health and fitness: The schools where they never say ‘sit still’

samedi 21 novembre 2015

The schools where they never say ‘sit still’

An education initiative in South Carolina relies on exercise and movement to make students better learners

David Spurlock is 63, a former baseball and football coach with a bum shoulder and bad back and right now he’s busy planning a jailbreak. He has spent a lifetime walking the hallways, classrooms and athletic fields all across Charleston, South Carolina, his home town. Those classic images of school-aged children sitting still in desks organised into neat rows? Spurlock calls it “educational incarceration”.

“We put kids in a two by two cell and dare them to move: ‘Keep your feet on the floor and hands up where I can see them,’” says Spurlock, the coordinator of health, wellness and physical education for the Charleston County school district. “That sounds like being incarcerated to me.”

The whole issue is time. It’s not money or equipment or more PE teachers. It’s the time the kids have scheduled.

I don’t think kids realise there’s a health benefit. They just think it’s fun.

It’s been in the past where, if you’re moving, it’s like you’re doing the wrong thing.