Monday, September 05, 2005

Things I should've or actually did use as responses to dumb questions on my P.E. webassign

My first stab at the problem was good enough, but I ultimately decided not to submit it on grounds of unresponsiveness:

1. What is the Physical Education Activities Program at UNC trying to accomplish through formulating activity standards?

The physical education activites program at UNC attempts to foster a fascist youth movement centered around the cultivation of an aesthetic of bodily perfection, especially that of the virile young man.

3. Does elitism foster mass-participation in physical activity? Briefly explain your answer.

Elitism is naturally at the core of any fascist movement: the individual learns that he must submerge his private goals into the collective will of the fatherland as it is expressed by the leaders of the nation. Having made peace between individual and state via this submission, the individual then participates in the mass-physical activity dictated by the reich.

4. Physical activity has been shown to provide some protection against several chronic diseases. Name four of these diseases.

Democracy, Modernity, Enfeeblement, Faggotry.

More tactically sound were the following responses:

To 1) The physical education activities program at UNC attempts to promote a culturally relevant approach to fostering physical education that is congruent with the economic and moral necessity of healthy physical activity. PEAP attempts to combat the well documented decline in physical activity following puberty, a period of transition which many UNC students have previously experienced. Thus, these students are at risk for declining levels of physical activity, and PEAP attempts to shelter them from this possibility.

To 3) While some might see elitism as the cornerstone of any regimen of physical education, drawing upon the lengthy cultural history of the Olympian ideal and the correlatory focus on the virile young man, this conception of physical activity seems more likely to promote a spectator society that is detrimental to the possibility of mass-participation in physical activity. Elitism, however natural it may seem, is likely to cause many students to become alienated from physical activity, seeing their own physicality as a flawed cariacature of those privileged by the elitist doctrine, a result which can only be strengthened by the Judeo-Christian conception of the body as an impure and temporary resting place for the soul.

To 4) Physical activity is known to absolutely obliterate coronary heart disease, adult onset diabetes, hypertension and depression.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

so, i take it you posted the second set of answers?

Justin said...

Yeah, except for #4, they actually improve upon both the goal of being ridiculous and the goal of completing the assignment.