Early Bird Prison

By David Taylor

For years and years, upperclassman, underclassman, kids that need that one last credit, and kids that have no room in their schedule have shown up for Early Bird PE and parted their differences when they were placed on they same team. But nowadays we no longer have those happy faces and excited attitudes for destroying the other team in a friendly game of kickball. No, now we wake up in the morning dreading to go to class.

This last year, someone thought it would be a good idea for the people who take Early Bird PE to have a different curriculum than the years before. We (speaking for most EB PE members) no longer have just the mile, some push-ups, and then the opportunity to play games. We now have to do unheard of things in EB PE like headstands or wall sits. Everything has changed, and it is an outrage!

Before this awful reformation, we had choice: we could play kickball, get huge in the weight room, walk around the halls, or really engage in any exercise you can think of (be reasonable). But now Warden Shortt gives us the choice of throwing medicine balls against the wall or jumping on boxes, or if we get lucky, swinging a rope under our feet.

You can guess that this happened because of the un-athletic or lazy kids sitting in the corner and not participating in a class badminton tournament. But there are only a couple of those, and whether we’re playing  a fun competitive sport, or training for a marathon (figure of speech), those kids are still not going to try, so why punish the rest of us for their actions? Do what any other teacher does with kids that don’t participate or turn in their work. Fail them. If that doesn’t inspire them, I don’t know what will, ‘cause it’ll be pretty embarrassing to have “Failed PE” on your high school transcript.

As for the workouts that Ms. Shortt gives us, they may be challenging if you actually want to work out during gym, but early bird classes have entirely different treatment than the other PE classes in the day, and that seems a little unfair. After lots of begging and pleading, every other Friday or two, we are able to play a sweaty, competitive game of wrestling room dodgeball. Sophomore Bryce Cox says, “Wrestling room dodgeball makes me try to be more competitive and there is more of a purpose to win, than to do an average workout. I sweat a lot more and my heart rate goes up more when I’m running for my life, jumping and diving over people with a squishy dodgeball chasing me.”

Most kids feel the same way. Sophomore John Cooper agrees with Bryce and says that he isn’t really motivated to do box jumps, but he is motivated when it’s him or the other guy in a dodgeball showdown.

We aren’t asking for how early bird was back in the good ole days (even though that would be nice), but we’re asking to play games like kickball, or have a badminton tournament every week instead of the not so fun workout day in day out. Maybe we can find a happy medium where teacher and students can agree, and we will no longer dread coming to early bird, but instead be excited for throwing a dodgeball and watching the sweat fly off the target’s body.