Sometimes I think that P.E. class drove me away from physical activity. Actually, I'm pretty positive that gym class was a large factor leading to my general view of people as either "athletic" or "not," myself being "not."
kara [email] said at 9:32 PM 11-28-2005: I'm not being defeatist. I just got back from the gym when I wrote this.
I agree that physical education should be done away with (other than as an elective.)
cecil [email] said at 9:47 PM 11-28-2005: I was forced to pick some sort of sport to join in high school so I picked soccer; I figured I could run around and kick a ball. But then when the season ended all the other soccer guys joined a different sport but I didn't so they routed me to the weight room with the football team. Never felt more like an outsider.
kevin [email] said at 11:08 PM 11-28-2005: PE needs to be tweaked to be more effective, but damn there are way too many obese kids these days. they need more not less exercise. and mom and dad ain't getting through to them if they are even trying.
whatever...exercise and sports and body image is so weird.
i have known people in their 20/30's who wouldn't exercise or work out because it isn't "cool" or whatever. they just get fat and decline. like when you don't see someone for a year or whatever and when you see them they just look way older than they actually are. if that makes sense.
and then today i saw this old dude (prolly late 50s/early 60s) working at this fells point gas station, he was moving tires and boxes around and just looked really healthy and it stood out to me as different. like actually being healthy at his age wasn't normal. he has probably been active his entire life because of his job and he totally didn't seem old as he actually was.
rick [email] said at 11:13 PM 11-28-2005: but damn there are way too many obese kids these days. they need more not less exercise. and mom and dad ain't getting through to them if they are even trying.
The US, if not the fattest nation on Earth, is close to it. It is also one of the few nations (among the industrialized ones anyway) that includes PE as a course of instruction (although many allow sports clubs to use school facilities).
If our system is not working, why keep it all? I strongly suspect that the PE is almost wholly ineffective with regards to long-term fitness and it takes away time from subjects that might actually be useful. This is no specious claim; I think pretty much every segment of the sociopolitical spectrum finds our schools very lacking.
kevin [email] said at 11:29 PM 11-28-2005: good points. i guess i was thinking that if PE could be implemented effectively ( i don't know how exactly), you could establish patterns in kids where they want to be active throughout their life. that being active is being normal.
and if you could establish these behavioral patterns early enough in a positive way they could be very effective. and prolly save us massive dollars in longterm healthcare costs.
rick [email] said at 11:32 PM 11-28-2005: Maybe if the classes were not such filler and actually taught something instead of yet another game of kickball. Besides the sex education/ family/ relationship things, I do not think I learned a single bit of information that had to do with health and wellbeing.
myriam [email] said at 10:27 AM 11-29-2005: Why? I know PE is currenly pretty fucked, but it was kind of different at my school. Why did it make you feel like that?
meredith [email] said at 10:30 AM 11-29-2005: P.E. makes shy/unpopular/ugly kids feel more awkward than they already are. It only encourages the already confident/athletic kids. At least that's how I felt about it.
kevin [email] said at 11:38 AM 11-29-2005: yeah but my whole point was that it needs to be implemented differently, because it isn't working right now.
and it has to work somehow because kids are getting way too fat. and i think we have a better chance of dealing with the physical activity part of the problem, then we do with the diet part of it. the diet part of this is a problem with american culture as a whole. other countries might not have PE classes for their kids, but they also don't have the american diet.
there has to be more for kids to do than playing video games of people playing sports, change it up so that kids have fun and can find what they like to do and will want to do that in PE class.
i think the self-confidence issue can be dealt with if kids find something they like and are comfortable with.
rick [email] said at 12:30 PM 11-29-2005: other countries might not have PE classes for their kids, but they also don't have the american diet.
I have to disagree with this somewhat. A lot of other countries in my opinion eat just as bad as the US. The difference is though, as you point out with US society's odd fixation on diets, physical activity matters more. The US, besides having some rather unhealthy gastronomy, is also very sedentary. Not just in matters of sport but also in everyday life. Most people drive everywhere, fight for the closest parking spot, never take the stairs, and mostly sit around at home.
I wholly agree that children need to go outside and do something besides just staring at electronic images on a screen but, like some other people, I found physical education courses at my schools totally failing in helping me find out about things I might like to do and what I needed to do to keep myself fit and healthy.
milky [email] said at 7:46 PM 11-29-2005: I found out I could run very fast in a straight line. They also taught me that I could gasp get even faster! And lose weight and get in shape at the same time.
andrew [email] said at 11:43 PM 11-28-2005: I was the first white guy ever to make the varsity basketball team at my high school. That stuff was no joke. I loved it. PE class was totally stupid though we just played basketball every day until we tried archery. and then leroy phillbro0k went wild and shot the principals car so they stopped it.
reggie [email] said at 1:03 AM 11-29-2005: My greatest sports memory of all time comes from gym class in my senior year.
For an entire half of a semester, my gym teacher decided to hold a 3 on 3 basketball tournament. Of course I ended up on the team full of the only white guys in the class. But I didn't mind because these guys were my closest friends in this particular class.
Anyway, we were a pretty decent team (I think we finished with .500 winning percentage) who relied on defense and outside shooting to win/stay in games.
Well when the "schedule" worked out so that we faced the best team in the class (they called themselves "The Athletes" and they consisted of one guy who was the starting point guard on our varsity b-ball team, and the other two dudes were on the football team.) Anyway, they had been running roughshod over just about every other team and obviously they were licking their chops when they saw us on the schedule. Luckily, so were we. We knew we weren't gonna win the whole shebang but if we could've been the one team to beat The Athletes then that would've made our tournament.
So we went into the game absolutely fearless and pretty much matched them point for point. My two proudest moments were as follows. The guy who was the varsity point guard was guarding me, why? Because he didn't think he'd have to do any work. So when I got the ball outside the three point line, he mocked me and dared me to shoot it. I looked him in the face, looked up at the basket, took the shot. Nothing but net. I didn't say anything, just stared him down and got back on defense. Which I always prided myself on. I always believed that I could shut just about anyone down. My second fondest memory, in fact, is of my stellar defense on one of the guys on that team. The guy I was defending didn't score a single point while I was guarding him until I came out of the game (we had mandatory subsitutions if there were more than three on a squad.) The entire time I was on him I never even let him get a shot off and knocked just about every pass he received or attempted out of bounds.
So the game went to overtime, which I think was sudden death and like an idiot I volunteered to sit it out thinking we needed our best shooters out there. When really, I should've been in there locking up whomever on defense. So we lost but it doesn't matter. They thought they'd run us out of the gym and we played 'em tougher than anybody else.
cecil [email] said at 4:01 PM 11-29-2005: I remember learning basketball in 3rd grade and I thought I was really good on defense because I'd make football blocks like an offensive lineman on the opposing defenders. Eventually to laughter and "what are you DOING???"
meredith [email] said at 10:21 AM 11-29-2005: Wow. Someone should make a movie out of Reggie's story.
I have to say, that although I'm a pretty active person, I was not only ugly, but a big nerd when I was younger. I grew out of ugly at around 15/16 which made things easier, but still. P.E. was hell. I was generally last picked or second to last. And I actually got jumped once during PE class when I was a freshman and no one did anything except for one girl who was a junior who just came and pulled me away basically. Earning a kick to the head herself.
I think there were a couple of reasons I stayed active.
1. My parents always encouraged us to play outside and run and jump and swim and whatever.
2. I had an active imagination and a fascination with racehorses which lead to me wanting to race everyone and beat them all the time when I was little. Which I am pretty sure had something to do with me trying out for track in Jr. High. Then when I was a sophomore, I was allowed to subsititute regular PE for 7th hour PE, which basically meant the day was over for you at 6th period and you could go to track practice early and get graded for it.
angele [email] said at 5:26 PM 11-29-2005: I went to an all girl school. The athletic vs. gawky thing never existed really. To this day, I remember the first time I ever caught a flying kick-ball. I remember opening my eyes and the shear elation and disbelief that the ball was in my hands. I think I was 8. High school wasn't much different.
kara [email] said at 5:35 PM 11-29-2005: I remember a girl screaming "you big shit!!" and threatening to beat my ass because I ran away from the volleyball instead of hitting it.
shauna [email] said at 7:19 PM 11-29-2005: yes. this is why i don't play anything organized. also, i went to a very small school and was one of only two "freaks," so when it came to team sports, i was roundly and unapologetically mocked and pummelled.
running is nice. i got good at that! beat your own time. yoga, same thing.
