I cannot over-state how a single bad teacher can create a lot of harm to so many kids.
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Yes! This!
PE is either sport — getting squashed in the mud, whacked on the shins with a hockey stick, etc — or it's gymnastics — having to vault over stuff with the ever present danger of whacking your coccyx on the edge, or climbing a rope to dangerous heights.
So many people are, and have been, put off all exercise by the extremely limited idea of exercise at school.
Schools should give the option of Yoga, Pilates, and proper weight training.
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@jeffowski My N=1 experience as the owner & head trainer of a fitness centre for 20 years supports this position.
The vast majority of my adult clients had unpleasant memories of PE. More than one referred to it as "torture."
I loved PE & organized sport - even competed at a high level for over a decade - but I could not ignore what my clients told me.
My position now is that sport does not confer good health. Large military studies have shown that the majority of lost workhours are from sports programs.
PE could & should help individuals refine what fitness values they have and then help guide them to develop personal plans that agree with those values.
There is no fitness ideal. One is free to determine what exactly they want to be fit for.
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Oh yeah, PE was always best when taught by the football coach / social studies / history teacher who played favorites with his beloved football team.
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@jeffowski The thing that I will forever be furious about is that, through *years* of "health" classes and physical "education", never once was it mentioned that, if you wanted to burn more calories, for example to lose weight, you should build a little muscle, because muscle burns calories even when you're sleeping. I was fifty when I learned that. Much too late.
And what's with
- "do this"
- fail to to this
- give bad mark
- endinstead of
- "do this"
- fail to do this
- "let me teach you how you can train effectively so that you will be able to do this"*That* would be physical "education".
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@jeffowski @leyrer every single PE teacher anywhere on the planet.
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@jeffowski Oh yeah. I was the proverbial kid who was never picked for dodge ball. I liked one unit when we climbed things with wires for a month or so, but otherwise, awful.
I exercise a lot now, and frequently think about telling my gym teachers and classmates to screw, but I'm a stubborn, vengeful person. People who are mentally healthier would, ironically, not take my approach.
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@jeffowski
this is at least as bad for public health as asbestos. one hopes action would be taken in less than 50 years. -
@jeffowski it took me a full two decades to get over my "I'm not sporty" hangups.
I was just starting to get somewhere, running three times a week and actually enjoying it. Then I got covid and lost all ability to run.
I could have had two decades of running as an adult. It could have had a lifelong improvement in my overall health. But I was shit at PE, hated everything about it, and shunned anything that looked like exercise or sport as a self-defense mechanism. -
@jeffowski this is just bog standard school PE. I never understood why it was considered reasonable to send us out in sub-zero temperatures wearing only shorts and a rugby shirt. This is something I would never do as an adult - even if I'm going to do something active in cold conditions I will layer up and then strip layers off as and when I need to.
I left school believing that all sport was horrible. Took me a long time to discover that rock climbing and windsurfing are great fun.
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@jeffowski I hated PE. I always failed the class because I wouldn't "dress down" for class with everyone else in the locker room. Such a stupid requirement.
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@jeffowski My PE teacher was a thug who liked hitting kids because they couldn't run fast enough or who were bad a football.
He once made me run around a field with a twisted ankle until I collapsed in pain halfway round.
Can confirm to this day I loathe all sport.
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R relay@relay.mycrowd.ca shared this topic
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The long, winding path I took to discovering circus arts as a way to live in my skin was only after some recovering from a terrible PE "teacher".
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@jeffowski
I liked to swim, play tennis, roller skate, and ride my bike. Hated team sports.My school had no pool or tennis court. Only play fields and a gym.
I am jealous when I hear about today's kids getting PE credit for logging the physical activity of their choice outside of school.
Oh, and my PE teacher actually whipped me on the leg with his whistle lanyard because I refused to do extra leg lifts. Fuck that sadistic piece of shit.
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@jeffowski There should be an entire section of PE class where they teach about bike safety and basic maintenance, and eventually just take all the kids out for bike rides and that's the class.
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@jeffowski We did wrestling in 8th grade PE. No one in my weight could pin me. Coach called another kid over, who easily outweighed me by 50lbs. That kid couldn't pin me. Coach asked me if I was interested in being on the wrestling team. I said no, because I thought he was an asshole.
I still think I could've done pretty well as a wrestler.
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@jeffowski one of our school PE "teachers" showed definitely sadistic behaviour. Not only during PE. He loved giving bad marks and really enjoyed when kids failed in math.
The other one was the opposite. A super athlete and former ballet dancer who also taught music. He never judged, always supported kids and even started a ballet course at school, where all had fun. Nobody failed in his classes, he never gave bad marks, saying the mark system itself is not fair, because everybody is different and he marks efforts, not results. Thank you, Mr. Imamovic. -
@jeffowski PE teachers were scraped from the bottom of the teacher barrel in my school district. They wanted everyone to be bullies, abusive, cheats, and all the other bad qualities that the PE teacher had.
Those qualities may work for a while, but in the end they tear down those who use them.
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@jeffowski Now do #Math and #Chemistry teachers, too!
Maybe the decades long drop of standardized PISA test scores for students in #American #PublicSchools should be cause for alarm?
There’s a *reason* #Trump famously said “I *love* the poorly educated!” after he won his first primary during the #2016election in #Nevada. https://youtu.be/O9F6EAMPky4
#Resist intelligently!
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@jeffowski In one bit of hope, I have worked with a few really amazing PE teachers. They combine physical activities with problem solving, play games that require students to strategize before engaging and then discuss strategy afterward, and even have days where students get to choose from actually fun and somewhat old school activities such as wall climbing, scooters (the sit and push type not the electric ones), and even imaginative play time with actual toys that aren’t electronics.
They also play some seriously active games to support the kids who really like the competition and movement. Of course, they don’t really get those going until pretty much everyone already feels comfortable being active, so even the non-believers will give those games a try. It’s a real masterclass in how not to “other” children in a physical space.
They are, not surprisingly, some of the popular teachers in the school.
