martial arts in publi schools could it work?

[cathal]

In our local town sensei and the sempai go to the local high school for a term on martial arts. They do Karate with the students as a part of their regular gym class for about a month or two.

[younwhadoug]

i teach in an elementary school from kindergarden to fifth grade. some of my students have a hard time standing still and keeping their hands to themselves but for the most part i can control them. they have shown great progress in training and in regular school studies. parents have seen a great change in most of them and the kids seem to connect now outside of training. they try to impress me by telling me every wed. how they have used our training principles through the week. last week was their last class til next year and to my suprize three of them showed up at the classes i train at. i am very proud of them. on the topic at hand, i think the younger students benefit greatly by having tkd in their school. some of the staff their don't like me too much, typical bias of martial arts is not a real sport. also a few parents don't like the way i instruct their children. those are the ones that say "i USED to be a black belt".

i don't think having ma in a high school is too great of an idea for the reason that teens can be very mean and have very cruel intentions. not all of them ofcourse. but i think it would b e better for a teen to find a dojang. in this way the bullies won't be taking it as much because its not in the convience of having it at school.

[cathal]

I don't disagree with your opinion necessarily, but I feel that it is easy to generalize that all teens can be like that. I think it can work, as it seems in my dojo's case, but then again that school offers it an optional curriculum. This term it is Karate or Basketball.

[Maxma]

younwhadoug - "typical bias of martial arts is not a real sport."

That's because martial arts isn't a sport. At least, it didn't originate as one, and i don't believe it should be. Martial arts is about self-enlightenment and understanding and advancement as a better person. If you doubt this, here is an example:

My sifu has been teaching a guy, early 40's, who for his whole life had serious trouble controlling his temper. For privacy's sake, i will call this man Bill. Bill has been taking classes for over two years now, and his demeanor has changed...he is collected, he does not blow up, he is now able to control himself. He explained his story to me, totally open, and told me how the other week he was in a situation that, if he hadn't had the self-control he has now, he would be in jail. Tell me any sport that will do that for a person.

Of course, nowadays some martial arts would be better qualified as martial sports - sports that involve hitting each other (often times in impracticable ways).

As for the topic of this thread, i don't believe that martial arts should be put into public schools for the main fact that martial arts isn't for everybody. It is a commitment, and if children are forced to take it, they will do the same thing they do all day in school: horse around, not pay attention, and come to despise being put there. I think that would be a blasphemy. Then again, not many feel as strongly as i do.

I am, however, attending college this fall, and there are martial arts classes offered at my university. I think that this is a wonderful opportunity, for it gives young adults the opportunity to partake in a new experience that may change their lives, while not being mandatory.

I am slightly apprehensive about the quality of the teaching, however, but am looking forward to it nonetheless.

[haxx]

Hi

I'm based in England and I saw a post on this forum that said in Britain Martial Arts in our schools wasn't allowed, this isn't true, they are.

Teaching Martial Arts in Public Schools does work. I teach Karate in 4 public schools and 3 state schools.

The schools offer Karate in different formats, it depends on the school. One public school for example offers Karate (& Judo which is has it's own Instructor) as part of their PE Programme, the kids can have 3 lessons a week. The same school also offers it has part of their activity programme and they can get 2 lessons a week that way. We even have our own purpose built dojo.

The other 3 public schools offer Karate after school, and they term it as a paid extra. Therefore the parents get billed directly.

Of the the 3 state schools, 1 is an after-school club. The other 2 offer Karate during the school day.

1 School is a specialist Sports College. They have just made Karate compulsory for year 10 pupils (14-15 years old) and optional for Year 11 (15-16) years old.

The other state school is a primary school and they are offering it to years 4,5,6 and we will be teaching a whole year (about 29 kids) per term.

You do have to modify your thinking quite a lot, but it does work, I have another primary school who want us to go in and do some work with their kids.

The Sports College found that 59% of the kids don't want to play traditional team games and would like to do something more individual.

There is a broad spectrum of things you can cover, and hey there is more to Karate than just kicking & punching. You have to be responsible i can't teach a primary school class the same thing I would teach my black belt class, thats common sense. With the right approach I think you would be surprised at how popular it actually is, and some of them feed in to the public clubs as well.

All the best

Paul

[NievesOSK]

Ms. Heather,

I would very much like to speak with you RE: Your program. I am attempting to do what you are doing in Alabama. The model I wish to use is similar to the Kick-start.org program in Texas but I would be interesting in talking to you about how you run yours for ideas.

Look forward to hearing from you.

Osu.

E. Samuel Nieves.

I teach an afterschool program for 8 of the 14 middle schools in the county I live in. We offer a kick the habbit program offering TKD to kids as a way to keep them off drugs. We hold a county wide competition once a year and divide the proceeds between the schools. It is a great program and very accepted here in the South.

Heather

[Traymond]

I would just say that instead if Martial arts completely, you should out a self defense course in their, like escapes and other flashy things that could grab peoples attention, like breaking down the Bassai Dai Kata and showing the self defense part of that, and if you see some people extremely interested in it, then you can teach them the full martial arts.

[Ozpunker]

I'm not sure about you guys but when I was in high school, we used to have a sport day once a week. At the start of each term you had to pick a sport and after lunch on Wednesday we all went to our chosen sports. We could do stuff like cricket, football, gym (weights), bowling, cycling etc. Only since starting Martial Arts I found out that my Shihan actually goes to local schools and teaches karate for sport throughout the week. (It sucks to know that he teaches at my old school.. I wish he sis it when I was there. lol).

The classes mainly consist of very basic techniques with the main focus being on self defense (i.e. getting out of holds, avoiding attackers etc).

I think teaching children self defense is a great idea... the younger it is taught the better in my opinion.

[joesteph]

The classes mainly consist of very basic techniques with the main focus being on self defense (i.e. getting out of holds, avoiding attackers etc).

I think teaching children self defense is a great idea... the younger it is taught the better in my opinion.

My instructor does this every so often with the younger ones, including someone lifting them and wearing head protection while they box his ears. She teaches them how to push (two hands) and yell No! Stop! (it's also against bullies), and gives scenarios such as a stranger who has a "lost puppy."

I just received a book in the mail, "The Mind of a Child: Thoughts of a Predator, Prevention for a Parent" by Stephen McDonald and Po Chu McDonald. Looking at it briefly, I see photos of children practicing the push and distancing from a stranger; there's advice on yelling ("I don't know you!"), etc. This is mainly for under age thirteen, but I see nothing wrong with workshops on the high school level as well.

It can be offered with parents signing a permission slip. I signed for my first grade boys to watch a film in school about dealing with strangers, and they'll need reinforcement on doing this year-after-year. Teenagers can find themselves in bad situations and need to get away--or know how to avoid being in that situation in the first place as much as possible.

Self-defense covers a wide field.

[Truestar]

There's no way I can see this in American schools, only because it would challenge the "Zero Tolerance Policy".

Teaching students how to defend themselves is definitely a bad idea. If a student is attacked, and they achieve light control in order to potentially save their lives, they get suspended! No matter what! There's no way martial arts should be taught in public schools.

Now for the reality aspect, absolutely. I think it would be awesome to get high schools involved in tournaments and whatnot. My dojang would always come before my school, however I would be more than glad to compete, train, and share my knowledge of the martial arts with my peers.

Unfortunately my fake little ramble up top is the argument of a lot of people. Martial Arts is taught a little bit in schools, (EKP-Education Karate Program), but that's as much as I've ever heard in schools and MA.