Your opinion on Gym Class

[In Search of Username]

I hated it so much. Just sat around trying to avoid getting involved in any actual physical activity and getting in trouble for it. Waste of time, I'll never be fit and an hour a week of running about wasn't going to change that unless I actually enjoyed it and wanted to do more.

 

[RandV80]

Obviously with the demography of this forum gym class isn't going to be that popular, and there's definitely better and worse ways of doing it, but it is something that should be important. You don't notice it as much when you're a teen but when you hit your twenties if you become involved in only stationary activities at some point your overall physical health is going to quickly decline. Now throwing non athletic kids into aggressive sports with other aggressive kids probably isn't the best thing to do, but as someone who's hit 30 I can say this from experience that once you leave mandatory gym class it's a very good idea to find some sort of athletic activity you enjoy and get out there at least once a week doing it. Or even something as simple as a 10-20 minute walk or bike to work every day, skipping the car/bus if you live close enough, can make a huge difference. Of course the key thing is it's something you actually enjoy, or at the very least in the case of walking/biking to work something you do out of necessity.

It was rather funny but I actually had a gym class in college. Being in the a two year comp science equivalent, a student raised some concern after gaining 30 pounds over the two years they implemented a mandatory activity class for the first semester every Thursday morning for 1-2 hours. Those of us that were more athletic usually played indoor soccer, but you could do something as simple as playing ping pong. They weren't trying to ram it down your throat, but they just had this in the first semester to encourage you to keep something up the rest of the way.

 

[Shifty]

Ever think its like other classes you take in school. Most you don't use again but learning about them gives you a broader view on what you can do in later life. No I am not talking about becoming a personal trainer, I am talking about hobbies etc. Many people read poetry because they enjoy it, many people read history because they enjoy it and many many people go keep fit because they enjoy it.

Thanks to PE classes many people decided they like keeping fit, many others decided they did not. People who did not like maths still had to do it, why should this be different.

On a side not I am not fit nor go to a gym just in case anyone thinks I am biased.

 

[Stu35]

People in coal mining towns in Yorkshire are not very enlightened, well travelled, or in many definitions of the word 'people'. If only we could put them in camps...


Wait, what?

Sir, I am a native Yorkshireman, and I take great offense to your comment! I challenge you to a duel, sir, on the field of honour!

K. I say we do it on the traditional field of battle in Yorkshire - Headingley stadium.

You bring the Whippet, I'll bring the Ferret.


[

Okay, seriously... what the bloody fuck is this "beep test"?

They play a tape (I imagine it may be a CD or MP3 at this point in time) on a boom box (or iPod docking station?). The tape has a series of beeps.

You run from one end of the gym to the other every time there is a beep. The beeps start out quite far apart, and get closer and closer together. If you fail to make the opposite side of the gym before a beep, you're out.

It's a basic test of aerobic fitness, but it's mostly suited to agile little bastards with a lot of acceleration. For big fat cunts like me with the turning circle of an articulated lorry, it involved a lot of hammering myself into the wall and bouncing off it in the hopes that I've given myself enough momentum to get to the other side of the gym in time.

It's pretty shit. The 2.4km run is a better measure, but to be entirely honest, as a Rugby player I despise any form of cardio that doesn't allow me to grab a 2-3 second breather every couple of minutes or so.

WHAT THE FUCK IS KIT?

... Ummm... the clothes one wears when doing PE?

No need to get angry about it...


As for the rest of your post... So you're against Phys in schools (as far as I can tell). You're wrong, simply pointing out that there are people who can get away with never doing phys and still be perfectly healthy is not a valid point. No more so than people who point out their granny smoked 40 fags a day until she died at the ripe old age of 137, and therfore smoking is fine.

 

[Wolf In A Bear Suit]

Well we have P.E and most people love it, I can't see how it can be perceived as anything but good. We often play football (soccer) and maybe a bit of fitness

 

[Rose and Thorn]

I hated phys ed class. Fuck uhg.

I usually went to the first 5 or 6 classes at the beginning of each year, grades 9-11 I think. After 5-6 days of harassment, bullying and idiotic male coach teachers, I asked my self what is the fucking point in going to these classes? To become depressed and feel bad about myself? Or to want to cry and slit my throat in the change room?

Nah, I decided it wasn't worth it and just skipped and failed those classes. To make up for it I got extra credits in other courses.

 

[cswurt]

I enjoyed gym quite a bit when I was required to take it. Granted, I run about a mile and a half almost every day, so I wasn't concerned with a few laps around the gym.
Fucking awful at sports though. I hated being forced to play them. Like, can't I just go run laps instead? :<
But as for p.e. as a whole? Yeah, we kind of need it. And not just play around a bit, like actually do things.

Gym shouldn't be about fun and sports anymore.

But not like this guy/gal is saying. Not everyone likes to run. Not everyone likes sports. Everyone should be required to do something active, but forcing every single person to run laps? Nah. You can be active without having to run. If every kid equates being active with just running, those that don't like just running are not going to make an attempt. They get discouraged before they ever start. It ought to be about showing kids that exercise is fun and not just painful drudgery. If it's fun, they'll do it. Painful and inflicted? They won't. Plain and simple.
[sub]And since when has playing sports not been active? That's ridiculous. Have you ever actually watched sports? There's a hell of a lot of activity, no matter what sport. [sub]Barring things that aren't really sports. Like golf or whatever.[/sub][/sub]
But everyone has their own opinion on it. Mine's not authoritative or anything.

Not every school in America has the funding to hire personal trainers for every single student to make sure they're doing something active in their own special way.

I'm sure everyone would like to think that they're unique and one in a million. But they aren't.


Not everyone likes math, but every student takes it anyway.

Not everyone likes running, but dammit, if it's in the curriculum and you want to graduate, you better deal with it.

 

[SamtheDeathclaw]

Not every school in America has the funding to hire personal trainers for every single student to make sure they're doing something active in their own special way.

I'm sure everyone would like to think that they're unique and one in a million. But they aren't.


Not everyone likes math, but every student takes it anyway.

Not everyone likes running, but dammit, if it's in the curriculum and you want to graduate, you better deal with it.

Talking from experience. One proper coach who actually gives a damn can make sure everyone is doing something active.
Math=/=p.e. Math is a subject that there is only one way to do. You can be physically active in any number of ways.
Silly comparisons aside, you have yet to offer any actual support for you position besides "LOL LET THE FATTIES DIE" so I'm not going to argue with you.
Good day.

 

[holographicman]

definitely needed here in the US to combat the whole fat people problem
and I speak from experience
i was/am quite pudgy

to point out the obvious though
the key is getting empathetic teaches that verbally/mentally slap the (young and old) brats that turn gym class into a bad experience for out shape kiddies

 

[Treeinthewoods]

It needs a to be more focused and frequent to be effective. Health assessment at the start and the setting of an individual goal woul be a better way to determine grades.

If I was in charge there would be more money spent on 3-4 day per week PE but less focus on team sport classes. Team sports are fun for some but hell for others. Give other choices like aerobics, weight lifting or other more individual activities. This gives even uncoordinated, non team oriented kids the ability to find other activities they can enjoy to improve their health. Not everyone wants to play basketball or dodgeball all the time.

I also feel like individually focused health classes would lessen bullying. Let the "popular jocks" have their classes and let the nerds improve their health in peace by doing something that won't be making them the center of attention every time a ball comes flying at them. Also include effective nutrition education into the class since diet is actually even more important than exercise for optimal health.

As for the "I could be learning math or science which are important," argument, I hope you realize that magnificent brain of yours is encased in a body. To keep that brain up and running at it's optimum, to avoid dying of heart disease in your forties, to give your brain a chance to rest while you focus on something else, you need to maintain your body. I can't believe any smart person isn't smart enough to figure that out.

 

[The Selkie]

An hour and a half of reluctant exercise a week isn't going to stop someone from getting fat. If you're going to do it then it needs to be with the intention of encouraging people to get involved in sports in their own time. In my school PE meant playing rugby for 4 years. If you don't like rugby? Tough. Eventually we were given a range of options, I found a sport I enjoyed and my overall fitness level increased dramatically.

It's a good idea, but has a tendency to be poorly implemented.

 

[game-lover]

It's useful. Back when I took gym or P.E. I was able to get regular exercise without having to worry about scheduling a time to do so.

All of that important stuff was done for me. I just showed up, did my stuff and that was that.

 

[Tdoodle]

To me, it's a waste of time I could be using to learn how to dance.

Good luck getting someone to dance with you, fatty.

In all seriousness, there needs to be more of it. When I was at school we did two hours until GCSEs, dropped to one hour during GCSEs and then nothing at all during A level. While I think 3 or 4 might be pushing it - in a 25 hour week, with about 10 different classes, 2 hour-long sessions seems reasonable to me - there definitely needs to be more of it in later years. That's the time everyone discovers alcohol and dodgy take-aways after all, so they'll need the run-around more than ever.

Although something I'd quite like to see is getting kids involved with outdoor groups. I used to volunteer with the local Rangers and every week we'd get in a minibus, drive somewhere, hop out and do things like fell trees, build bridges, hedgelay, coppice and other woodland-y things for the day. There's plenty of opportunity to be creative and learn more about the environment so it could easily be tied into art, science and history lessons. Not something that could become a regular feature in the curriculum but certainly something I'd love to have had the chance to do while I was at school.

 

[rednose1]

Absolutely needed. If you despite it because you're unfit, all the more reason to need it (how else are you going to get fit after all?)
Helps educate kids on the proper way to exercise to avoid injuries, and releases some pent up energy (kids have it in abundance).

As to the whole "brain power is more important" arguement, I call BS. The whole package is important, not just the brain.

 

[Chemical Alia]

Maybe gym class is very different at most other schools or just improved a lot since I was in grade school, because I can't remember getting anything of worth from it.

Literally from elementary school to the day I graduated high school, the only things we ever did were play some stupid variation of baseball (like kickball or whiffleball) which involved standing around most of the time, or volleyball (which I just couldn't play properly.) I was pretty fit, and would have loved for it to involve an option that was more self-structured like weight lifting or even running around a track the whole time, instead of making me stand around with a bunch of juvenile delinquents who hated me, and turning me off from competitive sports completely.

It was just such a joke of a class, which is kind of a shame. I took a semester of tai chi in college as my phys ed requirement (because they wouldn't count my army basic training, lol), and it was awesome.

 

[Redneck Gamer]

I hated gym class and was one of those kids who actually did need it and still need more than walks through the woods from October through March hunting and/or checking the trapline. Most gym teachers here seem to feel that their class is to benefit the school "superstar" athletes. Also, we had dancing, which i outright refused to participate in and failed a semester because of it. I see the reason behind gym class, but the implementation really needs work. As it is the class is pretty much worthless to some, a wonderful time for others and no reason to take it for most.

 

[Orphillius]

The kids who were already athletic got an A, and if you weren't then you didn't. That's how it was for me, at least. I never just sat down and refused to do the things, I always did whatever it was, but I always got C's in PE. Just because my depth perception blows a million dicks so I can't serve the god damn ball in tennis. How is that fair?
To get into most colleges (where I am, at least) you need to have at least 1 credit in PE. That's idiotic, you don't learn anything in PE. I didn't get any more healthy from that class. I don't care if the class is there, but don't make it a requirement.

 

[spartan231490]

Up to high school level, it's a great idea. K-12th grade primarily exist not to educate you, but to babysit you, so it's a great thing to have a time where the point is to get off your ass and do something active, and usually have fun. In college/university, it's a massive waste of time, and money. As are all classes that are mandated and not a part of your major. That's my 0.02

 

[Nannernade]

Gym wasn't my favorite class but it wasn't all bad dodgeball and kickball was always fun to play.

 

[GeneralFungi]

I enjoy gym and am fit enough to run a couple of laps around a gym and most other physical activities, but I've always disliked it. Not because of the fitness required for it, it was just that I didn't play sports as religiously as a lot of the people in the same class as me. I was always competing with people who went through after school sports programs. This pretty much made me a 5th wheel on any team I was on (even if I wasn't terrible) and I usually participated in the game very little just because sporty people will pass to sporty people. Most of the time I just felt like I was chasing after a ball for an entire class and getting curb-stomped by people who would train for at least 3 hours every single day. The school I go to is predominately filled with athletes, in case you are wondering.

I've never had a problem with a way the teachers graded the class though. I would do the laps and the push-ups, so I guess that was all I needed to prove my participation.