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Less Secondary PE is Alarming

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April 17, 2008

This letter is in response to the "Conti Students Can Get Credit for Sports" article published in the April 16th edition of The Crescent News.
At first glance, it may appear that giving PE credit for HS sports & band is a very positive move promoting physical activity. However, the reality underlying this "curricular option" is a calculated political decision to cut the number of secondary PE classes offered to save, or re-allocate, money. With inactivity and obesity levels rising in epidemic proportions among our youth, this is a disturbing and short-sided move by Ohio politicians and public school administrators.
At the very least it implies that there is nothing valuable to be learned, or experienced, through secondary school physical education participation. The key to reversing our inactivity and obesity epidemic is to promote lifetime fitness activities and that is the primary focus of well-designed, secondary school PE programs. This outcome absolutely cannot be accomplished through football, volleyball, or marching band. Try getting a football game, volleyball match, or marching band contest together three, or more times per week, when you are 45 years of age.
In truth they (and we) are making these types of curricular changes to achieve higher scores on proficiency tests in "core" academic areas. I feel that politicians and school administrators that promise to "fix" our educational system have consistently been short-sighted and misinformed. Which is more important; having better math scores than students in Singapore, or promoting a new generation of young people with an effective balance of physical and mental well-being?

From " Tim Rickabaugh, 1704 Woodhurst Dr., Defiance, OH (419-783-2546)

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1.	Posted by Franz Karate April 20, 2008
	This is a perplexing situation and one that is actually not at all new. For the last ten years my black belts and I have been endlessly trying to get martial arts programs into our educational system...to no avail (not just our program but any martial art program that does not focus on violent training). Each time we are met with several "excuses" that simply do not hold up even though colleges across the USA already have them in place as well as all levels of educational facilities. In the USA there are several thousands of schools from all grade levels that offer martial arts courses as part of their Physical Education classes. I have taught, organized and managed the curriculum for over twenty different programs since 1995 and just do not understand why NW Ohio has not come to realize the benefits of qualified, professional martial arts in the school system as much of the rest of the country have. For example, when I was visiting California there were several schools that had embedded martial arts in their offerings for students and have seen increases in energy levels, grade point averages and more! All over the state of Texas there are several martial art PE classes in the school systems, yet we fail to realize the potential of this great fitness activity, moral development and character defining program. To address the obesity issue, we have had many parents come in to sign up their child who has been ordered to undergo physical activities (which our program was recommended to parents by physicians since we teach more than just physical fitness such as character development, etc.) just to decide they do not want to "force" their child to attend because their child does not want to put forth effort through physical training after about three to six months. This does not bother me too much since I know martial arts is not something everyone would want to do, but the parents feel that thier child who lost around 15-65 pounds will now maintain that weight, which is not true because they will revert back to their video games or computer lives (which I have witnessed for over 20 years in dealing with children of all ages). If anyone would be interested in getting together to discuss why the Japanese and Chinese use martial arts as their physical education, as well as why we should put programs in place in our school system along with the reasons for its effectiveness please feel free to contact me at info@franzkarate.com as the development of todays youth and tomorrow's leaders are my entire focus of why I have chosen to teach martial arts as my way of life. Thank you. Dr. Steven Franz, Ph.D./Ma.D.Sc. 8th Degree Grandmaster Aiki Te Ryu Karate Kai International Bryan, Ohio