Almost every student, at one point, has participated or will participate in an extracurricular activity, whether it be athletic, academic, artistic, or altruistic. Through these activities, students learn valuable life skills and build friendships that last a lifetime. However, a large amount of students do not receive these numerous benefits as they do not participate in extracurricular activities. For this reason, the principal has decided to mandate at least one extracurricular activity for all students. I strongly agree with this decision because extracurricular activities increase academic performance, keep students out of trouble and improve social and mental health.
First and foremost, extracurricular activities increase academic performance of students in a myriad of ways. Students who are struggling in their classes have an opportunity to receive remediation that may not be allowed be the time constraints of a school day. Moreover, because they have time to get teacher help after school, they have more individualized instruction and assistance that a class size of 30 students just doesn’t permit. However, for students already excelling in academics, some extracurricular activities offer those high-achieving students to take their performance to the next level. Through such activities as Mathcounts, Technology Student Association, Debate, and Model United Nations, students already doing well in school have the chance to compete with other advanced students in competitions that challenge their critical thinking skills and their speed in skills learned in school. Furthermore, for all students, some extracurriculars provide incentives to do well in school; National Junior Honor Society, for example, recognizes students wit...
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...then they can stay after school in order to avoid the insecure situation at home and take their focus off the situation by being involved in activities that they truly love to do. Because students in extracurricular activities have this increased social well-being and protection from risky environments, they are much less likely suffer from depression, and they would have increased mental health overall. In these ways, having mandated extracurricular activities benefit the students’ social and mental health.
The principal has decided to mandate at least one extracurricular activity for all students. I strongly agree with this decision because extracurriculars increase academic performance, keep students out of trouble, and improve the social and mental health of the student body. As extracurriculars benefit students in so many ways, this mandate should be imposed.
These areas could reach beyond the academics, which Ripley touches on, and into other extra-curricular activities. In high school, I was extremely involved in theatre and speech and debate, as well as choir. Even in my small school our already small programs felt the effects of budget cuts. Yet, I never saw evidence of any financial struggle for the sports teams. While our theatre program could not afford microphones for our school musical and our science classrooms had not received updated textbooks in nearly a decade, the football and volleyball teams were given all new uniforms, even though the old ones were only a year or two old. Our school often spoke of the financial struggles they felt, yet the budgets for sports were never up for debate. Ripley talks about the benefits of high-school sports, and while I cannot deny that it is important to value “exercise, lessons in sportsmanship and perseverance, school spirit, and just plain fun” (3), it’s not worth the sacrifices the schools must make to have sports. That mentality also suggests that playing sports is the only way to gain certain life skills; however, someone might learn about teamwork from being in a play or doing a group project in school. School spirit could be encouraged through pep assemblies. There are several other ways to gain the same values without sports being involved in a school
Based on their evidence, the focus on athletics contributes to lower dropout rates and higher test scores; however, they do note that students participating in athletics are obligated to be extremely focused and dedicated. It is no secret that achieving in athletics and academics is challenging and demanding. Additionally, communities achieving success in the athletic field have a greater social capital. Social capital is “the norms, the social networks, and the relationships” that individuals have within one another (Bowen and Hitt). Social capital is pertinent for children growing up to be prosperous adults. These relationships help build academic success. Likewise, most schools have equal success in athletics and academics. This direct relation has been researched and speculated to prove that athletics do not take away from academics but rather facilitate
As much as this class has grown together, every one of us has also grown as a unique individual. We have found our talents and interests. These interests have drawn us to different activities and in turn helped shape our lives. Some of us have excelled academically while others have helped improve Summer High School by participating in activities such as Link Crew or ASB. Some of us acted in plays while others shared their musical talents by singing in the choir or performing with our outstanding band. Many of us have preferred to be involved in community service with a group like KEY Club. In addition to these school activities, many of us have invested time in jobs and other community activities.
Extracurricular involvement through one's school, is a key and crucial factor in succeeding, while growing and developing during the early stages of a student's life. I am an actively involved and motivated student, for I participate in numerous school activities while consistently undertaking superb grades. Throughout my past two years in middle school, I have prospered in the following activities: Newspaper club, Cross Country, Track, Academic Olympics, the Ocean County Math League, Chorus, National Junior Honor Society, and finally, Student Council. In the duration of these activities, I have flourished and excelled greatly.
For decades, students have been in school sports; however, they are experiencing a drop in their grades as well. After school activities can cost districts’ a great deal of money and they interfere with students’ time to study. Therefore, school sports shouldn’t be allowed, to save districts’ thousands of dollars a year, help students score better academically, and America will not lag behind other countries in academics.
"Student Activities Office." The Benefits of Involvement . Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 04 Jan. 2011. Web. 29 Mar. 2014.
...ated behaviors, school violence, school-associated violent deaths, and juvenile arrests for violent crime. There are assortments of means through which participation in extracurricular activities may decrease the probability of problematic youthful behavior such as involvement in violence. For instance, school extracurricular activities provide organized and constructive environments where youth are supervised by adults and have less time available for indulging in unstructured and unsupervised environments (Jiang & Peterson, 2012). We as parents should encourage our children to participate in after school activities. These activities teach several skills that will help them to become productive citizens in the community. I don’t agree with over loading your child with several activities but being involved in at least one activity will be a very good decision.
n Addition to this with sports in high school student athletes need to keep up their grades in order to play the sport. Some people may say that when you participate in a sport, it takes away from your studying time and then makes you not as academically inclined as others. I believe that that statement is further from the truth in a recent article written by Daniel H. Bowen and Colin Hitt “High-School Sports Aren 't Killing Academics” from The Atlantic Bowen and Hitt state that “We would expect to see a negative relationship between the commitment to athletics and academic achievement. However, the University of Arkansas’s Daniel H. Bowen and Jay P. Greene actually find the opposite. They examine this relationship by analyzing schools’ sports winning percentages as well as
Schools should keep the sports programs. It helps increase kids test scores and improve academics the sport programs can make a kid confident in themselves about everything so the kid can get a better score and better grades. In the text, “a 2012 study shows most students that are in sports get higher test scores and better academics”.
events” (Irish). The loss of extracurricular activities is just one of the many things that schools
Most parents believe that participation in extracurricular activities affects a child in a lot of good ways. My parents were no exception. After school, I was always being driven from piano to basketball to swimming and so on. At the time, I thought I was the world's busiest kid. But after all these years, I can easily see that I have gained some really important benefits from those activities. Playing the piano is probably the greatest benefit.
Throughout the development of a child, one way for growth has been through the practice and enrollment in various extracurricular activities. As per defined in the dictionary, extracurricular activities (ECA), are activities outside the normal curriculum of school; the activities are voluntary and can range from social activities to philanthropic activities, like swimming volleyball, etc. Children getting enrolled in these activities raise a lot of controversy. One side of the debate believes that forcing children into extracurricular will be of benefit to them. The benefits arise from assisting in the development of the child, skills to be learned, lessons to be taken in, opportunities, and several more. On the other hand, the other side
It used to be believed by experts that one should study and not play. This is no longer the case, according to Mr. R. Griffin in his article Helping Athletes Excel in Sports and School (23). He suggests that it is important to encourage both academic and extra-curricular performance. In most instances, involvement in extra-curricular activities leads to better grades. According to the University of Michigan, teens that are involved in activities during high school are more likely than teens that didn’t participate in any organized activities to have higher grades as high school seniors and to still be in college six years later (Swanbrow 1). These results were produced at the University of Michigan by tracking 1,259 sophomores for six years. These results also proved to be true in the three individual classrooms that were surveyed. The classes that were surveyed were students in art, talented and gifted, and English at Southeast Polk high school. The results are shown in the following three paragraphs.
Through these social activities children learn many life lessons that when will follow them into adult hood. Lesson such as, determination, perseverance, hard work equaling a reward, and positive self- image. Children are also able to learn more about themselves as they try different activities out. They can figure out what they enjoy and don’t enjoy and maybe even form a living or future career out of the activity they enjoy. Lastly, they do better in school which can help guide them towards a more successful adulthood. According to the NCES (National Center for education Statistics), students who participate in the extracurricular activities have a 15% higher classroom attendance rate than those not involves (Rivers and Media). This is mostly because most school related activities require participants to be present in classes before they can be present at the activity. School related extracurriculars also promote good grade before allowing participation in club events. Students who are in class more often are also more known to have a greater grade point average than those who skip class. Research has also proven that math SAT scores improved by 45 points and verbal scores shot up by 53 points when students were involved in extracurricular activities (Rivers and Media). Extracurricular activities also help college- bound students get scholarships which save their parents money when paying for
Two-thirds of children who participate in extracurricular activities are expected to attain at least a bachelor’s degree, whereas only half of children that do not participate do (National Center for Education Statistics, 1995). Childhood is a very important time in our lives, a time when we develop many vital skills that follow us into adulthood. Some people laugh or scoff at us parents that keep our children to busy schedules. Those same people would also argue that our children should be allowed to have a childhood, to not be so tightly scheduled in their daily lives. Before jumping on that bandwagon, I would suggest doing a little research. Participating in after-school activities has shown to benefit children in many ways. Children should