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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Competitive sport in primary school?
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Sports has become only winning, with the participation and health benefits sidelined. Most people take themselves out of the competition as soon as they can.
It is a truism that the really cool sport dudes in school will become fat, bald and will marry ugly women who were the intimidatingly attractive sport gals in school by the time of the 25th school reunion. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Why are we taking seriously the complaints of those who admit that they simply hate sport?
As one of them, my point, in the OP, was that the lessons LED TO ME hating it. In my 30s, i loved it, because I chose to do it.
To develop my point, I think compulsory, competitive sport will lead to LESS people being active in sport in later life - the exact opposite of Cameron's intention.
As for the comparison with science, it is the job of the teacher to make lessons interesting. Going back to sport, teachers have made it interesting and that will be taken away from them if they have to follow the diktat of a government which claimed that it was going to free up prescription in the curriculum but which is, in fact, doing the opposite.
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Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Caissa:
Our youngest son competes competitively in cross-country running at the elementary level.
Cross-country was my favourite in 2ndary school because the teachers never checked us - I tucked a book and a packet of cigarettes into my shorts, ran slowly to the little park nearby and read and smoked for an hour, then ran slowly back to the school slightly late.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
quote:
Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
If you don't understand science, you will not be able to make sense of the world.
If you don't know how to maintain a basic level of physical fitness you'll have a very poor quality of life.
Lots of people don't take anywhere near the amount of exercise that they think they do because they have no concept of what it looks and feels like to truly exert themselves physically.
Agreed. Which I think goes to the point-- we've had physical education in our curricula for generations, yet it seems we're growing less fit, not more. The graduates of these PE programs may be graduating with an ability to discuss sports over a beer down at the pub, but they're not graduating with the skills needed to maintain their own bodies in a healthy level of fitness. Which, as has been said already, suggests the problem isn't with the inclusion of PE per se, but with the way we are teaching it. Again, the heavy emphasis on competitive team sports tends to leave out all but a few star athletes, and doesn't translate well into adult life with the rare exception, again, of star athletes headed for a professional career. An emphasis on individual fitness and the sorts of activities that blend well with adult working life-- swimming, biking, hiking, running, walking-- might produce better long-term results.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Caissa:
Our youngest son competes competitively in cross-country running at the elementary level.
Cross-country was my favourite in 2ndary school because the teachers never checked us - I tucked a book and a packet of cigarettes into my shorts, ran slowly to the little park nearby and read and smoked for an hour, then ran slowly back to the school slightly late.
Didn't work for me. At two of the schools I attended they bussed us to the start and we had to run, more or less, back to school. It looked like Napoleon's retreat from Moscow.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
Yes, but we don't educate people in order that they can have something to talk about down the pub, but in order that they can have the tools to enable them to talk about whatever they choose to talk about, down the pub or anywhere else. Are you seriously suggesting that if school sports were stopped tomorrow, then the next generation wouldn't be able to talk about Saturday's game with their mates, should that be their thing?
Don't put words into my mouth. The only thing I'm arguing against is the attitude from some people that because they don't like sport, nobody should do it in school. We wouldn't accept that argument for any other subject, so why should we for sport?
quote:
What's would be wrong with treating sport as an elective, in the same way as music and drama are electives.
What's wrong with treating music and drama as compulsory subjects as well? That's the road I'd rather go down.
quote:
...the ones like Eliab who can't stand music don't have to endure it, and the ones like me who loathe sport don't have to stand in the middle of a muddy field working out the best escape path should, by any mischance, the ball head in their direction.
As far as not standing music goes, I'd be amazed if you could find me a single child or teenager who doesn't like it at all. More likely is they don't like the specific styles of music being taught - as was the case with me. I'd have loved to learn guitar when I was that age, but at my school it was orchestral instruments or nothing. Everyone has some kind of music they like, it's just a case of being able to teach them to play it rather than just listen.
Similarly, I reckon that there's a sport for everyone, if they only get the chance to find which one it is. I hated rugby at school (I was too damn skinny for it back then), but discovered a certain aptitude for and enjoyment of cricket and hockey. The school also offered basketball, netball, athletics (both track and field), cross country, swimming and tennis for those who were so inclined.
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You are partially right in saying that it is possible to live a fulfilled life without books, at least in theory. But only if you are satisfied with such a life. If you are not so satisfied, then, for you, it is impossible. I suppose that the same might be true of a sports fan wrt sport as well.
Naturally.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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sebby
Shipmate
# 15147
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I seriously doubt that there are that many schools more than an hour's travel from any other school.
The public school solution was to have the kids in on a Saturday morning. (With the teachers who did not teach on the Wednesday afternoon.)
Er..'Kids' in Public Schools? Usually, certainly in a past age, they were never patronised in that way. Beaten and bullied maybe, patronised in goat language, never.
And the Masters tended/tend to be resident. There are evening duties, tutorilas, societies to run until about 11.00pm.
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sebhyatt
Posts: 1340 | From: yorks | Registered: Sep 2009
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sebby:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I seriously doubt that there are that many schools more than an hour's travel from any other school.
The public school solution was to have the kids in on a Saturday morning. (With the teachers who did not teach on the Wednesday afternoon.)
Er..'Kids' in Public Schools? Usually, certainly in a past age, they were never patronised in that way. Beaten and bullied maybe, patronised in goat language, never.
And the Masters tended/tend to be resident. There are evening duties, tutorilas, societies to run until about 11.00pm.
Weren't our Great Schools wonderful! So long as you used the right language, behaviour that would disqualify adults from CRB clearance was tolerated, even encouraged.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
If they would offer kids a diversity of things to do it is far more likely they would find something they take to. Which perhaps could be done by copying one thing from the public school system, which is the tradition of not teaching academic subjects on Wednesday afternoon so everyone is free for sport (and potentially inter-school competition) at the same time.
This then means schools could reach a critical mass of students if they pooled across schools, to do some minority and sports and physical activities. (Don't see why you can't offer fencing and tango as physical activity options after all.)
In my ideal world, you would have two to three phys ed lessons a week
Most secondary schools already do 3 PE lessons per week.
As for the Wednesday afternoon idea, this was mooted under a previous Tory government. It failed because of two reasons:
1) there isn't enough gym and outdoor space for the whole school to be doing it at the same time (even on sports days, most space is given up to passive spectators, not people moving around).
2) every member of the teaching staff would have to teach PE - I would never have become a teacher if this had been one of the requirements, nor would most of my colleagues.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
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Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
I did my PGCE in a specialist PE college (because the RE bloke at the uni retired so all of us were transferred to it).
I was very pleasantly surprised to discover how enlightened the students were - they had lesson plans and individual learning goals etc. They were deeply committed to getting kids to enjoy their subject and were nothing like the mindless thugs who attempted to teach me PE.
If this level of dedication is still there (and it certainly was in the last comp. in which I taught), then these dedicated staff won't take kindly to being told what to do by a bunch of tory toffs who will never have to control bottom set year nine on a wet Friday afternoon.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
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Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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sebby
Shipmate
# 15147
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Posted
KIDS! Again!
You were trained to teach goats?
Can we stop patronising young people? Pupils, students, boys, girls, or at the lower end of the age range 'children' even.
'Kids' Vomit vomit vomit
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sebhyatt
Posts: 1340 | From: yorks | Registered: Sep 2009
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sebby:
You were trained to teach goats?
If you had learnt to use a dictionary when you were at school, you would know that many words have more than one meaning.
In this case, the default meaning of "kids" is "children". That's what it means 99% of the time that people say it. That it has some other, more specialist, meaning is quite interesting, but doesn't change the primary meaning one bit. It's a perfectly ordinary, everyday English word, with no insulting or patronising connotations to almost anyone, and the fact that you don't like it is your problem, not ours.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sebby:
KIDS! Again!
You were trained to teach goats?
Can we stop patronising young people? Pupils, students, boys, girls, or at the lower end of the age range 'children' even.
'Kids' Vomit vomit vomit
Vomit all you like. It's common English usage.
Bairns or weans is also acceptable.
(xposted with Eliab)
[ 14. August 2012, 16:37: Message edited by: Doc Tor ]
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
If I can tolerate the use of 'overly' (which means nothing at all, AFAICT), I'm sure sebby can cope with 'kids'.
Does he have an opinion about the use of 'gay' to describe homosexuals?
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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sebby
Shipmate
# 15147
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Posted
Bollocks. It is common, certainly in both senses, and beloved of many former teacher training colleges, or some of the stodge within them.
It also resonates with an assumed preceptorial superiority to their students, hardly appropriate were the intelligence of teacher and pupil in many such cases to be measured.
The more contemporary use of 'student' is to be welcomed.
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sebhyatt
Posts: 1340 | From: yorks | Registered: Sep 2009
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sebby
Shipmate
# 15147
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Posted
No problem with 'gay' or 'Gay' even.
Don't like use of 'kids' for children - even less when they are 'young people' and not really children - or the use 'wench' for women. Mercifully I haven't heard the latter since seeing an historical fictional film years ago.
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sebhyatt
Posts: 1340 | From: yorks | Registered: Sep 2009
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sebby
Shipmate
# 15147
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:
Originally posted by sebby:
You were trained to teach goats?
If you had learnt to use a dictionary when you were at school, you would know that many words have more than one meaning.
It's a perfectly ordinary, everyday English word, with no insulting or patronising connotations to almost anyone, and the fact that you don't like it is your problem, not ours.
Haha talking of patronising - I did indeed, including Latin-English; English-Latin ones in schools where to use the word 'kid' with regard to pupils would have been greeted either with laughter or incredulity.
You use 'ours'. I think you mean 'mine'.
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sebhyatt
Posts: 1340 | From: yorks | Registered: Sep 2009
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Sighthound
Shipmate
# 15185
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Posted
All I will say is that when I left school at 18, I danced down the road, knowing that unless I chose to join the armed forces, no one would ever be able to make me run about on a muddy field or enter a gymnasium ever again.
Compulsory sport - at least in the way it was delivered in my day - is counter productive. It makes a substantial minority *hate* sport. (I wasn't keen on doing music either, but at least I wasn't forced to do it through the whole of my school career.)
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Supporter of Tia Greyhound and Lurcher Rescue.http://tiagreyhounds.org/
Posts: 168 | From: England | Registered: Sep 2009
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sebby
Shipmate
# 15147
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Posted
I also agree with that. I loathed it. However, I did join the Armed Forces and then found I was quite good at the phys; but the PTIs were helpful and things were - believe it or not! - not as competitive as at school.
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sebhyatt
Posts: 1340 | From: yorks | Registered: Sep 2009
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saysay
Ship's Praying Mantis
# 6645
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Which I think goes to the point-- we've had physical education in our curricula for generations, yet it seems we're growing less fit, not more. The graduates of these PE programs may be graduating with an ability to discuss sports over a beer down at the pub, but they're not graduating with the skills needed to maintain their own bodies in a healthy level of fitness.
What planet do you live on? In several states on the east coast they've eliminated PE (much less recess and health and field days) because people hated it and it's not one of the things the federal government tests students on (requiring schools to show progress in return for funding).
And they wonder why so many students have behavior problems and/or need to be on drugs to make it through the school day.
quote:
Originally posted by sebby:
Bollocks. It is common, certainly in both senses, and beloved of many former teacher training colleges, or some of the stodge within them.
It also resonates with an assumed preceptorial superiority to their students, hardly appropriate were the intelligence of teacher and pupil in many such cases to be measured.
The more contemporary use of 'student' is to be welcomed.
All right, someone please tell me that this thread is a joke.
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"It's been a long day without you, my friend
I'll tell you all about it when I see you again"
"'Oh sweet baby purple Jesus' - that's a direct quote from a 9 year old - shoutout to purple Jesus."
Posts: 2943 | From: The Wire | Registered: May 2004
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sebby:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I seriously doubt that there are that many schools more than an hour's travel from any other school.
The public school solution was to have the kids in on a Saturday morning. (With the teachers who did not teach on the Wednesday afternoon.)
Er..'Kids' in Public Schools? Usually, certainly in a past age, they were never patronised in that way. Beaten and bullied maybe, patronised in goat language, never.
And the Masters tended/tend to be resident. There are evening duties, tutorilas, societies to run until about 11.00pm.
I went to public school, possibly more recently than you.
Beaten and bullied maybe, patronised in goat language, never.
I am bemused that you seem to see the former as preferable to the latter. And of course, being residential child care, boarding schools attracted paedophiles like magnets - famously Archbishop Fisher is widely thought to have thrashed his boys for a reason other than the development of their character.
I think your nostalgia is deeply selective.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
As for the Wednesday afternoon idea, this was mooted under a previous Tory government. It failed because of two reasons:
1) there isn't enough gym and outdoor space for the whole school to be doing it at the same time (even on sports days, most space is given up to passive spectators, not people moving around).
Surely that depends what you doing, and to what extent you are pooling resources with other schools and/or organisations. quote:
Originally posted by leo:
2) every member of the teaching staff would have to teach PE - I would never have become a teacher if this had been one of the requirements, nor would most of my colleagues.
Or you need to invest in some more PE teachers, or alternatively buy in some coaching/club time.
[ 14. August 2012, 18:00: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
In some parts of the world, there are no goats, and "kids" refers always to children. Around here most would call baby goats, baby goats. Probably we're into a regionalism with Sebby's comments?
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
As for the Wednesday afternoon idea, this was mooted under a previous Tory government. It failed because of two reasons:
1) there isn't enough gym and outdoor space for the whole school to be doing it at the same time (even on sports days, most space is given up to passive spectators, not people moving around).
Surely that depends what you doing, and to what extent you are pooling resources with other schools and/or organisations. quote:
Originally posted by leo:
2) every member of the teaching staff would have to teach PE - I would never have become a teacher if this had been one of the requirements, nor would most of my colleagues.
Or you need to invest in some more PE teachers, or alternatively buy in some coaching/club time.
I doubt there is going to be money forthcoming to employ more PE teachers, nor the PE teachers to employ for 1 afternoon a week.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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sebby
Shipmate
# 15147
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
quote:
Originally posted by sebby:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I seriously doubt that there are that many schools more than an hour's travel from any other school.
The public school solution was to have the kids in on a Saturday morning. (With the teachers who did not teach on the Wednesday afternoon.)
Er..'Kids' in Public Schools? Usually, certainly in a past age, they were never patronised in that way. Beaten and bullied maybe, patronised in goat language, never.
And the Masters tended/tend to be resident. There are evening duties, tutorilas, societies to run until about 11.00pm.
I went to public school, possibly more recently than you.
Beaten and bullied maybe, patronised in goat language, never.
I am bemused that you seem to see the former as preferable to the latter. And of course, being residential child care, boarding schools attracted paedophiles like magnets - famously Archbishop Fisher is widely thought to have thrashed his boys for a reason other than the development of their character.
I think your nostalgia is deeply selective.
And your information is derivative and your teminology inaccurate.
If you are taking your information from the late Mr Dahl about his time at Repton, then he later retracted. He got the name of the head master wrong, and the incident in his autobiography, itself a little bit of creative writing, was based on a story he must have heard of something before he actually arrived there, the veracity of which we are not in a postion to check.
The story caused great offence to the Fishers, with whom he turned many years after he had left school after his marriage had broken up. They could not understand the nastiness and vitriol, or selective memory - which works both ways, of course.
And Archbishop Fisher never taught in a school with pre-pubescent pupils.
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sebhyatt
Posts: 1340 | From: yorks | Registered: Sep 2009
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saysay
Ship's Praying Mantis
# 6645
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
I doubt there is going to be money forthcoming to employ more PE teachers, nor the PE teachers to employ for 1 afternoon a week.
Are kids in the UK that different from kids in the US that you can't simply tell them to organize themselves into a kickball, baseball, or whatever else team?
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"It's been a long day without you, my friend
I'll tell you all about it when I see you again"
"'Oh sweet baby purple Jesus' - that's a direct quote from a 9 year old - shoutout to purple Jesus."
Posts: 2943 | From: The Wire | Registered: May 2004
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Inger
Shipmate
# 15285
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sebby:
KIDS! Again!
You were trained to teach goats?
Can we stop patronising young people? Pupils, students, boys, girls, or at the lower end of the age range 'children' even.
'Kids' Vomit vomit vomit
'Kid' has been used in the English language in the sense 'child' for over 400 years. The first attested use in the OED is 1599.
Posts: 332 | From: Newcastle, UK | Registered: Nov 2009
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
Sebby is getting a bit over-aerated over this issue.
However he (she? but I doubt) is the last person I would expect to commend political correctness, but there seems to me to be good reason to do so here.
If I was still a teenager I would sink through the floor to be called a "kid". For primary school kids, it's probably OK-ish, but I wonder if the children themselves would like it.
I don't have any children myself, but next time I meet an articulate under 11, I'll ask her.
The point about our blessed Lord calling the children to him, was that he treated them as persons in their own right, rather than trophies of their parents.
[ 14. August 2012, 21:12: Message edited by: venbede ]
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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sebby
Shipmate
# 15147
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Posted
You have`expressed my own point rather better than I did.
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sebhyatt
Posts: 1340 | From: yorks | Registered: Sep 2009
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sebby
Shipmate
# 15147
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Inger:
quote:
Originally posted by sebby:
KIDS! Again!
You were trained to teach goats?
Can we stop patronising young people? Pupils, students, boys, girls, or at the lower end of the age range 'children' even.
'Kids' Vomit vomit vomit
'Kid' has been used in the English language in the sense 'child' for over 400 years. The first attested use in the OED is 1599.
See previous post - I am aware of its lineage.
Its contemporary use is another matter. It is how a word is used that is the most significant. And by whom.
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sebhyatt
Posts: 1340 | From: yorks | Registered: Sep 2009
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sebby:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
quote:
Originally posted by sebby:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I seriously doubt that there are that many schools more than an hour's travel from any other school.
The public school solution was to have the kids in on a Saturday morning. (With the teachers who did not teach on the Wednesday afternoon.)
Er..'Kids' in Public Schools? Usually, certainly in a past age, they were never patronised in that way. Beaten and bullied maybe, patronised in goat language, never.
And the Masters tended/tend to be resident. There are evening duties, tutorilas, societies to run until about 11.00pm.
I went to public school, possibly more recently than you.
Beaten and bullied maybe, patronised in goat language, never.
I am bemused that you seem to see the former as preferable to the latter. And of course, being residential child care, boarding schools attracted paedophiles like magnets - famously Archbishop Fisher is widely thought to have thrashed his boys for a reason other than the development of their character.
I think your nostalgia is deeply selective.
And your information is derivative and your teminology inaccurate.
If you are taking your information from the late Mr Dahl about his time at Repton, then he later retracted. He got the name of the head master wrong, and the incident in his autobiography, itself a little bit of creative writing, was based on a story he must have heard of something before he actually arrived there, the veracity of which we are not in a postion to check.
The story caused great offence to the Fishers, with whom he turned many years after he had left school after his marriage had broken up. They could not understand the nastiness and vitriol, or selective memory - which works both ways, of course.
And Archbishop Fisher never taught in a school with pre-pubescent pupils.
I wasn't aware that Dahl's account had been discredited. But I stand by the rest, I once used to have lessons with a male member of staff who was required to teach with the door open and not go into the boarding houses in the evening - owing to allegations against him. As apparently the school felt this was the appropriate way to deal a child protection concern. Then there was the staff member who was dismissed and taken to court having abused a child front of the class he was supervising for prep.
I remember when the childrens act came in and they actually had to start paying attention to this stuff. This was before CRB checking, and just like care homes boarding schools attracted (a minority) of adults who preyed on children. Public day schools probably less so - but the fact they were subject to less scrutiny and oversight made them attractive to such people.
A lot of schools preferred to tell parents there was no bullying problem than to deal with it - and some effectively promoted it as character building. (And of course the public school system was the last bastion of beating children for misbehaviour - which I would consider to be a form of child abuse.)
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sebby:
See previous post - I am aware of its lineage.
Its contemporary use is another matter. It is how a word is used that is the most significant. And by whom.
"Kid" inexplicably has all sorts of baggage for you that the rest of us don't seem to be carrying around, were aware existed, and surely don't care about.
In my neck of the woods, it is used by adults to refer to children, by children to refer to themselves and other children, parents to refer to their children, grandparents to refer to their grandchildren, and yes, teaching staff to refer to their pupils. I have every intention to carry on using it, despite your Orwellian attempts to redact it from the lexicon.
How strange. ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by sebby:
See previous post - I am aware of its lineage.
Its contemporary use is another matter. It is how a word is used that is the most significant. And by whom.
"Kid" inexplicably has all sorts of baggage for you that the rest of us don't seem to be carrying around, were aware existed, and surely don't care about.
In my neck of the woods, it is used by adults to refer to children, by children to refer to themselves and other children, parents to refer to their children, grandparents to refer to their grandchildren, and yes, teaching staff to refer to their pupils. I have every intention to carry on using it, despite your Orwellian attempts to redact it from the lexicon.
Indeed, in my neck of the woods, "kid" is perceived not only as appropriate but also friendly-- the preferred term for just about anyone from birth to 18 or even beyond. "Children" not only sounds old-fashioned, it has a vaguely patronizing air to it. ymmv.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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M.
Ship's Spare Part
# 3291
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Posted
Interesting. I wouldn't make a fuss about it, but 'kids' to me seems patronizing, 'children' much less so.
And I am surprised (genuinely, not making a point) that 'kid' meaning 'young goat' is regarded as specialised or regionally specific - I have always regarded it as just the normal English word for 'young goat'.
Sorry to carry on the tangent, I don't have much by way of a view on the main topic.
M.
Posts: 2303 | From: Lurking in Surrey | Registered: Sep 2002
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
sebby: KIDS! Again!
You were trained to teach goats?
Can we stop patronising young people? Pupils, students, boys, girls, or at the lower end of the age range 'children' even.
'Kids' Vomit vomit vomit
Are you kidding?
(Couldn't resist.)
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
It must be a pond thing - 'kids' is used all the time round here.
Not patronising at all - just the usual shorthand.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Cod
Shipmate
# 2643
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Posted
To get back on topic:
NZ got six golds, amongst other medals. Per head of population, that puts the country fourth overall, and second if one discounts countries with populations less than one million (Jamaica is top of the heap).
The NZ government's response is to CUT the already stingy sports funding even further. There is very little money washing around NZ sport outside rugby and horse racing. Schools already rely on parents' contributions via money and volunteering. NZ's success on the sports fields is a classic product of the Big Society in action. Don't tell David Cameron.
Posts: 4229 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Apr 2002
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
As for the Wednesday afternoon idea, this was mooted under a previous Tory government. It failed because of two reasons:
1) there isn't enough gym and outdoor space for the whole school to be doing it at the same time (even on sports days, most space is given up to passive spectators, not people moving around).
Surely that depends what you doing, and to what extent you are pooling resources with other schools and/or organisations. quote:
Originally posted by leo:
2) every member of the teaching staff would have to teach PE - I would never have become a teacher if this had been one of the requirements, nor would most of my colleagues.
Or you need to invest in some more PE teachers, or alternatively buy in some coaching/club time.
Unaffordable without sacking some teachers of academic subjects - tight budgets.
Ironically, the tories today announced a new scheme to make it even easier to sell of playing fields.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
I doubt there is going to be money forthcoming to employ more PE teachers, nor the PE teachers to employ for 1 afternoon a week.
Are kids in the UK that different from kids in the US that you can't simply tell them to organize themselves into a kickball, baseball, or whatever else team?
You imply that it is OK to have children unsupervised in the US. In the UK, that would be deemed not only unprofessional but unlawful.
Also, what happens to the pupils whom nobody picks for their team?
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
On another thread, in response to my "every member of the teaching staff would have to teach PE - I would never have become a teacher if this had been one of the requirements, nor would most of my colleagues." Saysay said:
quote:
Assholes like you in the teaching profession are why I can't get the school day extended or the right subjects taught.
There are several things wrong with this:
1) I spoke of 'most of my colleagues' as well as myself - and could extend that to include the 30 or so student teachers whom I have mentored over the years.
SaySay would have a huge difficulty, probably an impossible task, to recruit sufficient teachers.
2) lengthening the school day - maybe it is different in the US but in the UK teachers are only contracted to work 1265 hours year as directed time. SaySay's extra timing would result in a severe reduction of academic teaching time. What subject(s) does she want to drop in favour of sport?
What are schools for? Teaching and learning? Or sport?
3) Teachers need to do 3-4 hours marking and preparation per day in addition to directed time. Suppose the school day is lengthened to 5pm - allow some time for cleaning up and traveling home - teachers can start their marking and prep. at 6. Eat supper at 10, go to bed at 11 so as to be up for 7 the next day. So SaySay wants teachers who only have one hour of leisure/;family time per day? That seems more like slavery than a profession to me.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
I doubt there is going to be money forthcoming to employ more PE teachers, nor the PE teachers to employ for 1 afternoon a week.
Are kids in the UK that different from kids in the US that you can't simply tell them to organize themselves into a kickball, baseball, or whatever else team?
You imply that it is OK to have children unsupervised in the US. In the UK, that would be deemed not only unprofessional but unlawful.
Also, what happens to the pupils whom nobody picks for their team?
Why the insistence on physical exercise at school? Any open space will do, so long as the NIMBYs haven't got to it. Almost all the football and basketball is played outside school and entirely unsupervised, a lot of cricket likewise and it's only when you get to sports like rugby and martial arts that you really need to have a referee.
As for the 'unchosen pupils', that's an example that too much PE in schools is designed for those who have innate talent. If it's OK to group pupils for classroom subjects, why not PE and games?
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
If you don't know how to maintain a basic level of physical fitness you'll have a very poor quality of life.
The problem is that team sports do not teach everyone to maintain a basic level of physical fitness. The good athletes tell their uncoordinated teammates to get out of the way when the ball is coming so the good players can get it. The point, as they see it, is for their team to win rather than for everyone to receive the benefits of exercise.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
In some parts of the world, there are no goats, and "kids" refers always to children. Around here most would call baby goats, baby goats. Probably we're into a regionalism with Sebby's comments?
No, not regionalism, more a sort of fogeyish snobbery as a comic pose. "Kid" for children has been perfectly normal (if informal) in England since at least the early 19th century. And goes back a lot further as others have said. And for what its worth might come from "kind" rather than from baby goats.
Anyway, baby goats are nice.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Also, what happens to the pupils whom nobody picks for their team?
Public humiliation, though probably rather less so than when its organised by adults, because they force all the kids into one team or another so the last few to be picked are sent off into teams they don't want to be in where nobody wants them - and it is made very clear to everyone who they are and why they aren't wanted.
No other activity at school is associated with that sort of deliberate mockery and humiliation and abuse. If someone was, say, bad at maths, would teachers get them to line up in front of the whole class and order the other students to mock them, then end up by shouting at them to do better? No. But that's what they do with sport. Which is one reaso that school sport turns so many people off sport.
Sport done properly ought to be a game for the players, and entertainment for anyone watching it. By making it compuslory, by punishing those who don't do it or do it badly, all you do is scare the unfit and the unpopular away from it.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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saysay
Ship's Praying Mantis
# 6645
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
You imply that it is OK to have children unsupervised in the US. In the UK, that would be deemed not only unprofessional but unlawful.
Yeah, I know. That's why I can't get sensible health care passed in this country; everyone thinks we are becoming more and more like England and they don't want that.
quote:
Also, what happens to the pupils whom nobody picks for their team?
In what universe does that actually happen? In what universe are there enough people that don't know that you have to include everyone and everyone has to be on one team or another that they don't actually include everyone?
quote:
On another thread, in response to my "every member of the teaching staff would have to teach PE - I would never have become a teacher if this had been one of the requirements, nor would most of my colleagues." Saysay said:
quote:
Assholes like you in the teaching profession are why I can't get the school day extended or the right subjects taught.
There are several things wrong with this:
1) I spoke of 'most of my colleagues' as well as myself - and could extend that to include the 30 or so student teachers whom I have mentored over the years.
SaySay would have a huge difficulty, probably an impossible task, to recruit sufficient teachers.
Nope, not in the US where the cost of college is exorbitant. Run a program that gives scholarships to college in return for teaching in a public school for a certain number of years. Working class women who don't currently have the same opportunities to get additional education and training as their male peers because they won't join the military because they know they aren't suited to it will jump on it.
quote:
2) lengthening the school day - maybe it is different in the US but in the UK teachers are only contracted to work 1265 hours year as directed time. SaySay's extra timing would result in a severe reduction of academic teaching time. What subject(s) does she want to drop in favour of sport?
What are schools for? Teaching and learning? Or sport?
How does lengthening the school day result in a reduction of academic teaching time? That is not earth logic.
Why will you not accept that sport is teaching and learning? That people have bodies and they need to learn things about them? What is so difficult and off-putting about this concept that people refuse to accept it?
quote:
3) Teachers need to do 3-4 hours marking and preparation per day in addition to directed time. Suppose the school day is lengthened to 5pm - allow some time for cleaning up and traveling home - teachers can start their marking and prep. at 6. Eat supper at 10, go to bed at 11 so as to be up for 7 the next day. So SaySay wants teachers who only have one hour of leisure/;family time per day? That seems more like slavery than a profession to me.
And what I am actually saying is that they should extend the school day but bring back recess and shop and home ec and art and music and a bunch of other subjects taught by specialist teachers so that teachers have time during the day to do their marking and prep.
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"It's been a long day without you, my friend
I'll tell you all about it when I see you again"
"'Oh sweet baby purple Jesus' - that's a direct quote from a 9 year old - shoutout to purple Jesus."
Posts: 2943 | From: The Wire | Registered: May 2004
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saysay
Ship's Praying Mantis
# 6645
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
No other activity at school is associated with that sort of deliberate mockery and humiliation and abuse. If someone was, say, bad at maths, would teachers get them to line up in front of the whole class and order the other students to mock them, then end up by shouting at them to do better? No. But that's what they do with sport. Which is one reaso that school sport turns so many people off sport.
Wait, they didn't do that with math? They didn't run Olympics of the Mind, or math league, or other things where they put you on teams and made you compete and mocked you because you were bad at certain things?
I'm starting to understand why some people won't even allow us to run certain programs even when we volunteer to organize them ourselves.
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"It's been a long day without you, my friend
I'll tell you all about it when I see you again"
"'Oh sweet baby purple Jesus' - that's a direct quote from a 9 year old - shoutout to purple Jesus."
Posts: 2943 | From: The Wire | Registered: May 2004
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shamwari
Shipmate
# 15556
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Posted
Reading this thread it looks like I am in a very small minority.
At primary school I did athletics and played football and cricket and loved it.
At secondary school I played rugby and cricket and loved it.
I simply do not recognise the awful things listed here as reasons which made folks hate school sport as they do.
Posts: 1914 | From: from the abyss of misunderstanding | Registered: Mar 2010
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
PE teachers are cheaper than science teachers.
No they are not. In a primary school, which is what this thread is about, all teachers are on the same pay scale.
Those with allowances for being subject coordinators get an extra point, whether it be for PC, Science or anything else.
(In a secondary school, the same applies - except that a Science faculty would usually merit two points - but the heads oif girls PE and boys' PE respectively would be on the same level as biology, physics or chemistry; the overall head of the PE faculty would probably be on the same scale as a head of a science faculty.)
We don't pay our teachers by subject but by area of responsibility.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
quote:
Also, what happens to the pupils whom nobody picks for their team?
In what universe does that actually happen? In what universe are there enough people that don't know that you have to include everyone and everyone has to be on one team or another that they don't actually include everyone?
On this universe, in England - read almost any autobiography and you'll find the schooldays section where the writer says nobody picked them because they were too fat, tall, spotty whatever.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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