyIoz4WFs #ChildhoodObesity
— VoicesForHealthyKids (@Voices4HK) October 25, 2013
The Mumbai School Sports Association (MSSA) created a Facebook page in the hopes of getting kids away from classroom furniture and out on the sports field. Savio Abraham, Director of Administration at the MSSA explained that the idea of going on Facebook originated with the President of the MSSA, Fr. Jude Rodrigues.
“Rodrigues wants MSSA to be interactive with the students who play out there. And since everyone is on Facebook, we thought it was the best way to promote sports,” Abraham explained.
Rather than sitting behind a reception desk and explaining what they do, they hope that the Facebook page will reach out to 360 schools in the Mumbai region. The MSSA also wants to connect with people who played sports with the MSSA in the past. The alumni are actually the ones that add the most to the page, sharing stories about the games that they participated in.
Another goal of the page is to get much needed publicity. Not so long ago the MSSA attracted spectators in the thousands. Today the MSSA feels lucky if even 100 people show up for a game. Hopefully, if students are hooked into Facebook, they will be more inclined to get on a bus to a game to cheer on their school’s team, like what was done in the past.
One last challenge for the MSSA is to get their field covered in artificial turf instead of dirt. Such an undertaking will most like “revolutionize school sports in Mumbai,” Abraham says.
Many historians mark the beginning of organized school sports with a Dallas football game that took place on October 12, 1900. That game was played between the Wall School of Honey Grove against Saint Matthew’s Grammar School at the home turf of Matthew’s, who also won the game 5-0. Until this moment most boys played sports on the fly- taking over an empty field, or alleyway and playing against other equally loosely affiliated groups of students. Needless to say there was much cheating and fighting taking place.
It did not take much for schools to get in the picture. It began with upper-crust private schools, but then wound its way down to the proletariat in the public schools. In order to get the boys away from their classroom desks, in 1903 New York City began its Public School Athletic League. They held a track-and-field festival for 1,000 boys on the day after Christmas in the great Madison Square Garden.
Concurrent with the rise in school organized sports the US was beginning to extend the years of free education for their children, more years than in most other countries. This period also saw a huge rise in the arrival of immigrant population on US shores. The ruling class was afraid that all this “education” would make Anglo-Saxon boys weak and soft, poorly comparable to their strong, athletic, newly arrived peers. The great Oliver Wendell Holmes Senior was afraid that the nation’s cities were being filled with “stiff-jointed, soft-muscled, paste complexioned youth.”
Here is where school sports could save the day. Not only would sports protect the boys’ reputations as strong and masculine; sports had the added bonus of distracting them from the twin vices of gambling and prostitution. The term “Muscular Christianity” was coined during the Victorian era, and recommended engagement in sports as a kind of “moral vaccine” against the upheaval of rapid economic growth.
“In life, as in a foot-ball game,” Theodore Roosevelt wrote in an essay on “The American Boy” in 1900, “the principle to follow is: Hit the line hard; don’t foul and don’t shirk, but hit the line hard!”