Things that have bothered you for a long time.

[Andy in Germany]

I always loved school sports and PE. Didn't matter if it was indoors or outdoors I just enjoyed physical exercise, especially in the summertime.

Happy days :-)

Physical exercise is fine. Being shouted at by a bully for not attempting something clearly impossible, not so much.

 

[KnittyNorah]

My School report by my (Ex British and Irish Lions rugby player) PE teacher basically said :

"Last term, I thought he'd hit rock bottom, But this season, to my surprise, he's started to dig"

My parents used to look at the PE and needlework sections of my school report for a big laugh, my mother in particular used to laugh at the needlework teacher because she'd been so disappointed in this - supposedly - young and modern teacher who taught me to do things the way my mum had been taught by an Edwardian needlework teacher. Mum had been excited to think that I might be taught how to insert invisible zips and other modern techniques, then I would share with her ... oh my was she disappointed! '

If I got 'must try harder' or 'she often appears bored in class' for Latin or History in my school reports, then I was told off, but asked why.
If I got 'inattentive', 'thinks she knows best', 'insubordinate', 'lazy', 'makes no effort to exert herself' and other even more damning comments for games or needlework, they just laughed and said they didn't blame me, not to bother about it but trying to deliberately annoy the teachers was really a bit silly, better to just keep quiet and agree with whatever the teacher said.

Some few years later, my dad (who was a headmaster himself) got pally with the boy's former head of sports who'd become a County Advisor, and he told me that Mr B had despaired over the girl's sports at my school, as the girls were offered nothing but the most traditional of team games, and nothing he could say or do influenced the girls PE teachers in any way. He also told my dad that seeing so many clearly-unhappy girls in PE was one of the reasons he decided to move his career onwards from teaching and become an advisor/inspector, so that he could have some influence and control over the very, very restricted activities permitted in some, even many, schools.
There were excellent facilities at the school - it was a newly-built and well-funded grammar school - for all sorts and manner of sporting activities for both boys and girls, from gymnastics through athletics to ping-pong and dance - but it was only when we reached 6th form that we were allowed to do anything but horrible traditional team games, and that was only because (I firmly believe) the games teachers were scared of many of us 6th form girls.

There was quite a gang of us signed up for cross-country running and table tennis the moment we entered 6th form, just so we could avoid the Miss Horrible's dreadful sessions. We were all girls who had our own perfectly normal, sporting activities in which we were involved - and could have been more deeply involved in the previous 5 years if the Miss Horribles hadn't proscribed that. The 'gang' I was in were involved in rock climbing, kayaking, ice skating, horse riding, ballet and Ukrainian dance. The rock climbing girl's dad was a professional instructor and some of the boys from the school went to him for tuition in school PE periods. Although artificial walls weren't a 'thing' back then, the school was on the edge of the Peak District and there was easy access to rock climbing of even standard. The ballet girl was already teaching the tinies at a very well-reputed private ballet school in South Manchester; she got a scholarship at 17, after just one year of 6th form, to one of the pro ballet schools and went on to do professional qualifications in choreography and teaching dance. You can imagine how much she resented having to run about in mud and rain when all she wanted to do was be at the barre. Wednesday afternoons she could have been taking - or teaching - classes at the ballet school instead of getting herself filthy and tired.
The Ukrainian dance girl was involved with a big, very active, semi-pro group in Manchester who were always looking for opportunities to perform and teach. One of their instructors would have happily taught traditional dance every week to a group of grammar school kids for a term or two, she told us. They did that in several of the schools round about as an alternative to team games, and that was how they had got many of their members - they carried on after they left school. We used to cover for her during games so she'd bunk off - with the full knowledge of her parents - to go to rehearsal. I missed a team selection for the Prince Philip Cup because of the netball test's detention. There would have been a decent chance of my being selected that year as two of the long-standing members of the team had 'aged out' and they were specifically looking for younger ones to 'bring on'.

As you can tell, I am still resentful and bitter about it.

Oddly, those of the gang who I'm still in contact with are all - still - more active than those who were such ardent 'team players' in their youth. One of the most ardent of us anti-PE-ists managed a sports shop in her 40s and 50s and took up marathon running; she is still competing in 'iron woman' events in her age group.

 

[KnittyNorah]

Physical exercise is fine. Being shouted at by a bully for not attempting something clearly impossible, not so much.

YES - THIS.
With knobs on, big brass shiny ones.

 

[KnittyNorah]

I just enjoyed physical exercise, especially in the summertime.

So did I - and so I still do.

However I have never enjoyed being bullied and humiliated by a person holding a position of power over me, and trying to force me to do things of which I was physically incapable and sometimes, for good reason, afraid of.

 

[Andy in Germany]

I missed a team selection for the Prince Philip Cup because of the netball test's detention. There would have been a decent chance of my being selected that year as two of the long-standing members of the team had 'aged out' and they were specifically looking for younger ones to 'bring on'.

It's astonishing how much damage a thoughtless teacher can do. Youngest son says this is a thought that worries him a bit.

On the other hand, he will look for work in a Realschule (secondary modern) rather than a Gymnasium (Grammar school)

"Because I want to show that you aren't a failure because you don't get into Gymnasium."

 

[Roseland triker]

Football........

 

[KnittyNorah]

That's a report to treasure.

I'm very proud of the one from a previous employer: "Unfortunately you don't fit into our concept"

Until I lost it in an international move some years ago, I treasured my student pilot's logbook, on one page of which my instructor wrote 'one takeoff, six landings'.
It was an ex-WW2 airfield with runways long enough for B52 bombers and there was I in a dinky little Cessna, bouncing along the runway not having put her down firmly enough to keep her down!

 

[KnittyNorah]

It's astonishing how much damage a thoughtless teacher can do. Youngest son says this is a thought that worries him a bit.

On the other hand, he will look for work in a Realschule (secondary modern) rather than a Gymnasium (Grammar school)

"Because I want to show that you aren't a failure because you don't get into Gymnasium."

What a wise young man.

 

[matticus]

- "I just enjoyed physical exercise, especially in the summertime."

So did I - and so I still do.

However I have never enjoyed being bullied and humiliated by a person holding a position of power over me, and trying to force me to do things of which I was physically incapable and sometimes, for good reason, afraid of.

I can empathise with that. My school never reached bullying, but they didn't exactly nurture the few skills/interests I did have.

Meanwhile, i think you might need to look on the bright side sometimes:

We were all girls who had our own perfectly normal, sporting activities in which we were involved <snip> rock climbing, kayaking, ice skating, horse riding, ballet and Ukrainian dance.

Doesn't sound too bad a childhood

 

[Oldhippy]

I just hated sport and didn't go to those lessons.

 

[Electric_Andy]

I always liked PE, luckily we had some good teachers. But I do remember some tales from my PE teacher when he was at school in Loughborough. Apparently one of the mouthy kids was answering back to the teacher, so the teacher grabbed him but the pupil put up more of a fight than he was expecting. So in a bid to open the door and chuck the pupil out, he ended up opening up his head on the door handle

 

[All uphill]

When I was about 15 I stopped going to sports lessons, where the independent minded were bullied and verbally abused; sitting in the school library doing my homework was far preferable, and was overlooked by the headteacher.

The previous years' bullying by sports teachers gave me a lifelong aversion to any organised sports - or maybe I'm just made that way.

 

[KnittyNorah]

- "I just enjoyed physical exercise, especially in the summertime."



I can empathise with that. My school never reached bullying, but they didn't exactly nurture the few skills/interests I did have.

Meanwhile, i think you might need to look on the bright side sometimes:

Doesn't sound too bad a childhood

Outside of school PE, it wasn't!

 

[KnittyNorah]

sports lessons, where the independent minded were bullied and verbally abused

I know exactly what you mean. We didn't have such a tolerant and sensible headmaster although he was otherwise OK. Or perhaps he too was bullied by the female PE teachers as the boy's head of PE did a great job - which made it worse for us girls as we knew that Anne's dad took some of them rock climbing for PE!
I can understand wanting kids to be physically active as part of a general curriculum of education; I can even understand wanting some evidence that kids are being active in some sort of controlled activity. We all of us attended schools, classes, clubs and associations which would have provided such evidence if asked.
What I cannot understand is why the type of activity has to be so rigidly prescribed and controlled. None - and I mean NONE - of my school PE teachers could have performed at even the most elementary level in ballet or Ukrainian dance, they couldn't have ridden a horse or climbed a rockface, either, I am perfectly certain. Yet there were enough 'connections' in just my gang of school pals to have made available at least two or three 'non-team-sport', physical activities available.

 

[Electric_Andy]

I know exactly what you mean. We didn't have such a tolerant and sensible headmaster although he was otherwise OK. Or perhaps he too was bullied by the female PE teachers as the boy's head of PE did a great job - which made it worse for us girls as we knew that Anne's dad took some of them rock climbing for PE!
I can understand wanting kids to be physically active as part of a general curriculum of education; I can even understand wanting some evidence that kids are being active in some sort of controlled activity. We all of us attended schools, classes, clubs and associations which would have provided such evidence if asked.
What I cannot understand is why the type of activity has to be so rigidly prescribed and controlled. None - and I mean NONE - of my school PE teachers could have performed at even the most elementary level in ballet or Ukrainian dance, they couldn't have ridden a horse or climbed a rockface, either, I am perfectly certain. Yet there were enough 'connections' in just my gang of school pals to have made available at least two or three 'non-team-sport', physical activities available.

This is all true, however I think changing sports every term, as my school did, is about all they can do. To not offer or force PE on children is sort of like saying "you can be inactive if you want", which doesn't fit in with a healthy lifestyle. You may have been active in other ways but there are plenty of kids whose only physical exertion comes from PE lessons. And even if you sent in a letter from your parents to say "(s)he doesn't want to do PE becasue (s)he does other sports", you can bet there would be parents who would lie, because they don't want an unhappy child.

Maybe there should be PT classes every day, and optional sports for those who want it, but I expect the level of staffing and timetable chnages would be an issue.

I now recall one female teacher who was quite a beast but had a soft heart. If some of the girls didn't want to do the sport in PE, they had the option to do laps of the sports field!