Liberal Arts Blog — Swimming — Are Schools Equal if One Has a Pool and Another Does Not?

Liberal Arts Blog — Saturday is the Joy of Sports, Dance, Fitness, and All Things Physical Day

Today’s Topic — Swimming — are schools equal if one has a pool and another does not?

How important is swimming as a life skill? According to Jewish tradition, one of the six obligations of a father to a son is teaching him how to swim. At Harvard, you once had to pass a swimming test in order to graduate. Was this rule’s abolition a mistake? Economist Stephen Levitt has argued that having a backyard swimming pool is 100 times more dangerous than owning a gun. Data indicate that an African American child is 5.5X more likely to drown in a residential swimming pool than a white child. In England, learning to swim is a compulsory part of the elementary school physical education program. Should it be so here? If so, what level of competence should be required in terms of distance or time at each age level? If a swimming pool is not an appropriate metric for judging equality of schools, what level of rigor in physical education programs is? Who should decide? Who is qualified to decide? How should this decision be made? Who cares? Who should? Whose job is this? If this is no one’s job, is it not time for the next President of the United States to create it? What level of strength, speed, and agility should every high school graduate have attained for their school to qualify as “adequate” not to mention equal? Is it time for someone to take ownership of the question of defining “equality of schools” across the curriculum? Let’s get real. No equality of schools, no equality of opportunity. Is it time to get serious about making the American dream a reality? Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.

STATISTICS ON DROWNINGS — Daily rate, under age 14, by gender

1. “ In the United States, there are an average of ten drowning deaths each day. “

2. “Of the more than 3,500 people who drown each year in the US, about a fifth are children under the age of 14.”

3. “Nearly 80% of the people who die from drowning are male.”

STATISTICS ON CHILDREN 1 TO 4 YEARS OF AGE

1. “Drowning is responsible for more deaths among children 1–4 than any other cause except congenital anomalies (birth defects).”

2. “Children ages 1–4 have the highest drowning rates. In 2009, among children 1–4 years old who died from an unintentional injury, more than 30% died from drowning.”

3. Among children ages 1–4, most drownings occur in home swimming pools.

STATISTICS ON CHILDREN AGE 5 TO 14 — racial disparities

1. “The fatal drowning rate of African American children ages 5–14 is almost three times that of the white children in the same age range.”

2. “African American children drown in swimming pools at rates 5.5 times higher than those of whites.”

POST SCRIPT: so what are the five other obligations of a Jewish father to his son? “to circumcise him, to redeem him [if he is a firstborn], to teach him Torah, to marry him off, and to teach him a craft.” (Kiddushin 29a). To “redeem him” means to make a monetary payment to a rabbi to exempt the first born from his ancient duty to become a member of the priesthood.

Swimming lessons

http://www.talmudology.com/jeremybrownmdgmailcom/2016/3/23/kiddushin-29a-swimming-and-drowning

https://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2001/07/27/levittpoolsvsguns

Swimming (sport)

Should public schools require swimming classes?

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YOUR TURN

Please share the coolest thing you learned this week related to sports, dance, fitness. Or the coolest thing you learned about Sports, Dance, of Fitness in your life — whether on the field, on the dance floor or in the gym, whether from a coach, a parent, a friend, or just your own experimentation.

This is your chance to make some one else’s day. Or even change their life. It’s perhaps a chance to put into words something you have never articulated before. And to cement in your own memory something cool you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than otherwise about something dear to your heart.