They like to move it, move it

sion meant doing 50 push-ups. Now, he’s lucky if kids complete 30.

RYAN KOHN SPORTS EDITOR

Whatever you see when you picture gym class in your mind, it’s probably not how it looks anymore.

Whether your vision includes climbing ropes up to the top of the gym or shuttling around on scooters just big enough to fit a sitting child, using your feet as a motor and racing your friends, it’s all different now.

Kyle Mason, a gym teacher at Booker Middle School, isn’t a fan of this particular change in attitudes.

Mason said he comes from an era where a school fitness ses-

Mason is worried kids are less interested in being active and more interested in sedentary activities. He’s made it his goal to get his students to see the importance of consistent exercise, especially when the individual units he is teaching are not their favorite.

“This is one of the only classes where the goal is to have fun,” Mason said. “They get to try sports they haven’t tried before. The hope is something will hit a nerve and they’re like, ‘I actually love doing this.’”

Some of Mason’s more outthere experiments include table tennis, lacrosse, ultimate frisbee and spikeball. They also play traditional sports like basketball and soccer.

Spikeball is a sport that is essentially volleyball, but instead of hitting a large ball over a net, players stand in a circle and hit a tiny ball off a trampoline placed in the middle of the circle.

But it’s not all team sports.

At Booker, Mason said, gym teachers use Fridays as a planned period of general fitness training. This might mean a mile or half-mile run; it might mean completing fitness stations, like push-ups and sit-ups; or it might mean completing a PACER test, one of the lone relics from days of gym classes past still standing.

Brent Skogen, another Booker teacher, said the PACER tests, which are designed to measure aerobic capacity, work more or less the same as they always have: kids run back and forth across a 30-meter space, with the time they have to complete the run decreasing every minute.

Skogen said students are encouraged to remember their scores from previous tests so they can improve on them throughout the year.

“You would think they hate it, but we actually get good participation,” Skogen said. “Everyone is doing it at the same time, so no one’s going to get laughed at (for their score). Everyone’s going through it, and they do pretty well.”

As much as youth attitudes about fitness have changed, teachers are dedicated to get ting as much effort out of their students as they can. There are no slack-off days, even as the year comes to a close.

At Lakewood Ranch’s Dr. Mona Jain Middle School, sixth grad ers spent their final week of the year completing key tasks, teacher Andrea-don Griffin said. That includes completing a unit of instruction on dancing, which requires students to break into teams and com plete a dance as a unit.

While that was happening, Griffin said, students were also reviewing field sports they had learned throughout the year and updating their overall fitness data, to see which students hit their goals for the semester. The well-rounded mix of activities makes sure everyone is interested in some-

“There’s a lot going on,” goal is to get kids like Ahmonie Mannings to understand the value of lifetime fitness.

SCHOOL OF ROCK |

Lakewood Ranch

SCHOOL OF ROCK | Lakewood Ranch

SCHOOL OF ROCK | 8741 State Rd. 70 E, Bradenton (exit 217 off I75) (941)842-7625

Lakewood Ranch

8741 State Rd. 70 E, Bradenton (Exit 217) (941) 842-7625

8741 State Rd. 70 E, Bradenton (exit 217 off I75) (941)842-7625

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LakewoodRanch.SchoolOfRock.com

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