Gym class: the often dreaded period of the day. In elementary school, we had these gym class scooters you would propel yourself on by shuffling your feet. There was nothing quite like having your fingers run over by the swivel wheels. And high school? Dodgeball just wasn’t my thing. My gym class experiences were completely at odds with my after-school participation in recreational, [...]
New Englanders can agree: this most recent winter was a tough one, requiring constant vigilance of our properties as well as our physicality. With record snowfall in Massachusetts, we’ve had to deal with the many unpleasant aspects of the season: excessive time spent indoors, constant snow removal and the threat of roof collapses—all of which create mental and physical strain. But at the [...]
We plebeians have known for years about the happiness that specific things can give us. There’s the comfort of a home-cooked meal just like mother made after a long, tiring day; the contentment of rereading a favorite novel while wrapped in a blanket on a cold day; the pumped-up adrenaline that hits after listening to a favorite song on repeat. We figured all [...]
Boredom is a normal part of life. We don’t naturally have activities to constantly amuse ourselves. In a fast-paced society, we accept the routine of being endlessly busy, and find ourselves at a loss of what to do when we are not overwhelmed with three or more tasks or thoughts at once. But is our inability to “log off” affecting our creative abilities? [...]
Music may have even more benefits than many of us thought. From playing an instrument to being exposed to music during surgery, recent studies suggest that music can have positive effects on both mental and physical health. A 2011 study conducted by clinical neuropsychologist Brenda Hanna–Pladdy and cognitive psychologist Alicia McKay, PhD, measured the cognitive benefits of playing a musical instrument as a child. [...]
I distinctly remember taking the ACT my junior year of high school. I had signed up late, so my dad and I had to drive to a school nearly an hour away because it was the only available testing site left. I was exhausted from all the ordinary stresses of junior year, and I was sick with a head cold that made everything [...]
For hundreds of years, students in the United States who didn’t quite fit the mold often received no education at all or were even institutionalized. Even after the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA or EHA) in the 1970s, many youngsters slipped through the cracks and did not receive an adequate education. Overhauls in recent years, most notably No Child Left Behind [...]
Rather than sentence them to juvenile prison, taking away their opportunity to continue learning in a safe environment, Tennessee’s Carroll Academy, located in Huntingdon (100 miles east of Memphis and 100 miles west of Nashville) gives their “troubled” students a way to get their lives back. In Huntingdon, Tennessee, drug use is the norm. The New York Times provides figures from the Tennessee [...]
In high school, I tried to avoid gym. Who wanted to change into shorts in the middle of the school day, run a mile, and return to class sweaty—because who really used those showers? Not me. I had friends whose physical education requirements were waived for any reason from varsity sports to asthma. While my friends took extra nonathletic electives, I learned the [...]
While health problems have been the major concern of recent studies in childhood obesity, new issues have begun to surface. Several research teams have come to the general conclusion that obese students, particularly girls, are more likely to achieve lower test scores or be held back a grade and are less likely to go on to college than peers at a healthier weight. [...]