Ever wonder why PE class is part of school at all?  I mean, let the athletic kids join the sports teams—but for the scholar, why the need for physical education in the first place?

“Every sport,” said John Paul II, “at both the amateur and the competitive level, requires basic human qualities such as rigorous preparation, continual training, awareness of one’s personal limits, fair competition, acceptance of precise rules, respect for one’s opponent and a sense of solidarity and unselfishness. Without these qualities, sport would be reduced to mere effort and to a questionable, soulless demonstration of physical strength.”

So, why teach PE to everyone?  Because PE teaches virtue, and virtue is for everyone.  Fortitude is learned as much via physical struggle as it is mental; justice is formed in our honest adherence to the rules of the game; prudence is acquired by learning our limitations; temperance a lesson taught more by defeat than by victory.

Don’t think of PE as the class for athletes; think of it as the class for more complete human beings.  And then give it your best—there’s real virtue in that.

Have a wonderful day.