[Mogura]

1. Reengineer your evaluation system to account for effort, not results. If Joe Football is not even trying, but seemingly kicking ass and taking names during every sporting activity, that 'A' on his transcript isn't really going to do much to advance his future career as a French Fry Specialist or P.E. Teacher, now is it? However, that 'A' on some pathetic nerd's transcript might make the difference between MIT and Caltech and potentially a cure for cancer or Alzheimer's.

2. Lose the gut. Look the role of someone who knows a thing or two about physical fitness.

3. Don't punish students by making them do laps. They'll end up associating running with punishment and before you know it, we'll end up with a nation full of exercise-hating fat asses who blame high school P.E. class for their future Little Debbies addiction. Oops, we're already there!

4. On rainy days teach us how to approach and talk to women instead of doing weightroom shit. Weightroom is boring and muscles atrophy within a few days anyway. Don't give a boy a woman. Teach a boy how to fish for a woman and that skill will last him for a lifetime.

5. Hitting someone square in the face during a dodgeball match shouldn't be penalized. The thrower should be awarded for his/her accuracy. Punish the idiot who failed to duck.

I'm glad I got that off my chest. That shit's been building up for years.

Love,

Moggie

[Vogue]

I thought P.E was generally graded on participation rather than skills. I mean my high school P.E class was graded on the following:
1) Did you show up?
2) Did you put on workout clothes?
3) Midterm/final
In my middle school/elementary it was similar, minus number 3. But I went to private school, so half of my classes were like that.

also.. as to number 4... wtf? That happened? haha. I guess it's different with co-ed classes.

[JEP]

haha, all that's actually pretty funny. I agree with you about dodgeball, though I'd never aim for the face. You have to go for the hips because it's a big target and it's the part of the body with the least range of motion (for the purposes of dodging a ball).

1. I don't think a B in P.E. is going to keep someone out of an Ivy League school. Yes, the natural athlete is going to have an easier time in life. The athlete will have to work out and condition himself for his sport, which is difficult in it's own right, but the nerd will have to toil away for years and years to achieve the same level of success (for simplicity's sake let's assume money = success).

If I were P.E. coach, I'd fail a kid for sitting on his ass the entire period and refusing to participate. All of my P.E. classes were graded on effort.

2. I agree that a lot of coaches are overweight, but some of them used to be actual athletes and did a lot of weight training. So when they injured themselves so bad they could no long play their sport, or got too old, etc their diet and metabolism changed drastically, and they will put on some weight as they get older. Also, a lot of them do/did very heavy squats which made them develop very strong abs. So the abs jut out and sometimes look like a gut underneath a shirt.

3. Well, teachers in school these days have few options on ways to discipline students. Though I understand your point, a better solution may be to not get in trouble in P.E.

4. Do you really want your fat, old P.E. coach talking about the moves he put on his wife back in the day? Weight rooms are boring because they are typically filled with machines designed for isolation exercises - get rid of them. Free weights and barbells are a lot more fun. The problem is that most P.E. teachers don't know how to train anyone in the olympic snatch, or the clean and jerk, back squat, deadlift, etc School don't like doing it because of insurance reasons - even though more people get injured playing soccer every year than any other sport.

[XFire35]

The 'subject' was a waste of time and fortunately counted for nothing in the UK education system.

[Lightman]

Originally Posted by JEP To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

haha, all that's actually pretty funny. I agree with you about dodgeball, though I'd never aim for the face. You have to go for the hips because it's a big target and it's the part of the body with the least range of motion (for the purposes of dodging a ball). 1. I don't think a B in P.E. is going to keep someone out of an Ivy League school. Yes, the natural athlete is going to have an easier time in life. The athlete will have to work out and condition himself for his sport, which is difficult in it's own right, but the nerd will have to toil away for years and years to achieve the same level of success (for simplicity's sake let's assume money = success).

The natural athlete will have to go through years of playing sports that can easily cause debilitating injuries in order to maintain the vague hope of monetizing their skill, which statistically is very unlikely to happen, whereas nerds usually have skills that can be easily monetized. The life of an athlete who wants to make it to the pros is not really easy.

[Warrior]

	Originally Posted by XFire35 To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	The 'subject' was a waste of time and fortunately counted for nothing in the UK education system.

At any level? I was required to have one year of PE to graduate high school and my undergraduate degree required four semesters of PE.

[eagleseven]

1. Do colleges look at P.E. grades seriously?

2. You can be fit and have a gut. You want models teaching PE?

3. Too true. I had one coach who made us run laps for hours when we lost a basketball game. Now I avoid any form of hard running like the plague...do the elliptical or cycle at the gym.

4. WTF? It was weird enough having my PE teacher describing how she had sex with her husband during sex-ed. Do you really want to know how they used to do it back in the day?

4a. Most school weightrooms suck because they either have boring isolation machines, or the coach is too afraid to let the students perform the full-range barbell movements that build functional core strength. The fact that I spent two years in PE and never learned to do a proper squat, deadlift, or shoulder/bench press is a bloody shame.

5. In my PE class, contact was encouraged. Got beamed in the head by basketballs, let alone dodgeballs.

[Malsqueek]

In my school district, while I was in attendance, all PE classes were pass-fail grades, based solely upon your attendance. If you missed too many days, you actually had to go make up "days" wort of activity. While there, you had to be dressed and participate, or you were not given attendance credit for the day.

You were also only required to take PE classes for 6 of your 8 semesters of high school.

It was a relatively good system.

[True Rune]

I remember having the same teacher for health class and gym class. I never dressed up for gym because other kids are fucking weird...but aced health. Take that first impressions!

[JEP]

	Originally Posted by Lightman To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	The natural athlete will have to go through years of playing sports that can easily cause debilitating injuries in order to maintain the vague hope of monetizing their skill, which statistically is very unlikely to happen, whereas nerds usually have skills that can be easily monetized. The life of an athlete who wants to make it to the pros is not really easy.

I didn't mean that the athletes had it easy, just that it was difficult in a totally different manner than engineering or physics, for example.

I will say that I've found playing sports a lot more fun than solving engineering problems. I enjoy engineering problems, but I don't get the endorphins that come from physical activity.

[mieu]

In before 'A Critical Look at Lunch Ladies'

Anywho my gym teachers were always cool enough that they didn't flunk my friends and I for 'forgetting our gym clothes' before every major AP exam and spreading our notes out in one corner of the gym to crunch the period before the test.

[Fox]

At my college P.E. was a required class. I picked beginning Soccer. Turns out every amateur wannabe soccer fan/player kept taking that class year after year. Teacher didn't teach a thing. She just let us all play as she watched the girls run.

[XFire35]

	Originally Posted by Warrior To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	At any level? I was required to have one year of PE to graduate high school and my undergraduate degree required four semesters of PE.

In the first 3 years of secondary school it was mandatory, but was not graded. During GCSE, 'participation' was 'required'. Unless you took it at A-level, there was nothing forced upon you the same as my degree. I would not have minded the 'required' sessions during GCSE if I actually had some prerogative in what I did, I may have even enjoyed them perhaps through-out secondary school.

Despite the PE teacher's protestations, their timetable space was constantly eroded in favour of pretty much anything.

[Haumea]

	However, that 'A' on some pathetic nerd's transcript might make the difference between MIT and Caltech and potentially a cure for cancer or Alzheimer's.

Doesn't matter. The nerd could go to State, get in the honors program, get a 4.0 GPA, a killer MCAT and get accepted to Harvard Medical School where he becomes a top researcher.

[LittleRaincloud]

My elementary and middle school gym classes were hell, but my high school gym teacher was great. She actually would have the athletes be required to do more, and the out of shape people had it a little easier. She tried to grade on effort, which she wasn't perfect at but at least she tried to.

She viewed gym class as a place to learn HOW to exercise. So, you might think the weight room is a waste of time, but you're not there to get fit, you're there to learn how to properly use all of the machines, how to do a proper workout and not injure yourself. On rainy days we would also try things like yoga one day, another day we did dance aerobics, then tae bo, etc. etc. She wanted to expose us to as many different styles of exercise as she could and how to do it well. Her idea was that we should be developing habits to last a lifetime. So even if we only found one exercise we liked in all of gym class, we'd have that one thing we might continue into adulthood.

[Mogura]

6. Kickball should have been a regular high school sport complete with letterman jackets, cheerleaders, and drunken Trivial pursuit parties/orgies. Not really the fault of P.E. teachers though, but had kickball been considered a real sport I could have been somebody, and I'd be kicking back today talking about the glory years (specifically, my glory moments in excruiating detail) along with every other sports douchebag...

[Toad]

Originally Posted by JEP To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

2. I agree that a lot of coaches are overweight, but some of them used to be actual athletes and did a lot of weight training. So when they injured themselves so bad they could no long play their sport, or got too old, etc their diet and metabolism changed drastically, and they will put on some weight as they get older. Also, a lot of them do/did very heavy squats which made them develop very strong abs. So the abs jut out and sometimes look like a gut underneath a shirt.

Not unless they were taking obscene amounts of HGH. Even then, it's the internal organs jutting out, not the abs, which have a very limited potential of muscularity.

[Opressoliber]

No... just cut the PE classes altogether.
I would have done boxing all day long at the local YMCA, but I learned absolutely nothing from PE.

Most people never get better through PE classes and the teacher is just there as a bureaucrat in a jogging outfit. The guy that was crap at basketball in 6th grade is till gonna be crap by graduation.

[Supaslim]

Originally Posted by Vogue To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I thought P.E was generally graded on participation rather than skills. I mean my high school P.E class was graded on the following: 1) Did you show up? 2) Did you put on workout clothes? 3) Midterm/final In my middle school/elementary it was similar, minus number 3. But I went to private school, so half of my classes were like that. also.. as to number 4... wtf? That happened? haha. I guess it's different with co-ed classes.

Actually, I failed gym for two years, and got a C or D for the rest of the time just because I physically could not keep up. Asthma, and inhalers didn't help. Oh, and the gym teachers didn't like me. I failed one semester because I "cheated on the mile run" even though our track was fenced in and there was no way to cheat...

[InfiniteLoop]

I dunno, I always thought PE was kind of a useless class. All you do is run around and do situps, and maybe play dodgeball.

... You know what, screw that. Just have a whole class devoted entirely to playing dodgeball. That sport is so awesome and fun it should be made a national sport with teams and everything.

[Megalomania]

Pretty much everyone at my high school got a 100 in gym class. If you showed up and participated you passed.


I once wrote an essay on how pointless physical education for English class is because it forces kids to "exercise" for less than an hour twice a week and basically contributes nothing to the student's well being. Most kids in gym class don't even do anything; they just stand around and do as little as possible. It's up to the kid to get physically fit outside of class. Either mandate an hour of REAL physical education everyday or cut it out of the schedule. As it was in my high school, it was a huge waste of time.

[Nitroglycerin]

Originally Posted by Mogura To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

1. Reengineer your evaluation system to account for effort, not results. If Joe Football is not even trying, but seemingly kicking ass and taking names during every sporting activity, that 'A' on his transcript isn't really going to do much to advance his future career as a French Fry Specialist or P.E. Teacher, now is it? However, that 'A' on some pathetic nerd's transcript might make the difference between MIT and Caltech and potentially a cure for cancer or Alzheimer's. 2. Lose the gut. Look the role of someone who knows a thing or two about physical fitness. 3. Don't punish students by making them do laps. They'll end up associating running with punishment and before you know it, we'll end up with a nation full of exercise-hating fat asses who blame high school P.E. class for their future Little Debbies addiction. Oops, we're already there! 4. On rainy days teach us how to approach and talk to women instead of doing weightroom shit. Weightroom is boring and muscles atrophy within a few days anyway. Don't give a boy a woman. Teach a boy how to fish for a woman and that skill will last him for a lifetime. 5. Hitting someone square in the face during a dodgeball match shouldn't be penalized. The thrower should be awarded for his/her accuracy. Punish the idiot who failed to duck. I'm glad I got that off my chest. That shit's been building up for years. Love, Moggie

Most of these seem pretty plausible. I don't think demanding love advice from a P.E. teacher is constructive criticism though.

[aristos achaion]

I don't ever recall being graded on PE, actually. Then again, I went to public school for a grand total of one week, so maybe there's a reason for that...

Though there could be something to a "Physical Education" class that, ah, educated us on how to exercise instead of just slave-driving. You know, maybe teaching us how to run / lift weights / develop an exercise routine rather than just forcing us to do so? It seems that either kids play a sport or are just expected to figure out exercise on their own...if you don't want to get into an exercise routine because you don't know how to do so healthily without hurting yourself, you're branded as lazy, not recognized as confused and intimidated.

[Glathannus]

I can find many faults with the high school I went to, but physical education wasn't one of them.
2 out of our 4 years of high school, had to include physical education.

If you were excelling in the basic gym classes, they'd move you into "Athletic Weight Training" - which was as slave-driven as you could get without actually being on the wrestling team (since it was the same coach). We did learn proper deadlifts/squats/etc., though - but a lot of the class time was also a much more demanding version of gym than what the other physical education students were going through.

I ended up attending physical education for all 4 years, which not only conditioned me to ignore excruciating pain, but I was in pretty awesome physical shape for a nerd. I've mostly sat on my ass since then, so my six-pack has become a mini-keg of sorts. But I allow this sort of thing to happen not just out of sheer laziness, but because I feel like it wouldn't take me long to get back into the shape I was once in - if I wanted to commit the time for it.

[zergonipal]

I don't disagree with P.E in principle - I mean, I hated it, but I suppose it was good for us. But the 'grades for participation' bit puzzles me. You'd never be given credit in maths class for turning up wearing uniform and making the effort to line your pencils up neatly on your desk. If a school wants to make P.E a gradeable subject, then they ought to be grading ability, surely? If not, an hour of letting the kids run around and play ball has worked just fine for years now.