Griselda Lucero
ENG
April 8, 2019
Article response.
In the article of “Does playing sports help improve grades?” by Kevin Bliss gives a perspective and reasoning on why students should play sports. The article gives evidence that sports helps improve concentration, fitness and test scores and also disciplines a student which helps improve their academic performance for future years. I first wanted to convey the message on what were the benefits of having sports in student’s lives and how it can improve their academic performance. After I conveyed the message of the actual benefits of having sports I wanted to correlate it to specifically students in low income communities.
Another article that I was interested was “Study: Physical activity can boost student performance” by Nanci Hellmich, USA TODAY which also back up on how sports or physical helps the brain with academic performance. But I was also interested in this article because it also establishes the idea that physical activity should be essential and longer than 60 minutes in all schools within the United States. The author also illustrated a very important idea in which there have been budget cuts in schools, especially regarding sports throughout the United States and it should be addressed in order to help student’s academic performance. Many of these budgets cuts are made in low income communities and a community I wanted to write about in my research paper regards to students in the Bronx area.
The third article I decided to incorporate in my research paper is “‘An incredible impact’: Poor kids are being priced out of youth sports. Here’s one solution.” By Michael S. Rosewald, in his article he states “But city officials say they are weighing those downsides against a growing body of research that says participation in youth sports improves physical and mental health, lowers crime and teen pregnancy rates, and increases college enrollment.” Many schools do not provide sports for the youth so they turn to community recreational sport programs. But many of these programs require monthly payments in which many families in low income communities do not have access to. This article portrays the “free waiver” enrollment eligibility for those youth trying to have access to sports within their community. As the article states that sports help the youth not only in academic performance but keeps them away from the dangers of often seen struggles, such as drugs, teen pregnancy and enforces them to enroll to college.
My last article are websites of two Bronx sports team that aim to help students in low income parts of the Bronx become athletes but also support in financial, legal and academic situations for those students and their families. These sports also have “free waiver” access which means students do not make payments to be part of the team or to have access to the extra support they give. City squash is a sport teams that recruits students since the 3rd grade and help them gain scholarships to high schools and colleges. They work with private colleges such as Fordham University and use their facilities to help the students in that community academically but also introduce them to an upper class style of sport. The other sports team is South Bronx United which is community sports center that help recruit students into sport teams but with the sport of academic performance. They also offer “free waivers” for the students and have the same mission as City squash and they are connected with the Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.
