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Every Friday, PE classes in the Middle and High School participate in a “highly anticipated, energetic” 40 minutes of workout time during their regularly scheduled class. There are varying opinions on the usefulness and amount of fun that students attain from it. PE teachers often describe it as the time for students to learn and practice the “core movements” for life. These include the push, pull, rotate, etc.
Some students are advocates for Fun Fitness Friday and truly enjoy this time. Cindy W expresses her enthusiasm about FFF by saying that FFF “is good!” and that “[she likes] it a lot!” Although many students aren’t as enthusiastic about FFF as Cindy, they still enjoy the experience. Anna K, a freshman, describes FFF as “good because we are ‘forced’ to collaborate with the middle school or other grade levels.” Lisa M, a sophomore, agrees with Anna saying that FFF “helps students bond with others outside of their own grade, and [she thinks] that it’s a fun experience to exercise [while listening] to music.” Like Cindy, Anna and Lisa, many students seem to agree that FFF provides a unique opportunity to make friends with people who aren’t in your grade level. In the same way, Gabriel K states that “FFF is a great way to make friends outside of your grade,” and Miku M concurs by saying “it’s interesting to work with other grades.” Similarly, some students enjoy FFF, however, for different reasons. Helena K shares her opinion and states that “[she likes] it because [she doesn’t] like regular PE classes.” She adds that FFF also “gives [her the] opportunity to workout since [she doesn’t] do much outside of school.”
It seems that Fun Fitness Friday is full of positives and most if not all students enjoy some aspects of it, however when I set out to interview my classmates for this article, I was expecting much fewer people to have this kind of positive feedback. During past FFF classes, I have seen and heard an overwhelming amount of complaints and negative remarks. Of course, some students don’t exactly find “Fun” Fitness Friday to be as fun as its name implies. One such student is Mulayne L bluntly declaring “I hate it” when asked her thoughts about FFF. Sehun K responds to this same question by saying that, “[he thinks] fitness Friday needs more new and creative games to be called ‘fun’.” His thoughts are matched by many others; like Richard A who commented that “[FFF is] not fun, so it shouldn’t be called Fun Fitness Friday.” Fun Fitness Friday appears to have equally passionate students against FFF, as they are for it.
Nevertheless, a uniting factor between these groups is the music choice and there seems to be a strong consensus. It’s awful. Richard comments on the importance of music while exercising: ‘The music acts as a very important aspect of fitness Friday; motivating students to complete tasks with a rhythm and beat,” and many students acknowledge that the “ancient” playlist that our PE teachers use isn’t cutting it anymore. Richard and Chantal G both plainly stated that “the music is bad.” Gabriel wishes that they would “put trendy hip-hop music,” while Katie B thinks it “needs more Fall Out Boy […] and hype songs.” Sehun K eloquently summarizes the issue, “the music should be chosen by students.”
Although I admit, I have only ever personally asked to play different music once, I would be skeptical as to how the PE teachers would take the change. It appears that some teachers are aware of students’ dislike of the music, but are limited to “clean” music. Due to this, they resort to reusing the same songs from years ago – I mean we shouldn’t still be listening to Party in the USA by Miley Cyrus or Titanium by Sia. In order to solve this issue, I have compiled a 74 song playlist of “clean” energetic songs which are trendy and feature more Alternative and Rock songs, as well as Pop. I wanted to add Rap and R&B songs as well as other genres, however, many are not school appropriate or they were too slow paced for the high energy atmosphere required during FFF.
You can listen to the playlist down below or alternatively you can click here for the playlist! You can find this playlist and other playlists on The Beacon’s official Spotify account which can be accessed by searching “beaconaisg” in Spotify or through the main Beacon website. Please keep in mind that you will need a Spotify account in order to listen to the full songs on The Beacon or listen to the playlist outside of The Beacon website.
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