Thread: Kids and PE Board: All Saints / Ship of Fools.
To visit this thread, use this URL:
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=006293
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
This was going to be a rant about idiot PE teachers but it's been done to death.
Boy #1 has table tennis in PE today. Teacher is showing them lots of different strokes but there's a problem.
He can't hit the ball. At all. He's being asked to use a specific stroke at a particular time when he can't even get the bat in the path of the ball. It's like trying to teach quadratic equations to someone who can't add up single digits.
How does he:
*explain to the teacher that he's going far too advanced;
*learn to actually connect with the ball.
At the moment he gets more exercise from chasing the ball around the room than from actually playing.
I can't help him because I can't hit a table tennis ball either, but at nearly 50 I take the view that I'm a lost cause.
Posted by ThunderBunk (# 15579) on
:
PE teachers are supposed to be able to differentiate like any other teachers, but I've no idea what they are supposed to do with people with little or no hand-eye co-ordination - like me. If it's possible, developing it is a long and slow process that requires massive amounts of effort on all sides.
I never got beyond the "running around after the ball" stage with any sport that required me to hit the ball. The only time that felt OK was defending in hockey, when it's more or less what you're supposed to do anyway.
Posted by Puzzler (# 18908) on
:
I don’t think he needs to explain anything to the teacher.
It should be obvious that he is not hitting the ball, ever.
With another 29 kids in the class the teacher isn’t going to be giving him individual attention for long, so he can just either keep trying, and keep under the radar, or mess about and get told off.
I used to try, in PE dance, gymnastics, etc until I realised I was never going to get anywhere, then I thereafter I just kept a low profile. It’s not worth the effort.
Posted by Stejjie (# 13941) on
:
The only time I ever particularly enjoyed PE at secondary school was when we did volleyball and somehow I ended up on a team that kept winning, despite my being in it (with the added advantage that the girl in my class that I fancied was in it as well).
Other than that, I hated PE: yes, that's mainly because I was rubbish at it, but it was never one of those things I could bring myself to enjoy despite being no good. And the teachers, it seemed to me, were only really interested in the ones who were good at it; the whole thing seemed set up to favour those who enjoyed it and were good at it, rather than encouraging a love of sport and exercise in those who didn't have it.
(And the "boys=rugby, girls=netball" split didn't help, either: am I the only male who'd have done anything to do netball instead of rugby?).
Now, all this was more than 20 years ago and I might be being grossly unfair to PE teachers now. But from what you say, Karl, it doesn't sound like things have changed much; at least, not in all schools. Like Puzzler, I'm not sure there is a way for your son to explain this to the teacher; he either keeps trying or just keeps under the radar (which as long as he doesn't mess around, shouldn't be hard). But of course neither of those are particularly constructive possibilities.
Is there any chance of you being able to arrange to speak to the teacher in question?
Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on
:
I hated PE as a child. Hated and feared it with all of my heart. I am one of those people who have absolutely zero hand-eye coordination. I suspect I would be diagnosed as dyspraxic these days, but dyspraxia wasn’t invented when I was at school ( ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
) so I was just clumsy and bad at sports, and running around in the cold chasing after projectiles made me very, very unhappy.
The most frustrating element of this was stupid teachers who thought I just wasn’t trying hard enough. I’m fairly sure I was trying harder than anyone in the class because I wanted desperately not to humiliate myself by being crap at it, but I was still crap at it. Depending on the teacher, if you meet them at a parents’ evening, it might be worth pointing this out to them. The kids who are naturally gifted may well be making less effort than the people like me, who are getting no help from nature whatsoever.
If you want to reassure your child, here’s what I’ve learned with hindsight, and I wish someone had told me at the time: at the age of twelve, being crap at PE felt like the most important thing ever. As an adult I now realise that being able to throw and catch has literally *no* bearing on my capacity to live a happy and productive life. It is a skill I basically never need. A small number of people make a living by throwing and catching, but they’re very much in the minority (I once made this comment to a professional rugby player, and fortunately he thought it was hilarious – he’s bigger than me .) The whole thing has turned out to considerably less important than it seemed to be at the time.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
Oh indeed, and it doesn't actually bother him that much. I just resent his having to waste two hours of every 25 hour school week which he could use more constructively. He struggles with handwriting (to the extent he's got an OT referral, yes I do worry he's got a general co-ordination/motor control issue) but given the choice I'd rather he be able to concentrate on that (or give up and be allowed to type everything like real people do in the real world, but that's a separate gripe)
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
Karl--
--Is the school aware of his general difficulties? If they are and take that seriously, maybe they could have a quick word with the teacher?
--You said he has an OT referral. Could you tell the teacher that? If the OT has already started, ask the therapist to write a simple note explaining your son's difficulties. Make several copies. Then give one to the school office, and one to the teacher.
--Is there anything like basic yoga?
--Is there an adaptive PE class? (For kids who can't manage the regular classes, due to disabilities, etc.) One possible downside: he could be mercilessly teased for needing a special class.
Good luck!
Posted by jacobsen (# 14998) on
:
The aspect of Games which I hated was hockey. It was terrifying, and we didn't in those far-off days have shin defenders. Was I glad to be able to abandon ball games as soon as possible!
Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on
:
I'm afraid I was rather sporty and ended up captain of the cricket XI amongst other things.
My blind spot was/is tennis: I can't do it.
But I was lucky in going to an establishment that covered a huge number of activities under the heading of PE, including fencing, ballroom dancing, trampolining, croquet and would even sanction brisk walking along a measured route to count as PE.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
I kept an even lower profile and bunked off PE.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
I kept an even lower profile and bunked off PE.
It took my school a term to realise that I considered detention preferable to games and that my terminal forgetfulness regarding my kit wasn't entirely haphazard.
The school knows of the referral re. handwriting, but haven't linked it, as far as I know, with his poor showing in PE.
I'm not sure what I'm really wanting, truth be told, other than him avoiding the issues being utterly appalling at sports of all kinds had on me (and I do mean appalling, people talk about "learning to win and lose" but in individual sports I always - and I do mean always - lost, and in team games if my game won I would be mocked for celebrating my my teammates who would waste no time in explaining that we had won despite my presence, not because of it.)
They say there's a sport for everyone. I've not found mine in 50 years on this planet. Not a single one. I tried fencing for a while because I like swords, but after a few weeks, while everyone else who started when I did were starting to hold their own, I was realising the only chance I had of anything other than humiliating defeat was taking on the next patch of newbies. I lost interest.
So ISTM that the first thing is that PE teachers take the less talented students as seriously as their hopes for silverware in the cabinet. Which means helping people to actually connect with the ball, instead of just talking tactics to people to whom that came naturally. If they can't do that, he's wasting valuable time. But then I've always felt that PE is some bizarre belief we have that everyone should take part in sporty people's hobbies. It makes as much sense as making everyone collect stamps or play chess or be in the orchestra.
[ 02. February 2018, 13:00: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
Posted by Og, King of Bashan (# 9562) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
(And the "boys=rugby, girls=netball" split didn't help, either: am I the only male who'd have done anything to do netball instead of rugby?).
In the States, (field) hockey is exclusively a girls game. I went to a school that was a hockey power, so they introduced it during co-ed PE, and I loved it. If there had been a boy’s team, I’d have played in an instant.
I had a PE teacher in middle school who made a brash remark about no one passing the class until they did a cartwheel. She clearly hadn’t anticipated someone like me, 6 foot by then and maybe 150 pounds, but zero core or arm strength. That guy ain’t doing a cartwheel.
It was stressful for me, but we eventually came to some common ground. I made a sincere go at it, and she ignored the less-than-adequate form. It ended up being a bit of a learning experience for both of us. It helped that it was a small class, so that we could actually talk it out.
So that’s the best I got for you, Karl. Sometimes the best you can do is show up and try, and hope that the teacher appreciates your efforts. It’s frustrating as it happens, but worst case scenario, it’ll be spring soon enough and you’ll move on to something else.
Posted by Caissa (# 16710) on
:
I loved PE during junior high school. Everything except gymnastics. My height by grade nine, 5' 10", was ideal for basketball, volleyball, soccer and ball hockey.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Caissa:
I loved PE during junior high school. Everything except gymnastics. My height by grade nine, 5' 10", was ideal for basketball, volleyball, soccer and ball hockey.
That's nice. Now imagine that not only did you not like just gymnastics, but every other damned thing they made you do. And also imagine that you sucked so badly at all of them that you were pure comedy for everyone else to watch.
But you're forced to do it for two hours every week.
You don't want to be there. You get nothing from being there. The other kids don't want you there. The teachers don't want you there.
Why are you there?
Posted by Caissa (# 16710) on
:
You just described my wife's experience and attitude to PE. I empathize with being required to do activities that you are not successful at. Last week in class, I discussed the components of motivation with my students.
Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
The only time I ever particularly enjoyed PE at secondary school was when we did volleyball. <<snip>> And the teachers, it seemed to me, were only really interested in the ones who were good at it; the whole thing seemed set up to favour those who enjoyed it and were good at it.
I hated every moment of PE in school, except for one. That was the day the teacher brought the trampoline out. I loved the trampoline! But all the jocks hated it, and so we never saw it again after that day.
I couldn't do somersaults or cartwheels. I couldn't climb the rope. I couldn't hit a baseball or catch a football. I couldn't kick a soccer ball. I could hit a badminton birdie or a volleyball, but just barely.
I was always the last one picked for a team.
Talk about being humiliated in front of classmates, which is really what PE boils down to for us incapables.
Fortunately our high school gym teacher -- Mr. Farnum, his name was -- "Coach" Farnum -- would let you sit out class on the bleachers if that's what you really wanted and would still give you a grade of 65, which was borderline passing.
Posted by Fredegund (# 17952) on
:
It's a good job we didn't have to achieve a specific grade in PE. Another one who was awful at gym, hockey, athletics, netball.
Tennis was just about bearable, but it never made up for the ritual humiliation in the other sports.
And I read this as "kids and partial exemption" - too much tax!
Posted by Bishops Finger (# 5430) on
:
I loathe and detest all forms of competitive games or sport (though I'm happy for others to enjoy same - isn't that kind of me?).
Fortunately, I was exempt from PE etc. at grammar school, on account of having problems with my feet which meant that I couldn't wear plimsolls, rugby boots etc.
O deep joy! I got extra maths instead (and I'm useless at that, too).
IJ
Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on
:
KLB "But you're forced to do it for two hours every week."
Try an hour each day Monday, Tuesday, Thursday Friday and, if you're not in a team and involved in a match, 2 hours on a Wednesday - and more matches on Saturday.
I like the idea of detention for missing kit: at our place sanctions for infractions meant it was usually extra prep for sporting types and compulsory running for swots.
Posted by Gill H (# 68) on
:
Yet another PE-hater here. I was useless at it, in all its forms. I was a member of the school folk dance team, so I did get some exercise there!
Like several here I think I probably have dyspraxia. Can't catch or hit a ball, ride a bike or do anything involving balance really.
Best scenario for PE was dance (which we did for half a term) - I had no grace but it was very much 'make it up as you go' and non-judgemental. Or trampoline because you only got two goes in an hour's lesson, the rest of the time you were stood round the edge 'spotting' for others!
Worst scenario was team games (I would drop the ball, cause the team to lose and they would all hate me for the rest of the day) or swimming (where I often came back to the changing rooms to find the bullies had dropped my clothes in a puddle of water, which made me late leaving so I missed the bus and had a 3 mile walk home, alone, in wet clothes. That happened quite a few times as there was no supervision in the changing rooms, and certain bullies managed to 'have a period' every week...)
After a while I volunteered to do various admin jobs for a teacher during PE sessions. She must have been talking to the PE teacher and they probably cooked it up between them, realising it was pointless torture for me to be there.
[ 02. February 2018, 15:34: Message edited by: Gill H ]
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
I think what I find hardest is PE teachers' apparent inability to understand that sport is their interest and is not shared by everyone, any more than everyone wants to keep tropical fish or play the trombone.
Sport is their life. It is just not a part of mine. I wanted to live and let live, but the buggers wouldn't let me. Boy #1 has a similar attitude. Other people do sports, he does Warhammer and Chess. He, and I, have no idea who is in the Premier League, and couldn't care less. I tried to watch a football match once but I got so bored I closed my eyes and started working on a good RPG fatigue system for wizards.
[ 02. February 2018, 16:18: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
Posted by ThunderBunk (# 15579) on
:
The other side of this is that we all have bodies and it is essential to find the things we like doing with/in our bodies. Climbing definitively into one's head for all forms of pleasure is really not a good idea. I've done it and it stinks.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
The other side of this is that we all have bodies and it is essential to find the things we like doing with/in our bodies. Climbing definitively into one's head for all forms of pleasure is really not a good idea. I've done it and it stinks.
Oh, aye, but none of the things I like doing with mine are sports.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
Anyway, we're drifting into the rant I didn't want to post...
Posted by ThunderBunk (# 15579) on
:
Sorry if I helped that. I was just thinking about the other side of the PE teacher's dilemma. Or your son's. Or mine. PE has to have a purpose other than setting future athletes off in the right direction; it must have some purpose for the rest of us, other than preparing us for boredom or frustration.
Posted by Bishops Finger (# 5430) on
:
I think that, at my alma mater, the idea of PE and sports was to make us tired, and stop us from chasing after gurls......
It didn't work.
![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
IJ
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
Going by results I'd say the function is to put most people off physical activity for life.
Posted by St. Gwladys (# 14504) on
:
I hated PE, loathed hockey, can't hit a ball or shuttlecock, loathed swimming - don't like water in my face. I managed to get out of games for over a year in the sixth form by doing O level music as an extra subject on top of my A level subjects, and managed to fit in with a class which just happened to be scheduled for the same time as my PE lessons. The teacher eventually noticed, unfortunately!
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
But Karl, you like cycling and walking/hiking, I remember because so do I.
I loathed team games at school, wasn't bad at gymnastics, circuit training, swimming, canoeing - yes I had canoeing lessons at school in 5th form, now year 11. We had Wednesday afternoons for sport and a river at the bottom of the school field. I also sailed at the weekend, plus anything other to do with water. Because I was good enough at gymnastics and swimming to be on the school team, attend gym club one lunchtime and willing to play with canoe bats in the swimming pool on Wednesday lunchtime to practise capsize drills in warm water, I got away with being useless at other games.
However, my daughter, who is writing her own response, dislocated joints in PE lessons and had physiotherapy letters listing all the things she wasn't allowed to do, which was most PE. I sent her with a weekly note, trees worth of notes, to no avail. She was made too sick to attend school in her year 10 and year 11 following being sent on an all day sponsored walk, when I had only sent her in as I was promised she could help at a check point. Which did not happen.
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Going by results I'd say the function is to put most people off physical activity for life.
This is the great tragedy. Regular physical activity is associated with better health and mental health, recovery from injury and surgery, stress management, sleeping better. Excess focus on competitive sports is wrong. Participation is key.
Posted by Curious Kitten (# 11953) on
:
I hated PE, I always needed opiates and physio after a lesson and various of my PE teachers reacted to me arriving with kit with "ooh, spare kit".
Despite bringing a new letter from the physio, consultant or GP every week I never got out of it or a consistently adapted curriculum I could do. According to one of my teachers, an adapted curriculum for anyone who was significantly struggling required another qualified teacher or coach in the class. Once a year we would have someone come in to do a sport she couldn't teach for four weeks and the people who needed and adapted curriculum would have our four weeks of PE we could do.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
But Karl, you like cycling and walking/hiking, I remember because so do I.
But I don't do sport cycling, and walking is not a sport unless you're doing one of those funny speed walk races.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Going by results I'd say the function is to put most people off physical activity for life.
This is the great tragedy. Regular physical activity is associated with better health and mental health, recovery from injury and surgery, stress management, sleeping better. Excess focus on competitive sports is wrong. Participation is key.
Actually, I find regularly doing anything more than the lightest exertion can make my mental health worse.
I'm also pretty sure that this endorphin rush thing is a complete lie.
Posted by Og, King of Bashan (# 9562) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Going by results I'd say the function is to put most people off physical activity for life.
This is the great tragedy. Regular physical activity is associated with better health and mental health, recovery from injury and surgery, stress management, sleeping better. Excess focus on competitive sports is wrong. Participation is key.
I guess I had the benefit of going to a school where they were keenly aware of the need to strike a balance between competition and lifetime fitness goals.
At my school, there were ample opportunities to be on competitive teams, to compete for state championships, and to try to get noticed by college recruiters, if that was what you were after.
There were also opportunities for kids who preferred to avoid competition to complete PE in a fairly non-threatening environment. We had a martial arts class, rock climbing, and "conditioning" with two groups- one for kids actually training for next season's sport, and another for kids who just needed the PE credit. You could also, with the proper supervision, get a credit for an independent sport- I knew one guy whose "independent sport" involved walking on a treadmill at home every day after school. It was also fairly easy to self-segregate into more or less friendly groups- a good friend who was far more interested in books and knitting than anything athletic found a good peer group of like-minded folks in the martial arts class, for instance.
"Excessive" focus on competition, I would agree, is unhealthy. At the same time, if you are talented and want to push yourself, you would be frustrated in a totally non-competitive environment.
But as I said, I was lucky to go to a school that seemed to appreciate that you need to offer different kinds of PE options. It's also much harder in primary levels, where everyone is in the same class by necessity. But it can be done.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
So ISTM that the first thing is that PE teachers take the less talented students as seriously as their hopes for silverware in the cabinet. Which means helping people to actually connect with the ball, instead of just talking tactics to people to whom that came naturally. If they can't do that, he's wasting valuable time. But then I've always felt that PE is some bizarre belief we have that everyone should take part in sporty people's hobbies. It makes as much sense as making everyone collect stamps or play chess or be in the orchestra.
When I was at school, the vast majority of our sporting activities were team practices, so effectively streamed (so you didn't get future county cricketers bowling at the kid who doesn't know which end of the bat to hold). This meant that the kids who were good at cricket got taught by the cricket experts, and those of us with more modest abilities got "taught" by an almost-retired history teacher who knew how to say "hold the bat straight" and "watch the ball" and not much else.
The generic whole-class PE lesson may not be quite as bad as trying to teach differential equations to half the class while some of the other kids are struggling with adding fractions, but it doesn't seem so terribly far away from it.
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
:
I was never sporty (neither fit nor coordinated) but still had good fun running into people in hockey or rugby. Gymnastics and dance were a trial, as was rounders.
Posted by Gill H (# 68) on
:
Ohhh, rounders. Shudder. For some reason no-one ever taught us the rules (or maybe I was away that day) and the version we did at school was slightly different from the one we played elsewhere. So I was never quite sure what to do once I'd inevitably missed the ball.
Then there was 'Danish longball' which involved sadistic little kids trying to hit you with hard balls while you ran. Ouch.
Posted by Piglet (# 11803) on
:
Another PE-hater checking in.
My excuse for being rubbish at ball/other-object-hitting games like tennis or badminton was that I had very poor eyesight - half the time I couldn't see the bloody thing, let alone hit it (or catch it, or whatever you were supposed to do). My classmates all knew this, so I was always last to be picked, and with good reason.
The only thing I ever got house points for was the sack race, which for some reason I could do (by sticking my feet in the corners and running). ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Now that I'm thinking about it, I wonder if the ones who were good at sports, and would end up playing for the county (i.e. the only ones the teachers gave a stuff about), but couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, ever felt that the music teachers only gave a stuff about those of us who were in the choir or orchestra?
I'm inclined to doubt it, as sport is something pursued and appreciated by a good deal more people than classical or choral music.
Karl, does your son have the same difficulty with other aspects of PE, such as track-and-field, gymnastics or trampolining, or is it just racquet/bat sports? Presumably they won't be doing table-tennis for the whole term, and in a couple of weeks' time, they might move on to something he can feel more comfortable with.
Posted by Gracious rebel (# 3523) on
:
But Gill that's the thing about rounders. Everybody seems to play by different rules. Which is one of the many reasons why I hated it. But not as much as I hated hockey, which meant running up and down the outside of a muddy field in cold damp windy English winter, wearing shorts, so freezing cold legs, and very rarely encountering the ball. And we had a sadistic games mistress who issued detentions to people who could draw an accurate diagram of where all the players had to stand for a penalty corner ... were we the only class to have had these 'hockey tests' on wet days when it was raining too hard for being outside?
[ 02. February 2018, 20:46: Message edited by: Gracious rebel ]
Posted by Piglet (# 11803) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gracious rebel:
... we had a sadistic games mistress ...
Is there any other sort? ![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
:
I don't think my PE teachers understood the idea of raining too hard to be outside.
Posted by Og, King of Bashan (# 9562) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Piglet:
Now that I'm thinking about it, I wonder if the ones who were good at sports, and would end up playing for the county (i.e. the only ones the teachers gave a stuff about), but couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, ever felt that the music teachers only gave a stuff about those of us who were in the choir or orchestra?
I'm inclined to doubt it, as sport is something pursued and appreciated by a good deal more people than classical or choral music.
Again, at my school, they had a good system for this. If you were not keen on fine arts, there was a place for you in the 100-+-voices-strong general choir, which rehearsed two times a week. More interested or promising singers / artists / actors would pursue more intense and rewarding activities.
(My wife and I went to the same school, but didn't date until we were adults, in part because I didn't really talk in school, and she was kind of a big deal. Her best friend dated a guy who was captain of the soccer, basketball, and lacrosse teams, who was always careful to present himself as a goofy class clown. Recently, she let me know something about the boyfriend that I never would have known otherwise. Apparently he was harboring a deep secret that he didn't want anyone else at school to know- he was actually an extremely talented harp player, and probably had better prospects of getting a music scholarship than an athletics scholarship. You never know what a teenager is going to be embarrassed about.)
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gill H:
Ohhh, rounders. Shudder. For some reason no-one ever taught us the rules (or maybe I was away that day) and the version we did at school was slightly different from the one we played elsewhere. So I was never quite sure what to do once I'd inevitably missed the ball.
Then there was 'Danish longball' which involved sadistic little kids trying to hit you with hard balls while you ran. Ouch.
How anyone can hit a ball with a rounders bat is an utter mystery to me. Might as well ask me to fly.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Piglet:
Another PE-hater checking in.
My excuse for being rubbish at ball/other-object-hitting games like tennis or badminton was that I had very poor eyesight - half the time I couldn't see the bloody thing, let alone hit it (or catch it, or whatever you were supposed to do). My classmates all knew this, so I was always last to be picked, and with good reason.
The only thing I ever got house points for was the sack race, which for some reason I could do (by sticking my feet in the corners and running).
Now that I'm thinking about it, I wonder if the ones who were good at sports, and would end up playing for the county (i.e. the only ones the teachers gave a stuff about), but couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, ever felt that the music teachers only gave a stuff about those of us who were in the choir or orchestra?
I'm inclined to doubt it, as sport is something pursued and appreciated by a good deal more people than classical or choral music.
Karl, does your son have the same difficulty with other aspects of PE, such as track-and-field, gymnastics or trampolining, or is it just racquet/bat sports? Presumably they won't be doing table-tennis for the whole term, and in a couple of weeks' time, they might move on to something he can feel more comfortable with.
He's exactly like I was. Absolutely appalling at all of them, except cricket at which he's merely crap.
Posted by Graven Image (# 8755) on
:
Hated PE anything that was played with a ball. I was hit by a stray baseball when I was about 7 so I always ran from not toward a ball of any type. In High School we had archery. No ball involved of course. I was brilliant. Won city wide awards. I am sure all kids have a talent for sports because they are so many different kinds. If the PE teacher has not the time or interest to be of help, go outside of the school and look for something he will enjoy. Swimming, sailing, archery, golf, fishing the list is endless.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
I am nearly 50. I have yet to find one I like or am any use at. I don't believe this "there's a sport for everyone" guff. Why should there be? Why can't we non-sportsmen just be left alone? We don't run around insisting everyone find their musical instrument or board game. What makes sport so special it should be universal?
[ 02. February 2018, 23:18: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
Karl, you might like this article from the Guardian, suggesting it is time to ditch the Fitbit because the amount of exercise suggested in 10,000 steps does not help people as much quicker versions of exercise.
Also, health benefits of walking and of cycling. If archery is a sport, then normal walking and cycling are far better for you.
Posted by Pangolin Guerre (# 18686) on
:
I hope that this might be cause for hope.
I hated PE. Ill coordinated, gangly (though not very tall - no easy feat), I was a mess. I also thought the PE teachers and other coaches were largely stupid. (In the cold glare of the rearview mirror, I'm pleased to say that my judgement has not much changed.) It was an invitation to misery, and ridicule was a regular feature, not least from my father. HOWEVER.... something happened when I hit puberty. Inexplicably, I developed some control over my limbs, and became, certainly not a jock, but quite sportif. I learned to enjoy physical activity when it was no longer a class that I had to take (age 15?), but got to choose what to do (which included nothing). In consequence I found what I liked and still do a few of them.
I agree with NP about the longterm value of physical activity from a young age, but clearly within realistic parameters, seemingly beyond the teacher in question.
So, Karl, just saying that your son may yet break the pattern, so long as he finds something passably fun. You sound patient and caring to get him through this. Best of luck.
Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on
:
posted by KLB quote:
How anyone can hit a ball with a rounders bat is an utter mystery to me. Might as well ask me to fly.
Quite. Small grey ball to be hit with wooden milk-bottle - stupid. And baseball is just rounders with fancy uniforms, gum and crowds.
Cricket, on the other hand: nice big red ball, bat with flat surface - at least one has a fighting chance of being able to hit the ball.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Going by results I'd say the function is to put most people off physical activity for life.
<raises hand>
I loathed PE. I was never very athletic, and PE was invented BY athletic people FOR athletic people. If they had taken us ugly ducklings off to one side in a small group and taught us things the other kids were born knowing, such as how to give a fuck about running around the entire schoolyard every day, or how to cause something held in the hand to meet a flying object hurtling toward it, we would have been better served. Mostly core strength training would have been great for me. But instead you had kids who already knew how to do things doing them, with kids like me getting in the way, getting yelled at, despised, and in general bullied, both by the other kids and the teachers. Leading one to think that only people who were bullies in school went on to become PE teachers.
It was shit.
Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on
:
It seems to me PE would be better taught as how to keep yourself fit & healthy, with the option to play team games as a leisure pursuit.
Originally it was just preparation for combat, and I would be OK with kids being routinely taught self-defence skills in school as well.
Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on
:
I deliberately failed my hockey test - there was no way I was going out on the field against a team that would have given St Trinian's a run for their money! They were brutal!
And I would have been more interested in PE if the ones who were rubbish at it had been able to do things like discus or javelin. But only the girls who were good at sport got to do that, while we were left to run round the track. Which was boring.
Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on
:
Just a reminder of what physical education was like before competitive sports entered LEA schools.
Jengie
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
It seems to me PE would be better taught as how to keep yourself fit & healthy, with the option to play team games as a leisure pursuit.
It seems to me Maths would be better taught as how to manage personal finances, with the option to solve differential equations as a leisure pursuit.
Both statements have some truth.
But for many people, and many children in particular, playing team games is a good way to stay fit and healthy. "Keeping fit" for the sake of keeping fit is boring. It's like eating vegetables - another thing that is good for you, but who wants to sit down and eat their way through a plate of veg out of some kind of obligation?
Make tasty, healthy veg-laden meals, on the other hand, and people (even short ones) might want to eat them.
You don't serve the kids who enjoy kicking a football about by making them spend their PE lessons on yoga. Equally, you don't serve people like Karl by handing them some kind of a stick and a ball and watch the sporty kids on his team park them in some remote corner of the field where they can't do too much damage.
Different kids, in fact, have different needs. Why do we expect one-size-fits-all to work for PE?
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
Keep fit as a lesson and team sports as an after school optional activity for the keenies, like Chess Drama club, orchestra, Wargaming, etc.?
Posted by TonyK (# 35) on
:
Oh dear God - what a horrible reminder of my (long ago) youth.
Age 11 at grammar school rugby was compulsory in winter and spring terms. Without my spectacles I couldn't see the ball: with them I wasn't going to get anywhere near the action in case they got knocked off or broken.
2nd year on we could choose cross country running as an alternative. Fairly relaxed - we ran to a defined place where a teacher (who'd driven there!)would check us in. An easy jog sufficed for this. Then a relatively leisurely return to school (fast walk/slow jog) where nobody checked us. Did this until I reached the age where it was no longer compulsory.
Summer term was cricket (see objections to rugby!) or field sports. Those who were no good could go to a far corner of the field and mess around with putting the shot or throwing a discus. Nobody seemed to bother with those who had no aptitude - though we weren't allowed to try the javelin!
Also PE in the gym once a week - as you would expect, I couldn't climb more than two pulls (on a good day!) up the rope; couldn't safely vault the horse; couldn't toss a medicine ball more than a couple of feet - useless at everything.
I didn't have many friends at school, but those I did have were of a similar disposition. We usually managed to do as little as possible - which worked most times.
I agree that I was probably a terribly unfit teenager - but nothing was offered that my clumsy, uncoordinated body could actually do.
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on
:
Activity is important. Competition is not. Liturgical exercise? Does this exist?
Did Jesus and the 12 play anything? I get the sense that they may have walked alot. Did they get get a ball and throw it around? Did they pay tag, wrestle? What were the sports other than gladiating back then? Hide and seek with Jesus would have been a hoot.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
Heh. Story is told that Jesus and Moses had a round of golf. Moses teed off, knocked the ball straight onto the green. Jesus set his ball up, then knocked it totally in the wrong direction. It hit a tree, and went down a rabbit hole. The rabbit kicked it out, it landed in a bunker where a sudden tornado picked it up and dropped it in a lake; it was then passed from fish to fish and finally spat onto the shore by a salmon where a squirrel picked it up, ran onto the green and dropped it in the hole. Moses turned to Jesus and said "look - are you playing properly or just fannying around?"
[ 03. February 2018, 23:43: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
Posted by Lothlorien (# 4927) on
:
Like Tony K, my vision was poor. So called gymnastics on bar and springboard was ok. Ballroom dancing was appalling as I hated it. Being made to sit and pass umpire’s exams for softball was bad. Perhaps other sports but softball would never be chosen by me.
Despite wearing glasses, I had to play hockey. I quite like the game, but putting someone on the field with glasses playing wing and running up and down most of the time was madness. OHS considerations anyone?
What I say now is a general observation, not aimed at anyone in particular. When I started teaching I discovered PE teachers were at the bottom of the staff pecking order. I wonder just how much it f what they enforced was a perhaps unconscious attempt to rise in that order or to at least make their presence felt. Swimming and athletics carnivals gave them another chance to be noticed.
Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on
:
quote:
Hide and seek with Jesus would have been a hoot.
As would Blind Man's Bluff.
[ 04. February 2018, 01:24: Message edited by: Amanda B. Reckondwythe ]
Posted by Japes (# 5358) on
:
I so wanted to be good at sports, but wasn't. I was in a category all of my own in PE!
It was generally acknowledged I tried hard, attempted everything asked of me enough times to prove it was lack of ability not lack of effort, (which seemed to go down well with my teachers) so when, on the rare occasion, I exceeded expectations, it was acknowledged. The one and only rounder of my entire life was mentioned in assembly!
I was also allowed, unlike others, to take a discus, shot put and even a javelin to a far corner of the field, and as long as I was seen to be either throwing or walking to collect things, I wasn't bothered. Occasionally, being a boring, sensible teenager paid off...
As an adult, I've discovered long distance walking works for me. The sports staff where I work were the ones to encourage me to keep going when they realised what I was doing at the beginning, are now in awe at my distances, agree they'd struggle to keep up with me, and were the ones who lent me a pedometer until I bought one of my own when I remembered what I'd discovered as a teenager - I compete best with myself, not others. Which is where PE failed spectacularly for me - that sense of having to compete with other people all the time. It just isn't part of my make-up.
[ 04. February 2018, 05:35: Message edited by: Japes ]
Posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom (# 3434) on
:
I think I must have had unusual PE teachers. One had been a funeral director and the other had an amazingly sweet soprano voice that she enjoyed sharing with the school choir. Like Curious Kitten, I was not easily able to do many activities due to the regular dislocation of both knees, but these teachers dreamed up all sorts of things I could do. I played cricket for the school team (with a runner), did orienteering until I dislocated a knee while doing it, lifted weights, and they were always happy for me to demonstrate whatever exercises I was doing for physio at the time and got the class to try them (which proved that while I might have wonky joints, my muscles were top notch). I was also allowed to go on whole-period bike rides unsupervised, which probably isn't an option these days. Cycling was a physio approved exercise.
Vale, Miss Ackerman and Mr Ormerod. Looking back, I appreciate your kindness and thoughtfulness to a girl who had no expectation of inclusion.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Keep fit as a lesson and team sports as an after school optional activity for the keenies, like Chess Drama club, orchestra, Wargaming, etc.?
But my point is that "keep fit" is shit. It is completely boring. I wasn't very good at sports at all (and am still not) but had far more fun playing indoor soccer badly than I would have had doing "keep fit", and got just as much exercise.
For me, attempting to play sports was a much better way of keeping fit than "keep fit".
I understand that from your point of view, team sports are shit, and that "keep fit" would be preferable. But we're back to different needs for different people.
If we must have one-size-fits-all PE classes (which perhaps is inevitable: if you want all the PE classes to be taught by the PE teacher(s), the fact that PE is a small part of the school week means that you can't run multiple simultaneous PE classes, and so inevitably end up with both sporty people and sport-haters in the same class.
If you want to argue that keep-fit should be part of the PE rotation, so that you play basketball one week, and do some kind of keep-fit activity the next, I'd agree that that would be reasonable. You could do "keep-fit" once or twice a month in PE lessons, and track the performance of each child so they could see how they were improving or something. That doesn't seem like an unreasonable compromise.
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on
:
Isn't it odd how many of the people here are of the anti-Pe persuasion? I'm one, too.
A number of things have come to mind while reading this.
1. Being forced to do long fly in Swedish gym and utterly failing because I could not pick my hands up off the other end of the box.
2. Losing consciousness while being "taught" to swing myself upside down on the ribstalls and falling on the floor.
3. Being mocked for not being able to climb the rope. (There's a brilliant description of this situation in the early pages of Diana Wynne Jones' "Witch Week.) I was released from this shame by a colleague who had trained at Dartford PE training college, founded by the redoubtable Madame Osterberg - she of the Swedish gym, and netball, who scoffed at anyone expecting most girls to have the upper body strength.
4. Never being able to remember the rules for netball, after they changed the positions and which bits of the court one could go in.
5. Hockey on days like today with the wind fresh of the Urals, and legs all blue and purple. Strange how often I had left my boots in the next town and had to walk round the field. There was a corner out of sight, where one could climb over to the bramble patch in the curiously named Golden Valley.
6. Getting away with looking keen in hockey by playing left back in a team with a very strong forward line. Always placed myself correctly between the ball and the goal, but never had to engage with the idiotic bit of leather.
7. Pulling a muscle in a race I shouldn't have been in. We were told we could choose which to enter. I went for obstacle (need brains) and egg and spoon (need good balance), but the teacher, who did not like me, put me in for the flat race as well. I came last, in agony, and she told me I could not possible have hurt myself as I had not exerted myself to win! As if I wasn't exerting myself not to be last... The thing troubled me half my life. And the egg and spoon was won by a cheat who threw the egg ahead when it fell and ran on from where it landed.
8. Failing in the hurdles, which I had practiced successfully, because on sports day they put the things up 3 inches.
9. Failing in the (later) obstacle race because after all the balancing and crawling, we had to thread a needle! That is not, repeat not, sport.
My friend came up with a joke about the Olympics. Imagining a threat message to sabotage them, the police reported that they had narrowed down the range of suspects, since it was obviously someone who hated their PE teacher.
OTOH, I loved the stuff we did at college, went home and enthused to my mother, who told me that was what she had been taught in her training college, from the 1933 syllabus, and found her copy of it for me. Why the dickens I sent through school in utter ignorance of this, I know not. My pupils did that sort of thing, and all our in service training was on the sort of lines that each child should develop at their own pace in a creative way.
And I was good at the game of pirates - all the apparatus out, and a game of chase, because of the balance and the brains advantage. Then they banned pirates. So, in teaching, last lesson of term, I got all the apparatus out and told the pupils to visit every bit of it without touching the floor - no chase. Almost as good.
Quite fancy a game of pirates.
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on
:
Better is activity built into life. Not a special activity you prepare for. Like doing the stairs at work. Use transport part way to where you go daily and walk the rest.
Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on
:
Do any other Americans "of a certain age" remember JFK's Physical Fitness Program in the early 60s? I dreaded PE even more than usual.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
Climbing a rope? File that with hitting balls with a rounders bat, ice skating and getting the ball through the hole in basketball - it must be possible, because I've seen people do it, but it seems like witchcraft to me.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
:
My recollection of PE is that it involved little actual education. There was an assumption that as Liverpudlians we were genetically programmed to understand football, and if we didn't then we were a lost cause. Other games were slightly better but even so the approach was still a.) tell us the rules and b.) leave us to get on with it. Coaching on specific skills or techniques or tactics was a rarity.
To drag the thread back to the OP, I suppose a possible line of approach on parents' evening would be to ask, in true Ofsted fashion: What are your objectives as a teacher for this class, and how do you measure your progress towards those objectives?
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
These days teachers, even PE teachers, have to have learning objectives for every lesson, and the planning should also include differentiation. The original lesson objectives that caused the issue will have been teaching certain strokes in table tennis, because the middle group of the class are at that stage. The more able students will be able to extend themselves by including those strokes into a game. The problem is that the PE teacher will have 30 odd students in the class, and nobody spare to help the 5 who really can't keep up with the schemes of work.
Those 30 odd students will include several who will regard a table tennis bat as a helpful weapon to use in various unsafe ways, and those who are so uncoordinated as to be dangerous. If I was that PE teacher, it would be a higher priority ensuring that that no-one is damaged by anyone else, rather than someone struggling and not succeeding, as you're more likely to deal with a complaint from a parent whose child was hit around the head by a table tennis bat, accidentally or otherwise.
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on
:
Walk around the room balancing the ball on the bat, and keeping it on the bat all the time.
Stay in one place, bouncing the ball a little on the bat, aiming for a specific number of bounces without dropping it. Build up the height of bounces until at eye level.
Bounce the ball between the table surface and the bat a set number of times.
I'd want next to be bouncing on a vertical surface, but not sure how the gym could accommodate that. Perhaps sitting, as in the next one, to prevent running around after the flipping thing.
In pairs, sitting on the floor with legs apart, bounce the ball between the bats, with a bounce on the floor in between hits.
Hey, I can still do this sort of thing!!!
Perhaps there could be special special needs pingpong balls which are thicker and heavier and slower?
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
But that's teaching ball handling skills at primary school. Karl's son is at secondary school where these skills are assumed to have been learned at primary school.
Posted by ThunderBunk (# 15579) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
But that's teaching ball handling skills at primary school. Karl's son is at secondary school where these skills are assumed to have been learned at primary school.
But, like literacy beyond the alphabet and the ability to understand fractions, it often isn't grasped at that stage, and some practical provision is required for those who have fallen through the net.
I am tempted to go back to my point that we all have bodies and we all have to relate to the physical world, preferably pleasurably, and at least in a way that doesn't cause anyone pain. Thus, the ability to deal predictably and confidently with balls (at least of a sporting nature) seems to me a lifeskill, because other things can come flying towards one, and the ability to manage them would be very advantageous.
Being musical, I do appreciate by analogy at least that it is equally important for those with a real talent in this area to be inspired to develop it, and indeed helped to do so. They can't be entirely frustrated in this by those of us to whom a ball flying towards us represents, in our mind at least, a mortal threat.
Posted by Bob Two-Owls (# 9680) on
:
I really liked sport but hated PE, the two things became entirely separate entities to this young Bob. My problem was that I could punt an egg between two posts, drop a little hard ball down a small hole from miles away, crack a sly six off the leg-side or slide a biscuit through the netminders knees but I can't dribble a football. This meant long hours trying to keep a football on the same field as my feet while others were playing games that I could actually do. Five years of this destroyed my interest in any kind of sport and I haven't played competitively since.
Schools should stick to basic exercise for the compulsory part, getting the blood pumping and allowing the brain to change down a gear (or up, depending on your school experience). No one should be forced to play a sport they can't do, they should be encouraged to find the best sport they can do.
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
Schools these days give young people 6 week blocks of a range of different sports. I bet none of you over 30s learned table tennis in school, or Zumba, which one of my Guides is currently doing. Things on offer as part of GCSE PE include climbing, archery, boxing, weights, as well as the expected rugby, football, hockey, netball and cross country running. Lots of chances to try a range of sports to find one they like.
Also, whole school initiatives can include everyone completing a fitness test at the beginning of the year, identification of those with low fitness levels and supporting them with a lunchtime club to improve their general fitness - that's part of Healthy Schools
Posted by Polly Plummer (# 13354) on
:
I was useless at games (no hand-eye coordination) but liked them, liked dancing, but absolutely terrified of gym: I hate not having my feet firmly on the ground.
We had at one time a particularly sadistic teacher (we always thought the school appointed her because she played hockey for England, not for teaching ability) who declared that anybody could do a handstand and didn't believe me when I said I couldn't: it ended up with me with my hands on the floor, with everyone watching, while she got two of the biggest girls to lift my legs up and over, and she said that was a handstand. My friends and I all knew it wasn't, so there was a certain moral satisfaction, but it was one of my most embarrassing and least pleasant moments at school.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Schools these days give young people 6 week blocks of a range of different sports. I bet none of you over 30s learned table tennis in school, or Zumba, which one of my Guides is currently doing. Things on offer as part of GCSE PE include climbing, archery, boxing, weights, as well as the expected rugby, football, hockey, netball and cross country running. Lots of chances to try a range of sports to find one they like.
Also, whole school initiatives can include everyone completing a fitness test at the beginning of the year, identification of those with low fitness levels and supporting them with a lunchtime club to improve their general fitness - that's part of Healthy Schools
He has few enough GCSE slots for important subject without wasting one on PE; I doubt they'd let him anyway. Schools vary; his (nearing retirement) previous PE teacher tended to abandon whatever he was meant to be doing in favour of More Bloody F**tb*ll. The current one's a bit better but the menu is still repetitive.
[ 04. February 2018, 22:04: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
:
Another who hated hated HATED PE, and got bullied. etc. I have hypermobile joints and asthma to boot, so was never able to do freaking ANYTHING without mucking it up. And of course PE was every freaking day...
They actually put me in remedial PE for a while, which meant taking me out of archery (the one thing on the curriculum I might have had a fighting chance to do) and making me run laps on asphalt instead. Did I mention one of my legs is not straight?
Feh.
Posted by Japes (# 5358) on
:
You lose your bet, CK.
I'm well over 30, and definitely learned table tennis at school. In fact, occasionally, I was very good at it, just not consistently so and it stood me in very good stead in later years in residential schools work.
We did the rotate round several indoor activities in the winter (think we did four weeks) in the late 70s and could choose which one we'd prefer once we'd had a go at the lot. From memory, badminton, volleyball, trampolining, table tennis and fencing. Also traditional gym stuff, which again, we had to have a go at, but could get out of fast!!
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
To be honest, I suspect that table tennis was an option when I took canoeing on Wednesday afternoons in the fifth form, but it would have been the choice of the popular kids, whereas I actually wanted to learn canoeing, which had nothing to do with not wanting to humiliate myself by missing a small moving ball - another one wearing hefty glasses from primary school.
The school I attended for sixth form (in a different part of the country) let us pretty much choose what we wanted to do in PE sessions. It had a swimming pool and let us set up gym equipment between us, so I wouldn't have looked for a ball game to lose. There were canoes, but no-one to canoe with, so that wasn't possible. Someone used his PE sessions to practise his golf swing.
Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on
:
Another PE hater here. My low point was rounders, one of the few things I was actually good at because I bat left-handed and tended to take the fielders by surprise. My PE teacher told me that I had to bat right-handed (left-handed was "cheating" apparently) and that was that. I still enjoyed playing rounders at Guides, where there was no right-handed rule, but school rounders was miserable.
Originally posted by Curiosity killed:
quote:
Also, whole school initiatives can include everyone completing a fitness test at the beginning of the year, identification of those with low fitness levels and supporting them with a lunchtime club to improve their general fitness - that's part of Healthy Schools
This happened at my kids' school. Both my kids have a minor issue with their hips. Fortunately it was picked up when they were little, they both had physio exercises and good advice from the NHS which we followed, and the impact on them has been minimal. The school knew their issues and were open to adapting. The exception was the bloody fitness bleep tests which fell under a different heading than "P.E." Both my kids wobble when doing a 180 degree turn, they will always do badly on bleep tests. They were always identified as having a low fitness level, though fortunately their PE teachers knew that neither of them was unfit, so didn't make an issue of it. It really annoyed me if my kids came limping home because of the fitness bleep tests. I wonder if it was some Scottish equivalent of Healthy Schools?
Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
I am tempted to go back to my point that we all have bodies and we all have to relate to the physical world, preferably pleasurably, and at least in a way that doesn't cause anyone pain. Thus, the ability to deal predictably and confidently with balls (at least of a sporting nature) seems to me a lifeskill, because other things can come flying towards one, and the ability to manage them would be very advantageous.
This is where I’m not convinced. My brain is just completely and utterly lacking the circuit that calculates the trajectory of missiles. I suck at throwing and catching. This has next to no impact on my daily life as an adult. It is a highly overrated skill.
I really don’t think the point of PE is to get fit, or if it is, in my case it was spectacularly counterproductive. Pretty much all the activities that I was forced to do at school involved throwing and catching, and I sucked at all of them. I left school convinced that exercise was nothing but misery and was determined never to do it again. It was only in my late twenties that I discovered types of exercise that I was actually ok at and enjoyed (running and hiking) and got fit for the first time in my life. Neither of the above was ever offered to me at school. I was never more pleased with myself than when I managed to game the timetable in the sixth form so that I had only one period of PE per week, by which time all the equipment was already taken and I could sit around on the floor in the gym doing the odd sit-up and nothing else.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
Thus, the ability to deal predictably and confidently with balls (at least of a sporting nature) seems to me a lifeskill, because other things can come flying towards one, and the ability to manage them would be very advantageous.
I don't buy this in the slightest. When on earth in your normal life do you encounter objects flying at you where the proper response is to trap in on your chest and volley it into the corner of the net, or to hit it over the roof of a nearby building with the stick you happen to be carrying, or anything like that?
When, in fact, in your normal life, do things come flying at you at all?
If I could go back to my mathematical analogy for a moment, I think we'd all agree that there are a set of things (budgeting, being able to write a check, read a credit card statement, understand a payslip, file a tax return) that are life skills that everyone should have. I think we'd all also agree that solving differential equations is a useful skill for some people, and will always remain beyond the ken of some other people.
I think it's also obviously true that to best serve both the people who solve differential equations and the people who can't add fractions, you need to teach them budgeting and financial life skills in different ways.
Isn't there a PE parallel? Being sufficiently fit and active to support ones health is the universal desirable goal; this looks different for sporty kids and ball-avoiders.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
Hated it. Avoided it for 2 years by forging a sick note from my mother.
Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on
:
When I started college we were still required to take PE (I think it was for our first two years). At the end of my first year -- field hockey mostly -- they did away with the requirement. I'm glad they got rid of it, but couldn't they have done it a year or so earlier?
![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
Posted by Nicolemr (# 28) on
:
PE was one of the banes of my young existence. I was bullied mercilessly in general, and in gym it was worse. I remember with particular horror trying to make a basket in basketball, and trying to learn how to climb a rope. In retrospect, I don't remember anyone trying to actively teach me these things, just being expected to know how, and failing.
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on
:
If we're reminiscing about our childhood experiences, I suspect my Anglican boarding school wins for the most extreme. There's a film about it from 1974. Watchable online: The New Boys by the National Film Board of Canada. Basics: canoe trips in June and in the fall, of somewhere in the vicinity of 1000 miles, snowshoe training and racing for a 50 mile race. (They did not make a man of me) Anglicans were right crazy for a spell in Canada.
[ 06. February 2018, 21:01: Message edited by: no prophet's flag is set so... ]
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
Any time as an adult when missiles of any kind have come flying at me, being able to hit them with any kind of wooden stick would not have been a useful skill, and I never had such a stick on me at the time anyway. Usually it's moths. ThunderBunk, I don't now what you think you were saying, but what you said is inane.
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
When I started college we were still required to take PE (I think it was for our first two years). At the end of my first year -- field hockey mostly -- they did away with the requirement. I'm glad they got rid of it, but couldn't they have done it a year or so earlier?
That's pretty much the attitude I have to being forced to take GCSE French, a requirement that disappeared 2 years later.
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
A GCSE language is a requirement of the EBacc.
Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
When I started college we were still required to take PE (I think it was for our first two years). At the end of my first year -- field hockey mostly -- they did away with the requirement. I'm glad they got rid of it, but couldn't they have done it a year or so earlier?
That's pretty much the attitude I have to being forced to take GCSE French, a requirement that disappeared 2 years later.
They dumped a lot of general requirements that year. I suffered through many courses (Western Civilization ![[Help]](graemlins/help.gif)
) just to get my requirements out of the way, all for nothing.
Posted by Spike (# 36) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
A GCSE language is a requirement of the EBacc.
OK, so imagine a child has genuine problems getting to grips with a language. What does the teacher do to address that? Then think about how the Slideret's teacher addresses his problem with hitting a ball. Notice a difference?
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
The kids that are not going to achieve an EBacc are being excluded into alternative provision across the country. Alternative provision placements are being judged on the same OFSTED criteria as main stream schools and being labelled as failing as a result.
This situation was entirely predictable and why the Head Teachers' Round Table suggested a tiered qualifications framework that allowed students who were not coping with foreign languages and other esoteric subjects to follow a different curriculum. Gove did not agree so we've got the current delight of his National Curriculum which is "more academically rigorous" (ie impossible for a significant number of students), harder subject levels for all, Progress 8 and the EBacc.
Fortunately for the Backslideret, PE is not an EBacc required subject, but an optional extra.
Posted by luvanddaisies (# 5761) on
:
In my primary school PE was taught to us on the understanding that the point was to WIN! Coming second was just the loser who came closest.
This approach pervaded everything from hockey to athletics. At 7 we were being taught techniques for getting off starting blocks, and in swimming classes even the non-swimmers and poor swimmers group (these are my people!) had lessons on efficient technique, streamlined body shape, optimal hand shaping and so on - stuff more appropriate to the top group who had a chance of making school teams some day.
I hated PE, which is a pity because I was actually really quite good at netball, but unfortunately wasalso a popular target for bullying, so if I did happen to miss a goal during a game I knew I’d be getting some level of punishment in the changing rooms after (our PE teachers would turn a blind eye to ‘deserved’ retribution such as that for missing a shot). This was exacerbated by us having fixed teams. In hockey, for example, after the first week’s lessons where we went through drills, testing and so on we were given positions and put into teams. These positions would be the ones we would play and train in from when we were 8 throughout school (I left before the secondary school part of that school, so have no idea if it continued into secondary school. It’s likely). Defenders did some different drills from attackers, and we never practised with goalkeepers as it supposedly made the defence lazy.
In my secondary school I didn’t mind PE. We had to do it every day after academic lessons were done, sometimes just a walk, sometimes team games or whatever activity they came up with, but it wasn’t a thing that was a big deal to be good at, being academic and a bit odd was more highly valued generally (it was an unusual school!). I enjoyed it more then.
It’s not everybody’s thing, and not everybody should be forced into sports, but at the same time exercise is a necessary thing, and finding ways to keep one’s body healthy and ticking over should be the aim. Sadly though PE teachers seem to buy into the societal idea that sport is a thing that everybody should enjoy - there’s never a special daily music section at the end of every single paper, the achievements of scientists aren’t a fixture in a special dedicated section at the end of every news broadcast, and international chess tournaments don’t take up millions of column centimetres for weeks beforehand and after.
If the focus wasn’t on being good at it, but just at finding a way to move about a bit, maybe have some sort of fun, but at least not being miserable, then people like most of us on this thread wouldn’t have spent those years so pissed off about the whole thing. If people want to play team games they should have to fit it into their lunchtimes and after schools, like the chess club or the orchestra or the warhammer society. It might also mean people realise that hobbies shouldn’t have a hierarchy. People mock Cosplayers going to cons and memorising the minutiae of their favourite things, but people yelling at a football match and knowing players and stats going back decades are admired. Fuck That.
TLDR - society is rotten in how it views sport and exercise and I’m overtired and rambling.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
The kids that are not going to achieve an EBacc are being excluded into alternative provision across the country. Alternative provision placements are being judged on the same OFSTED criteria as main stream schools and being labelled as failing as a result.
This situation was entirely predictable and why the Head Teachers' Round Table suggested a tiered qualifications framework that allowed students who were not coping with foreign languages and other esoteric subjects to follow a different curriculum. Gove did not agree so we've got the current delight of his National Curriculum which is "more academically rigorous" (ie impossible for a significant number of students), harder subject levels for all, Progress 8 and the EBacc.
Fortunately for the Backslideret, PE is not an EBacc required subject, but an optional extra.
Interestingly a foreign language isn't compulsory at Boy #1's school. He eagerly awaits giving up Spanish at the end of the year. I love languages but like him am bloody useless at learning them so I can't really blame him.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by luvanddaisies:
In my primary school PE was taught to us on the understanding that the point was to WIN! Coming second was just the loser who came closest.
This approach pervaded everything from hockey to athletics. At 7 we were being taught techniques for getting off starting blocks, and in swimming classes even the non-swimmers and poor swimmers group (these are my people!) had lessons on efficient technique, streamlined body shape, optimal hand shaping and so on - stuff more appropriate to the top group who had a chance of making school teams some day.
I hated PE, which is a pity because I was actually really quite good at netball, but unfortunately wasalso a popular target for bullying, so if I did happen to miss a goal during a game I knew I’d be getting some level of punishment in the changing rooms after (our PE teachers would turn a blind eye to ‘deserved’ retribution such as that for missing a shot). This was exacerbated by us having fixed teams. In hockey, for example, after the first week’s lessons where we went through drills, testing and so on we were given positions and put into teams. These positions would be the ones we would play and train in from when we were 8 throughout school (I left before the secondary school part of that school, so have no idea if it continued into secondary school. It’s likely). Defenders did some different drills from attackers, and we never practised with goalkeepers as it supposedly made the defence lazy.
In my secondary school I didn’t mind PE. We had to do it every day after academic lessons were done, sometimes just a walk, sometimes team games or whatever activity they came up with, but it wasn’t a thing that was a big deal to be good at, being academic and a bit odd was more highly valued generally (it was an unusual school!). I enjoyed it more then.
It’s not everybody’s thing, and not everybody should be forced into sports, but at the same time exercise is a necessary thing, and finding ways to keep one’s body healthy and ticking over should be the aim. Sadly though PE teachers seem to buy into the societal idea that sport is a thing that everybody should enjoy - there’s never a special daily music section at the end of every single paper, the achievements of scientists aren’t a fixture in a special dedicated section at the end of every news broadcast, and international chess tournaments don’t take up millions of column centimetres for weeks beforehand and after.
If the focus wasn’t on being good at it, but just at finding a way to move about a bit, maybe have some sort of fun, but at least not being miserable, then people like most of us on this thread wouldn’t have spent those years so pissed off about the whole thing. If people want to play team games they should have to fit it into their lunchtimes and after schools, like the chess club or the orchestra or the warhammer society. It might also mean people realise that hobbies shouldn’t have a hierarchy. People mock Cosplayers going to cons and memorising the minutiae of their favourite things, but people yelling at a football match and knowing players and stats going back decades are admired. Fuck That.
TLDR - society is rotten in how it views sport and exercise and I’m overtired and rambling.
All this. Why are sports so privileged over other hobbies and pastimes? Spend eight hours a week playing D&D and you're a nerd; spend it in the swimming pool and you're a dedicated inspiring young athlete.
Posted by Piglet (# 11803) on
:
Yea and amen to what Luv and Daisies said - what excellent sense!
PE was compulsory twice a week the whole way through my secondary schooling, and even when I did my secretarial certificate, we had at least an hour of it a week - although at least at that stage we got rather more fun things to do like archery, trampolining and volleyball.
I can see the point of physical activity being good for you, but honestly, if they wanted to encourage me to carry on with it into adulthood, they could have made it a lot more enjoyable than it was.
Posted by Gill H (# 68) on
:
I’ve been listening to ‘Brave New World’ on Radio 4 lately (a book I first read aged 11, along with 1984 - now that was a depressing summer...)
The mention of ‘heretical views on sport’ reminded me of this thread. Evidently there are plenty of us heretics.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Why are sports so privileged over other hobbies and pastimes? Spend eight hours a week playing D&D and you're a nerd; spend it in the swimming pool and you're a dedicated inspiring young athlete.
Not all sports
Spend eight hours a week fencing, and you're still a nerd.
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on
:
I didn't realise it when I was younger, but what I actually couldn't do was team sports. Any sort of activity that I could do on my own to try to improve my technique, particularly timing myself against the clock and comparing my previous score, well that was very motivating and just perfect.
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on
:
Being the last one picked. Whoever thought that was a good idea?
There are other ways of getting children into teams.
Posted by jacobsen (# 14998) on
:
Names out of a hat.
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on
:
What I did was to use the warm up runaround, with whistle stops and a variety of numbers called out, and they had to organise themselves into groups of that number. Then, when I had worked out that I could do x teams of y members, I would call out x, and then line up each self selected group so that each member was in a different line. Sneaky. I didn't have all the best ones in one group, that way, but spread about. (Every now and then there would be a team which won everything, but I would then swap them about. They didn't seem to mind.)
Nobody got to be last picked.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
I didn't need to be picked last to know I was irredeemably shite. Not to mention therefore and therefrom a complete spanner.
[ 11. February 2018, 13:19: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I didn't need to be picked last to know I was irredeemably shite. Not to mention therefore and therefrom a complete spanner.
This. Kids aren't stupid. They all know that if you give the ball to speccy four-eyes, you may as well just give it to the other team. The fact that speccy four-eyes is one of this week's team captains doesn't make the slightest bit of difference.
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
It depends on how PE is timetabled. In many secondary schools half the year is timetabled for PE at the same time, so 90-100 students. This can allow some schools to split that cohort into ability groups so that, for example, all the groups are playing in teams, more able students together with specific instruction in rules and higher level skills, the less able group(s) is (are) also playing the same game, but with more concentration on practising basic skills.
It takes the PE department to be organising students based on abilities in PE, which may not match academic abilities or be the same across all sports.
Posted by Aravis (# 13824) on
:
Our games lessons were divided by sporting ability. As I had undiagnosed hyper mobility and was generally dyspraxic, this policy put me in the games group with a lot of girls from the D and E academic streams who basically refused to try at anything. The games teacher usually did exercise with us for a short while, then disappeared to the staff room for a coffee and told us to jog round the block (this was about a mile or two I think). Most of the others started running up the road then crept back the other way and went to the shop for sweets.
Posted by jacobsen (# 14998) on
:
Bunking off games was a favourite ploy for us in 5th and 6th form. Plus, our games field on the edge of town seemed to get the Siberian blasts unmodulated by anything in the way.
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
:
My younger daughter had serious vision problems, and had to start wearing contact lenses when she was nine. They hurt, but she was so glad she could see clearly that she put up with the pain.
When she started junior high school (age 12) the school sent a form to the parents at the beginning of the year asking if the child had any special problems. I wrote a detailed explanation, saying that it was especially painful for her to look up or look at bright lights. After some months, I learned from someone else that when they played volley ball, she made no effort to hit the ball, and at least once it bounced off her head. The lights in the ceiling were very bright, and looking up caused pain anyway. I went to the school and talked to the teacher; she said that the girl should have been mature enough to explain this. Very few twelve-year-olds are willing to volunteer the information that there is something wrong with their bodies. Since this was the age-group that this woman worked with, she should have known that.
My daughter's eye problems were enough to put up with; she didn't need the extra problems caused by the gym teacher.
Moo
Posted by geroff (# 3882) on
:
Is it true that one of the marks of a Christian is to be the one who was always picked last, or not picked at all?
I hated PE as it was just an extension of general and specific bullying.
What didn't help was the time I was so far at the back of the cross country that I got lost (having only moved to the area a week before). I also had hayfever and undiagnosed asthma so I was generally rubbish.
I like Karl have never found a sport. When we joined a gym (aged 42, the shared changing rooms reminded so much of school I couldn't go). I have an idea that I want to take up cycling but I have problems with having to wear the cyclists' uniform and be good at it.
Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by geroff:
I hated PE as it was just an extension of general and specific bullying.
Absolutely. And in addition to the bullying of my classmates (this was ages 9-11), the teacher was a bully as well. If you couldn't run/throw/catch/bat you were treated like garbage. (He did nothing to help one's running/throwing/catching/batting skills, which was supposed to be his job.)
Posted by geroff (# 3882) on
:
Quite appropriately one of my 'teachers' was one Mr Batterham.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by geroff:
I have an idea that I want to take up cycling but I have problems with having to wear the cyclists' uniform and be good at it.
Fortunately neither of these are compulsory, although I can recommend the padded trousers/shorts/tights as they do avoid arse-pain.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
quote:
Originally posted by geroff:
I hated PE as it was just an extension of general and specific bullying.
Absolutely. And in addition to the bullying of my classmates (this was ages 9-11), the teacher was a bully as well. If you couldn't run/throw/catch/bat you were treated like garbage. (He did nothing to help one's running/throwing/catching/batting skills, which was supposed to be his job.)
Of course not. If you can't do them naturally you'll never put any silverware in their trophy cabinet, so they've no motivation. Besides, they and their favourites (for all the talk of sports being character building there was a positive correlation between the sportsmen and the people who made my school life unpleasant) need someone to despise.
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by geroff:
I have an idea that I want to take up cycling but I have problems with having to wear the cyclists' uniform and be good at it.
Fortunately neither of these are compulsory, although I can recommend the padded trousers/shorts/tights as they do avoid arse-pain.
I prefer just to have a padded saddle, myself. Admittedly, my riding a 100lb cargo trike is a little different from the MAMILs on their carbon fibre speed machines.
Posted by wild haggis (# 15555) on
:
PE has changed in many schools today. Unfortunately it is not helped by PE syllabi being influenced by the latest half baked ideas from politicians and the media, instead of listening to teachers and pupils.
I get sick and tired of hearing people who never go into schools critisising education. The people who dis modern PE multidisciplinary/non-competitive methods and force their outdated ideas on schools are often hardly peons of fitness themselves; they are usually male, often having a tendency to bully and are out of touch with young people today; they have memories of a sporting golden past that never really existed.
Sorry but it does get me very cross.
Kids have been put off exercise when it has been badly taught by people who don't understand that exercise can be obtained by other fun methods that may actually burn off more calories and be more engaging for all abilities and disabilities, than team games.
A good teacher will match lessons to his/her kids. The idea that sport/PE needs to be "traditional" and competitive, is wrong and discriminatory - and usually male.
Things such as disco dance, street dance, hip hop (many boys love these forms of dance/exercise, if properly taught) and zumba can be used instead of the usual apparatus and trad. team games. Dance can be used very effectively in building co-operation and physical fitness. It can burn off many more calories than hanging around a games pitch waiting for someone to pass you a ball or waiting for your turn to go on the pitch (and probably sitting around bored and freezing).
I'll never forget the boys from the school football team that I did a Scottish Country Dancing lesson with. They poo pooed the idea but were all out of breathe after a basic warm up, before I had even started to teach them the dance set. My group of dancers thought it very funny that they were so unfit!!
If children are into competitive sport that's fine and they can join classes or clubs that will encourage and develop that talent. But for the majority.............let's give them exercise that is fun and enjoyable.
We have put kids off exercise and turned them into couch potatoes by insisting exercise is only done by one or two methods, for too long now.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
Though to be fair the alternative of dance would have had me on the football pitch pretty quickly
If I've led a wicked life my personal Hell will be an eternal dance session to loud upbeat dance music.
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
quote:
Originally posted by geroff:
I hated PE as it was just an extension of general and specific bullying.
Absolutely. And in addition to the bullying of my classmates (this was ages 9-11), the teacher was a bully as well. If you couldn't run/throw/catch/bat you were treated like garbage. (He did nothing to help one's running/throwing/catching/batting skills, which was supposed to be his job.)
I know what you mean. South Wales has produced tens of thousands of teachers and thousands of PE/Gym teachers. Down here the saying is that:
- Those who can, do
- Those who can't, teach
- Those who can't teach, teach gym.
Posted by LutheranChik (# 9826) on
:
I also loathed PE.
One memorable day in junior high, we had to jump on the trampoline. One of my classmates was morbidly obese — I would say close to 300 pounds — and was terrified of getting on the trampoline, but our unsympathetic teacher insisted. First she almost upended the thing; then she stood trembling on it while the teacher screamed at her, “ JUMP! JUMP! HIGHER!” The rest of the class, acting as spotters, were also terrified, andcwhenever the girl listed to one side or another, the girls at that edge jumped back, eliciting more screaming from the teacher: “ SPOT HER! SPOT HER!” Back to her victim: “HiGHER! JUMP HIGHER!” And she finally did...and fell off the trampoline, as other girls ran for cover, and broke her leg.
Please tell me that PE is better now.
© Ship of Fools 2016
UBB.classicTM
6.5.0