Making Phys-Ed Fun
by Mark Wexler
A decade ago, nearly half of the nation's high school students were enrolled in physical education classes. These days, only a fourth of them are taking "gym" class—a fact that may help explain why, according to the Centers for Disease Control, 10% of the country's teenagers are now considered obese, with another 16% at risk of becoming overweight.
"The trick to teaching kids the benefits of regular exercise is to make physical education so fun and interesting that they look forward to coming to class," says Carol Martini, a physical education teacher at Andover High School in Massachusetts.
And Martini is practicing what she preaches. In April, she was named National Secondary Physical Educator of the Year by the National Association for Sport and Physical Education. Martini's classes combine personal fitness training that is geared to each student's abilities with a creative mix of group activities such as "trust falls," in which a student drops backwards from a height and relies on teammates to catch him or her.
"We can make students take this course, but we can't make them stay in shape. Hopefully what they learn here about fitness will stay with them for the rest of their lives," says Martini.
