It's odd to me that concerns about equity are cited as the reason to get rid of a swimming requirement because some institutions discovered that the students who didn't know how to swim were predominantly non-white. I think it's a reasonable view that what they actually did was unearth an existing inequity and choose to do nothing about it.
I lived in Chicago for a long time. The park district makes the first 10-week learn to swim class free for all residents. In the poorer neighborhoods (IE more likely to be non-white) all subsequent swim lessons very inexpensive - generally $3 or $4 per one-hour session. And if that is too much, they waive the cost (they get private grants that pay for it all).
Most of my childhood was in close proximity to the Great Lakes and as an adult never realized how much knowing how to swim is taken as a given until talking to work colleagues that didn’t grow up so close to water. I learned at the YMCA for free. We had to take swimming classes as a high school graduation requirement. Everybody did it, regardless of skin color.
I think the requirement was a matter practical concern back in the 30-50s when there was war and it was assumed that knowing how to swim would be useful , such as on a ship. naval engineering was a huge deal in the 19th and up to the mid 20th century. It seems arbitrary to require it, but it also makes sense in the historical context.
Is it any more goofy than making an engineering major take a GenEd class in medieval history, or anthropology? School is just weird. Do it, get it done, move on.
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[ 0.27 ms ] story [ 68.2 ms ] threadMost of my childhood was in close proximity to the Great Lakes and as an adult never realized how much knowing how to swim is taken as a given until talking to work colleagues that didn’t grow up so close to water. I learned at the YMCA for free. We had to take swimming classes as a high school graduation requirement. Everybody did it, regardless of skin color.