THIS

Yes definitely! Every gym teacher I ever had. "Are you already good at sports? Awesome here's a ball go play! Do you have no clue what you are doing? Well umm, you'll get better if your classmates mock you for being terrible at sports right? No? Then just try to stay out of the way I guess. "

It was torture for me. Small, quiet, not athletic in the slightest, always chosen last for a team, teachers not complying with the medical letters that say I shouldn't do any sports at the moment....even now, 15 years later, the word "exercise" makes me anxious. I call it "moving" instead.

Changing clothes & taking showers with ppl who definitely didn't view each other as a team was very damaging.

Very much this! If you were bad at some sport or other form of PE, you were made fun of and made felt like s**t. Then there were the team sports, we had a gymnastics team at our school, and because I wasn't one of the popular girls, I couldn't get in, even though I was hella flexible and really interested in the whole things. Outside of school I did soccer, but the team coach kept holding me back to force me to play with younger girls, because I was a bit short at the time, and after a couple of years of that I had had enough. I wanted to play with girls my age! The younger kids were so annoying! We also had sort of PE "exams" where they'd test out how many sit ups and push ups you could do, how much/fast can you run, how flexible are you, and other s**t like that, without actually training for it. In middle school and high school the PE teachers were super mean too. Oh, and we were expected to own a pair of skis and skates just so that we could go skiing and ice skating like 2-3 times

Yes! I hated the competition of team sports because I was rubbish at most of them and hated letting my team down. After school I found that I loved cycling by myself.

We had a couple standard fitness tests per year. No mandatory score, just to see where students are at. But all the gym teachers took those as an opportunity to high praise their prized athletes and put down those who tried so hard but were simply not good at sports. I was somewhere in the middle, no high praises but no ridiculing me either. Still put me off sports for many years

PE was a chance for us to work off our desire to strangle our teachers, that was our theory.

When I was in 7th grade I was very insecure. I was one of those picked last and I was afraid of the ball, pe was brutal. But when we had to run a mile in ten minutes I did really well! My teacher told me to try out track which I did and won city in the 880. This really helped my self esteem and I have run off and on in my life.

And crunches were taught totally wrong also. You can actually hurt your back doing these like that.

Wait there are schools who teach you useful thing is PE!? My entire physical education was just sports. Now I hate sports with a burning passion. Each and every one

Fully and totally 110% agree. I was always what you now call a curvy girl but I was never taught how to exercise for my size and how I didn't have to run marathons to lose weight. Exercise can also be simply taking long daily walks and portion control, none of which I was taught in school.

I absolutely HATED PE until my HS jr. and sr. years, when I finally got a good coach (same teacher for both) who actually assigned useful activities and graded us fairly by participation and effort. Pretty chill dude if you didn't cross him. Wished he'd been my dad, uncle or at least cousin.

And those kids who’d always act like gym was LIFE OR DEATH and you’d be terrified because you weren’t coordinated and didn’t know how to play kickball but they were on like five sports teams.

Change basketball to soccer, and it fits to my school sports times.

Somebody was getting a free paycheck.

Mr. Uncoordinated here, I was always picked last when they chose teams because they all knew how much I sucked, LOL. I can't imagine they do this in school any more, to prevent the last kid from feeling bad.

Yes because what they described is better than playing basketball for a year

I, with a genetic disability, fresh out of hospital for corrective surgery, just weaned from crutches to help me re-learn how to walk was sent on a mile-long run and got s**t for coming last. Not sure if many people have had their Achillies tendon cut and lengthened, but it hurts like a burning fire stabbed into your soul with every step you take. And yeah, I still limp to this day many years later

My daughter actually did some fun things in her middle school PE classes. They had a whole climbing/ropes gym, they did dance moves etc. I kept thinking - if my PE was like that when I was growing up, I might have actually liked it.

PE is there so you can burn off all that pent up energy you have from sitting on your ass all day exercising your brain cells

You know why that is? Because teachers don't actually learn the soft skills at uni how to teach children properly. They have to acquire them while already working, if they choose to do so. If not, you have a person who will screw up your joy of learning the subject.

Was it a fat kid school? We did exercises and weight lifting

I remember one time with all the girls in gym class we revolted and said we are not doing this again! It is all guys sports like football (soccer) and basketball and it is just no fun for us. Teacher empathized though and we said we wanted to play hockey or softball and that was OK.

imso glad that my hs lets us choose what pe class we go into (I'm in swimming :3)

When I was in middle school, PE was essentially just an attempt to burn off students energy via calisthenics, running endless, puke inducing laps and occasional dodge ball, supervised by emotionally damaged, lazy adults wearing those gray shorts and polyester short sleeve shirts. Nothing prepared you for that first day of middle school gym class and the shock of group showers. ( High school was marginally better as some sports were attempted).

PE was the only class I ever got a C in. Gymnastics, volleyball, track, and the other things we did just didn't appeal to me. After high school I found my own interests in sports, learned how to train properly, and now at age 59 still lift weights, bike, ski, and do other activities.

I do not think school is about training, just making sure everyone gets some exercise, or used to be.

Our PE was in groups. Group 4 were all the out of shape kids, group 1 the athletes or genetically gifted fit with 2 and 3 in between. Groups 1 and 2 got all kinds of additional training on improvement group 3 not so much, and group 4 just played pickleball or walked around the track. This broke me at first of ever wanting to run but when puberty kicked in I shifted from 4 to 1 in 8 months and was surprised at the different experiences of the groups.

What did you think of those Physical Fitness Awards with no training? I had an undiagnosed blocked artery in my right leg and literally couldn't run. To be laughed at, shamed by my teacher, was let's say, damaging.

Very true

One thousand times THIS. Especially the mile run.

Their goal is tou humiliate you enough and to make you suffer enough until your will and self-respect disappear so you will be an obedient citizen and worker, as bitter and frustrated and your teachers.

We had weight training in my school. No supervision or instruction on proper training by any school staff, but we helped each other out.

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I was that kid who walked the mile and didn't give any Fs about the coach.

oh my god the amount of times someone almost died of either the heat or dehydration

At our school, our PE teacher makes us all play, she chooses easy games, which also help in our growth, and we all play, they're fun. But too sad, that was in 6th grade, it's been 2 years since we went for PE. F**k u corona

The f*****g bleep test. THE F*****G BLEEP TEST WAS BULLSHIT. It was one of the first things we did at the start of each year and f**k that s**t.

hhhh i feel this one

We're playing ultimate frisbee right now. ULTIMATE. FRISBEE. what does this teach us?? NOTHING.

For reasons, this should be higher.

haha yes (again)

And the only "correct" interpretation of a classical work is the one the teacher has the most interest in. Regardless of whether the author has anything to say on the matter (modern classics here obviously).

Ok…unpopular opinion, sometimes this one is needed. Like if you are good at X, but freeze during tests but need to pass a certification test for X, sometimes test taking skills are necessary, briefly.

Or, sadly, promoted. We'd like karma to put bullies in their place in the real world, and we celebrate the rare times that happens, but they're the exception, not the rule.

So totally true. The book that turned me on to history was William Manchester’s brilliant *The Glory and the Dream* which came out in 1974 and covered American history from 1932 to 1972. Those years encompassed the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, the rise of the industrial state, and was written as a series of events presented in chronological order, showing how one inexorably led to the other. And here and there a person, place, or thing would be highlighted in a small portrait...the Studebaker sticks in my brain as one of these portraits. I think the rise of unions might be in there. I think I’ve read everything he’s written. A World Lit Only By Fire is another great one. If you want to learn history as a series of stories, William Manchester is your go-to author.

Isn't the point of the bell to dismiss you?