The balance of time spent on Physical Education classes and academic lectures is a controversial topic in education. I believe that education systems should be designed for long-lasting positive impacts on students regardless of their future endeavours. Although allocating more time on academic subjects would help students improve their scores in the short term, Physical Education classes are more important for students’ long-term mental and physical developments.
Physical Education classes provide opportunities for students to learn teamwork and develop their physical strengths. Activities such as football and basketball are group-oriented, requiring students to cooperate with their peers and brainstorm complex techniques to outcompete the other teams. Students also reflect on their own strengths and weaknesses in the process so they can better communicate and collaborate with their teammates next time. These common experiences among students often foster friendships. Moreover, obesity has become one of the most popular health issues faced by children. Playing sports in class encourages students to exercise and improve their physical fitness. This solves a common problem in developed cities where parents are too busy to exercise with their kids but they enjoy food together as a family, thereby causing early overweight at childhood. Physical Education classes promote health, which is the most important asset of our lives.
Spending time on academic subjects may enhance students’ understanding on challenging academic concepts, but this is insufficient to outweigh the benefits of Physical Education classes. Parents, especially in Asian countries, care about their children’s grades a lot. Some believe that spending more time on academics will make students be smarter. While students will appear to be smarter because they have more time to absorb more concepts, we should understand that some challenging academic concepts are highly context specific. They may not be meaningful in students’ future adulthood, for example the complicated mathematics of calculus is rarely used. Furthermore, the talents in demand are street-smart instead of book-smart nowadays due to the advancements in artificial intelligence technologies. Since the perception of street-smart is highly correlated to the 21st century skills such as communication and collaboration, the mindset of teamwork developed in Physical Education classes better prepares students for the future. It is noteworthy that individual learning in academic lectures does not adequately provide the foundation for students to solve future difficulties. It has to be coupled by various skills learnt in team-based sports in order to future-proof children.
In summary, allocating time for Physical Education classes is an effective way to help students become team players and promote health. Only when healthy students possess both academic knowledge and collaborative mindsets, they are ready for dealing with future challenges or even disasters. The goal of education has never been to get the highest possible academic scores, but support students’ long-term development. Therefore, it is essential to include Physical Education classes in our education curriculum regardless of students’ age.