I just wanted to put up a “Damn Hell Yeah! Motherfucker!” post about Chris’s blog, if we want our kids to be healthy that’s OUR responsibility. Fuck, OUR Health is OUR responsibility.
Yeah, his article fired me up too. It’s always a good day when someone tells Hillary to f**k off.
What the fuck are you talking about!
Here’s another radical libertarian idea: let’s get rid of P.E. altogether. Yup, that’s right. It’s obviously not doing any good. This way, the coaches won’t be demoralized and can better focus on training their athletes. The money saved can be used to improve weight rooms and such. Everyone can focus on sports they enjoy rather than be part of “group athletics.” Has anyone every played dodgeball recently?
Yeah, I admit, I had no athletic skills, last one picked for the team, that kind of thing. But I liked lifting weights. In high school, I always stayed after school to lift weights - not because some coach told me to, but because I wanted to. I hated P.E., but I liked doing the activities that I enjoyed doing. And if the goal of P.E. is to establish lifelong fitness habits, then this is the way to do it - not dodgeball.
Obviously, this means that some kids will just not to anything athletic at all. That’ll be their problem. In the long run, letting kids participate in a sport that they enjoy will instill lifelong fitness habits to more kids than organized P.E.
I have got to respond and defend myself as a professional. I am a coach, and I am also a PE teacher. We are not all like this. I have lived a lifestyle of exercise and strength training since I can remember. I have been at the forefront of systematically chaning the way my district runs its PE program from top to bottom. I went out and got a grant from a University in our state to upgrade equipment. What I recieved was a 15K machine the tests every conceiveable aspect of fitness you can imagine. With this, I can give bodyfat analysis feedback along with a meal plan for each of my students to follow. I have also fought with administration and won the right to teach fitness and health classes, weight training and conditioning classes. Oh, I am also a football coach with a strong lifting background. I posess my CSCS and am very proud of the fact that I bust my ass to make a difference.
I don’t see anything wrong with kids getting out of gym class – so long as they can prove they’re doing something athletic elsewhere.
BOFHette wasted time in school with gym that could have been far better spent on more AP classes. At the time, she was taking three different types of dance classes simultaneously.
My $0.02.
BOFH
Brian,
I applaud your efforts. We need more teachers like you, but unfortunately, there aren’t enough like you. I was lucky in that once I got into high school and my P.E. teacher knew I enjoyed lifting, he let me use the weight room “on my honor,” along with another guy with whom I lifted. He trusted me and I lived up to that trust because we actually worked our butts off in there (we were doing Ahnuld’s program at the time which meant overtraining hell - we couldn’t help but work our butts off). Thing is, I’m sure a lot of guys would have screwed around if given that opportunity.
In high school we had to complete a type of endurance race as a minimum requirement to move onto the next grade level. Factors were addressed such as training, nutrition, and human physiology. We were given a class period each day to do minimal training (50 minute class) as well. Each yr we had to either have the same times and rate or improve (didn’t matter by how much) by either a faster time (if I did a 10k every yr) or better mile time or rate. All we had to do was finish. We were limited to just swimming and/or running races. No one was given more credit than others if they did a triathalon or biathalon. Disablities were addressed as well.
This is a private high school where a majority of its students either come from a family background of obesity and/or heart disease or fall within the definitions of obesity and/or run high risk of heart disease. This program was started in 1988, my freshmen yr.
Here in Hawai’i I don’t know any government funded institution that cares this much for its youth. While after high school the graduates may let themselves go and get fat, the choice is ours and we learned what needed to be done. So for those who graduated from the same high school as I did only have themselves to blame for their problems. Not McDowells lol I mean McDonalds.
I didn’t read all the posts in this thread, just a couple- so I might be repeating stuff others have said. BTW I loved PE. Even though I wasn’t the best at it.
I hated PE.
I was never into team sports and PE class was full of Rugby, Floor Hockey, Basketball, etc. There were other units like swimming and track that I enjoyed to some degree, but for the most part I did not enjoy that class at all.
We did a small fitness unit or two, one of aerobics, one of weight training that I enjoyed, but I really wish that we could have focused more on these aspects.
Ironically, all the jocks who were on teams took PE along with the rest of us, and the band geeks were actually the ones to get out of PE.
I had mixed feelings about P.E. I was really out of shape, and hated dodge ball. But other times it was more like recess. The best thing they ever did was fool us into thinking we were playing games, and not just getting in shape.
The worst P.E. class was polka dancing.
One thing that gets left out is the education part. Properly structured, it would become so much more important to kids. Especially the ones wanting to get in shape, even just to look good. But it doesn’t help to put the fat math teacher in charge of the class. It should be taken more seriously then it is.
Oh yeah. Great article. (Or post, or blog, or whatever.)
I would play dodgeball if they had a league.
I freaking love dodgeball. It is one of my favorite games.
My college buddies and I made a version that used a medicine ball and a padded room, and it was full contact. There was alot of blood spilled in those days.
-Dave
I remember once I got out of PE and went to my next class, where I realised I had forgotten my book in the weight room during PE.
So I raced back to the gym, where – as was common in many schools during the seventies – boys and girls took PE in different classes. No co-ed PE. As I entered the gym to go get my bookbag, I observed what the girls were doing for PE.
The hokey-pokey.
I considered this a fundamental inequality, so I’m glad someone else finally noticed and made the classes equal. Now the BOYS can do the hokey-pokey!
And then they can go picket for gay marriage.
The beach by my house has a dodgeball court. Next time I see someone playing there, I’m going to ask to play. Dodgeball is fun as hell
I have to agree with chubs, Hawaii whole education system sucks, not just it’s P.E. program. Lucky Chubs got to go to a good private school. But here in Hawaii, even I am starting too see some fat kids now. Yet there should no be no excuse here, since one can always to something outdoors here.
Great article, I need to print it out and show it to all the parents I have argued this w/ over the years (I lose, but that’s cos they refuse to admin someone half their age is right). Anyways, a lot of this crap is the parents fault (not all, but some), that will happily sue anyone if their kid so much as stubs his toe on something that shouldn’t be there. This obviously is not good for cities, schools, etc, that can’t afford litigation everytime jonny slips on the monkeybars and busts his knee open (I loved thatas a kid…all the little girls hated blood!!). So they get politicians to back them up and everything that made my childhood worthwhile is gone. FUCKING GAY!!!
Back home in South Africa the same thing is happening, people are starting to sue over everything and the risk of some kid jumping off a jungle gym and busting his head open is too much of a risk for a public school. (Did that too, my dad thoroughly slapped me “Being a complete idiot” and “wasting his time by making him take me to get stitches”, needless to say I still did it…but I learnt to land properly).
I for one was MADE to play outside as a kid. My dad was a programmer, and I built my 1st computer at age 7, but i still spent 3/4 of my free time outside. People need to realize that trying to protect their kids from everything is just gonna fuck them up later in life when they’re on their own. Anyone w/ an ounce of common sense can realize that.
Another advantage of living a down and dirty lifestyle (playing outside i mean), is that it boosts your immune system. Seriously, I never got sick as a kid and some part of me was always bleeding be it from hiking, rugby, skateboarding, jumping off our 2nd storey roof, or simply beating the piss outta each other w/ sticks 
People need to get their kids out their to experience everything, sheltering them from the dangers of the world isn’t gonna do shit, cos those dangers will still be there when you are not around. Let them get outside, be there with them, a little blood never hurt anybody, and when they screw up, a slap upside the head, a few harsh words, and then make sure you child is ok.
Disclaimer: Yes, I am only 21, but being brought up the way I was, having gone to boarding school w/ a corporal punishment system, and knowing how myself and my friends have turned up, I feel i can talk adequately on this subject.
p.s. I am pretty sure most of the parents here know how to raise their kids to follow an active lifestyle, so I ain’t dogging you at all, keep those little buggers running around!!
p.s.s Full contact sports are cool, kids are harder to break than we are, so let them beat each other up.