Private sports outside of school are too expensive for all but the well-off families. School sports are basically free for the participants, and they are good for kids' social development and physical health. Sports keeps many kids in high school, certainly if my oldest hadn't had cross-country and track he probably would have dropped out.
That's another difference between Europe and the US. When I grew up in Germany there was a huge amount of sports available that were taught by volunteers. Soccer, judo, karate all for free even in the rural area I grew up in. I wonder if it's possible because everyone isn't constantly threatened by looming bankruptcy if they don't save big piles of cash.
The parent comment was a little misleading. In the US there is a ton of sports available for every student to join. Really the only people who don't play sports are those who don't want to.
Correct. I used to coach youth sports. There were waivers and “scholarships” available. Equipment was provided by the club (this was football and basketball). Coaches and other parents did the transport.
Also if you get injured playing sports, you could bankrupt your family. Maybe they have enough savings to cover the deductible for the year. Too bad Football is a winter sport and you could just as easily have hospital bills that cross over into the new year.
Sorry if it's an ignorant question since my kid hasn't reached sports age yet. But athleticism doesn't seem like it should be an optional choice that detracts from other educational resources. Why not make it mandatory, 1h a day for everyone? Saves on travel, saves on transition time, saves on economy of scale and it's more equitable since everyone pays through taxes and everyone benefits in the short term (more parents in the workforce, less cost on nannies, take-out food etc) and in the long term (lower health care cost into adult age). People with differences in physical abilities are surly better cared for with pooled resources than planning for exercise individually.
I think most schools have physical education, which is pretty much just mandatory exercises. After-school sports are more about culture and competition then exercise. Not everyone is competitive, and it could be really damaging for some kids to be forced into a competitive environment they don’t enjoy. It is much better to allow kids to choose whether they would rather participate in other non-competitive cultural activities after school (such as the theater, hacking, anime drawing, gardening, or whatever)
Generally everyone has to take gym class. Sports are additional. Teams are competitive to get into and different kids will specialize in different ones depending on their strengths and interests. Some schools do require every student to choose at least one sport. There are other extracurriculars such as drama, speech & debate, and special choirs or chamber orchestras that may or may not be compatible with different sports.
In England, we had a short "physical education" class once a week. That varied between gymnastics, swimming, badminton, indoor cricket, athletics, and occasionally other indoor-ish things.
We also had an afternoon ice a week of "games", which was football, rugby, hockey, cricket, softball or similar. Longer, always outdoor sports.
(This will probably vary within England, I don't think I've ever asked other people what they did.)
It depended on the season: touch football and soccer in the fall, basketball and wresting in the winter, softball and running in the spring. There would be also calisthenics--push-up, sit-ups, jumping jacks, occasionally burpees. And their would be drills such as "touchlines"--running on the basketball court.
It has been fifty years, but I think that PE was twice a week. Class was about an hour.
At least when I was in high school in the early 10's, gym class was about 3 hours per week. We mostly stayed in the gym. This was Texas however. It could be up to 100 degrees until October. Running was not required. Sweating wasn't really required for an A+ as evidenced by some girls in the class. It was a checkbox for the state mandated requirements.
gym class = physical education. In the US it's similar as in various sports and running but one funny thing is almost everyone has to learn square dancing.
If only. I think the social dynamic around mandatory sports in school basically ensures that some 70% of kids are turned off from any kind of sports at an early age. If you want athleticism (or really just healthy habits desperately needed in our chair-fixated lifestyles) you probably need to practice it with them yourself.
PE is a good example because different people have different physiology and will respond better or worse to different exercise schedules.
As an adult, people are so varied. The concept of forcing kids, who absolutely are as or more varied than their adults, into so much structure is cruel. I get that some people are lazy and without something telling them what to do they will happily fail. But school today is more about grinding then down than building them up. And they bully and harass each other as consequence.
In Europe these clubs are often community or publicly funded. If they charge partition fees, you’ll often find municipalities subsidizing them heavily making them effectively free for kids and parents. Now there is still some problems with this system (in particular overemphasis on sports over other cultural activities such as theater, music, etc.)
