One of the biggest failures to ever grace the San Luis Obispo High School campus is the physical education system. With the purpose of providing around five hours of weekly physical activity to  improve the health of students, the physical education requirements were put in place with good intentions. However, any random bystander who was asked to observe a class for one full period would see that most students end up talking and disregarding the activity planned out for them.

Many problems arise from this topic, but the majority of them stem from a common theme: discomfort. Students who feel uncomfortable with their bodies don’t want to set themselves up for embarrassment, students who don’t always identify with the gender they are associated with don’t like being separated by boys and girls, and those with social anxiety issues are aggressively pushed out of their comfort zones when placed on teams with people they’ve never met before.

An assortment of classes tailored to different kinds of people is a far better idea. Those who are more content working out without a crowd will thrive in an environment where individual sports like tennis and running are the focus, while extroverted students will do better in a setting with team sports like soccer and basketball.

The key to getting students to be healthy is to make them want to be healthy on their own. You can’t expect a curriculum that is based off the average student to work for a community of physically and mentally diverse teenagers. To truly better the lives of students a variety of classes need to be offered to make a person excited to work out and improve their health.