Physical Education For Home-Schooled Children
If you visit the Neilsen Physical Education Center between 1:30 and 2:30 on Monday afternoons, you will hear the excited squeals of 50 young children accompanied by enthusiastic instructions concerning the next group game. For the last three years, Houghton College Physical Education department has been running gym classes for local home-schooled children. These classes provide exercise and fun for the children as well as a welcome break for busy parents.
Three years ago, Kevin and Cindy Austin thought it would be helpful for parents in the surrounding area who were homeschooling their children to have gym classes that they could all attend. Parents from Hume, Rushford, Chaffee, Arcade, Belfast and the Black Creek area attend the program. The Austins started offering these classes in the fall of 2007, and Houghton Physical Education students took over the teaching portions in the fall semester of 2008. For the past two years, Houghton College students have had the amazing opportunity to be able to teach gym classes as a part of their physical education major. The classes are taught by college students on Monday afternoons in the Nielsen Physical Education Center; every other Thursday parents assist the students in running extra gym classes for the homeschoolers at the Houghton Wesleyan Church.
From week to week between 40 and 50 children attend gym class on Monday afternoons. Fay Wymer from Rushford, NY says, “It doesn’t matter what [the kids] are doing [in the class]; they just want to come.” It is hard for parents of home-schooled kids to teach gym because many sports and games require a large group to operate properly; parents say that not only are their kids learning excellent social skills, but they are actually learning rules and fundamentals for the sports they play in the gym classes. Tonya Shartung of Fillmore, NY says, “it’s nice to have gym classes corporately and [for our kids to] learn these skills.” Another parent, Joy, says that her son Derek dreaded gym before participating in the co-op. When told that there are only four or five more classes left in the spring semester, Derek replied, “Really, that’s all? I was hoping it was at least a thousand!” Kieffer, another student in the program, says that “My favorite thing about gym is that I can play team sports, especially soccer.” Parents appreciate that children can meet requirements for extra-curricular activities (such as Cub Scouts) that children receive in public school gym classes. Parents also appreciate the extra down time in the week to chat or walk on the school’s track.
Though the semester is winding down, classes are continuing and both parents and children look forward to the program in the future.
