Balance Blog

Jay Mathews, author of the Washington Post column “Class Struggle” recently informed his readers of a bill that would increase the time DC students would spend in P.E. Much to our surprise, however, Mathews seems to actually be against D.C. council member Mary M. Cheh and Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray’s proposal that would require every public school student in kindergarten through fifth grade to have 150 minutes of P.E. (30 minutes a day). Sixth- through eighth-graders would be required to take 225 minutes (45 a day). (Read the column here)

Though Mathews admits that “in a perfect world” our kids would get more exercise, he says that adding more physical education into the school day would take away from students’ studies. “Nowhere in her press release does Cheh address the key issue–the fact that the D.C. schools need to do a better job using the limited time they have, about six and a half hours a day, to address students’ weaknesses in reading, writing, math, science and social studies,” he says.

Well, we here at Balance Gym know how important physical fitness is for a person’s (especially a child’s) overall health and well-being. Which is why owner and personal trainer Graham King felt the need to defend this bill to Mahews by writing a response to the Washington Post.

“We owe it to our children to provide them with chances for writing and running — and fit all of it into a standard school day,” King writes.

Read his whole response here.

What do you think?