As you all probably know, Physical Education this year has been, well, different.

To be honest, that’s putting it mildly. Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, P.E. classes are not allowed to perform any form of PHYSICAL education. At Parks, students going to in-person school meet in the theatron for P.E. Once there, they join distance learning students on Zoom for the most part of the class, listening to teacher-led discussions. For example, in February, the teachers talked and discussed with classes about countless groundbreaking and influential African-American athletes to celebrate Black History Month. After the class discussion, a warmup is performed. The warmup is designed to get students loose and ready for the workout. Students in school space out in the theatron and perform the warmup while the teachers look on. Distance learning students, on the other hand, perform the warmup on Zoom. If a distance learning student doesn’t turn their camera on, then they don’t get participation points for the day because teachers cannot see if they’re performing the warmup or not. So, for you distance learning students, make sure to turn your camera on!

     After completing the warmup, all students participate in a 15-minute workout. There are three workout groups: red, orange and blue. Students in the groups will perform a type of workout every class. One day, the red group might perform the core, agility and flexibility workout, while the blue group performs the lower body workout and the orange group performs the upper body workout. Then, the next time the class meets, the groups will rotate. Each workout consists of four different exercises. For example, a lower body exercise might be squats or lunges, while an upper body exercise could be pushups or burpees. Workouts are changed every few weeks to keep workouts fun and original. Once the workout is completed, in-person students are dismissed by their respective teachers (there are three P.E. teachers: Coach Hecht, Coach Chong, and Coach Haynes) after a brief talk about how the class did that day. Distance learning students stop working out and return to their desks. The teachers then also give distance learning students a brief summary on how they did during class and what needs to be improved on. After this, at-home students are dismissed. 

To give a perspective for the seventh graders who didn’t get to see the “fun side” of Parks, here’s what PE would be like if not for Covid-19:

We have two big soccer fields at parks. One is for the sports teams, and one is for track and PE. During PE, students would go and do their warmup, which consisted of jumping jacks, pushups, sit-ups, stuff like that. After about 10 minutes of warming up, students would run around the track one time, and then you would play a certain sport for the duration of your class period. These sports include hockey, flag football, basketball, handball, and volleyball.

      Sure, a regular Physical Education class this year would probably be more fun, but there’s nothing we can do about that. Even though we can’t play basketball, hockey, soccer, and more this year, at least we can still stay in shape and workout during this pandemic. Hopefully, our lives can get back to normal soon and P.E. can also get back to normal, so make sure to mask up and stay safe! A little goes a long way!