Social Status Based on Athleticism in Middle School

I go to a school that is very focused on performance, including in sports. My school has always been a big representative of Soccer and Basketball. If from the start of Middle School or Elementary School if you played one of these sports then you would have a higher chance of being liked or included in more dramatic areas of the social side of Middle School. Such as more known crushes, or just more information about the type of drama that usually goes on with the more "popular kids" in Middle School. They also give you the opportunity to play sports that do not grant you as much of a following with whatever you do in Middle School, such as Tennis, Chess, Track and Field, Cross-Country, and Volleyball. Although some people do still have a high reputation regarding social status while playing these sports, most of the people also play or have in the past played soccer or basketball. This "social system" also affects new kids in Middle School. Because all of the new people who have recently or currently played soccer and basketball tend to be more involved in drama

Dancing at my school

Being a Dancer at My School

I go to a private school in the U.S. and it amazing. At my school, we have a giant campus,
delicious food in the lunchroom, and many, many sports teams. Another thing about my school
is that athletes are often seen as “the best of us” as a student body. This seems great, right?
The only issue is that an athlete is someone who competes in a sport and out of that category,
the sports that are recognized are mostly ball sports. The only non-ball sport acknowledged is
track and field. Do you see the issue? I do. I am a dancer and consider myself an athlete.
As stated in the Merriam Webster Dictionary , an athlete is “a person who is trained or skilled in
exercises, sports, or games requiring physical strength, agility, or stamina.” Nowhere in
this definition does it say, “you must play a ball sport or be in a sport played by the school, to be an an athlete.”

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In physical education, we play ball sports, run, work out, and do one week of salsa
out of the whole year of physical education. The teachers explained that this is
because they needed something to put on the calendar to fill up one week and
one of our teachers can salsa dance. The salsa dance is almost everybody's least
favorite part of PE but its my favorite. This is because it feels like there are
actually skills being taught at or below my skill level.