What standards should schools set in Physical Education for children?

My fifth grade daughter is going through an issue with her heart when the class suddenly started doing a mile run a day without building up to it. My daughter has a congenital heart problem. We have never limited her from P. E. She is not sedentary but has a lot of endurance and strength from working out at home and in Taekwondo every day. She gets a complete physical every single year. When this happened to her we immediately contacted her doctor. I couldn't help but wonder about other students. Running is the one exercise that taxes the heart to it's limit. Without building up to running I think this would be a problem to students who are used to a sedentary life style. We need to get our children up and exercising and liking to exercise so they will continue doing it the rest of their lives. At our school in the middle of Austin they are running outside and we have issues here where the air is so thick, children with asthma especially have problems. What's best?

Parent Answers to "What standards should schools set in Physical Education for children?"

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I think it's a shame there weren't more answers to this question. I have been wondering the same thing. My daughter is in 5th grade and she hates P.E. because she is made to run the mile without warm-up and by the end her lungs feel like they're on fire, and then the teacher tells her her time was bad. Well, for crying out loud, even if she's just not fit (she's very slim, but that's just her, not because of exercise necessarily) isn't that a warning sign that she shouldn't be pushed to run faster? They don't allow water breaks or water bottles. They get on her case if she slows down. I get madder the more I think about it, but I'm just not sure what to do about it. Right now I'm looking into exercise-induced asthma (which her father has) but she really just sounds like me at the same age, a naturally skinny kid pushed to run faster to make the school look better and collapsing in a cold sweat at the end of the run, almost the last one in, with my lungs on fire and my face blotchy. It's not like I didn't get any exercise in my case, I was outside all the time. So I just wonder what they're thinking these days. Who on earth decided that being able to run a certain distance in a certain time was a sure indicator of good health?

A lot of states have specific standards that they set for schools in many subjects, including PE. you can see what your state standards are on this page on our Web site:

www.greatschools.net/content/stateStandards.page

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