The Importance Of Physical Education

John F. Kennedy once said, "Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity." Another man named Scott Carlson, an experienced writer for The Chronicle of Higher Education, would agree. Carlson is the author of "When Colleges Abandon Phys Ed, What Else is Lost?" and is known for writing on topics that include college management, higher education costs, and sustainability. The purpose of his article is to explain the importance of required physical education after high school to its audience, higher education administrators. However, Carlson 's use of wording and professional interviews seem to leave a foggy understanding of who his intended audience

The article begins with a story about a judo class at Los Angeles City College run by a highly respected judo master, Mr. Nishioka. The story depicts a class full of relatable college students, not health nuts in great shape. It then transitions over to professional opinions on the topic of physical education in colleges and universities from various professors. The text next goes into a very detailed description of Mr. Nishioka 's childhood, how he got into the art of judo, an ancient Japanese fighting style, and his adult life before becoming a teacher. The article closes after stating some studies and lawsuits that college officials would be interested in knowing about.

Carlson seems to be quite confused as to who this audience should be. It feels like the audience should be higher education administrators based on all the statistics in the text. However, he makes if unclear as to who exactly he is targeting. It is interesting that Carlson chose judo out of all of the physical activities that colleges have to offer to use as an example. Perhaps if the author were a woman the selection would be a sport involving less contact, such as jogging, tennis, or volleyball. Even the quotes that he uses to support his claims are from mostly male professors: John J. Ratey, Bradley J. Cardinal, John Stevens, Jared A. Russell, and Hugh R. Page Jr. He only uses one

Carlson 's utilizes multiple studies that relate a decline in physical education to an increase of obese children. He included a study at Oregon State University in 2012 showing that out of 354 institutions fewer than forty-one percent had a requirement for physical education. This percent is a huge decrease from the previous data from the late nineteen hundreds. By adding this study to his article, Carlson boosted his logos while making his main idea of the paper evident. He also added support to his pro-physical education views by quoting many university professors. For example, he quoted John J. Ratey, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, when describing exercise as "Mirical-Gro” for the brain. Along with providing support his claims, Carlson 's article gains ethos from these quotes because they show that well educated people in the field of kinesiology, physical fitness, and education are all standing behind the idea that physical education is important for students in higher education. The fact that Carlson only quotes these people and never really paraphrases them suggests he could not have said it any better himself. He may feel like the information that he quotes is such good quality information that supports his views so well that he cannot afford to leave out any words in the process of paraphrasing.