Coming soon to a PE class near you: Dance Dance Revolution
Filed under: Child Development, Health and Safety, Middle school, Public school, Video Games
When I was growing up, we had mandatory PE requirements. Through eighth grade, regardless of our after school activities (a lot of us played basketball or baseball) we had PE three times a week. There was no getting out of it unless you had a limb with a cast on it. We played soccer and basketball and kickball; we ran sprints and climbed ropes and played dodgeball. Remember dodgeball?And no, we didn't always love it, but we did it, and when we complained we ran laps or did push ups.
Today, though, it's harder and harder to motivate kids to participate in gym classes (in schools that still even offer PE, of course). To combat this, some schools are trying innovative new approaches. Like letting kids play Dance Dance Revolution during PE.
An article in today's New York Times describes students at one West Virginia middle school racing in to start their PE class, and offers this explanation: "It is a scene being repeated across the country as schools deploy the blood-pumping video game Dance Dance Revolution as the latest weapon in the nation's battle against the epidemic of childhood obesity. While traditional video games are often criticized for contributing to the expanding waistlines of the nation's children, at least several hundred schools in at least 10 states are now using Dance Dance Revolution, or D.D.R., as a regular part of their physical education curriculum. . . . Based on current plans, more than 1,500 schools are expected to be using the game by the end of the decade. Born nine years ago in the arcades of Japan, D.D.R. has become a small craze among a generation of young Americans who appear less enamored of traditional team sports than their parents were and more amenable to the personal pursuits enabled by modern technology."
I find that sad, that part about kids not wanting to play team sports. I don't think that competitive team sports should be compulsory by any means (not every kid is a gifted athlete, and we've all seen what happens when parents take team sports too seriously) but playing as a team teaches kids valuable lessons about working together. Being part of a team means thinking about yourself not as a superstar but as a member of a group; it forces kids to strategize how to be stronger and faster together.
I also find myself wondering what ever happened to just turning on some music and letting kids dance.Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments