IT’S NOT YOUR OLD GYM CLASS

I don’t know about you, but I remember hating gym class in high school. Between the dorky outfits and the locker room horrors and the actual content (how many people really want to learn how to play field hockey?) I thought it was the worse torture my school could put me through. OK, I admit, I was never the “President’s Physical Fitness Award” type, but still. I did not leave that class with any particular desire to be healthy and fit. Even if I had, I didn’t know how I could do it.

At Metro, we just added a physical education course this year. We combined it with a health course since both credits are required for graduation in Ohio. We call our class “wellness” because our goal is to provide students with the information and skills to create their own lifelong wellness plan. Mike Owens teaches our wellness course, and he and his students can be found in many different locations on any given day.

Classmates “spot” for Cherelle as she climbs to the top of the wall

We don’t have a gymnasium in our building, so most of the physical education activities take place at OSU’s “RPAC” campus recreational facilities. There are several facilities that offer varied options for exercise— work-out rooms, swimming pools, basketball and racquetball courts and even a rock climbing wall! Of course, the students can also use outside field facilities to play soccer or other games (yeah, maybe even field hockey).

The students study how physical fitness contributes to overall health and wellness and why. They do individual and group research projects into activities that they can pursue as lifelong fitness habits and learn the importance of making good dietary choices. They present their findings to the class so that they can learn from one another.

For that reason, the class may be meeting in one of the OSU libraries for their research, in one of the RPAC facilities to accumulate their required hours of physical activity or at Metro to share their research findings.

I recently heard a student answer a visitor’s question on what her favorite subject is, and she enthusiastically said, “gym!” I winced, thinking that this wouldn’t give a good impression of our STEM school, but then she went on to describe the class and it was obvious that the way we teach every course in our school reflects the principles of STEM learning.