Middle school should be a place kids enjoy their time with friends, have fun, learn, and most of all get involved. Considering this, A lot of people in Edison Intermediate School (EIS) argue that EIS does not have enough sports to fit people’s likings.
Students and teachers around the school all agree that they would like more sports at EIS. Kids think that having more school sports will benefit their exercise and their activity that they are getting. “I think we should have more sports at EIS because kids need more activities,” stated 7th graders Ben Keeanan.
With sports outside of school, parents have to travel with their kids and pay a lot of money for the team itself. If we just had school sports, even though there is a fee, it is a lot more expensive than club sports and also a lot less traveling because you could only have to travel to nearby schools. It will be easier for students to get more active from having school sports. Also kids might want to play school sports more because they will be able to play with all their friends from school and will be able to bond with more kids from their school that are also playing. But a lot of people also think that we should have a bigger variety of sports at EIS.
While EIS does have a baseball, field hockey, ultimate frisbee and volleyball team, some kids would prefer to play sports that EIS does not provide for students. The most popular sports like soccer and basketball are some of the most wanted sports by teachers and students. For example Physical Education teacher Mr. Custer expressed, “ I think there should be more school sports like basketball and soccer because of how many kids play them out of school.”
This quote demonstrates how even teachers feel that there is no harm in adding more sports kids can participate in and enjoy with friends. Spending time with friends is something kids enjoy, so an after school activity that makes kids able to spend time with friends plus gives kids extra practice for a sport is a great way for students to become involved with their school. Continuing on with the fact that school sports give extra practice, students in EIS think that would be very beneficial if more sports were offered. “I would perform better since I am playing and practicing more sports more often,” exclaimed eighth grader Minhal Waqar. This proves that adding more school sport teams gives students the opportunity to spend more time practicing and most of all progressing in athletics. As seen, adding more school sports will be nothing but beneficial to most students at EIS.
Overall, the after school activities at EIS do not pull a large majority of students in EIS but adding more of a popular variety of school sports is what would create a bigger group of people participating in school activities. As eighth graders that are leaving EIS and moving onto the high school where there are tons of sports to play throughout all four years, having even one year (8th grade) to help prepare for the change of practice and games after school on weekdays along with weekends would have helped tremendously. But now it’s out of our hands and onto the next middle school classes to persuade Westfield schools for something that would benefit them in more ways than one.
