By Daniel A. Grech
Miami Hearld
Posted on Sun, Jun. 30, 2002
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/3571675.htm

The third-graders at Charles R. Drew Elementary School in Liberty City trooped into class, giggling and gossiping. Their teacher ordered them into rows.

It was time to salsa.

It was time to do the Electric Slide.

It was time for physical education.

"This is not your mother's gym class," said Jayne Greenberg, who oversees Miami-Dade's physical education program.

Drew's gym teachers still wear lanyards with whistles around their necks and make children do push-ups and jumping jacks. But they also assign homework, such as book reports on favorite athletes, and teach how to count calories.

Physical exercise remains the main element in gym classes in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, as well as in schools across the country. But teachers are trying new fitness techniques -- such as dance and aerobics -- in response to legions of fat kids growing into fat adults with heart and other health problems.

Physical education experts say they are less concerned with whether a student can earn a Presidential Physical Fitness patch than with trying to teach fast-food-eating, Internet-surfing children about living a healthy lifestyle.

No one disputes the importance of continued exercise. Physical education experts say they want to introduce children to activities they can do long after they graduate.

OTHER ACTIVITIES

"Yoga, martial arts, aerobics, dance, tai chi, climbing walls, in-line skates, treadmills," rattled off Judy Young, executive director of the National Association for Sport and Physical Education, the body that has helped set the new standards for physical education classes around the nation. "Even kids who are athletic probably won't play football when they're 35. They need to learn other activities."

About a decade ago, medical research established for the first time that physical inactivity is a risk factor for heart disease. Since then, study after study has charted the expanding waistlines of America's youth.

The International Life Sciences Institute, a private, Washington-based research group affiliated with the World Health Organization, reports that fewer than one in four children get half an hour of physical activity a day -- meaning that gym class may provide students' only exercise in a day. Physical activity peaks in 10th grade, the institute said, and begins a steady decline that continues into adulthood.

This month, President Bush urged Americans to become more physically active. He released his ''HealthierUS'' initiative, which calls for at least a half-hour of exercise every day.

"Better health is an important national goal," he said. "A healthier America is a stronger America."

INSTEAD OF RECESS

In many schools, the physical education class has taken the place of lunchtime recess.

In Miami-Dade, only kindergartners and first-graders still get recess -- about 20 minutes a day. In Broward, no school is required to offer recess, though principals can decide for themselves, said Elly Zanin, the district's curriculum specialist for physical education.

Experts say physical education provides a break from a pressure-filled day, a way to relieve stress and oxygenate the brain for more learning.

"Physical activity is like the fertilizer for kids growing and learning," Young said. "We can't expect kids to be on task for six hours straight."

Florida doesn't require physical education in elementary and middle schools, allowing districts to set their own policies.

In Miami-Dade, elementary students have 30 minutes a day of structured physical education. Middle-schoolers get 50.

Broward schools do much less. Elementary students attend a 30-minute class once a week. Middle-schoolers can take a 50- to 90-minute elective class for nine weeks.

"We do the best we can in Broward"' Zanin said. "I don't know how they fit everything into a day in Dade. If we were to provide phys ed daily, we'd need to extend the school day."

The state does set physical education standards to graduate from high school. Students have to pass two courses: a physical education elective, such as weight training, and personal fitness. The fitness course is taught both in the classroom and on the athletic fields. It covers everything from how to eat right to how to monitor your target heart rate while exercising.

"The personal fitness class is the best thing that's happened to physical education," said Greenberg, executive director of Miami-Dade schools' Division of Life Skills and Special Projects. "Until kids understand why fitness is important, they won't buy into it."

In some cases, dreaded parts of gym class are gone. Remember the pull-up, swinging from a raised bar and straining just to notch your elbows.

"What difference does it make how many pull-ups you can do?" said Greenberg, echoing generations of frustrated students.

"We're not grading kids on whether they're better than healthy," Young said. "We're encouraging them just to get healthy."

Other factors come into play in planning physical education programs. The high stakes of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test -- which could label a school as failing -- have prompted physical education instructors to incorporate math and reading lessons into their classes.

READING INSTRUCTION

All Broward art, music and physical education instructors completed three days of training in reading instruction last week.

"We're not reading teachers, but we do what we can to reinforce the reading goals of the school," Zanin said.

At Drew Elementary in Miami-Dade, the school's three gym instructors read stories to their classes, like the scary one about The Gym Teacher from the Black Lagoon. They reinforce geometry lessons by pointing out shapes on a basketball court.

"Phys ed is no longer throwing a ball into an empty field and yelling, `Go play,' " said physical education instructor Pablo Roman. "You need to teach skills."

Drew is one of eight district schools that are part of a pilot program to extend the school year by six weeks. It went from a D on the state-issued school accountability scale in 1999-2001 to an A this year.

To help students gauge their personal level of fitness, Miami-Dade administers a program called FITNESSGRAM that is used by schools across the nation. It includes a one-mile run, sit-and-reach stretches, sit-ups, push-ups, trunk lifts and measuring body fat composition.

This year, an average of four in 10 students in grades 4 to 12 couldn't run fast enough or stretch far enough to be considered "healthy" -- a figure that mirrors national research documenting a less-fit nation.

One reason may be a societal change in what children do away from school.

"Parents these days don't want kids to play after school because they don't know what will happen in the streets," Greenberg said. "Kids are more sheltered, more locked in."

Mary Williams, 27, works as a teacher's aide at Drew Elementary. She recently asked her daughter, Alicia Allen, 9, what she learned that day.

Alicia did the Electric Slide.

-----------     Herald writer Brian Bernstein contributed to this report.      -----------

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