Comments on: P.E. Class: I’ll Take the Physical Challenge

By: Real Education Is Transformative - Reschool Yourself

Real Education Is Transformative - Reschool Yourself — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 23:15:48 +0000

[...] never been much for taking on physical challenges, especially when there was risk involved. Skydiving, mountain climbing, and other extreme sports [...]

By: Melia

Melia — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 19:15:31 +0000

Katie, I would have paid good money to take dance instead of do P.E. Yeah, it turned me off of sports and physical activity until I was a grown-up. I’m just starting to think of myself as athletic, though the very concept of “athlete,” for both kids and adults, is so limiting. I don’t see the need for grading in school, period, and P.E. in particular. It’s especially puzzling that kids get points taken off for not wearing their uniforms of t-shirts and shorts. My feeling is that if they want to jog in jeans, they’ll find out for themselves that it’s pretty uncomfortable. Natural consequences — a good practice in general.

I have never understood why overweight gym teachers are so common. I think that teachers should do whatever they ask their students to — run a mile, do a cartwheel, do the high jump. My overweight fifth-grade PE teacher used a caliper to chart our body fat and raised her eyebrows at mine (and I was thin, just hit puberty early!). I was sooo tempted to tell her to try turning the device on herself, but held my tongue.

Alicia, the Presidential Physical Fitness Award Test is coming up soon — I think it’s a week of being scored on sit-ups, push-ups, running, and so on. SO glad that I don’t have to do it. And I wish I’d been able to get out of P.E. with a doctor’s note about my asthma! I don’t think we got any preferential treatment. I thought Ms. Keller did a great job in high school, too, of encouraging us to find the type of fitness that suited us best and would stay with us through adulthood.

Mr. Speedy Gonzales — oh, are you challenging me to a Mile-Off? Wow, I would have swapped another elective for P.E. in a heartbeat.

By: Mr. Hsu

Mr. Hsu — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 07:30:56 +0000

Oh! And Kudos on the double dare post title by the way. Lovin it!

By: Mr. Hsu

Mr. Hsu — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 07:02:59 +0000

Sit-ups on the blacktop?? Sounds like torture. Ouch!
My fastest mile in middle school was somewhere in the low 7 minute range, which to me felt slow because my best friend was a track star who ran a mile under 6 minutes. I also used to wear shorts under my slacks (the only pants i wore all through middle and high school were Dockers, by choice) on gym days so I wouldn’t have to change out of anything before class. Once I got into high school, however, there was no more PE to be had. It was waived in favor of Spanish and Band electives.

By: Alicia C.

Alicia C. — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 00:42:56 +0000

The one thing I always liked about my school uniform: comfortably wearing my PE shorts underneath my skirt. However, we didn’t have PE shirts so it got kind of gross as we got older and sweated in our white polos. I only experienced the awkwardness of locker rooms in high school. I looked forward to PE most days even though I was not athletic in the least. It meant I got outside and I’ve always liked physical activity. I hated the elementary school’s grading system though. It was totally geared toward the athletic bunch–the sort of system where if you didn’t do at least X number of push-ups or laps in Y minutes you didn’t get even a Satisfactory. I absolutely HATED the Presidential Physical Fitness Award Test which was set the same way. I loved PE in high school because Ms. Keller actually graded based on participation and written tests rather than skill level.

I can’t believe that you guys still had to participate fully in PE with asthma issues! At SV Elem. if you had a note from your parents or doctor you could get out of doing certain things due to asthma.

By: Ide

Ide — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 23:33:51 +0000

Oh my god. Gym class was the bane of my existence in grade school. One of the reasons I was so happy to move onto high school was that I didn’t have to take mainstream gym anymore. (For an extra fee, my high school allowed those of us not on sports teams to take a jazz dance class instead. Whew!) Kudos for going back…I can tell you right now that I would NOT be too thrilled about trying again.

I think gym class is one of the major reasons why so many kids (and adults) don’t enjoy physical activity today. It’s miserable, overly competitive and doesn’t take special needs and talents into consideration (I was an asthma kid, too).

I think awarding letter grades is a reasonable practice in academic subjects, but having how well you throw a ball factor into your GPA is ridiculous. Why even bother? Plus, we only had gym one hour a week when I was in school, which made it virtually impossible to get any real physical or mental benefit from it. I spend grades 4 through 8 trying to get out of gym. I didn’t even know that I was capable of running a mile until a couple years ago.

We also had a series of obese, perpetually crabby gym teachers barking orders at us from the sidelines while they downed candy bars and Cokes, and that certainly didn’t help things. :^)