Vent about gym! ERRRGH!

[tubaman]

Okay, my first class that I ever had in High School was gym with Coach Bailey. It is the toughest gym class ever in my opinion. We do at least 1000 crunches a day, with your legs in the air, bicycles, and other things. We also do things to develope quickness. Its pretty tough but I am used to it now.

If you didn't know, I am going on a cruise in 4 days. Well for anyday you miss in gym you have to write a 3 page, front and back report on a sport. I am going to miss 5 days of school. So I'll have to write 15 pages of reports. So far, I have written three of them, one a day.

Just venting.

*Note* When we planned the cruise we did it based on the school calender of the past 3 or 4 years. Putnam county schools had taken three days off on this week. I think they heard we had planned a cruise and decided not to this year.*

 

[tubaman]

Bump!

 

[disykat]

Bummer - that is a tough gym class!

 

[tubaman]

Bummer - that is a tough gym class!

Luckily, I have the rest of this week, and another week left and its over! Muhahahahahahaha!

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Good for your gym teacher for making you actually work out in class...but a 6 page paper is rediculous IMHO. and x 5.

So if a student is sick with the flu...they will have to write a paper??

 

[DisneyAddict_M]

The main reason I was happy to graduate H.S. was so that I didn't have to take gym class anymore.

 

[momsgoofy]

Ah, Tubaman...this is the reason DS is happy to go back to marching band in high school next year...it counts for his PE class the same as the jocks on the football team. Finally there is some equality in gym class...

I actually had a PE teacher try to flunk me out for "being too active". I was president of the Girls Wrestling Auxillary, Business manager for the school newspaper and yearbook and entertainment chair of the prom...and one day needed to miss PE to finish the layout on the newspaper before deadline...he actually deducted points from my grade for it, but always let the cheerleaders miss to go work on pep assembly stuff...ah, the injustice of it all. I just told him to go ahead and flunk me out cause I hated his stinkin' class anyway. So the guy walks me to study hall (the punishment for flunking out) and decides he better count the number of points I'd lost for the quarter...well, wasn't he surprised when I was still 4 points away from a failing grade so he had to walk me back to the gym and eat crow. I really despised that man...he'd been my PE teacher off and on since kindergarten and never learned how to pronounce my name correctly and was a real jerk...old school gym teacher with polyester shorts/pants and shirts to match.

Ah, well, Tubaman, you should write about some obscure sport like curling. In any case, at least you'll be on the cruise and he/she won't....hehehe!!

 

[barkley]

the only thing that got me through high school was the fact that i managed to get out of gym for the entire 3 years! i learned in 8th grade that i had scoliosis, by the summer between 9th and 10th i was fitted for a milwaki brace (the kind that is worn in "romy and michelle's hgh school reunion") i was encased in aluminum and plastic from my chin to the top of my thighs. my orthopedist had experienced too many bad situations with the school district in requesting accommodations for patients, and his experience with the "adaptive p.e. program" (which he said all of the students he had requested even minor accommodations for had been shuttled into) was that it was basicly "study hall in shorts". he wrote me out for the 3 years and told me to take the class time and use it for a class that would benefit me in the long run.

i hated p.e. in jr. high and i know i would have detested it in high school ( i grew up in a very sports oriented town-if you were not a jock/participating on a sports team your p.e. consisted of simply using the time watching the coaches work with the "real players").

in fact-i went through jr and senior high with a girl whose dad was our state senator for many years, he tried on many occasions to introduce legislation that would allow students who participated in physical activities (not offered by the schools such as dance, martial arts, weight lifting) on a regular basis (same amount of hours per week as mandated by state regulations) to be able to document and receive credit for these activities in leiu of attending p.e. never managed to get anywhere on it.

 

[Lil_Tink]

I have leadership instead of PE this year...

 

[aka-mad4themouse]

Now that's some very convoluted logic at work here. Student is going to miss a daily block of physical activity. So, how can we compensate for it? Hmmmmm...let's make said student sit down few hours and write a report. Yeah, that certain makes up for the missed exercise.

In my DD's HS, if you miss a gym class, you make it up during enhancement (like study hall) or after school. They usually end up in the weight room or running laps. It still stinks but at least they're physically active.

I'm sorry that you've got to write silly reports that will probably find a home in the circular file. Just keep thinking about that cruise and how you'll be smelling sweet island breezes while your gym teacher will be inhaling the aroma of sweaty gym socks.

 

[Cindy B]

I graduated high school almost 20 years ago, and it was the same thing then.

If you missed gym, you wrote a report. It was the same length and style of your assignments. Mine were actually harder, you had to compare and contrast rules of sports.. something like compare some obscure rule of basketball to some obscure rule of football. (This was a pre internet era, so this was all book searching!)

I'll play devils advocate here and speak from the teachers perspective. This is probably what they are thinking..

Ok, gym teachers all know who likes thier class and does well and who tries but doesn't like thier class. (the classic jocks vs non jocks argument).

There are some students (not saying you are one of them) who abuse the gym requirement and not get dressed or make up excuses or what not. Obviously, the teacher needs to feel that some learning needs to go on--hence the reports. Some teachers push the report mandate because the administration makes them, some are just jerks.

Actually your class doesnt sound bad. I'd love to do crunchs vs. the crap I had to do. My teacher was from the 1950's, and we did basic military (yes basic training) calisthenics! I still shudder from that!

 

[aprilgail2]

the only thing that got me through high school was the fact that i managed to get out of gym for the entire 3 years! my orthopedist had experienced too many bad situations with the school district in requesting accommodations for patients, and his experience with the "adaptive p.e. program" (which he said all of the students he had requested even minor accommodations for had been shuttled into) was that it was basicly "study hall in shorts". he wrote me out for the 3 years and told me to take the class time and use it for a class that would benefit me in the long run.

i hated p.e. in jr. high and i know i would have detested it in high school ( i grew up in a very sports oriented town-if you were not a jock/participating on a sports team your p.e. consisted of simply using the time watching the coaches work with the "real players").
.

I HATED gym! I loved playing sports but I hated gym! I actually fell skiing in 8th grade and that fall managed to get me out of gym for all 3 years of high school! Dr wrote me a note and all I had to do was write one 2 page report each quarter on a sport and that was that! I didn't have to sit through gym class and was able to take another course that I picked out!

 

[Sleepy]

My high school was pretty relaxed. As long as you dressed out and acted like you were participating after the exercises, you passed the class. There was no mandatory running, etc. The only vent I had about my gym class was the fact that it was 1st period and they did not allow time for showers.

 

[bicker]

I graduated high school almost 25 years ago, and back then gym, itself, was radically ineffective. It was a time for physically fit students to have fun, and physically unfit students to be made miserable. There was no attention paid to the primary purpose of physical education, namely laying a firm foundation for a lifetime of physical fitness for all. Physical education teachers all earned the slurs bestowed on them, through their incompetence and ineffectiveness.

From what I can see, just from the metrics on childhood obesity, it doesn't seem like the situation has improved at all.

 

[tubaman]

If you missed gym, you wrote a report. It was the same length and style of your assignments. Mine were actually harder, you had to compare and contrast rules of sports.. something like compare some obscure rule of basketball to some obscure rule of football. (This was a pre internet era, so this was all book searching!)

I feel better now.

 

[tubaman]

By the way....

So far I have done three of the five reports on whitewater rafting, paddleball, and freestyle footbag(hackey sack).

 

[bicker]

Argh. And writing reports -- that's just a way for PE to try to legitimize itself as "education" even though that's (1) not what it should be, and (2) not what it needs to be.

If it truly was meant to be academic education, then all students, both those who attend class and those who miss it, would be doing reports.

And I cannot even comprehend how any educator can force themselves to believe that our children today need more to learn about physical activity than they need to actually DO IT.

 

[Virgo10]

Ah, well, Tubaman, you should write about some obscure sport like curling.

How about Candlepin Bowling.

Candlepin Bowling

or maybe Duck Pins?

Duck Pins

That would blow his mind.

Enjoy your cruise.

 

[tubaman]

He gave us a list containg several sports. Like over a hundred. Well now I'm off to write a report about squash.

 

[barkley]

title suggestion for your report-"Squash-beyond jack-o-lanterns and universaly hated side dish"