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Post by gato on Jun 5, 2022 5:38:10 GMT -5
" Decades ago, daily P.E. was the norm. These days, only 4 percent of elementary schools, 7 percent of middle schools and 2 percent of high schools have daily P.E. the entire school year. Twenty-two percent of schools have no P.E. at all."
Because of my dad's job, the family moved a lot: east coast, west coast, mid west, Pacific northwest. So I attended many different elementary, junior and senior high schools. But no matter where I went, one singular albatross hung around my neck: Physical Education or PE. I was terrible at pretty much everything: baseball, basketball, football, gymnastics, wrestling, dodge ball, rope climbing, track, relay races .... you name it. For me, that inescapable hour each day at school was nothing more than an opportunity to be tortured and humiliated. Anything I achieved academically was irrelevant in my peer groups, it was all about "winning" in PE. Didn't matter if you could spell: if you couldn't catch a fly ball for your PE team, you were an outcast.
It wasn't until the military and the LEO academy that physical prowess became essential to me. And I still work out 5-6 days a week. Looking back now at PE, I can see what the school authorities had in mind, getting those sluggish student bodies moving, but maybe the emphasis is different now ... not so much competition as individual improvement.
How was it for you all those years ago?
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Post by Rick Knight on Jun 5, 2022 6:12:08 GMT -5
I'm neither great nor terrible at most sports, so PE was more fun than a math class.
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Post by Peegoo 🏁 on Jun 5, 2022 7:11:17 GMT -5
We had PE in all the schools I attended. I enjoyed it, despite not being the competetive type. When I was in the 2nd grade, we had a few weeks of squaredancing as PE. SQUAREDANCING? Yeah. It was fun because it mixed the girls in with us boys, and The Rest Is History for Peegoo
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krrf
Wholenote
Posts: 376
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Post by krrf on Jun 5, 2022 7:13:32 GMT -5
I loved PE as I was pretty athletic and pretty good at some sports (baseball and basketball). I think for the most part, PE tried to teach kids that fitness was important and the value of getting up and moving, but I can see how with the wrong teacher it can devolve into "lord of the flies" pretty quick. When I see a lot of younger guys these days, they just look "weak" to me and I wonder if it's because they didn't get enough exercise when they were kids!
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Davywhizz
Wholenote
"Still Alive and Well"
Posts: 444
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Post by Davywhizz on Jun 5, 2022 7:37:11 GMT -5
In high school: rugby in the winter and mostly cross-country running in the summer, unless you could persuade a teacher you might be good at cricket. The outdoor stuff was for an afternoon each week. All year round we also had a weekly morning in the gym. PE seemed to attract particularly sadistic teachers. Until age 13, we had an additional bus trip every week to a local swimming pool. My favourite memory of that was there was a food stand outside where we bought hot meat pies for the bus home. I was definitely not a jock: small for my age and very short sighted, wearing glasses from age 7. I grew suddenly from 16 and got my first contact lenses.Only then could I see the rugby ball, and the other guys coming to flatten me.
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Post by gato on Jun 5, 2022 7:38:45 GMT -5
We had PE in all the schools I attended. I enjoyed it, despite not being the competetive type. When I was in the 2nd grade, we had a few weeks of squaredancing as PE. SQUAREDANCING? Yeah. It was fun because it mixed the girls in with us boys, and The Rest Is History for Peegoo Square dancing! I had totally forgotten that little gem which got shoehorned into early PE. (I was terrible at that, too)
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Post by Leftee on Jun 5, 2022 7:38:48 GMT -5
I wasn’t very athletic as a kid and I found PE awkward. OTOH I grew up on a farm. So no shortage of exercise.
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Post by HenryJ on Jun 5, 2022 7:41:33 GMT -5
I wasn't particularly athletically inclined, but I didn't dread PE. Until I had a coach who graded you on your ability to do pushups, situps, and climb a rope. That was the only PE class I dreaded. The coach was the head football coach and was looking to get all the boys in shape so he could possibly have a winning football season.
Actually, it was the first year that three high schools had consolidated into one. Only one of the schools had had football, and the new, larger school was competing in a higher classification. It was like our school was an "expansion team."
It's a shame if not every kid takes PE any more. Research has shown that physical activity is good for the brain as well as the body. And should make you better in algebra, English, etc.
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Post by Rick Knight on Jun 5, 2022 9:27:27 GMT -5
There was still a PE requirement at the university when I started. I think it was 4 semesters, but only recall 2 PE classes. My buddy Shack and I were among the long hairs in a volleyball class, and relegated to a team with others who were rejected by the jock wannabes; so it was amusing that we were the class champions at the end of the semester.
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Post by Rick Knight on Jun 5, 2022 9:43:06 GMT -5
Sorry, double post. I don't know how to delete it.
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Post by gato on Jun 5, 2022 9:58:34 GMT -5
Sorry, double post. I don't know how to delete it. I think that was taught in PE.
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Post by ninworks on Jun 5, 2022 11:19:31 GMT -5
I was always pretty good at sports. I was better at baseball than the others but probably could have done any of them at a pretty high level if I had really applied myself to it. I was always the big and tall kid all through school. I never was skinny or fat but was relatively muscular for no harder than I worked at it. PE was easy for me but I hated cross country running. The PE coach always wanted me to do the long jump on the track team. NOPE! Once I started playing guitar seriously, when I was 13, sports interested me less and less. Once I got to high school it had left my interest completely. I could play my guitar and get just as pretty girls as the football team and I didn't have to work hard while I did it.
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Post by orrk01 on Jun 5, 2022 11:21:29 GMT -5
In grade school, our PE instructor, in local parlance known as a 'gym teacher', was 'buckets' Kowalski. Most of the time, he threw a few balls onto the basketball court and had us play dodgeball. However, once in a while we got to play floor hockey, which I enjoyed much more than dodgeball. PE ended for me after my freshman year in High School. Our last PE class included instruction in tumbling. I enjoyed that quite a bit. My memory of the era is that it was molded by President Kennedy's Council on Physical Fitness. I can still picture the Kennedys tossing the football around in Hyanis Port.
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Post by RufusTeleStrat on Jun 5, 2022 12:52:57 GMT -5
Fun Fact, the majority of PE in school requirements were initially implemented after the Civil war to prepare potential recruits for warfare.
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Post by Taildragger on Jun 5, 2022 13:19:46 GMT -5
P.E. was required in my schools, 1-12 (this was during the early to mid 1960s). I grew up in a rural area so didn't get into team sports too much as there weren't enough kids living nearby to form two teams to play much of anything. We had a ping pong table so I got pretty good at that. Also bicycled a lot to get around until I got my first car. But most of the athletic stuff I did centered around the Pacific Ocean, which was about 1/4 mile from our house: swimming, surfing, skimboarding, body surfing, skateboarding, beach volleyball. So I was mostly doing individual stuff, competing against my "previous best" rather than against some other kid(s).
The few, formal surfing "contests" that were held back in those days were just an excuse to party. Surfing didn't really get seriously organized as a competitive sport with big cash prizes and sponsorships and all til the late 1970s: prior to that, it was mostly about a trophy and bragging rights. A few guys got a free board from a given surfboard maker for surfing on their "competition team" but you certainly couldn't make a living doing it.
Heck, you could barely even make a living building surfboards: it wasn't until they hit on the gimmick of selling it as a "life-style" that surf shops started making decent bank. Walk into any surf shop today and see how much footprint is taken up by surfboards and how much is devoted to T-shirts, board shorts, sweatshirts, wetsuits, bathing suits, hats, designer sunglasses, flip-flops and so on. Usually the boards, themselves, aren't even made on-site. When I started, there'd be a tiny "showroom" stocked with boards and a counter in front and maybe the latest issue of "Surfer" magazine, some tatami mats on the floor and that was it: they didn't even sell wetsuits. The place usually reeked of polyester resin because the boards were being shaped and glassed in the back room.
Our school P.E. coaches from junior high on were hardasses, mostly ex-military. I guess they felt that since our P.E. wasn't as tough as boot camp, we were getting off too easy. They certainly made sure we were never shorted on verbal abuse and humiliation. If you were a surfer but didn't also go out for swimming and water polo, you were pretty much written off as a bum. Most of the P.E. coaches also coached the school teams in one or more sport, so they must've thought of us "P.E." guys as a bunch of culls and losers.
In junior high, misdeeds during the period were punished with "running laps" or paddle tennis racquet "swats" on the ass "in the office" after class (from the tennis coach, who had quite a swing). "Misdeeds" ranged from a filthy gym suit or sneakers (all that had to be laundered once a week), showing up on the field in street shoes, talking back to coach, getting in a fight, hair too long at inspection, shirt not tucked into shorts, black socks instead of sweat socks, boxer shorts instead of jockstrap and so on. By high school, they just said "go to the Dean's office" if you pissed them off: that could result in anything from "a stern talk" to suspension, depending on the offense.
A lot of after school fist fights were just continuations of disputes that had started during P.E..
Our own (mine and the wife's) kids played competitive softball both on school teams and in summer leagues (during the late 1990s-early 2000s). I coached and assistant coached on and off. I think they benefited greatly from the discipline and work ethic instilled thereby.
The wife, grew up in New York, says her P.E. consisted of folk dancing and volleyball.
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Post by hushnel on Jun 5, 2022 13:30:46 GMT -5
Not my favorite thing. I’m more of a teamwork guy than competitor. I wasn’t bad at football though, but I was more interested in music, orchestra and bands, my brother excelled at it, got a full scholarship playing football. I would have taken wood-shop and metal shop every period if I could. Even took printshop, which taught me how to silkscreen and develop film. Tried to take home economics too, but Noooo! I told them I needed to learn how to cook and do all that kind of stuff, but nooo. Years later I used it as an excuse for leaving my shoes where I took them off. Didn’t work with cooking though, all those years playing in groups, trying to make it as a musician, I spent a lot of time working in kitchens. I got really good at it.
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Post by Rick Knight on Jun 5, 2022 13:33:00 GMT -5
he threw a few balls onto the basketball court and had us play dodgeball Dodgeball, perhaps the ultimate Lord of the Flies game?
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BigBadJohn
Wholenote
I Lurk, therefore I am.
Posts: 222
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Post by BigBadJohn on Jun 5, 2022 15:12:51 GMT -5
I was the stereotypical slow fat kid. Hated PE.
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Post by Mfitz804 on Jun 5, 2022 16:01:02 GMT -5
PE was always some large group activity in elementary school, usually kickball, there was one unit of doing calisthenic type exercises, and about her where oui ran around twirling a huge parachute.
Middle school was more organized, rotating through volleyball, basketball, paddleball, and in the spring, softball.
High school depended on your teacher. Nobody was required to participate. You could walk the track, or play football when the weather was nice. Basketball and volleyball indoors if it wasn’t. If you didn’t feel like playing you could sit in the bleachers, if you had the right teacher. All they cared about wa sthat you changed to your gym uniform.
My daughter’s performing arts curriculum eliminates traditional team sport gym in favor of dance class, which she is quite happy about.
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Post by rickyguitar on Jun 5, 2022 17:57:42 GMT -5
Played football, basketball, and baseball every year. Average or above. At 13 I started playing guitar and had a little less interest every year. PE was every year, everybody dammit.
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Post by Laker on Jun 5, 2022 18:54:01 GMT -5
I never really got interested in organized sports as I started playing in bands when I was in 8th grade and felt no connection to my school or the whole “hero-worship” thing that existed with the jocks. By my senior year I was a 17 year old partying quite regularly with 20/30 year old friends and felt no need to be a hero-worshipped jock when I had young adult sweeties hitting on me at gigs.
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Post by K4 on Jun 5, 2022 19:10:51 GMT -5
I spent most of my youth bouncing between farm and city life, Mom lived in city.
I was very athletic and also very strong for my age. Tossing hay bails is not an easy task.
I loved PE and was either a captain or one of the first picked. Ringing the bell at the top of the rope was scary fun, I do wonder what would have happened if anyone had fallen...
I was in school when the presidents physical competition was implemented. I won a trophy and a patch. I was proud of the trophy.
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Post by oldfartbassplayrwalt on Jun 6, 2022 0:14:35 GMT -5
early elementary school was horrible- my folks weren't very cash fluid, and I was warned to take off my glasses before P.E., because we couldn't afford replacements. Ever try to catch a fly ball with 200/20 vision? Dodgeball became a multi-sensory event. First you hear the whoosh of the approaching ball, then you see stars as you feel the pain of the ball ricocheting off your forehead.
gradually I took control and wore my glasses. I found out I was decent, not great at most sports. Even caught four touchdown passes in a game. I guess the guys on the other team weren't wearing their glasses.
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Post by gato on Jun 6, 2022 5:01:45 GMT -5
early elementary school was horrible- my folks weren't very cash fluid, and I was warned to take off my glasses before P.E., because we couldn't afford replacements. Ever try to catch a fly ball with 200/20 vision? Dodgeball became a multi-sensory event. First you hear the whoosh of the approaching ball, then you see stars as you feel the pain of the ball ricocheting off your forehead. gradually I took control and wore my glasses. I found out I was decent, not great at most sports. Even caught four touchdown passes in a game. I guess the guys on the other team weren't wearing their glasses. I caught one pass in all the years of PE class football games. I ran the wrong way and scored a goal for the other side.
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Post by Ragtop on Jun 6, 2022 6:36:41 GMT -5
I was pretty good. Very fast. Played football, basketball, and track every year.
But I didn't have the right attitude. Didn't much care if we won or lost. Just a game. Drove my coaches crazy.
Gave it all up my senior year, didn't go out for anything.
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Post by slacker 🐨 on Jun 6, 2022 6:51:14 GMT -5
I liked what we called "gym class" back in the day. I was always very athletic, but I wasn't competitive because I was always really small for my age. All the way through high school I was always the size of an average kid 2-3 grades younger. I was fast, could throw, catch, etc as well as anyone, but lack of size and strength held me back. I probably would have been excellent in wrestling, but that's a sport that just never interested me.
In grade school every spring we did the president's physical fitness challenge. It involved a number of physical challenges and, if you scored in the 85th percentile or higher, you got a cool patch. It included things like situps, pushups, pullups, 50 yard dash, 600 yard dash, long jump, etc. It dominated gym class for several weeks every spring. I worked my butt off to get that patch and failed every year because of one thing....standing broad jump. I would score in the 90's on everything except that and it kept me just under the 85th percentile year after year. Being really small for my age and having short legs on top of that doomed me. It was really frustrating.
Oh...and I could climb the rope to the ceiling of our gym like a monkey. That never seemed to impress the girls much though....
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Post by HenryJ on Jun 6, 2022 7:25:54 GMT -5
I spent most of my youth bouncing between farm and city life, Mom lived in city. I was very athletic and also very strong for my age. Tossing hay bails is not an easy task. I loved PE and was either a captain or one of the first picked. Ringing the bell at the top of the rope was scary fun, I do wonder what would have happened if anyone had fallen... I was in school when the presidents physical competition was implemented. I won a trophy and a patch. I was proud of the trophy. At my school, there was a guy who climbed to the top and decided to make his way from one section of beam to another. Except he got tired and fell. He survived and was sent to the hospital. I don't think it hurt him too badly. I wasn't in that class when it happened. I think it freaked everybody out. He was rather smallish for his age anyway. As a side note, at the end of the next year, he showed up at church having just married one of the teachers, the lady who taught the school chorus. It wasn't our church, so I wasn't there, but I understand a lot of jaws hit the floor. AFAIK they're still married, so good for them! (I have googled them and hope this isn't considered stalking.) In those sparsely-populated communities such as the one I grew up in, a certain amount of wackiness is the be expected, since there's not all that much to conform to.
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Post by K4 on Jun 6, 2022 14:33:57 GMT -5
Except he got tired and fell. Wow, I think our gym was 3 stories tall, I don't see the 1 inch mat protecting very well. might have been 2 stories, it was a long way to the top. In grade school every spring we did the president's physical fitness challenge. That's the one I won the trophy for.
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Post by Opie on Jun 7, 2022 15:58:38 GMT -5
I played little league as a kid and had a blast. In 1967 I was 12 and played on the all-star team for our little town of Mims, Fl. population in the low hundreds. We went on to win the East Florida title and only lost to Tampa for the state title. Not bad for such a small town. Then I got into music and my interest went there. In high school I had to take a PE class for graduation credits, so me and another long haired ner do well enrolled in a hand ball class. Every jock athlete in school happened to be in that class. I paired off with the hippy dude, and at the end of the six weeks me and my buddy cleaned the floor, first place . We had a big smile on our face that day. The coach not so much seeing as how we beat all his top players. Cue the Rocky music (:
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Post by HenryJ on Jun 8, 2022 10:07:39 GMT -5
Except he got tired and fell. Wow, I think our gym was 3 stories tall, I don't see the 1 inch mat protecting very well. might have been 2 stories, it was a long way to the top. In grade school every spring we did the president's physical fitness challenge. That's the one I won the trophy for. Don't really know how high our ceiling was, but it was the same gym where the HS basketball games were played, and high enough to accommodate to high arcs of basketball shots. In other words, scary high. At the pre-consolidation school, the PE coach once stood at midcourt and grandma'd a basketball over a beam and making the goal, nothing but net. He acted normal about it, like it was a normal thing for him to do. That's where I learned true coolness. Do something really good, don't over-celebrate.
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