Didn't you shower after gym-class?

[lobotomyboy63]

Mmkay, it’s time for a “Coach Ted” story…

What year did Title IX come along? Say, 1977? It had something to do with equal opportunities for boys and girls in school. The practical result was that we changed to co-ed gym class. Yes, boys and girls doing the same sports.

Sidenote: we had some really good gym teachers. They coached the sports and worked with us to show us techniques, like how to hit a volleyball so you can control it instead of knucklepunching it and making it goes who knows where. It was a tall order, given the disparity between boys’ and girls’ physical strength, to make activities that allowed us to have close matches etc.

Anyway, Coach Ted was old guard. The man reminded me of Ed Asner when he was “Lou Grant” on the Mary Tyler Moore show. Only on steroids. And with a REALLY bad jet black toupee. You’d no more provoke Coach Ted than you would, say, a mountain lion.

After gym class sometimes, he’d say, “Now when you boys get in those showers, clean up those cracks. You never know what you might have missed after breakfast.”

We all :D:confused::eek: and said, “Sure thing, coach!”

Well one day, he called us together in the locker room before class. "Boys, I wanted to talk to you before we go out there and join the ladies. It has come to my attention that some of these girls really don’t have any intention of showering. They may not have a bar of soap or a towel among them. [murmurs from us boys feigning surprise and dismay] All I can think is that they don’t plan to sweat or get dirty or anything. That doesn’t sound like P.E. to me.

“Now boys, we’re going out to the soccer field today, and it’s muddy out there. If some of these girls should get—oh, I don’t know, splashed by a puddle or bumped and fall in the mud when you’re going for the ball—well, sports are like that. I might be looking somewhere else when it happens, because I only have two eyes.”

Best_gym_class_evah! The girls caught on quickly. About halfway through class, I took out little Sandy Rodriguez. The ball came toward her and I ran at her—she turned to flee but it was like in the cartoons where the characters feet are running but they don’t move. Slip, slip, she lost her balance and…boom! I didn’t actually touch her.

Afterward, all the girls’ clothes stuck to them—they showered but had nothing to dry with. I don’t think they talked to us for about a week.

“Great game out there today, fellas,” said Coach Ted.

25+ years later, I’m still LMAO.

[GorillaMan]

@delphica

I’d be curious to hear from Dopers who are high school teachers – when kids come to your class after gym class, are you wishing they would have used the showers?

I was already thinking this before getting to your post - those people who say they didn’t smell for the rest of the day, you were wrong. I spend a lot of my time in small rooms, working with high school pupils close-up, and it is very noticeable when they’ve had PE (or, for that matter, the lads who play football at lunch). Then they have the nerve to complain that the air conditioning is too cold!

As for the original question: Britain, early 90s, the first couple of years of high school did feature sporadic attempts by a rather old-school teacher to insist on showering, but I think this was the tale end of a long drawn-out battle.

[NinjaChick]

Based on a lot of the posts in this thread I’m imagining that part of why it’s so rare now is because of the legal issues. Requiring a student to get naked in front of a teacher is something that probably would not hold up today; I’m sure a lawyer would snap up that case in a heartbeat.

[tumbleddown]

All girls (Catholic) school, Pennsylvania, freshman and sophomore years, 1985 - 1987: showers were mandatory. Students were scheduled for a double period for gym, so that there’d be enough time to change, go upstairs to the gym (yes, brilliantly, the locker/shower room was on a different level of the school) go through the paces of class, and go back down to shower and change. The showers were separate stalls with a door, an exterior little cubicle with a bench and hook, then the shower which also had a curtain.

The teacher was an evil evil woman who regaled us with disgusting tales of her childbirth, her pregnancy hemorrhoids, her yeast infections and her pap smears in an effort to make us understand that as women we needed to get over the idea of modesty. It was so skewed, in retrospect, I don’t know why any of us listened to her at all. Apparently spreading your legs and showing your privates for medical reasons was the equivalent, in her mind, of being naked in front of your peers twice a week, 36 weeks a year, regardless of your situation (medical issues, menstruation).

Girls who were caught having taken their underpants into the shower to put on so that they’d never be fully naked out in the open changing area (there were stalls, but not nearly enough so most people just had to find a spot where they could drop their gym bag on the floor and change there) were given detention and she would, occasionally, tell a girl that she had to open her towel and prove that she was naked underneath it coming out of the shower.

Co-ed private Christan school, across town, junior and senior years, 1987 - 1989: The showers might have worked, but no one used them. Gym was somewhat ad hoc, with two different teachers who switched back and forth each grading period. We were required to change, but never worked up a sweat. It was all rather a joke. The only time there was any real exercise or activity happening was the 9 weeks in which the older of our teachers, who had a bum knee and couldn’t do anything herself, had individual students choreographing and leading the class in aerobics workouts.

I was a fat girl with one leg shorter than the other, a limp, and consequential bad knees. After I got a D in the second grading period of my freshman year for my inability to bump a volleyball against a wall 15 times without it hitting the floor (ruining my 4.0 GPA) I talked to my doctor and was medically excused from gym for the remainder of my time at the all girls school, and to go along with ad hoc gym at the second school, I had an ad hoc excuse, where I was able to choose whether or not to participate based upon the activities of any given day. It made life much more bearable.

[Eyebrows_0f_Doom]

@lobotomyboy63

The practical result was that we changed to co-ed gym class. Yes, boys and girls doing the same sports.

Wait, is this unusual? My gym classes were co-ed. The boys & girls were usually together except for football and occasional other sports. But things like baseball, volleyball, dodgeball, badminton, basketball, etc. were co-ed.

[Sonnenstrahl]

@drastic_quench

But PE is very likely the only physical education most students will ever have. Fast food, inactivity, and obesity are bad enough right now, how much worse would it be if a middle-aged overweight individual wanted to begin to get fit but knew nothing about target and resting heart rates, burning calories, proper and common weight training techniques, healthy/sustainable life-long diets, running routines, etc. et al.?

Yet another at this being what gym teachers do. To be honest, I am still amazed that all of mine had “kinesiology” degrees - if they had any theoretical knowledge, they were great at disguising it. Then again, I took a general education biology class in first year university that turned out to be required for the BA kinesiology students, and, well, maybe it’s not so surprising. Easiest A+ I ever earned, and the class average was a C.

(Not putting down the science students; it was also offered as a BSc degree at my university, and I have no doubt that they learned real science. It was, however, common knowledge that the BSc students were trying to get into physiotherapy school, and the BA students into teacher’s college.)

All that said, I still use the stretches I learned in gym class. That might be offset by the fact that the reason I exercise only on my own, and have never taken another class to learn better techniques, is that I’m still traumatized by the thought of a teacher making me stand at one end of the gym and serve a volleyball over and over again, while it goes nowhere near the net, while the rest of the class stands on and giggles.

(And why is making kids stand around and watch other students perfect stupid skills considered exercise? Maybe that’s the reason people here say they didn’t break a sweat.)

[MaddyStrut]

@winterhawk11

Class of '82, female, California.

We had gang showers in junior high and they were required, but everybody held their towel up to themselves right inside the shower and kept it up. The teacher didn’t complain about it. Yes, that meant we all came out with sodden towels, but…yeah. We just picked up a new towel on the way out.

In high school it wasn’t required. I don’t remember if anyone did it–I certainly didn’t.

We did the towel thing too!

Class of '84, female, Indiana. No showers until middle school (7th grade) and lasting through freshman year of high school. And, as mentioned, we had towels wrapped around ourselves in the shower. Woe to the girl who didn’t bring her towel into the shower. She’d get homophobic cat calls of “lesbo.” :rolleyes:

And count me as one of those who probably got more exercise running from class to class than in PE. Most of PE was spent standing around waiting for whatever activity they had, usually basketball, softball, or dodgeball. We didn’t learn anything about fitness in PE! I think there was a bit of fitness covered in 7th grade Health Class, but we also had modules like “good grooming” and “dress sense”. So we probably didn’t cover fitness for very long.

[Freudian_Slit]

@drastic_quench

I will concede that there are some sub-standard/ kickball-every-day PE teachers in the system. I’ve had a few myself. But PE is very likely the only physical education most students will ever have. Fast food, inactivity, and obesity are bad enough right now, how much worse would it be if a middle-aged overweight individual wanted to begin to get fit but knew nothing about target and resting heart rates, burning calories, proper and common weight training techniques, healthy/sustainable life-long diets, running routines, etc. et al.?

Do you really need PE to learn those things? When I decided I wanted to be more physically active, I started running and I don’t think I really needed anyone to tell me how. It was pretty intuitive. I wasn’t trying to lose weight so the calorie thing really didn’t apply to me, but I’d basically just run in small amounts until I was able to do an entire lap and then eventually more than one lap. And I figured out on my own, based on listening to my body, what was too much, when to take a break or day off, and so on.

[drastic_quench]

@Freudian_Slit

Do you really need PE to learn those things? When I decided I wanted to be more physically active, I started running and I don’t think I really needed anyone to tell me how. It was pretty intuitive. I wasn’t trying to lose weight so the calorie thing really didn’t apply to me, but I’d basically just run in small amounts until I was able to do an entire lap and then eventually more than one lap. And I figured out on my own, based on listening to my body, what was too much, when to take a break or day off, and so on.

Running by itself is plainly the most intuitive form of exercise, but knowing about running intervals or stepped workout certainly couldn’t hurt. Everything else I listed off is extremely helpful. You can have a much more efficient workout when you can gauge your pulse from a ten or six second check with some basic math. Weight rooms - especially free weights - are quite intimidating when you’ve never had any instruction. And who doesn’t need to know about health.

Unfortunately, our little sampling in this thread shows that many folks had sub-standard physical education, whether it stems from attending school in the dark ages of PE, poor teachers (even in the modern era), or some sort of Professor Frink-esque-intellectual-bias towards physical exertion.

Did anyone ever take a physical education classroom course in college? Mine was even more science-based and informative. I’m not a PE teacher or one-time phys-ed major, by the way.

[elfkin477]

@Eyebrows_0f_Doom

Wait, is this unusual? My gym classes were co-ed. The boys & girls were usually together except for football and occasional other sports. But things like baseball, volleyball, dodgeball, badminton, basketball, etc. were co-ed.

It seem unusual to me. Not for younger grades, but by high school though we played the same sports, boys and girls were assigned different sides of the gym/field for everything but volleyball, softball, and the dreaded square-dancing unit. Considering how rough and overzealous some of the boys were during volleyball, I can see why they thought it was necessary when we played flag football, soccer, basketball and floor hockey etc.

[lobotomyboy63]

@Eyebrows_0f_Doom

Wait, is this unusual? My gym classes were co-ed. The boys & girls were usually together except for football and occasional other sports. But things like baseball, volleyball, dodgeball, badminton, basketball, etc. were co-ed.

Title IX

My brother, class of 1976, had gym with the guys…no girls, unless for the dreaded square dancing maybe. Five years later, I had coed.

We even played football together—flag football, that is.

[Lamia]

@Eyebrows_0f_Doom

Wait, is this unusual? My gym classes were co-ed. The boys & girls were usually together except for football and occasional other sports. But things like baseball, volleyball, dodgeball, badminton, basketball, etc. were co-ed.

I think it depends on where you go to school. I lived in places where all gym classes were single sex, and in places where they were all co-ed. This was all well after Title IX.

@drastic_quench

Unfortunately, our little sampling in this thread shows that many folks had sub-standard physical education, whether it stems from attending school in the dark ages of PE, poor teachers (even in the modern era), or some sort of Professor Frink-esque-intellectual-bias towards physical exertion.

I think our little sampling reflects quite standard physical education. The “decent” classes you’ve described are the exception rather than the rule.

I do know there are some better gym classes. After I transferred high schools I was lucky enough to have a nice gym teacher who actually taught us how to play different games rather than expecting us to know already and judging us based on how good we were at winning. It was also a small and very laid-back school where people were not too hung up on sports or being competitive. So we could have a pretty good time just playing volleyball, etc., without the boredom or ritual humiliation that usually accompanies gym classes. I can’t say I learned much about nutrition or general fitness, but our teacher kept us reasonably active for about 45 minutes a day and I did learn how to use some weight lifting equipment.

I don’t think I’ve ever even HEARD of another school that had gym classes even as good as that, though.

*Did anyone ever take a physical education classroom course in college? Mine was even more science-based and informative. I’m not a PE teacher or one-time phys-ed major, by the way.

*I fulfilled my PE requirements by taking two semesters of Fitness Walking. We walked. That’s really all there was to it.

[Jenaroph]

@BetsQ

How is it that no one has mentioned the hair issue??? I went to high school in the midwest in the late 80s - the era of big hair.

Looka me! I’m invisible!

[Hello_Again]

@drastic_quench

Did anyone ever take a physical education classroom course in college? Mine was even more science-based and informative.

My graduating class (97) was the last in my college to have 2 required credits of PE (you could still take up to 4 for credit, but it became optional). You could do all kinds of things, and most people regarded it as a fun way to knock off 2 credits. The repelling course was actually hard to get into (with the grand finale being the Australian Repel (head first) off the football stadium). I took horse back riding, there was windsurfing, bowling, sailing, winter camping, all kinds of things. Also, anyone in a team sport (including most reasonably organized club sports) could get their PE credit that way.

[BetsQ]

@drastic_quench

Unfortunately, our little sampling in this thread shows that many folks had sub-standard physical education, whether it stems from attending school in the dark ages of PE, poor teachers (even in the modern era), or some sort of Professor Frink-esque-intellectual-bias towards physical exertion.

I hated gym class with a passion, but at the same time I was a cheerleader, gymnast, and diver during high school. The only times during those four years that I wasn’t practicing 20 hrs/wk at some sort of sport were when I was injured. The gym class I remember most clearly involved practicing hitting golf balls off a tee into a net (disaster - couldn’t hit that ball for anything), playing indoor frisbee (disaster - I got a bruise in the middle of my forehead where I was hit with a frisbee), and playing tennis, which was only tolerable because I used Lamia’s strategy of ‘accidentally’ hitting the tennis ball way out onto the soccer field. Do that a couple of times and if you walked really slowly, you’d fill the whole class! Oh, and all of my gym classes were co-ed.

[BetsQ]

@Jenaroph

Looka me! I’m invisible!

:o Sorry! Those yearbook pictures are amazing, aren’t they? I was looking through my senior yearbook recently and can’t believe that hair like that ever really existed.

[alphaboi867]

@Eyebrows_0f_Doom

Wait, is this unusual? My gym classes were co-ed. The boys & girls were usually together except for football and occasional other sports. But things like baseball, volleyball, dodgeball, badminton, basketball, etc. were co-ed.

On paper our gym classes were single-sex, but in practice they were usually coed. After warm-ups the boys’ teacher and the girls’ teacher would usually run seperate activities with most of the boys picking him and most of the girls going with her. I always went with the girls teacher. At least she was nice and would actually explain things. None of the male teachers had any clue how to deal with a boy who wasn’t into sports. Often they’d say crap like “You’re ___teen yrs old gentlemen; I shouldn’t have to teach you how to play basketball/baseball/etc.” or “You should know this already, you’re not in grade school”.

We never learned anything resembling what drastic_quench mentioned. Gym normally consisted of playing games or those fitness tests. Sometimes when the teachers couldn’t think of anything else we’d be allowed to just use the exercise machines or lift weights (the only activity I ever actually liked), but that was rare because we weren’t “learning anything”.
PS It was a clocktower that my district built instead of a pool. :o

[Vox_Imperatoris]

@alphaboi867

Often they’d say crap like “You’re ___teen yrs old gentlemen; I shouldn’t have to teach you how to play basketball/baseball/etc.” or “You should know this already, you’re not in grade school”.

I hate this.

Valete,
Vox Imperatoris

[Lamia]

@alphaboi867

I always went with the girls teacher. At least she was nice and would actually explain things. None of the male teachers had any clue how to deal with a boy who wasn’t into sports. Often they’d say crap like “You’re ___teen yrs old gentlemen; I shouldn’t have to teach you how to play basketball/baseball/etc.” or “You should know this already, you’re not in grade school”.

This may be the absolute stupidest thing about how gym classes are usually conducted. This happens to girls too. Somehow I was magically supposed to know how to play tennis, softball, basketball, etc., without ever having been taught.

What I actually learned was the fine art of staying out of the way and not attracting attention to myself.

[panache45]

@NinjaChick

Based on a lot of the posts in this thread I’m imagining that part of why it’s so rare now is because of the legal issues. Requiring a student to get naked in front of a teacher is something that probably would not hold up today; I’m sure a lawyer would snap up that case in a heartbeat.

A lawyer could have made a career from my high school. Not only were showers mandatory, but there was an internal *window *in the shower, so one of the teachers could sit there and watch us showering (I don’t know how they kept the glass from steaming up). Another teacher handed us a towel when we got out, which we had to turn in before leaving.

And not only did the boys have to swim naked . . . but if you had a doctor’s note to get out of swimming, you still had to strip, and walk around the pool naked for the entire period.

I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if some of the P.E. teachers had been pedophiles . . . or at least big ol’ closet cases.