On Adaptive Phys Ed

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[A group of 19 young children are standing in a row on an orange basketball court, their backs turned. They’re facing the other side of the court, some of them with their hands shielding their faces from the sunshine. They’re all wearing matching orange t-shirts.] Image Source: Photo by Philip White on Unsplash

When I was in high school, since I couldn’t do most things in the regular Physical Education (P.E.) classes, I was placed in an Adaptive P.E. class. It was me and three other people: one classmate who had a physical disability and two who had developmental ones.

Sometimes we had board game days or study halls, but most of the time we were still in the gym or outside doing physical activities. It was then that I actually learned how much I loved badminton. I wasn’t even half bad at tennis.

These days, the general school of thought seems to be that disabled kids should be included in the standard P.E. classes. While I don’t disagree with that—history has shown us time and time again that separate is very much not equal—I personally didn’t mind being in a separate class.

Before high school, I was in the P.E. class with everyone else and it was really hard. I often over-exerted myself trying to keep up with my classmates and when I couldn’t do something that they could, it only made me feel worse about myself.

Having a separate class, especially during high school when things can already be difficult, gave me a safe haven to be myself. It gave me a place to do what I could and nothing more. I actually felt less isolated being around other people like me (the other physically disabled girl and I were really close for a long time). I felt more isolated when I was around a bunch of my non-disabled classmates who could do so many more things than I could. I didn’t like standing out even more than I already did.

I don’t know what the “right” solution is. I’m not an expert and I certainly can’t speak for the entire community, but I like the idea of having both options for kids with disabilities. Allow them to enroll in the non-disabled Phys Ed class, or have a separate Adaptive class in case they want to enroll in that.

From the experience I had, being in a separate class actually helped me a lot more than it harmed me. I won’t deny that I sometimes felt embarrassed when the non-disabled class would be outside with us or running their mile right past us. As I’ve said many times before, I wanted nothing more than to be like my non-disabled classmates back then. Standing out was the worst punishment imaginable in my mind.

Having a place I could go every week where I didn’t feel like I had to try hide my disability, or push myself to keep up with everyone else, really helped. If I couldn’t do something, it was totally ok, but I still got outside and got exercise at the same time. Being around other people with disabilities made me feel a lot less alone too. None of us had other classes together so we likely wouldn’t have met otherwise.

Everyone deserves to have the choice of what’s best for them when it comes to classes like these. No one should be forced to do it one way or the other way. In our formative years especially, we all deserve for school to be a place where we can go and be ourselves without fear of ridicule or judgement (I shudder to think what school would have been like for me, had social media been invented).