Posted on 03/25/2011 9:36:54 AM PDT by edcoil
Of all classes taught in pubskewl, gym or physical education is the only one I am aware of that only infrequently drilled to skills/capabilities and never gave even suggested homework assignments. Much of the time was occupied by sports for which any serious competing participant would train, but training wasn’t in the program. (Intramural sports were a different story.) Once in a blue moon they sent the kids on a half mile full speed run around the school yard, for which none were trained.
Yours truly, at that time beanpole skinny in spite of eating as much as I wished, and certainly not shy of play after school (I’d bicycle for miles around) viewed the program as little more than a humiliating curse.
If Barack and Michelle really wanted to volunteer themselves as good cheerleaders for student physical fitness (even though that isn’t in the job description of a president) then Barack would kick the cigarette habit for good, and would find a sports doctor who wasn’t crazy like the rest of his czars to come up with sensible voluntary self paced programs for all levels and stick it up on a DOE web site. And we’d see both Barack and Michelle on TV like the old Jack LaLanne shows (he has enough time to golf while the world burns, so why not this).
Quite often, sins punish themselves and virtues reward themselves through natural consequences.
When I was in 9th grade, I was a size 3, 100 pound girl and couldn’t pass it. Mostly, because I gave up even trying. I remember the 50 yard dash. Start. The other person was far ahead of me and I barely jogged the rest of the way. Pull ups? Ugh! I have never had good upper body strength. Phys. Ed. just taught to loathe myself all the more.
I was perfectly fit as a kid, and I don’t think PE had much to do with it.
As I recall, PE was a lot of standing around. I worked up a sweat once in a while.
What probably kept me fit was after school stuff, like gymnastics, and walking and riding my bike. Dance class. And being young.
I had plenty of access to junk food.
I’d like to see schools - private schools preferably, but public schools until they fade out of existence - have a running program before school, maybe, that all kids could join. Voluntary, with charts and little prizes and perhaps a trophy or letter for your jacket for a few categories.
Some organized games at lunch - no grades.
And some seasonal after school sports that you had to try out for. This is an incentive for kids to improve their skills and condition.
But I would not have a PE “class,” where half the time is spent showering and changing, and most of the rest is watching someone else do something or standing in an outfield waiting to catch a ball.
I always thought Phys. Ed. should teach the sports, then just let the kids play what they wished. Even if it means they just walk around the track talking with their friends. Or, as I loved to do, just shooting hoops. It’s funny. I couldn’t play basketball during class, for anything, but when we had extra time and I had one or two other people just practicing shooting, I did well and had great fun. Either way, it’s moving.
So what! When I was in grade school through high school I was lousy in gym classes and did not pass their fitness tests. I did, however, complete Marine boot camp in early 1970 and passed all of their physical fitness tests throughout my enlistment. I took extreme pleasure in shoving that in the face of my fat-assed PE coach who said that I would never make it. School PE has long been a farce.
Not my baseball players, who also need a 2.5 GPA to play.
If that 2.5 GPA is a high school WEIGHTED requirement then that is just plain sad. I graduated High School in 2008 and had a 4.35 weighted. All I did was sleep and cause trouble. High school is a joke nowadays and anyone who has below a 3.5 weighted/unweighted is not very bright.
IMHO...
That was 2.5 min. I´d say it averages about 3.0. The maturity levels though, are problematical.
Thanks for the reply. It amazes me that I get so few. I wonder if people even read them, or if they agree and just say nothing. I really do not even get any anti-sentiments! It’s like, am I really here?
If passing a physical fitness test was so important, you would think that school officials would make it their business to tell the physical education teachers to train the kids to pass it, wouldn’t you?
This was my experience of PE in high school:
10 minutes faffing about in the changing room
25 minutes of:
1st Quarter-Aerobics
2nd Quarter-Square Dance
3rd Quarter-Sports
4th Quarter-Running
10 minutes faffing about in the changing room
At the end of each quarter we’d be required to attempt a certain number of sit-ups, pull-ups, squat-thrusts, etc, having to do with some sort of presidential fitness program. The only ones who ever succeeded were those getting their fitness training elsewhere, usually extracurricular sports. The rest of us, having no training, would naturally do poorly. At the end of the year, they’d work us nine weeks til we could run a mile in under ten minutes, mostly succeed, and consider the year a job well done.
In other words, they taught PE just like they taught every other subject....
Your summary reflects my experience too.
My guess is that most FReepers know that what you’re saying is true and are indicted by it - and so skip on by. It’s easier to rail against the executioner than to confront the judge who pronounced the sentence.
John Adams wrote: “This Constitution is made for a moral and religious people. It is inadequate for the governing of any other.” And still we blame those who overthrow the Constitution while we ourselves revel in our immorality and irreligiosity.
Much of the blame for the decline and fall of America falls squarely on our shoulders. Yet, rather than admit it and rein in the evil in our own house, we instead point the finger at those very forces which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God are using to bring about our nation’s demise.
Unfortunately, Satan has been successful in weaning the progeny from the righteous, knowing full well the mortal wound the church can suffer in one generation. And he shows little evidence that he refuses his evil grip upon them.
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