We're cutting out recess and phys.ed. just as new information about the importance of recreation and fitness are being circulated. How ironic!

P.S. There were some fat and smart kids amongst my schoolmates. Also some skinny kids who lagged behind (possibly due to malnutrition?).

has been shown to be good for kids' brains and elevate their test scores, too. Unfortunately, phys ed and music are often the first classes to get the axe when school budgets are slashed. Why? Because we don't have standardized tests for those subjects, so they're considered optional frills. Very short-sighted. Not to mention the increasing number of overweight children in the country, who are setting themselves up for chronic conditions like Type 2 diabetes later in life.

they're discovering the same thing when it comes to elderly brains--aerobic exercise is worth a whole lot more to memory function than a week of Sudoku puzzles.

When will cubicle-land corporations start having mandatory recess? I'm serious. Time plopped in a chair, showing the boss you are present does NOT equal productivity.

Exercise may be good for the kids' brains, and also help with stress. But exercise and school phys ed classes are not necessarily the same thing. I always enjoyed long hikes and getting around town on my own when I was a kid, and I still like working out with weights. But most school phys ed classes seem to be run by phys ed teachers who can't see anything beyond the sports played by teams with a ball. I was an uncoordinated kid and came in for plenty of sneering from these characters. To this day I stay in better shape than those potbellied phys ed teachers in sweatshirts were, but I'm still a solo act, and don't really care for team sports. Maybe the teachers have changed since then. I hope so.

Yes, I've often thought Physical Education classes were one of the biggest impediments to actual physical fitness. The emphasis was always on pain, punishment, and humiliation. Over-the-hill jocks who taught the classes (I use that term loosely; holding a clipboard and blowing a whistle would certainly not be considered "teaching" in any other discipline) identified with and favored kids who were already the most physically fit. Those who couldn't compete looked upon PE as an ordeal.

I'm all for bringing in real classes or opportunities for physical activity, but only if the purpose really is helping kids find their own path to physical fitness, not bullying and humiliating kids who need the most help.

I'm with you on phys ed. I'm also a solo act, minus any kind of flying object. My favorite sport is cross-country skiing. No ball, no team, no noise, just me and the snow.

My kids' elementary school gym teacher has been remarkable at making PE fun for all types of kids. My daughter is like me, didn't like soccer or basketball or much in the way of team sports, but she loves school PE.

They do "scootertown"... basically learning traffic rules on scooters (while exercising). They do jump-rope games. They do all sorts of bizarre and fun obstacle courses. They have a climbing wall.

My only complaint is that they only get PE about once every four days. Due to budget cuts and school crowding, of course.

I spend most of the time sitting on the bleachers watching other people play competitive games I was no good at. In fact, despite the fact that I outdid all the girls AND boys in my school during the presidential fitness testing, I thought I was unathletic until I started training as a runner in my early 20s and realized I had strength, endurance and speed that somehow failed to come to fruition while watching other people play dodge ball.

I really, really hope that gym actually lets everyone exercise these days. If we find that it boosts test scores, then that's way more likely. Let's do a study for boys to find out how much activity they need to get the same effect, and then let everybody have that many minutes every day of actually exercising.

Then if we can just prove that other things that common sense tells us are good for our minds and bodies - like art and music classes - boost test scores too.... I hope someone is working on that.

Aren't boys more likely be physically active during recess, while girls are off doing whatever it is that they did during recess?

An Eddie Izzard bit comes to mind....hopscotch.

Just thinking that the activity in PE for boys, on average, is prob only marginal, while for girls it could represent a more substantial increase in physical activity....

This being said, I was surprised to learn that schools were doing away with recess and PE. What's next, getting rid of red ink? Oops, my bad.

... once referred to gym class as "studies in state-sponsored terrorism," which is the most accurate description I've ever heard. Unless the bullying atmosphere of the typical gym class changes, it's not going to do much good for students of either sex except the most athletically talented.

Says the guy picked on throughout school. Its just so much more fun to cream a guy with a dodgeball when he's wearing all black and paints his fingernails!

I thought it was just me, but it looks like I hit something wioth other readers. Glad to know from Froggy, though, that not *all* phys ed teachers are fat bullies with clipboards.

One of the most humiliating aspects of phys ed classes of yore was the business of naming two team captains and having them take turns choosing people from the remaining kids, because it always came down to the last three or four geeks being jeered by each team that didn't get stuck with them. How could anybody who was supposed to be a teacher not realize what that did to all of the kids in the class? I hope today's teachers are better.

Sometimes we'd play on the swings & slides (they still existed in my day), sometimes play jump-rope or jacks, sometimes bring dolls to dress up or design hairstyles for, or just hang around, comb each other's hair and "flirt" with the boys. The important thing was getting a respite from the classroom routine, not train for the Olympics.