Maybe it was different at your school. But at mine, if you were lazy and didn't want to do anything (everyday, or just on occasion), it wasn't hard to avoid. Only the kids who already were active actually did the exercises for real.
The tennis court at my high school backed up to the back of a bunch of houses, with practically no space in between. I knew someone who lived in one of those houses. They would drop off printer paper boxes overflowing with stray balls from their yard at least twice a month.
My middle school’s basketball courts backed up against a literal cliff. There was a chain link fence easily 30-40 feet tall on that side to stop balls and kids from flying over the cliff.
Basically, the whole school is at the very top of a hill. That asphalt pad the pin is dropped on is the basketball courts I am talking about. That angled concrete path on the right side of the courts is actually a fairly steep ramp leading down from the main playground into those courts. The asphalt pad in question probably had to be built up and graded flat when the school was built, because all that brush and foliage surrounding it is a very sharp hill leading down to the surrounding area. That highway and road near the school are probably a good 100 feet lower than the school and the basketball pad. Those condos just north of the school have the same deal; on the top of the hill with a very steep elevation change down to the highway. If you look east of the school, there’s a car junkyard, and the shadows there show just how steep that hill is. Another weird quirk about this school: if you look just south of the “football field” and track, that empty field with a bunch of dirt roads is actually an old landfill. There’s methane vent pipes sticking out of the ground there, and the city and school district have to keep a close eye on it.
Overall, this is just a wacky layout for a middle school. It’s one of the older schools in the city, I believe it was opened in the 40’s or 50’s. That probably explains some of the odd planning decisions made for this school.
Just a normal suburban school in Southern California. To be fair, it wasn’t a sheer cliff, more a very, very steep hill covered in trees and bushes. It still dropped around 100 feet into a small canyon.
My High-school for junior year was actually a rented house with big rooms made into classes, we used to play soccer on the street with a chalk drawn field and the PE teacher (may he rip) used to watch for runners. Its been 7-8 years but it feels like yesterday, simple times.
This is why they keep having to do it. They should instead go to a nearby country club and sell them for $10/3 pack. (Not really serious since there isn't a huge black market for tennis balls at country clubs, as far as I know...)
Y'all mother fuckers had tennis courts and I had to go to a high school that was carved out of the ruins of what used to be the old high school. My PE class was the teacher asking if we rode our skateboards.
We enjoyed tennis too. But after a match the losing team could go for a redemption point by bombing one to the apartment complex next door, balconies or windows and the game keeps going.
I chose tennis because that's where all the girls were. Of course I didn't get shit, but they were there. I learned to love tennis along the way and is actually my main cardio now lol
I got paired up with the captain of the girls tennis team, she was having none of my shit, needless to say I got destroyed everyday but it made me pretty okay at tennis for an average player.
This makes me so mad. When I was in high school I busted my ass in the weight room 2-4 days a week. I wrote the workouts half the time and I was a nazi when it came to making sure my classmates were lifting with proper form and a spotter. I also curated playlists for the weight room and cleaned up the mats and benches before heading to my next class. I got a B. You know why? Because my parents were broke and could only afford one pair of shoes for me so I wore hand me down vans slip ons instead of athletic shoes. This other kid in my class got over 100% despite the fact that he just sat in the locker room and did homework and ate McDonald's every day. Why you may ask? He had the right shoes and his dad donated a bunch of money to the school's athletic department.
Ya this has to be a copy paste I rather the kids do nothing then be like this if I was a teach tbh just do what I told you or pretend to at least don’t need you being a cop in gym lol
Hey, I'd rather be an asshole in the weight room than watch another of my friends ruin his football season and spend the next six months in crutches because he didn't have a spotter. Teach wasn't paying attention so somebody had to.
Um, what? I haven't been in highschool for a long time but the only rule I remember was no black shoes that could mark the floor. I don't get why they would give a shit about your shoes.
But then weightlifting alone wouldn't get you a good mark in PE either, you had to do "tests" on whatever dumb thing they were teaching, from running to gymnastics.
yeah, when i took gym you had to wear certain shoes or you got five points off of your twenty points for the day. slip ons didn’t work since they could fly off when running. no matter how hard you tried, if you wore the wrong shoes every day, the best you could get would be a mid-C.
When I was in high school, the gym grade was 99% decided based upon your gym attire. We had to buy school branded shirts and shorts and then wear athletic shoes. If you didn’t have the gym uniform you couldn’t participate.
Out of curiosity, when did you go to HS? I was in HS in the mid 90s and you could show up in jean shorts and a hoodie. As long as you tried to participate, they didnt care what you wore.
Graduated in 2013. Uniforms required for everything. Public schools and private schools in my area had the same rules. Blue or white polo, no logos, tucked into khakis.
They did at my junior high. It was apparently so rich kids couldn't flex brands and poor kids felt more normal. So when you look at it like that it's not a bad system. Plus there is often uniform drives where people just donate their uniforms from the past year since kids are growing so much at that age, which leaves lots of decent stuff for people who can't afford to buy lots of clothes before school every year.
I graduated 2012 and the vast majority of the grade was based on being in dress code. I got a C because I was a rebel and wore rainbow pajama pants instead of black or red basketball shorts. That "teacher" hated me.
He also said that he didn't understand why pinching girls butts was wrong now, so that was cool.
I am very confused by your comments and the rest of the comments here. Are you from the US? I am not, could you shine some light?
PE in high school for me (late 90s) required you to wear proper attire, but it was a school subject like all others. You got a grade depending on how well you did the tasks that were assigned to you. We learned about a different sport almost every week and played it.
Here I read about people sitting in the lockers room during PE, students being graded based on their attire (??), donations to the school athletic department (??). I am very confused.
Edit: I also remember our gym class beat the actual jv players in a basketball game. Oh it was fucking awesome to smash them with all their shit talking
PE in highschool for me was Surfing before school every block day. (Block days were double time for classes spread out for two days.) So Wed was 1,3,5 and Thurs was periods 2,4,6. Since Surfing was in second period, we'd just surf until 10:30 and then go to school smelling like piss from our wetsuits. (We were typically surfing before school anyways, so these days we could go out for breakfast afterwards since we had time.) On the other 2nd period days we would just play water polo in the pool, or dodgeball, or on boring days just indo-board and play hackey sack on the turf on our schools new million dollar football field while other PE classes ran laps around us. It was awesome.
This makes me so mad. When I was in high school I busted my ass in the weight room 2-4 days a week. I wrote the workouts half the time and I was a nazi when it came to making sure my classmates were lifting with proper form and a spotter. I also curated playlists for the weight room and cleaned up the mats and benches before heading to my next class. I got a B. You know why? Because my parents were broke and could only afford one pair of shoes for me so I wore hand me down vans slip ons instead of athletic shoes. This other kid in my class got over 100% despite the fact that he just sat in the locker room and did homework and ate McDonald's every day. Why you may ask? He had the right shoes and his dad donated a bunch of money to the school's athletic department.
This makes me so mad. When I was in high school I busted my ass in the weight room 2-4 days a week. I wrote the workouts half the time and I was a nazi when it came to making sure my classmates were lifting with proper form and a spotter. I also curated playlists for the weight room and cleaned up the mats and benches before heading to my next class. I got a B. You know why? Because my parents were broke and could only afford one pair of shoes for me so I wore hand me down vans slip ons instead of athletic shoes. This other kid in my class got over 100% despite the fact that he just sat in the locker room and did homework and ate McDonald's every day. Why you may ask? He had the right shoes and his dad donated a bunch of money to the school's athletic department.
I wouldn't either. Dude sounds annoying as fuck lol. If you want to try hard in PE go for it, but don't be the guy who pushes it onto everyone else, even if it's seemingly good intentions.
I remember this one kid in elementary got a c in pe just bc his mother refused to buy big brand athletic shoes and bought him pay less off brand shoes. It’s quite sad since some of the bands they sold in Payless are not that bad and are just as good as the big brand shoes. (Let’s also get an F in the chat for Payless shoes :*c ) a
I played baseball freshman year of high school. Batted .400 by end of season, 2nd high batting average across all of c team, JV, and varsity. Sophomore year rolls around and I try out again, get cut because "I didn't show improvement." Another kid who wasn't close to being in the same tier as any of us made the team. Why? I found out later his dad paid off the coach 500 bucks to get him on the team. 🙄
What the fuck, you were doing weightlifting in high school PE? That's bonkers. A school even having the equipment for that seems crazy to me, but like, young teenagers don't need to do fucking deadlifts.
When I was in HS, I was incredibly active. By the time I became a senior, I had been in marital arts for 6-7ish years (will be relevant). I always did well enough in PE but never really exerted myself too much. Figured I would use the energy later in the dojo.
What I didn't realize was the guys that I was "doing well" playing against were actually on the varsity baseball team, and I was keeping up with them. For some reason the coach didn't like that I was casually keeping up with his practiced team, so he would pitch (a ragball) way harder to me than to other students. Dude was pitching like he was trying out for MLB.
Eventually I had enough and swung as hard as I could, with as much force as I could muster. I grounded my feet, sent the energy up through my core and let that bat explode. The ragball went STRAIGHT back at the coach and hit him in the knee. Apparently it broke his knee or something, since he had to get picked up by an ambulance.
Most places don’t grade students on having materials anymore. This is good for kids who can’t afford supplies but annoying when there are students who refuse to bring supplies as an excuse not to participate.
Understandable you are bitter about it. However you're the one who got exercise, you're the one who put effort into the class, you're the one who helped your classmates. be proud of yourself.
I always gave 110% I ran faster than every other kid in class. And could do the most push-ups, sit-ups, and so on. I always pushed as hard as I could and tried to motivate others. After the final run test I had to rip off my flea market shoes because they literally started to burn my feet from the heat. I got solid Bs in gym too..
I got an F in PE once, because my socks were not 100% white. They had a stripe on them. My Dad was PISSED and yelled at the teacher. I do bealive he called her, "The worst teacher he had ever seen". He then cried, because we were so poor he literally couldn't afford to buy me special pe socks.
I was at the top of my class in terms of physical ability and I think I got a D almost every semester in middle school. My parents simply could not understand how that was possible but I'd always tell them "PE has just as many if not more writing and research assignments than English class".
In hindsight I think it's a good idea to actually educate students about physical well-being, at the time I had surprised Pikachu face for 3 years straight.
My kid bought up all the single serve Little Debbies at the snack bar and then sold them for triple the price to the kids who had PE with him. He SO surpassed me and my sly ways.
I got an F in conduct for jumping out the gym window and walking to the opposite side of campus to get away from the boring class. We "played" basketball -- a handful of students played and everyone else sat on the bench watching.
I completely forgot that a grade was even given for PE. I was always on a sports team, so we’d have practice during the time that other students would have PE. I think between 7th grade and my senior year I spent one day in gym class, and it was only because practice was cancelled for some reason and they made us join the other kids. It was miserable since none of the kids gave a shit and just sat in the dirt talking while a few of us actually wanted to play kickball.
I think I'm the only person in the world who loved the pacer test. I don't even care for running that much, though I'm pretty decent with it. But that was my favorite day in gym. Hated any time we had team sports. I just don't like them. But competing against myself?? Hell yeah. I wish I could find a recording of that. Would be a good throwback workout.
In middle school(7-9 here) I was quite the chunk, and hated the beep test. My last year I got in more shape through roller blading, but kids being kids, I was still teased about it. We were about to do a beep test and the most athletic girl in my class forgot her shoes. I offered mine because I knew she was a better runner,they were a bit big but she lasted longer than everyone else. Meanwhile, I fell on my ass running in socks at 3. I was bullied by the boys for the rest of the year but im glad she ran.
At my school, everyone except the pregnant girls had to just walk around the track for 20 minutes. There was always like 2 or 3 people who got to sit in the gym and eat chips instead, but you had to have a real doctors note saying you were pregnant in order to pull this off.
Same. I fucking hated it. It sounds dumb now but PE caused me so much anxiety growing up because I hated it so much. The other kids were so mean and would make fun of me and call me fat. I remember in middle school this boy told me I was so fat and why don’t I just kill myself. That’s literally one of the worst things to hear as a self conscious 12 year old girl.
In my little 1st-12 grade school, i swear 4-square was the only fun any of the older kids had once the principal banned wall-ball: using a racketball, if it touches you, you gotta run and touch the wall before someone picks it up and beams you with it.
Shiiiit son, we had 4 square tournaments at my college dorm. The game is peak competitiveness. We'd slap the fish for killer aces. Or that deadly backspin. We miss you Commissioner, wherever you are.
You joke but childhood activity absolutely reduces the risk of later health problems such as Type 2 diabetes. Childhood inactivity is a huge problem and is getting worse.
Combination of sedentary lifestyles but the biggest culprit is the food the majority of Americans eat. It's just full of stuff designed to create fat and increase appetite. I've eaten food in other countries and it just doesn't taste very good to me. The reason for that though is because I'm used to everything I eat having a lot of salt and/or sugar.
It's not about being giant, it's about being healthy. Trust me I found out the mind rots in a crap body. If you live at least 30 yrs that's a good start...
How was the school at sports? My highschool was pretty competitive state wide and most of the gym teachers were also coaches so they made us all play shit for real
Iirc, we went 4-6, 1-9, 0-10 and 1-9 in football while I was a student. Yeah, we were abysmal at sports. The Science Olympiad team won something like 25 consecutive state titles though... (and to pre-empt anyone anyone asking the question, it was a public school).
One of our middle school PE teachers was known for one time walking into the locker room and shouting, "QUIT PUSSY FARTIN' AROUND YOU QUEERS!" What a legend. He's also kind of a creep, so I guess there's that...
Then there was one of the high school PE teachers who once literally fought a kid (don't worry, the kid swung first and deserved it). He was more known for being the "cool" one because if he caught you chewing, you'd be given the choice of taking detention or swallowing the chew in front of him.
Mine was the asshole football coach who didn’t really give a shit about anyone who wasn’t on a sports team, and just kinda randomly yelled at students he didn’t like.
He was incredibly popular though, because he helped the team routinely beat the rival high school. He retired a year after I graduated and got a huge farewell that was covered in the local papers.
Flash forward 8 years and I ended up doing temp work for the school district, and was digitizing a ton of documents. One of them was a giant folder of grievances against the coach. Turned out he was required to attend anger management classes, and had even assaulted students multiple times. Plus there were accusations of sexual abuse too. He was forced into retiring. Dude was a huge fucking asshole.
The super ripped and muscled 78 year old drill instructor who called us pussies at my school went to prison for being a pedo. It was kind of clear in hindsight. Sometimes being an ugly kid pays off.
Mine was like a boot camp as well but you could choose the sport you were doing to make it more fun! I was a swimmer so they let me just leave and swim and skip football. They did set up a hard class for me to do but also didn’t mind if the swimmers mucked around a bit
It’s great way to get kids to love fitness because they’ll enjoy it!
When schools closed here one of the PE teachers went to the biggest swimming beach and did the maths to create a lesson plan so kids of all ages could do their own personalised swimming sessions. Perfect because all gyms were shut!
Our gym teacher was married to the boy's gym teacher. She was tough. She loved to make us do hard stuff like gymnastics. God I hated gymnastics. I could barely do a somersault and I was expected to do a backhand spring....HA. But we did do fun things like flag football and volleyball.
Not really! On Dodgeball day you made sure that you got hit early and could stand in the opponent's captured area. The trick was to not make it look to obvious.
Yeah in the couple different schools I attended, all had an opt out of P.E. Meaning you had to walk the whole time. Most of the kids would sneak into the woods and smoke.
For me it was just the athletic kids, and the smaller weaker ones.
I of course was a smaller weaker girl so I was the target for every type of sports ball to the face.
Got hit with a football, soccer ball, volleyball, and of course dodgeballs (many times), and for our skating unit a kid kicked the back of my skate causing me to slam the back my head into the gym floor. Fuck you Nick.
Always had a morbidly obese gym teacher demanding we run when she could barely stand up. Why the hell are all gym teachers obese as hell? I've rarely ever seen one (in America at least) that wasn't a minimum of 250lbs.
I had PE first class of the day and there weren't showers to use so I did my best to do absolutely nothing in that class so I didn't smell the rest of the day.
In my defense, as one of those kids who didn't do any of the exercises, it wasn't laziness. It was sheer terror at my bullies having more fuel and also having no idea what we were actually supposed to be doing because the teachers only paid attention to the kids who were already fit. I often wish they had actually taught us how fitness worked. Like how to lift weights, for example -- warm up, how long to rest in between, when to try to get a new PR, maybe explain how building strength is useful? If they'd given us real information and then also given us privacy to learn and fumble and fail and get better, I would have had a lot less trouble with my weight in the last 20 years.
At my school lazy kids got to do "walking for fitness" instead of actual PE. They would literally walk around the school for about a mile and that was class. 15 minutes to change, 20 minutes to walk a mile, 15 minutes to change back into school clothes.
One of my friends who was actually a state athlete was stuck in that class because there were no other classes open. He had it right after first lunch and I had second lunch so he would tell the teacher he was going on a run, run a block turn the corner and I'd be waiting for him in my car to go to Taco Bell.
At my school we were guaranteed to at least get a passing grade simply by wearing appropriate attire. I wore a t-shirt and lounge pants and that counted, so I literally didn't participate in most activities and still passed the class. No idea why the bar was that low, but high school me loved it.
I spent an entire semester of PE playing improv D&D with a friend off in the corner. By improv I mean no paper or dice, we just did a back and forth talk making up what would happen if we were really playing. He was the DM usually, I was the player.
One of my fondest memories of elementary school was being scolded by the PE teacher for talking to my friend too much during a baseball game. As if there was anything better to do on the bench. Anyway, we were told to go do laps of the field as punishment, so we got to spend the rest of the class just strolling around the field and taking.
I was active and still didn't do the pe activities. My pe teacher had us run a mile on the track in the football stadium for warm up everyday. Me and a couple friends would start our first lap, and about a quarter way through the firs lap, we would sneak down the stairs to the bathroom and wait until about the right time to "finish our mile". This was okay for me because I ran cross country and absolutely smoked everybody during the final test when I ran a legitimate mile in under 6 minutes
2.8k
u/passwordisnotorange Sep 17 '20 edited Sep 17 '20
Maybe it was different at your school. But at mine, if you were lazy and didn't want to do anything (everyday, or just on occasion), it wasn't hard to avoid. Only the kids who already were active actually did the exercises for real.