I graduated early from high school years ago, but almost wasn’t able to because my school wouldn’t recognize anything but team sports, golf, tennis, swimming/diving, wrestling, track and field/cross-country, cheerleading, or competitive bowling as athletic activities. Alas, I am terrible at bowling. My school wanted me to take a full year of electives (I’d already finished core curriculum and all AP classes offered) because they felt their pointless PE classes (which consisted mostly of walking laps on a track) were superior to a lifelong athletic endeavor like riding.
In college equestrianism was a varsity sport, and we were truly treated like athletes (e.g. in access to sports medicine, physical training, varsity gym facilities). But I didn’t need it for PE credits, because in a healthier environment that embraced a wider range of health-promoting activities I felt empowered to explore other sports in a way I never did under the tutelage of beer-bellied HS football coaches and hairspray-encrusted cheer directors. The way PE is implemented in K-12 in many places does as much harm as help to student health, IMO.
I hope the family in question in this case is able to prevail in getting equestrian activities counted toward PE, and ideally an apology from the teacher who belittled the student’s athleticism as a rider. Hopefully the pandemic will also inspire a rethink of some of the problematic PE programs out there and generate some new ideas about integrating things that are more likely to become lifelong healthy habits than, say, dodgeball.
