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My UO - school athletics
I HATE mandatory athletics in school. I know that it promotes wellness and blah blah blah. And I know this is totally because of my own baggage and insecurity. But I am the least athletic person ever. P.E. was terribly embarrassing for me, because I sucked at every sport. Enter teasing, tears, etc. The exercise was never actually productive, and I am already thin. So I guess I didn't see the point...
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Re: My UO - school athletics
I think it needs to be more noncompetitive in PE. I was the same way, horrible at basketball, dodgeball, etc. (somehow, I managed to play vollleyball ok, but that's it). It was embarrassing to get picked last, be teased over stuff like that.
In high school, we did things like archery, tennis, yoga, and square dancing (yes, square dancing, at an all girls Catholic high school- very wierd). PE was much more enjoyable when it was focused on us getting exercise and it was tailored to things we liked, rather than being about competing against each other. Even when we did soccer, we ran drills and practiced dribbling and kicking, but no actual games.
Wanted to add: we also had an entire 9 weeks session one year when we did tai-bo at every gym class. That was really funny.
Abraham Arthur 2/21/10 // Asher Kendall 11/11/11
I'm am saddened that many schools no longer require it. They should.
I get that you have baggage, but kids do with EVERY subject. Should we not require reading because some kids struggle with it?
This. And thin does not mean healthy.
yeah, thats not the norm. At all. In fact in all my years of teaching (and attending school) I've NEVER heard of a program like that
Thats just stupid and can not be classified as physical education.
I also struggled with PE. I've always been overweight and I felt like I had no value to the PE teacher because of it. The kids who performed well were idolized and no one ever provided instruction on how I could get better, it was just isolated that I wasn't doing things right. Hey, let's all sit around and watch how the fat girl can't climb the rope, finishes the mile last, blah, blah, blah.
That being said, I think you migth be pleased with how some PE programs are improving. In the last 2 schools I've taught the programs have moved to include more nutrition and focusing on beating your personal best. Activities are designed for more privacy, for example, take the mile run. When I was a kid, we all lined up, the teacher said go and we took off. The speedy kids of course finished in around 5 minutes. I was lucky to be done in 13. So for 8 minutes kids watched me trudge around the school.
Now, they set up 2 chairs opposite each other in the gym. Everyone has a partner who sits in one chair and holds a stack of colored cards. Students run for 5 minutes, back and forth taking a colored card each time and dropping it in a bucket on the other chair. At the end of the time, based upon the number and color of the cards, the teacher can estimate a student's level of fitness on endurance running. When they do it again, students are encouraged to beat their personal best. The little kids call it the "mailman" game.
Granted, there are some old school folks who still run the traditional mile but they are making efforts to make it more effective.
They don't have to be public, aqt least not as public as your school did. That is NOT the norm. I'm sorry your school did that.
And as a teacher, unfortunately, a ton of kids failures and sucesses in the classroom are public. Its the nature of the beast.
This exactly. I 100000000000000000000% agree. Too many kids sit around all.day.long - an hour of mandatory p.e. a day is a great thing, in my opinion.
This is so true. Your personal struggles aren't always going to remain private.
I think the worst part of school for me was 7th grade math. I am terrible at math. Like, terrible. When DH found out how bad I was he said, "wow, you ARE bad at math. I always thought you were just saying it to be modest or something." It's ridiculous.
Well, we had weekly quizzes that the person behind us would grade. And then when the teacher called names, the person who had graded your quiz would give your score aloud. It was mortifying.
I'm not and was not "skinny" (not huge, either) and I totally agree - it was absolutely humiliating to go to gym class. They wanted us to do gymnastics and "team sports" and expected us to jog/run miles up hills and what not. I hated that I was always lagging behind the other kids, but I was big chested so it hurt to run (can't find good bras here) and I'm not coordinated at all. I used to get terribly made fun of in gym class and was often pushed down and called names.
Not a good experience at all!
I failed gym in 6th grade. First and only F.
fwiw, I went to a boarding school freshman year of highschool and there was no gym class but it was mandatory to join an athletic team every semester. There were no cuts so it was first come first served. I ended up joining girls ice hockey and LOVED it.