Graehm Gray: School Budgets Cutting PE, Music and Art Classes –Ridiculous or What!

Okay, stay with me on this one. School budgets are being cut. The economy stinks-let’s face it. Recovery? Where Mr. President? Maybe on Wall Street-yep the stock market seems to have rebounded. Banks are paying back our stimulus money. Great! Wall Street executives are getting fat bonuses, again. Also great! General Motors is re-upping about 600 dealers. Life is super great! What! Give me a break. Housing foreclosures are still among the highest levels in years. More single family homes and apartments are for sale. Prices are dropping. More people are giving up their homes, cars and possessions. The jobs wanted market is flooded with people looking. And now the latest misery, School Boards across the country, stretched to the max with money problems are cutting PE (Physical Education), Music and Art classes. Who needs more artists and musicians anyway? Culture-blah humbug-don’t need it. And as for PE-well that’s a no brainer-let’s have our kids keep eating and eating, consuming more and more calories and not burning anything off. What does that equal? Say it with me-More Obesity in our children! Now wait a minute! You read in The Nerdel News that First Lady Michelle Obama is targeting Childhood Obesity with her “Let’s Move” campaign. It’s a fantastic effort-getting our kids to move and exercise. And we already know that our kids are not physically active enough. But-Ahm-hello-now the schools where are kids are suppose to “ move” are telling them to “Let’s stay put.” There is a major disconnect here. Can you imagine what’s next on the budget chopping block-busing, healthy school lunch and breakfast programs, Varsity sports? Maybe we don’t really need math, science or reading.

Hey, I have a great idea-let’s focus our efforts in micro chip implantation. We have it in cats and dogs for identification. Let’s take it one step further-maybe we can implant a chip in our children-download what they need to know and save a ton of money. We can even give them advanced training all at the click of a computer keyboard. Remember in the movie, The Matrix, when one of the characters-“Trinity”-played by Carrie-Ann Moss wanted to learn how to fly a helicopter? That programming was downloaded (delivered) directly from the computer into her brain and voi-la-Trinity was an instant helicopter pilot. That was easy!

Cutting teachers out of the equation-wow a great idea. NOT! Is that what we are headed for?  Teachers can have the most amazing impact on the learning of a child. Can you remember a great that you had-one that stimulated your learning? We all can. We need teachers for our children. We can’t let this be driven to strict computer learning. What we need to do is keep art, music and physical education as part of the curriculum. Our kids need more cultural stimulation in addition to the academic subjects. Can you say “well-rounded” with me. And as for exercise, if we want to try to blunt the acceleration of childhood obesity, giving our kids some form of fitness training is mandatory. It doesn’t have to only be team sports or expensive sports.  It does have to be something to get the kids interested and motivated. Tai-chi for example-can be started as a child and practiced through adult and elderly years. This form of martial arts provides fitness, exercise, and movement not to mention self defense training. Are we forward thinkers-better question-are our school board members forward thinkers? The bottom line my friends-before we start cutting the education for our children, let’s make sure that we don’t limit their learning. Our school leaders and planners and accountants will have to be creative. What else can be budgeted back-how about Congressional pay-raises?  And while we are on the story of budget-we need to realign our thinking so that we don’t reduce the number of teachers, police, fire fighters and paramedics. Or maybe there is an alternative solution to provide capital for state, county and local employment-can you all say National Lottery with me. That’s a story for a different time. Until then, cutting PE, music and art for kids-bad idea. Finding a solution to maintain the cultural education and physical fitness-good idea. Maybe we need to look closely at where all the stimulus money has gone and where it’s going! Let me hear your feedback on this one:  talk@nerdel.com.

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