I wasn't very good at any sport as a young child. I'm on the dyspraxia spectrum, something I didn't find out till much later.
I started off being the kid bullied in P.E lessons for being rubbish. I hated it, but instead of just giving up and accepting it, I worked hard to improve.
By secondary school I even made it onto the cricket, rugby and tennis teams. And I regularly did well in school competitions for football and basketball.
I often found that determination and effort could overcome ability, mostly because people always underestimated me.
I think I learnt a lot from P.E lessons, and it's a shame that people get pushed to a point where they do just give up and think sport isn't for them.
By the time we'd got changed, walked to the sports hall and got the equipment out, it was time to go back and get changed again!
One year we had lessons of double P.E and we had to do cross country round the local streets, hated that.
I hated it because I was always on a period, and had many a handwritten note from my Mum (well me, I was always literate) to excuse me, I was neither a boy, or fat and wheezy.
I loved it in 1st and 2nd year seniors. Then something happened and I hated it and did everything I could to get out of it including forging notes from my Parents excusing me from it. The variety of excuses I used was brilliant and got more bizarre each time, in fact I'm not sure how our PE teacher didn't call the Guinness Book of Records.
Did you enjoy doing PE in school? Do you remember it as being fun or tough? Are schools doing enough for our kids, or should the parents be more responsible for making sure their kids get enough exercise?
Also, did you have a unit on gymnastics when you were in school? I was talking to my daughter about it last week and she said they basically put the equipment out, have a student who already knows gymnastics demonstrate something and then they goof around for the rest of the class on the apparatus. My first thought was 'gee, things haven't changed much'. Lol, any of you had a teacher that actually knew how to do any gymnastic maneuvers? It seems like a bit of a time-waster, and as much as I think those who are good at are probably healthy and athletic, I don't see it as a general good-fitness type of thing, it's too specialized (I'm not sure if that's the word I'm looking for). A class on yoga with emphasis on proper warming up and stretching would be more useful, imo. Too new-age?
Hated team games as I was bullied at school and being rubbish at sports and letting the team down just made things worse. I didn't mind the more 'individual' sports such as gymnastics and swimming so much because while I still wasn't very good at them at least I was not dragging everyone else down. It never occurred to me to try and get out of it though-I just accepted that we all have subjects we don't like.
I hated it. I am not interested in sport at all - and have never had any wish to participate in it.
The worse thing about PE class was that the teachers always picked the popular kids as team captains, who of course picked all their pals and I was left till the end and the teacher had to force me onto whatever team had a space left. I was not into sport and the teachers just assumed that everyone knew the rules and did not explain them. So I just ended up hanging about trying to avoid the ball and keeping away from any action.
Then the sheer torture of square dancing would be inflicted on us. We had to do 'strip the willow' type dances and it was always boys to pick girls. Naturally no-one ever picked me and I was always left to dance with the teacher.
I always thought it was very cruel of teachers to ask pupils to pick other pupils as it was very alienating for kids who weren't popular or were geeks or whatever. They must have been blind not to notice that it was always the same kids left till last and I don't know why they allowed it to happen.
We need it to help development, do we? All I ever saw PE as was a glorified popularity contest. All it ever seemed to teach my classmates were new ways of picking on people less good at the sport than themselves.
I found the whole thing a pointless, unpleasant experience, having us out in shorts In December weather kicking a ball about a field. I remember one time in February I came in wearing tracksuit bottoms, and he said that it was getting near to Spring now, so we should come back in shorts. While he stood there in a massive, thick, coat.
Pointless because it took us out of the classroom, and for what? We didn't even get that much exercising done as far as I remember; they tried to show us new "techniques" for playing football. Invaluable education. It was always sodding football or hockey, despite the school building a new sports hall with gymnastic and weight facilities.
I'm not averse to encouraging exercise, but it needs to be done in different way. I would have loved swimming, for example. PE as it stands is just a haven for bullying.
I hated everything about PE, from having to carry truckloads of kit, to being forced into the shower with the teacher watching to make sure we wet more than our ankles. I showed no natural aptitude for sport. I was always last at cross country, the goal shooter for the worst team in netball and once I was late for my next class because my teacher wouldn't let me get changed till I'd managed to clear the high jump. There were often 50 girls to a class which meant we never really got to play anything properly, and spent most of the time on the sidelines (ok so I didn't mind that bit!) I used to beg my mum to write notes to get out of cross country and athletics, and on most cold days too LOL! it has impacted me in my life as I still have no interest in sport, though I wish I were a bit fitter- I see it as a chore and would get no pleasure from going to the gym etc.
It was alright. Throughout my schooling years, not once did I get the chance to play football or rugby though. Instead we had netball (no basketball), dodgeball, trampolining and hockey. There was a few other sports like table tennis and cross country as well but I always wanted to play rugby. In year 11 we went bowling a few miles away every week for the whole year. That was fun because it was the last period so we could just get the public bus straight back home instead of the school coach.
I was a stereotypical small, thin, slow, asthmatic boy with glasses so I didn't really enjoy PE at all. We did rugby, swimming and cross country running in winter and rounders, badminton and tennis in summer. I hated rugby because I don't like physical contact and it often got quite rough; I had to take off my glasses too so I couldn't even see the ball. I disliked swimming because I was sorted into the beginners group despite the fact I was actually a fairly decent swimmer (bizarrely the sorting was done as a race over a length between two of you - I was pitted against a girl who swam competitively for the county and she beat me by something like a minute and a half) and I detested cross country because I was painfully slow at running and had no stamina. Rugby and cross country were done at the school sports fields right next to the North Sea and it was always absolutely freezing cold, windy and utterly miserable. I was completely useless at rounders because I have no hand-eye coordination whatsoever but tennis and badminton were ok I suppose.
I didn't do it in high school once. I don't think it didn't any harm.
First year I just forged notes, after that I just refused to do it. Didn't take my kit, refused to wear the lost and found stuff. Twice a week I would have to go to the PE block, get asked if I was doing it, I'd say no, and then I just had to stand outside watching for the lesson
Comments
I bet your muscles must be huge these days! :cool::D
i'm still trying, 6 years on
We couldn't take an O Level in it, though, unfortunately.
I started off being the kid bullied in P.E lessons for being rubbish. I hated it, but instead of just giving up and accepting it, I worked hard to improve.
By secondary school I even made it onto the cricket, rugby and tennis teams. And I regularly did well in school competitions for football and basketball.
I often found that determination and effort could overcome ability, mostly because people always underestimated me.
I think I learnt a lot from P.E lessons, and it's a shame that people get pushed to a point where they do just give up and think sport isn't for them.
One year we had lessons of double P.E and we had to do cross country round the local streets, hated that.
Christ, poor you, having a 7 day cycle.
So to me PE was pointless
i hate p.e so much as i was very bad sport.
The worse thing about PE class was that the teachers always picked the popular kids as team captains, who of course picked all their pals and I was left till the end and the teacher had to force me onto whatever team had a space left. I was not into sport and the teachers just assumed that everyone knew the rules and did not explain them. So I just ended up hanging about trying to avoid the ball and keeping away from any action.
Then the sheer torture of square dancing would be inflicted on us. We had to do 'strip the willow' type dances and it was always boys to pick girls. Naturally no-one ever picked me and I was always left to dance with the teacher.
I always thought it was very cruel of teachers to ask pupils to pick other pupils as it was very alienating for kids who weren't popular or were geeks or whatever. They must have been blind not to notice that it was always the same kids left till last and I don't know why they allowed it to happen.
We need it to help development, do we? All I ever saw PE as was a glorified popularity contest. All it ever seemed to teach my classmates were new ways of picking on people less good at the sport than themselves.
I found the whole thing a pointless, unpleasant experience, having us out in shorts In December weather kicking a ball about a field. I remember one time in February I came in wearing tracksuit bottoms, and he said that it was getting near to Spring now, so we should come back in shorts. While he stood there in a massive, thick, coat.
Pointless because it took us out of the classroom, and for what? We didn't even get that much exercising done as far as I remember; they tried to show us new "techniques" for playing football. Invaluable education. It was always sodding football or hockey, despite the school building a new sports hall with gymnastic and weight facilities.
I'm not averse to encouraging exercise, but it needs to be done in different way. I would have loved swimming, for example. PE as it stands is just a haven for bullying.
First year I just forged notes, after that I just refused to do it. Didn't take my kit, refused to wear the lost and found stuff. Twice a week I would have to go to the PE block, get asked if I was doing it, I'd say no, and then I just had to stand outside watching for the lesson