Dubuque High Schools To Make Their Students Wear Heart Monitors During Gym Class To Make Sure They're Actually Working Out

DUBUQUE, Iowa (AP) — Dubuque teachers will be able to monitor students’ heart rates through a web-based program while they exercise at school. The program gives Dubuque Community School District teachers an idea of physical activity levels by middle school and high school students while they exercise in class, the Dubuque Telegraph Herald reported (http://bit.ly/1oAh5z8 ). Students will place straps containing heart sensors around their chests. The sensors will send data about the students’ heart rates that will be projected onto a screen or wall in class while they’re exercising. The online application that collects the data is called Polar GoFit. It also shows how close a student is to reaching his or her target heart rate and maintains a record of how long students remain in those zones. Jackie Hart Weeber, a health and wellness teacher at the Eleanor Roosevelt Middle School, said she is excited to see how the program will affect her students’ motivation levels in class. She said the program will give students instant feedback and shows “if they are doing well or if they need to be working a bit harder.” “I no longer have to grade students just by looking at them,” she said. “Now I know if they are really working.”

This suuuuuuuuscks for the kids going to high school in Dubuque in 2014.  Technology is great but to ruin the institution of gym class is royally fucked up.  I don’t want to go all “back in my day” but back in my day, gym class was the easiest class you could ever take.  I was the worst student in the world and I got an A in gym class.  It was the only A I ever got during my academic career.  You know why?  Because it was a joke of a class.  We did absolutely nothing.  Well that’s not true.  It was a 50 minute class and all we had to do was walk around the gym in circles.  Over and over again.  As long as we did that the teacher wouldn’t hassle us.  That’s literally all we did.  Round and a round and a round for 50 straight minutes.  Our gym teacher was a huge sports fan and all he’d do during class is watch games or ESPN on a TV in the equipment closet.  It was great.  The A I got in gym class was the only thing that bumped my GPA up enough to allow me to be eligible to play football.  It was a godsend.  But now with these heart monitors that’s all out the window.  They’re actually going to be monitoring the kid’s heart rates on a computer during class.  Absurd.  And if you’re not at the level you should be for a sustained period of time it lowers your grade.  That’s a fucking racket.  Gym should always be an easy A.  Not to mention there’s nothing worse than the kid who actually tries in gym class and smells like the shit the rest of the day.

I’m sure the real reason is there’s some government money these Dubuque schools can become eligible for if their students get healthy across the board but that sucks even more.  Gym class is supposed to be where kids do nothing but walk in circles around the gym and pretend to do squats in the weight room while wearing jeans.