I've been rattling this around in my head for quite some time now. I feel schools should offer non-competition 'sports' classes. Every sports class I've ever been follows this mantra: "If you aren't on the team, you can't be in the class". Honestly, that's ridiculous! Why can't kids be in classes that allow them to excercise and be in a class without having to participate in a team to compete? And I know most of you say they have P.E. That may be the case. But it doesn't give kids the opportunity to try new things. P.E. consists of a few things: Kickball, dodgeball, sometimes basketball. Sure some schools might have other variations, but for the most part P.E. is boring. Why don't more schools offer classes like...Ballet? Yoga? Kickboxing? Ballroom? As a full, year round, eligible for P.E. credit class. Why do kids have to participate in team sports and compete at various levels to get excercise?? Am I babbling nonsense?

I agree, kids are so stressed out as it is with too much to do in so little time. Then more stress is added and shame when they do not measure up to whatever level is dictated in the sport they participate in.

I am now 52 and miss those days when we as kids would just play because we wanted to. And we had less health issues such as migraines that yound people are experiencing.

Great post!

I would like to see more intellectual competition in school. Children need to exercise their brains more. The creative writing competition "Power of the Pen" is one good example of getting students to work their minds, not just their muscles.

In our school district we have hundreds of kids train for a math competition, The Math Relays. Schools enter their teams, and kids can compete in the team competition or individual competition. The competition challenges students' skills in algebraic concepts, geometric concepts, data and statistics, number sense and trigonometry. It is a very big deal.

It is great that your school district has a Math competition. There need to be more academic competitions for students at all grade levels everywhere.