By Will Mason-Hill
With Betsy Devos as the new Secretary of Education, one is left wondering not the fate of the students, but the fate of the bears. How many students have ever walked a mile in gym class? How many have just stood in groups huddled up just talking instead of doing any physical activity? Far too often students are taking physical education classes as a joke and the result is a poor work ethic and and a belly by the time they hit high school. Studies by the American Heart Association have shown that one in three children are overweight or obese. With numbers of children developing different disease because of their weight skyrocketing, a shaken America looks to Betsy for the answers.
With this new model, the children of our nation will be fitter than ever, literally, except maybe the cave children who also had a similar daily encounter. What is this miracle cure for a fat youth? Simple, we use the bears! Over the summer, one lucky custodian has the job of trapping one ns the school boiler room by luring in it in with some fresh meat. Then when all the children are changed into their school-colored clothing for their gym class, you simply let the starving bear go into the gym. Teachers and prospective parents can watch from a viewing gallery outside bulletproof glass as students literally run for their lives from these hungry grizzlies. Forget to tie your shoes or order the wrong size sweatpants and you are surely a goner. Kids will learn to make decisions faster and with more accuracy. Need a break from running? Just push another kid down and leave him or her in the dust. Not your problem. Quickly, the mile walkers and group huddlers will dissolve and everyone will be on an even playing field. Coaches of sports teams would love this new dynamic added to their training, too. Quarterbacks have to be looking to make a pass but also have to remember that a bear could be on them in seconds, so they become faster thinkers on the fly. This model can be adapted to fit into almost any school system in North America and is a healthy alternative to simply shooting these bears.
Have too many children in preschool learned to count to ten and say their ABC’s without completely losing all of their baby fat? Introducing the black bear model. At roughly half the size of a grizzly, this animal will help 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds learn more about the animal kingdom and the valuable lesson that velcro and zipper shoes just don’t quite cut it in the real world. They would come to middle school and high school completely ready for their hour with the grizzly and, in only a few years time, the casualties would be reduced to nearly zero as students learn the tricks of the trade. Graduating seniors will be pictured in the yearbook as most likely to be or not to be eaten by these grizzlies.
After the model has proven itself to the public, Betsy can evolve it to fit any school needs. Too many kids playing hooky? Give the bear a few articles of their gym clothes while they are trapped in the boiler room, and they will only hunt those kids. Soon students will come running back from local skate parks and arcades to apologize and never miss a day again. Physical fitness will improve greatly and even academics will go up because students will be so tired at the end of the day that they will only have enough energy to do school work, read and sleep.
All in all this is a very well-thought out and well-rounded proposal for the American school system and even a good model for the world. With the leadership Betsy provides and the incredibly reliable effectiveness of the bear programs, I’m sure the American student will be healthier than ever before.
My name is Will Mason-Hill and I’m a freshman majoring in Environmental Science. Growing up I was never a good writer, but I’m a pretty funny person, so whenever I do write I try to make the topic humerus.