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An Open Letter to the Physical Education Department:
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a problem. This is something often said in connotation with the United States of America, world-renowned for its many problems and its government’s consistent attempts to hide behind past heroism instead of acknowledging aforementioned problems. The problem presently in question, however, has never come up overseas and likely not even in Congress in the last twenty years — the problem of federally mandated physical education.

Look at it this way. The United States of America is the most obese nation in the world. Since a mandatory physical education program in all public schools was added, have these numbers begun to go down? No. Actually, they’ve gone up. Part of the reason supported by nutritionists is increased stress.

Now, let’s take an example such as, say, kleptomania. Never in my own life did I think I’d be able to comprehend how a kleptomaniac feels — obviously stealing is bad, and they know it. Yet the kleptomaniac, when in front of an opportune situation, has the short moral dilemma — do I do what is right, or what feels right? In the end, despite best moral intentions “what feels right� wins. And for some, the worst thing going on in their lives could easily be cited to be the hullabaloo about physical education. I am aware that readers of this rant will want to ay it’s only me. It’s not. There are other people who find extended physical activity to be the worst forms of torture. Few, maybe, especially in a sports-filled community such as this one, but those people do exist.

Physical education has become, for me personally, a form of both physical and psychological torture. When put in a situation where there must be gym class had, I feel absolutely nothing but sheer terror. This began when we moved to Westchester, and suddenly gym was mandatory. At six years old it horrified me. At seventeen it is my worst enemy.

The motions they put you through — anything from sit-ups to running to playing any sort of sport — are like poison to me. Fitness activities are my kryptonite, and competitive sports? For a half-blind, clumsy, gangly, easily breakable girl? That’s just an instant-acting lethal injection to add to all of the previous sharp and pained metaphors previously stated.

And so, when the chance came to get away from it, even just for an hour, I happily took it. Look, I can leave PE and not go back, and no one will notice. Just the once. It’s been just the once for three years, now, and I can quite honestly tell you that every single time I say never again, I mean it. There’s no skipping for the sake of skipping. There’s approaching the class and simply just breaking. There’s a nagging fear that says go, get away, don’t come back here. You’ve done it before, you can do it again, you’ll fix it later.

I’m also a hydrophobe, and by that I do not mean I’m rabid, I mean I have a subconscious fear of water so thick that washing my hands makes my stomach lurch. That sounds pretty debilitating, huh? I can also tell you,s traight forward, that I would gladly spend an hour and a half in a near-freezing lake, scaring myself near to death, if I never had to go near a physical education class ever again.

It does not build character, it builds shame. My family has expressed an inability to look at me when I bring up the subject. It does not make every person more physically fit, because involved in fitness classes, I will almost invariably drop in caloric level. At 84 pounds, this isn’t at all healthy. There’s no contribution. I, in fact, am much more likely to be irreparably damaged in a gym class due to the fact that there’s little weight I can lift and no sport whatsoever that I can play properly, than I am to have positive physical changes made.

After fitness classes, I can’t feel my feet, and my hands are freezing. After any sport, I’m near tears from the constant, neverending mocking, both out loud and in silent glances, over my degree of incompetence with athletics. And after any class, my heart is pounding out of my ribcage, and I’m gasping for air.

That last part? That sounds like before gym classes, too — when the panic attacks hit. The ones that say, quietly, temptingly, you’ve done it before, you can do it again. And I’m afraid, I’m sick and scared and hating it so much, and I listen to it.

That’s just my story. I can name plenty of other stories. Do you, Mamaroneck High School, want to be known for racism? Of course not. How about the taunting of people not at average weight? Gee, I’d think not. So, let’s take a look at what the school did this year. Nowhere is it listed on any state or federal law, but hey, all students without a proper medical excuse have to run and do calisthenics before class, period!

Which leads to the terrible mocking of the too-skinny kids, the obese kids, and just about anyone who can’t make it twice around the track in three minutes at a run. Believe it or not, gym teachers, if you look past your perfect little sports kings and queens that you’ve raised to be just what you want, there are people who are not fit and won’t become so with your calisthenics and your running and your sports classes. People with anorexia, hypothyroid, diabetes — people with pituitary issues, with natural limps, with terrible asthma, with other metabolic problems, and people with depression, people with panic anxiety, people with autism, people with ADD, people with bipolar.

Those people? You’re hurting those people.

You’re hurting the chances of possibly talented people, because they’re stuck in their place due to a terrible undeniable fear of physical education. You’ve probably never suffered from such panic as these students suffer from, and you probably don’t know what it means to not have control of your own reaction. Maybe when it comes to drugs or drinking, I bet, but I give you another newsflash — the people you’re inflicting such hurt on don’t do any of those things.

That’s what your perfect sports stars are doing in their spare time.

These kids are reading, writing, creating. Sure, they watch TV and play video games and pig out on ice cream, but sports don’t matter. Many of them don’t go to parties, and what’s at parties? Drugs. These are the people who are in no way hurting their own bodies through means that they can control. Something’s hurting their minds, though, physical education department.

And it’s you.

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