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Intro to Recreational Games

Intro to Recreational Games is one of the many physical education classes at Chamblee and is taught by Robert Eskew. The class is made up of sophomores, juniors, and seniors.

“We do these exercises that help us with playing sports and games, for example, we do push-ups and curl-ups. we’d walk around the gym track and we usually do like games like kickball,” said Mya Barnwell (‘22).

For students looking for a class with less effort than others, they will be happy to hear that the Intro to Recreational Games class doesn’t have any homework or even any writing assignments.

“There’s never homework [and] it’s just physical exercises,” said Barnwell.

An average day in his class involves playing various games or walking laps around the gym.

“He’ll take attendance. And then we’ll have an assignment to do, which is like walking laps or running or playing games,” said Olivia Tabron (‘22)

Overall, students recommend taking Intro to Recreational Games if you have the opportunity to and called it an easy class to get an A in.

“People should know that it’s a fun class to just play sports with your friends and hang out,” said Jason Lynch.

Body Sculpting/Weight Training

Body Sculpting / Weight Training is one of the various physical education courses that students can choose to take as an elective. The course is open to everyone but freshman. A large part of the class is seeing how your strength can improve during the school year.

“We measure our strengths at the beginning of the year, where to improve them throughout the year. And at the end of the year, we measure how much we’ve improved,” said Caleb Carlton (‘22).

Each day of the class involves doing a different workout focusing on strengthening a different part of the body.

“Coach Swank has a set workout for us every day that we follow. And it helps each person work on different parts of their body. So we have leg days and arm days, and then on Fridays, we have a day where we do five exercises of our own that works on whatever we would like,” said Taylor Flowers (‘22).

Students in the class have quizzes monthly and sometimes have to find an article on a certain topic, but there are no other writing assignments given in class.

“We get a quiz once or twice every month. […] Sometimes we’ll have like a test where we have to look up a health article for losing weight or gaining weight. And then we email it to him,” said Lauren Peoples (‘22).

Students described the class as a lot more physical work than all the other physical education classes, but recommended that students should take it if they have the opportunity.

JROTC

JROTC is a rather unique class. Based on the military, it focuses on providing students with exercise, leadership, and discipline. Student’s who participated often viewed it as a unique and sometimes life-changing experience.

“I believe that I learn a lot in this class about leadership,” said Jeremiah Brown (‘22). “It’s helped me through a lot since I was in eighth grade. I wasn’t making the right choices and ever since I joined JROTC I started making the right choices.”

In addition to leadership training, students participate in community service outside of school.

“Every semester you have to do nine volunteer hours, which is a great way to get us out into the community,” said Alex Jovanovic (‘22).

While some community service is mandatory, there are also lots of other options available through JROTC, including color guard and raider team.

“The best part is the raiders team,” said Brown. “It’s like an athletic thing. You do obstacle courses, you flip tires and stuff. It’s all about leadership and teamwork. You can never do it by yourself.”

The coursework itself was not considered to be too difficult. While some activities, such as memorizing military ranks, could be considered tedious, the tests are not too demanding.

Students also spoke of a welcoming and encouraging environment, both from fellow students and from the teachers.

Articles featuring the class:

JROTC Program Focuses on Community, Students’ Futures

Keeping Warm: JROTC’s Head, Hands, and Feet Returns

JROTC Teaches Life Skills and Leadership to Future Community Leaders

Aquatics

Chamblee’s on-campus pool gives students the opportunity to take a water-based PE elective. Aquatics takes place during seventh period every year to limit student’s hair from being wet throughout the day. The Intro and Advanced classes are merged together and the course is described as fairly low stress.

“Aquatics is a really chill class,” said Claire Turney (’21). “There are some days when we don’t even swim. On Tuesdays, every week, we go to the multipurpose room and work on homework and other things. Really the only grades are participation, so you really only need to get in the water most days.”

The class is typically rather social.

“It is a nice class to end the day with a fun group,” said Andrew Stowe (’21).

Applicants should note, however, that the class is popular and space is limited to about 20 kids.

“It’s kind of selective because there are a bunch of people who want to be in aquatics, “ said Turney. “Reynolds just has to check off a lot of names. You’re not necessarily going to get into aquatics.”

Many of the students are members of Chamblee’s swim team looking to fulfill practice requirements.

“I did the class so I could earn swim team practices during the school day,” said swim team member Walker Greene.

The class is open to swimmers of all levels, though Turney recommended at least knowing how to swim.

“I know people who have gone into the class not being able to swim, so they just want to learn how to swim through the class,” said Turney. “I feel like, since most of the kids do know how to swim, it’s not a great class to take if you don’t know.”

Intro to Team Sports

Intro to Team Sports is one of the many physical education classes at Chamblee and is taught by Caesar Burgess. Made up of sophomores, juniors, and seniors, the class typically consists of learning different types of team sports.

“We kind of just primarily do team sports. We do seasonal games or things. So last semester it was volleyball and then the coaches, they would instruct us,” said Nishat Nayla (‘22).

These sports range from volleyball to lacrosse. Other days involve doing exercises in the gym or the chance to go outside to North DeKalb Stadium.

“This semester […] I think we’re going to try to play lacrosse,” said Nayla.

The course is often taken by students either to fulfill a required physical education credit or for students who want a free period that does not have any work. Students describe the class as an “easy A,” requiring little effort on their part.

“It is extremely easy. To be transparent with you, Coach Burgess, I never really show up and Coach Burgess just marks me as present,” said Nayla.

Nayla recommends taking the class due to the lack of work involved and the opportunity to interact with students you otherwise might not meet.

“I would [absolutely recommend taking it],” said Nayla. “Because one, we don’t do anything. But two, I think it’s a good way to interact with people from a bunch of different grades, especially because we don’t really get to do that in any of our other classes.”