In public schools, there are many problems. Two of them are that kids are physically bullied, and that gym classes are enormous wastes of time. Could we use one problem to solve another?
Would it be possible/plausible for a school to offer several martial arts in lieu of gym class?
Although not a devotee, I have heard nothing but positive things about martial arts in the long run. (Some of my friends were pretty negative, in the damn-I’m-sore-right-now short run.) Some problems I see are:
Potential lawsuits when a student gets hurt.
Get a group of kids and let them move in proximity to each other, and one will get hurt eventually. Plus, a waiver would solve this right quickly.
Bullies taking the classes, too.
I’ll shut up about this if contradicted, but I’ve never seen the Karate-Kid stereotype of bully/martial artist.
Good things:
The nerds of the school now know five different ways to break someone’s arm. I see nothing but good here.
More people know martial arts.
*Gym class would be replaced with something useful.
So, what other practical or philosophical considerations would there be?
I really don’t see how it will prevent kids from being bullied nor do I see how it won’t become a big waste of time like PE. Let’s also consider that we live in a time where age old childhood games such as tag and dodgeball are under attack. You really think that an activity that involves painful punches, kicks, and holds would fly well today?
**
Most of the tangible benefits I’ve heard about martial arts is that it helps develope fitness, discipline, and self-confidence. Those are exactly the same things that are developed in football, basketball, track, soccer, wrestling, tennis, and every other sport.
**
As do the bullies since you’ve replaced PE with martial arts.
**
Gym class shouldn’t be useless. They should be a place where people can learn basic games, physical fitness, and proper exercise techniques. Unfortunately these things don’t seem to be very important to most administrators, teachers, or parents.
Practically I just don’t see martial arts as a replacement for PE. I think we’d be far better off changing the way PE is run in our schools.
To start with PE teachers should not assume that children automatically posess the skills or knowledge of the rules required to play games such as baseball or basketball. So take the time to teach them the rules and the fundamental skills required to play the game. I don’t believe there are many children out there who cannot learn to hit a baseball or shoot a basket if they have time to practice.
Telling kids to fight each other is a solution to bullying? Interesting…
Of course, certain types of martial arts might actually give the picked-on fat kids an advantage, because being able to throw your weight around can be helpful if you know how to use it right.
MGibson, FYI, some schools do handle gym that way. While we were doing one sport, we also spent time learning about the next sport a little each day. On Friday would be a test about general rules, history, etc, and then Monday would come actually playing it.
Still, gym sucked. I enjoyed Karate. Karate is not for everyone. Neither is gym. Conclusion: high school sucks.
For my first trimester of sixth grade, the idiot in charge of physical education taught us Tae-Kwon-Do instead of a more traditional PE class.
I would have preferred high intensity dodge-ball (and yes, I was one of the wimpy, picked on kids. In fact, that was the worst of the years, and I still would have greatly preferred being pelted daily to that particular stripe of stupidity.)
Part of the problem could have been that it was an idiot in charge - but still, there were injuries (knee, elbow, etc.), there was overwork, there was plenty of bad technique, and no, it wouldn’t have done any of us any good at all in the face of actual physical danger. And we didn’t even spar - just drilling alone. It was like some kind of bizarre basic training type of course - and I wouldn’t inflict it on anyone.
Can you find people who can not only teach whatever martial art you have in mind, but teach well, and teach to children (bearing in mind that they are growing/changing bodies that may or may not have different problems with stability of joints than adults do)? Will they take into consideration the very real facts of different ability levels (Is martial arts training usually done across all levels, or do all of a certain color belt usually train together?) and more importantly different enthusiasm levels?
If presented with a complete well thought out program, I might agree - but on a general principle level, I’d say no.
I think martial arts/self defence should become part of the curriculum. Give a chance for the guys (or gals) to show off and the rest to learn something. If you teacher the fat kid how to use his weight to his advantage the bullies will think twice about picking on him.
Originally posted by Dal Timgar:
kill 'em all, let god sort 'em out
You’ve got my vote.
i should have taken karate instead of judo.
Dal Timgar
Judo is a much better martial art for self defence than karate. You know teaching martial arts in school will not happen in this day and age. They are working on tring to feminize as many men as they can. However they might have a class on how it’s ok for men to cry. Wahhh Wahhhhh
The problem I see is that a lot of schools wouldn’t do much around hiring qualified instructors.
Think about gym class. I don’t know about anybody else, but my gym coach was an utter moron. He was like 138 years old, he had to read the rules out of a book as he was coaching us to make sure we were playing fair.
I can just see Coach Arnold hosting Karate Class. There would be eight to ten twelve year olds with broken pelvises and ruptured spleens before he got past how to tie you belt in the book.
Let’s let the military do the lethal training, OK? We really don’t need kids turning playground spats into mortal combat.
(I worked with a guy whose 8-yr-old son (with karate training) went ballistic on the playground - don’t know how the other kid’s parents reacted. Litigation was expected, last I heard).
“Yes, it’s true. Don’t you know they’ve been putting estrogen in the Sloppy Joes since the late eighties?”
They told me it was only salt peter!!!
To the OP, Gym is supposed to teach a variety of sports/activities. Would there really be a benefit to switching to an all martial arts program? Maybe we should force all the kids to take yoga, you know calm down the bullies instead of arming the wimps.
PS,
“I’ll shut up about this if contradicted, but I’ve never seen the Karate-Kid stereotype of bully/martial artist.”
I’ve met my share of ,shall we say, non-noble martial artists. It is after all learning how to fight. You are going to get a few people joining so they can go use it on someone.
Uh the training can be slightly tailored to fit the situation. Teach only a few of the offensive moves, focus on evasion, blocking, and holds. Since the average fistfight lasts only a matter of 15-20 seconds, having a kid able to deflect or avoid damage for any period of time would be damn useful. We are not talking about teaching 8 year olds quick kill techniques here.
Dude, feminizing young men is the balliwick of manhating divorcee single mothers, not the schools. Unless the manhating divorcee single mothers are teachers, but even then the influence is not as great.
In all seriousness, it seems common sense that boys and girls need to be socialized differently. Perhaps it’ll turn out that boys really needed that opportunity to beat the ever-lovin’ snot out of each other once and awhile, and the loss of violent sport will take its toll. Martial arts may be just what they need. (They better not cry when they lose though, you’re right to point out that it’s not OK for men to cry, people wanting men to open upto their “feelings” are one of my pet peeves – teach those kids to take defeat with dignity.) And I don’t think anyone could argue that young girls wouldn’t benefit immensely from a little self-defense technique. This might even gain support for the program from those people who sit around making up statistics about rape.
My boy has had wresling in middle school. So there already is some martial arts training. Last year another student was apparently slammed rather violently during PE wrestling. Since then he has had episodic periods of unconsciousness.
My daughter has been taught in school what is supposed to be self defense. Which is laughably ineffective to me as an ex-self defense instructor.
And in the long term adverse effects department, like any physical activity - especially ones involving physical contact - there is the potential for injury with martial arts. At this stage in my life I am developing some pretty severe arthritis in the ankle, toe, and wrist I broke while training. And I have a couple of nice dents with and without stitiches and staples that I didn’t have before.
I encourage more PE time spent on overall fitness - learning how to exercise and hopefully developing good lifelong habits. And on activities that stress athleticism, without excessive competition or very task-specific actions. Gymnastics, for example.
And I would try to find a way to stress that the point of most recreational activity is to do your best and to have fun - not necessarily to win. To do that, I would recommend splitting teams up in a manner that they have to cheer each other on - as they do with some co-ed teams. And mix the teams up regularly, instead of having tournaments.