‘Ooh, sorry mum, there’s a quiz at the Cock ‘n’ Womb.’
I think most people refuse to participate because they are fat, lazy, or are mistreated by gym teachers. If you dressed for class (tshirt, shorts or sweatpants, sneakers) and participated, you got an A- at least. Seemed fair.
My high school (I graduated…6 years ago) had something called “gym finals”, a glorious time when you got to opt out of classes and compete against other teams for several days. My freshman year I had actual gym class during “gym finals”, so I watched the teams involved participate. Some teams were comprised solely of jocks, but the teams that went the furthest had 3 elements to them: 1-3 male or female athletes who were at or near the top of their sport (didn’t matter which sport), 2-3 reasonably in shape kids who didn’t do sports or did them recreationally, and 1-2 people who were unathletic but encouraged and praised by the jocks and taught basic skills in the sports (how to block or defend and pass in basketball, how to set in volleyball, etc).
They also had the most fun of anyone. They were competitive and had a “we’re all in this together” attitude.
So, the following year, when teams were chosen at the beginning of gym class (I wasn’t a captain, being that I wasn’t a guy or from a “big” sport like basketball, football, baseball or volleyball) but I was chosen after the captains were because I was one of the aforementioned athletes that was fairly good (but in an unpopular sport). I asked the captain (a girl) if I could have input on who to choose and we chose people with good attitudes, easygoing overall. She seemed intrigued at my suggestions.
Initially when we were losing against a better team she’d yell at people, as most captains did. Morale sunk. But I really wanted to go to the finals so I asked her to teach me how the hell to spike the (volley)ball (I could set and hit it over but couldn’t score per se) and to teach the non-athletes how to simply hit it to keep it in play. Everyone started getting along, cracking jokes, happy they had a role to play. We were quite the crew - the captain was runner-up Homecoming queen, I was the president of SADD, we had a few big drinkers and some people who would go on to barely hack it at community college.
We made it to the finals and lost against the team who won overall in our weakest sport, hockey. It’s one of my fondest memories.
My junior and senior year I opted out of gym with a note from my coach and parents explaining I got 2 hours of physical activity 5-6 days/week. I needed the extra periods to get all the AP classes and extra science classes in.
As with other posters here, I’m not particularly athletically talented, don’t enjoy playing sports, don’t think they’re very important and was bullied in gym class. All that was enough to make me not like it at all. I stopped taking it as soon as possible, and was always much happier with school when gym wasn’t part of the picture.
I was a bookish nerd at school but I still enjoyed aspects of PE - dance (until we could do ballroom) was terrible, and the staff could never decide what to do with us when it rained so we would spend most of the time sitting in the sports hall until a consensus was reached.
My year was pretty enthusiastic when it came to PE, even the wets, weirdos and fatties (I was two out of three). It was just another subject - worrying about real-life applications would be like worrying about how being taught what an oxbow lake was or the chemical test for lithium applied to our future.
There were three girls, however, who would always “forget” their kit. It got to the point where the teachers just wouldn’t bother any more. Two of them were caught stealing food from the school canteen in our last year, so a refusal to participate in PE wasn’t exactly an isolated incident of our best and brightest.
We didn’t have PE per se, but we had to have a certain number of sports participation credits to graduate (small private high school). I think it was a rather large number like 8 credits, which basically meant you had to be a two season athlete throughout high school. You were allowed to substitute a certain number of hours for things like being team manager or scorer, but I believe everyone still had to do some sort of sports at some point.
A lot of the less (or non) athletic kids didn’t like it, of course. I was a nerd, but also (quietly) one of the more athletic kids in school, so it never bothered me.
Well, they will if Argent has his way. I have never met anyone who likes being forced to do stuff. The fact that he wants to take all the fun out of it makes me very confused. What makes him think people will continue to do unfun things when they dont’ have to?
Have you never noticed that the smartest kids actually enjoy learning? That the most athletic enjoy athletics? The people who do the best enjoy what they do.
Not doing exercise of some sort - even walking - was not tolerated. It wasn’t graded either. Good thing too, as I was at very best a grade Z at physical sports. I wish, though, that I’d clued in to learning to be a referee or umpire or linesman or judge or whatever a lot earlier. Or that I could have done Bridge or Chess.
But the point of team sports is little to do with exercise and much to do with learning how to be a team player. I didn’t twig that until well after I left school.
Omg-someone needs a dose of “parenting classes” asap!!
omg-someone needs a dose of “parenting classes” asap!!
I was appalled at this post-but fortunately i beleive in karma and value people not as disgustingly judgemental to children or young adults! Sic!
I was pushed down stairs deliberately twice. Not just change of class everything is crowded, empty hallways and a shove from behind pushed.
I had another girl try to frame me for biting her on the arm hard enough to leave a mark. I was wearing braces and could in no way have ever left the type of marks she had on her arm.In the office of the principal I bit her and left marks with the brace wires clearly shown along with the teeth, demonstrating I could not have made the previous marks.
I had my locker pryed open and vomit poured all over my coat, boots and books. [or maybe they opened it and vomited inside. I don’t care how it got there, just that everything was ruined.]
I detested the 2 years I did public schools, and vowed that if I ever had kids I would do anything to see they did not go to a public school.
I’m aware this is a zombie thread (I missed this thread originally because I was in the midst of finishing my degrees and going blind temporarily, so it’s an interesting first-read for me), and that Argent never really posts here any more, but I did find myself mostly in agreement with the following.
My school’s PE class pretty much consisted of basketball, soccer and football, depending on the day’s weather. The rules of the game were never taught, no attempt was made to teach/emphasize teamwork or sportsmanship. The instructors were there mainly as score-keepers. Every team was created by the two top student-athletes in the class hand-picking who they wanted, usually leaving the same nerdy/scrawny/overweight half of the class on the sidelines every single day. Overall, the “class” involved absolutely no teaching on the part of the teachers, and no learning on the part of the students. Frankly, it just served as practice for the school’s sports teams.
The good thing is that it did leave those of us who couldn’t play well out of the fray, we weren’t bullied, and we didn’t have to deal with being sweaty and smelly the rest of the day. We just dicked around at the sidelines, shooting free throws, burning things with magnifying glasses, reading comics, whatever.
I did grow up equating sports with exercise, thinking I disliked both. School PE made it clear that I was no good at them. It was only as an adult, when I decided to stretch myself and start taking non-required PE classes in university, that I discovered that exercise and physical fitness was fun–or at least bearable–and that some sports were actually fun to play in the right environment. I turned out to be pretty decent at one-on-one basketball and tennis, suck at but enjoy fencing, learned to develop and adjust my own weight-training program. I joined a gym and keep my blood pressure and weight at a healthy level now that I know that I can exercise successfully. If I hadn’t done this of my own accord, if I hadn’t decided to challenge myself in university, I’d still be the sedentary person I was as a kid, teen, and young adult, and I’d probably be suffering from the heart disease that runs in my family.
So, to an extent, I do agree with Argent’s post; physical fitness, and learning about physical fitness should be the primary goal. I do think that sports can and should play a part, when an emphasis is placed on learning, rather than just playing. Some people will prefer to get their exercise through sport, some through working out… so teach how to do so through both methods.
As I recall, when I was younger I never cared for gym class. It was a wide variety of activities that I, as the fat kid, had no particular talent for, a lot like math class, actually. And just like math class, I participated as little as I could get away with. It’s just not as easy to notice when a kid is sitting out math class because everybody is just sitting during math class. Or taking notes, Or trying to take notes but failing to keep up with the teacher. I recall that I did get in trouble for lack of participation once, so I’d spend gym class just pacing the basketball court. Outside of school, I camped, hiked, played in the woods, typical outdoorsy stuff.
Once I got to the high school level, the PE classes became effectively optional because marching band and JROTC were both considered PE credits. I did take cross-country for a semester during my senior year though, which was a lot of fun once I was able to get my endurance up long enough to actually run for 5 miles. Continued to camp and hike, etc. Summer of my junior year, I went on an 85 mile hiking trip in New Mexico. At that time, I was still fat.
That said, about 10 years later, I am fairly active now, but admittedly because it’s a required part of my job. Two times a week I get an hour of gym cardio (pushups, crunches, jumping jacks, burpees, squat thrusts, etc.) and a 3 mile run. Fridays we get to work out on our own, so I usually take it easy and just run a couple of miles. Still fat. What can I say, I enjoy eating.
EDIT: Of course, everybody should work out, because the slow people will get eaten by the zombies first.
I don’t get it either. I mean, I get not liking PE - I hated it. But I hated ALL my classes and it wasn’t an option to just skip a class I didn’t like. School was mandatory, so I went. I don’t understand how kids can just not go to any class; I would have been expelled. I know, because I checked. I hated school.
As far as why I hated PE, gah. I hate team sports. I hate ball sports. I hate taking showers in public. I hate running stairs. If I could have had PE last period (so I didn’t have to go to my next class sweaty and icky), and if I could have just run and hurdled every day, it would have been fine. But no, volleyball, basketball, softball, gymnastics. Ugh.
Upon preview, what Argent Towers said a long time ago.
I wasn’t assertive enough to “not participate” back then. I usually did my pathetic best, but I hated PE. Since the first grade, I’ve had chronic headaches, and heat (as in, being hot enough to sweat) is a nearly perfect trigger. So imagine how difficult and annoying exercise is for normal people. Now add on to that the certain knowledge that IF you exercise, you’ll have a throbbing, pounding headache for the rest of the day. It’s a bit demotivational, as you might imagine.
So I was out of shape and unathletic, and hated all forms of physical stuff. I’ve gotten over it a little bit these days. I exercise as often as I can - enough that I’ve lost 30 pounds or so over the last couple of years. But it’s still a matter of just planning on being in pain all day and doing it anyway because I don’t want to die of a heart attack and leave my kids fatherless.
Well this zombie thread has brought up some unpleasant memories (both from HS and from originaly posting in it). One thing that looking back I don’t really understand (but never questioned at the time) was the grading policy. Or lack there of. Everyboody get’s the same exact grade as long as you put the most minimial amount of effort in (show up to class, change clothes, & stand around miming some motions) and even if you don’t do that you still pass for the year. What was the point? Why would any expect students to care or make an effort under those conditions? :dubious: The only reason the district even had PE was cause the state mandated it; they clearly weren’t interested having it be a real class; the boys’ teachers were there to coach after-school sports, not teach their students, and I just answered my own question, didn’t I?
Yeah, it was weird. I was an A student in most other subjects but knew that I was never going to be an A student in gym, so I just did what I had to do for a C. But then I got a teacher who graded you on how hard you tried and if you had a good attitude about it. Suddenly I had an 80 at the midterm and I actually gave a shit.
My high school gym class was even worse about this–if you showed up and dressed, you got the absolute minimum grade you could have (B+) and still qualify for honor roll and whatnot (because gym WAS counted in your GPA), but if you were a varsity athlete you got an A+.
I actually was salutatorian solely because the valedictorian played basketball and I “only” was in marching band (which didn’t indirectly count towards GPA) 