Here at Lakewood High School, there’s a requirement that in order to graduate, you must participate in P.E. or complete two years of a sport. But if someone doesn’t complete one of these they will not be able to graduate.

It should not be a requirement to complete P.E. to get your high school degree. Think about it this way: you pack your schedule with advanced classes and you can’t graduate because you didn’t complete a gym class. This seems a little unfair and sure enough, this happens to many seniors.

Instead of having a gym class, we should all be required to take a class on how to live a healthy life. This class should teach everyone the proper form when lifting weights and exercising, how to eat healthily and the right proportions, and how to manage your time.

This should be a class because it would actually prepare us for when we are on our own. We’d have all the information and knowledge on how to balance our health with our life-changing around us and knowing how many things we can handle at a time and what is too much.

Instead, we have to take P.E. or play a sport. While the sport may help prepare us for the future and teach us form, P.E. from my understanding, doesn’t do much of that. The P.E. classes are focused on rewarding you with a grade depending on how much effort you put in when being taught a sport. If a person doesn’t enjoy a certain sport they are more likely to not participate and could fail and then have to retake the class or else they will not be able to graduate.

The other class would be like P.E. but will focus more on lifestyle then certain sports. Learning how to be healthy is something that should be taught all over the United States and P.E. shouldn’t be a requirement to get your high school degree.

A senior at Lakewood High School, Abbie Tuleta, “I agree that there should be a class that teaches you basic information about adult life.”