Comments on: Dodgeball Gets a Pink Slip

By: Carol

Carol — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 02:49:31 +0000

Amy - cool analogy about brushing your teeth! I’ll bet PE teachers, who are the talented and athletic types, get frustrated with us normal people. It would be cool if it was just as fun for a PE teacher to teach the awkward kid to swim a lap on her own as it was to perfect the serve of the star volleyball player. It seems like the first one would be an interesting problem to solve, even if it doesn’t win a tournament of some kind.

By: Carol

Carol — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 02:36:01 +0000

Kellena,

You guys in Colorado are nuts about your exercise. I was in Denver for a business trip and got a 1-day pass to a downtown gym. I went to a swimming class because I had been taking lessons and liked to practice, but I explained to the teacher that I was pretty slow and she said that was OK, they had a lane for the slower folks. Well, ends up that ’slower folks’ meant something like ‘no Olympic gold medals.’ It didn’t take long before I decided to hang out in the hot tub instead.

It’s cool that you had a good PE experience, except for the screaming part.

By: Amy

Amy — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 23:33:31 +0000

Very hot topic in public ed. these days. My school participates in CATCH, (Coordinated Approach to Children’s Health) which includes the whole community (kids, teachers, school administrators and parents) in teaching kids to be active and eat healthy. There’s another program I read about recently called PE4Life which really focuses on the importance of being fit and active for everyone. It’s so important for us to teach our kids that athletics is not just about being “good” at something but about being fit and healthy! Think about it this way… would you only have the people with the most beautiful smiles bother to brush their teeth? Would you ever say, “Honey, don’t bother brushing, your teeth will never be varsity-level white?”

By: Kellena

Kellena — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 19:10:09 +0000

PE at my junior high and high school in Grand Junction, Colorado was a lot like boot camp. These schools were known for producing jocks and going to state championships on a regular basis. Everyone had to take PE and although there were dodgeball days, most classes consisted of calisthenics and running. I remember PE teachers screaming at the slower kids to get moving. Everyone was always a sweaty mess during the class after PE, and the boys were especially stinky. However, it’s probably because of this kind of PE that I’ve always exercised regularly. I preferred after school fru-fru stuff like pom-pons to sports, but I remember still thinking of myself as being athletic. When I went to my 20 year high school reunion, I was amazed at how many Mormon women were there that had around six kids, but looked skinny and fabulous.

So, I guess my PE classes were “encouraging,” although I’m not sure that type of encouragement is quite what Dolly Lamdin was talking about. They were a good start though.

By: Carol

Carol — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 00:54:13 +0000

Thanks for the comment, Katie!

My husband just came back from the movie rental place with Mr. Woodcock and I wonder if there are enough bad-PE-experience movies to have its own genre. Maybe…

By: Katie

Katie — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 20:23:03 +0000

Whew! My PE classes were a lot like yours… so I’m equally glad to hear that the old-school practices of discouraging girls from being active are on the way out. We know so much now about how vital an active lifestyle is for staying physically/emotionally healthy. Great post!