As for the spontaneously self-generating hedge (how did I miss that one?), yeah, if TPTB do NOT see reason, that's the next step. Because I'm not putting several K$ into something that they may force me to rip down now that I've come to their attention by trying to do it the RIGHT way. But trees and shrubs, you know, golly gee, where did they come from? Must have had some interesting seeds in the clay from years gone by --whistles innocently--
Today I consign to hell ear wax. Gross I know, but my left ear is very annoyingly blocked by wax. I have tried an OTC wax removal kit and it didn't help. I have to find time to see a doctor I guess.
About three weeks ago, we contacted the management of the building to say we had a water leak in our bathroom. The new concierge of the building came round to have a look, opened the trapdoor and concluded that the leak was coming from a higher floor.
Some time after that, a plumber arrived. He too opened the trapdoor and concluded that the leak was coming from a higher floor.
A week passes. The concierge knocks on the door and says he needs to look at our plumbing, because the people downstairs have a leak. It does not occur to him that the water leaking downstairs is probably coming from the same source as the water leaking in our apartment. I tell him he already looked at our plumbing and concluded it came from higher up. He goes to knock on the door upstairs (I assume, although maybe I shouldn’t).
Fast forward another two weeks. We are 700 km away, when the concierge calls us on the phone to tell us we need to turn our water off at the mains because it’s leaking through the ceiling downstairs. IT’S NOT OUR BLOODY LEAK WE’VE TOLD YOU THREE TIMES NOW THE LEAK’S UPSTAIRS.
When we got back this weekend the various neighbours basically gave up on the building management and took matters into our own hands by opening all the trapdoors to locate said leak. There is a big one the floor above ours, which they claim they also told the management about a fortnight ago and no one’s got round to fixing. The concierge came around *again* this afternoon to ask if we had a leak, apparently not making any link with anything that’s gone before. The scale of the incompetence is so mindboggling I feel like I’m something scripted by Kafka, except with plumbing instead of the legal system.
Time to set the insurers on them. I only hope the other residents are going to do the same.
TICTH the fact that Mr Cats’ much anticipated interview with a surgeon, which was to be online, did not happen, although he logged in and was in the virtual waiting room. We are feeling very deflated by this, Mr Cats especially as he was counting on getting some answers and ma be time-scales today.
My hope is that he might now be asked in in person, which would make him much less anxious.
My ears produce a great deal of wax. Since I wear hearing aids, I have to remove it very frequently. I buy a product called 'ear wax removal drops' which dissolve the wax. I put a few drops in each ear at bedtime and use a syringe filled with very warm water to flush them in the morning.
PE Teachers. Again. The fuckers haven't changed. Still arseholes. Especially the male ones. The female ones can often pass for human but the male ones - orcs.
@KarlLB I would add the female ones, too. My only F in school was from my PE teacher, because I had grass stains on my white tennis shoes.
Dad went to the school and had a little 'Come to Jesus' meeting with her. She reconsidered and changed my grade. (To an A.)
Yep, even my best one watched me struggling to breathe (severe asthma attack kicked off by running on freshly cut grass I was allergic to) and never as far as I know reported the incident or attempted to get me the help I clearly needed. This wasn’t a rare occurrence.
One of mine told me that batting left handed in rounders was "cheating" and made me use my right hand. I was totally inept at PE, but batting left handed gave the element of surprise which meant I could hold my own at rounders. Being forced to use the wrong hand meant I dropped from average to utterly hopeless.
I’ll just chime in to say that my 7th grade Health/PE teacher was one of best teachers I ever had. He completely understood that not all of us were athletes or interested in sports or particularly coordinated, and still managed to make PE something we didn’t dread and often enjoyed. He was always encouraging and always focused on us as individuals. He was absolutely intolerant of any form bullying and set an example that students wanted to follow.
Within about 10 years after I had him, he was the principal of that school. Then cancer.
I think it’s safe to say that all of us who had him remember him fondly and respected him a great deal.
Eldest son has just come back from University (it's only up the road so he pops back at weekends) and he confirms that the PE teacher in question is, indeed, absolutely everything I thought he was.
Hates non-sporty kids - check
Sides with sporty kids even if they're bullying others - check*
No neck - check
Whistle hanging round where neck should be - check
Assumes all boys like and know the rules of football - check
Apparently this teacher used to complain about Eldest Son's long hair as he considered it "girly".
Why are these ante-diluvian troglodytes still around and still teaching? They just use students to vicariously succeed for them by filling their cabinets with silverware. Anyone who's not likely to do that is at best ignored and at worst mocked.
*Apparently when another student used a slur referencing Eldest son's neurodivergence he refused to take any action. According to the school rules doing this is, quite rightly, considered a serious breach which should result in sanctions.
Hates non-sporty kids - check
Sides with sporty kids even if they're bullying others - check
No neck - check
Whistle hanging round where neck should be - check
Assumes all boys like and know the rules of football - check
Sounds like Mr Rhyming Slang* at my grammar school 60 years ago, although in our case it was rugby, rather than football.
*I will not reveal his name, as you will easily guess what we called him, and TIACW.
Hates non-sporty kids - check
Sides with sporty kids even if they're bullying others - check
No neck - check
Whistle hanging round where neck should be - check
Assumes all boys like and know the rules of football - check
Sounds like Mr Rhyming Slang* at my grammar school 60 years ago, although in our case it was rugby, rather than football.
*I will not reveal his name, as you will easily guess what we called him, and TIACW.
Rugby? I was dragged out onto a field three times a fucking week to play that wretched, hateful, thugfest* masquerading as a sport for six fucking miserable years and I still don't understand the offside rule. Or indeed any of the other rules.
*Fancy beating the shit out of a nerd without suffering any consequences? Wait for rugby and do it in a maul. Or a scrum. Or an "unintentionally badly executed" tackle. Or just run fast and knock them over.
I'll join the chorus railing against bad memories of duff PE teachers. As Karl said, the female ones could just about pass for humans, but the male ones were sadistic bastards.
David said the PE teacher at his old school was an exception; he realised that D would get just as good exercise from playing the organ for an hour as playing rugger, and recognised his one sporting talent, which was swimming. He did suggest that D's speed might be improved if he used just his feet ...
Of course not. I imagine the thugs were his favourites. That's the usual pattern.
Why they claim sports build character when I've noticed a consistent tendency for "talented sportsmen" to be bullying arseholes I shall never know. There are far too many people it brings out the worst in.
As a fat nerd I quite enjoyed rugby. As to why the troglodytes in tracksuits are still around: they're self-replicating. Remember those "sporty" types who drifted into a sport and leisure course at college and then stumbled into a sports science degree at their local franchise of a former poly? They managed to get into teaching through a "school based" route and are now able to relive their "glory" days.
As a fat nerd I quite enjoyed rugby. As to why the troglodytes in tracksuits are still around: they're self-replicating. Remember those "sporty" types who drifted into a sport and leisure course at college and then stumbled into a sports science degree at their local franchise of a former poly? They managed to get into teaching through a "school based" route and are now able to relive their "glory" days.
I think this is it. I wonder how they pass their PGCE and then I'm reminded how the morons you see exhibiting appalling driving somehow passed a test. They know how they're meant to do it, and do it that way to pass the test, but they have no intention of doing it that way once they have the badge. Takes a dash of narcissistic arrogance but then these are the sorts of people for whom that was never in short supply.
As a fat nerd I quite enjoyed rugby. As to why the troglodytes in tracksuits are still around: they're self-replicating. Remember those "sporty" types who drifted into a sport and leisure course at college and then stumbled into a sports science degree at their local franchise of a former poly? They managed to get into teaching through a "school based" route and are now able to relive their "glory" days.
I think this is it. I wonder how they pass their PGCE and then I'm reminded how the morons you see exhibiting appalling driving somehow passed a test. They know how they're meant to do it, and do it that way to pass the test, but they have no intention of doing it that way once they have the badge. Takes a dash of narcissistic arrogance but then these are the sorts of people for whom that was never in short supply.
If they do a "school based" route the involvement of a reputable provider of initial teacher education can be minimal. And if they're in an academy they may not even be a qualified teacher at all. There's a reason Scotland's General Teaching Council doesn't automatically accept teachers registered in England.
IME PE teachers' basic error is assuming that anyone could be good at sports if they just tried hard enough.
I reckon I was trying harder than just about anyone in the class because I still hoped I might avoid utter humiliation, but I was and am irredeemably crap at anything involving projectiles.
I think I probably qualify as dyspraxic, although dyspraxia wasn't invented when I was at school. It doesn't really matter these days and I've never bothered trying to get a diagnosis, because I have discovered that for most people the ability to throw and catch is much less important than the average PE teacher would have you believe.
(I say most people because a small proportion of the population do make good money from it. I once related the gist of the above to a professional rugby player of my acquaintance and he accepted I had a point.)
My beef with pe lessons - apart from all of the above which I completely agree with - is that they never taught me how to keep fit with a view to my long term health, as an adult. If you are not a professional sportsperson, you are probably not going to be in a sports team when you are grown up.
My beef with pe lessons - apart from all of the above which I completely agree with - is that they never taught me how to keep fit with a view to my long term health, as an adult. If you are not a professional sportsperson, you are probably not going to be in a sports team when you are grown up.
You might well be part of a sports club of some kind though - we have a golf club, a hockey club, a skiff rowing group, and an informal group that meet for football in a community of fewer than 700. Of course a good chunk of locals work manual jobs in crofting, fishing or construction so don't need the extra exercise.
My beef with pe lessons - apart from all of the above which I completely agree with - is that they never taught me how to keep fit with a view to my long term health, as an adult. If you are not a professional sportsperson, you are probably not going to be in a sports team when you are grown up.
You might well be part of a sports club of some kind though - we have a golf club, a hockey club, a skiff rowing group, and an informal group that meet for football in a community of fewer than 700. Of course a good chunk of locals work manual jobs in crofting, fishing or construction so don't need the extra exercise.
That was my thinking when I joined my local cricket club. Unfortunately it turned out that I'm so irrideemably shit at anything involving co-ordination that it's embarrassing even playing in a 2000 population village team.
After a whole season of cricket practice I was still bowling 12 ball overs because 50% of my deliveries were no balls or wides. My batting average was 0.3 runs.
I think @la vie en rouge is on the money. I am to anyone with any kind of sporting competence as someone who cannot do basic arithmetic is to me. You just can't get your head round how they genuinely just can't do it. What I don't understand is why I can accept that some people genuinely are that bad at maths while PE teachers seemed unable to grasp that some people really are that bad at sports.
The only hypothesis I have is that they're half right, in that after a few years you do actually give up and stop putting much effort into an activity which you hate and at which it appears you will always be diabolically bad.
My beef with pe lessons - apart from all of the above which I completely agree with - is that they never taught me how to keep fit with a view to my long term health, as an adult. If you are not a professional sportsperson, you are probably not going to be in a sports team when you are grown up.
I agree with all of that too, and also wish our school had offered dance/aerobics/Zumba classes as a fitness alternative as I would have thoroughly enjoyed them. I believe schools do this now - at least, our local senior school used to.
My beef with pe lessons - apart from all of the above which I completely agree with - is that they never taught me how to keep fit with a view to my long term health, as an adult. If you are not a professional sportsperson, you are probably not going to be in a sports team when you are grown up.
I agree with all of that too, and also wish our school had offered dance/aerobics/Zumba classes as a fitness alternative as I would have thoroughly enjoyed them. I believe schools do this now - at least, our local senior school used to.
Yeek! Dance/Zumba would have made football seem bearable by comparison!
I walk, scramble and cycle. However I stop enjoying any of them the moment they start getting uncomfortable. I'm not mentally or physically built for exercise, really.
The message I'd like PE teachers to get, TBH, is "Some people have no interest in your sporty hobbies. These people are not broken and do not need you to fix them."
Agreed. Especially if that then leads to using that lesson time for music, or fostering some other talent, or indeed doing some kind of charitable work.
My beef with pe lessons - apart from all of the above which I completely agree with - is that they never taught me how to keep fit with a view to my long term health, as an adult. If you are not a professional sportsperson, you are probably not going to be in a sports team when you are grown up.
That's just it. Long term health and wellbeing skills should be taught. Balance. Stretch. Rhythm or dance of sorts to support coordination. A little aerobic. Strength exercise. Moving about in a way that is beneficial. And so on.
If that had been taught when I was a kid, ok the chances are I would have scorned it, but it would have set me up for the future. As it is, I have real difficulty working out safely as I have a wild lack of body awareness. I'm lucky as I can go to the gym where we have instructors who patiently tell me over and over how to do the exercises because - I don't know my arse from my elbow.
I honestly think you'd have a more active and healthier population if you taught kids the value of active travel as opposed to the societal norm of driving anywhere more than a quarter of a mile away than by giving them a life-long aversion to anything involving a ball, bat or changing room.
I'd totally agree with that. I hated PE at school (especially gym); I have no ball co-ordination so find it hard to throw and catch. I was particularly hopeless at cricket because I'm very short-sighted and was advised not to wear my glasses during games. And what's the point of spending an hour and a half getting cold, wet and muddy on the rugby pitch oif you don't enjoy it?
Strangely enough I've become quite a dedicated swimmer just in the last couple of years, although I "trudge" up and down the pool rather than "fly". I do have to drive to the pool although I try to walk to the shops (and return by bus!).
My beef with pe lessons - apart from all of the above which I completely agree with - is that they never taught me how to keep fit with a view to my long term health, as an adult. If you are not a professional sportsperson, you are probably not going to be in a sports team when you are grown up.
You might well be part of a sports club of some kind though - we have a golf club, a hockey club, a skiff rowing group, and an informal group that meet for football in a community of fewer than 700. Of course a good chunk of locals work manual jobs in crofting, fishing or construction so don't need the extra exercise.
That was my thinking when I joined my local cricket club. Unfortunately it turned out that I'm so irrideemably shit at anything involving co-ordination that it's embarrassing even playing in a 2000 population village team.
After a whole season of cricket practice I was still bowling 12 ball overs because 50% of my deliveries were no balls or wides. My batting average was 0.3 runs.
I think @la vie en rouge is on the money. I am to anyone with any kind of sporting competence as someone who cannot do basic arithmetic is to me. You just can't get your head round how they genuinely just can't do it. What I don't understand is why I can accept that some people genuinely are that bad at maths while PE teachers seemed unable to grasp that some people really are that bad at sports.
The only hypothesis I have is that they're half right, in that after a few years you do actually give up and stop putting much effort into an activity which you hate and at which it appears you will always be diabolically bad.
This is me, and at the time I was undiagnosed with ED (hypermobility type). One of the symptoms is being absolutely shit at sports or any physical thing that involves coordination, quick changes of direction, etc. So, dance.... Picture a jellyfish attempting to do quick about-faces in the tide. Um yeah.
ED is actually a fairly common problem and massively under-diagnosed. So I expect the average high school in the U.S. has at least a handful of EDSers at any given time, who are shit at sports, don't know why, and hate PE.
When I was in college I was required to take four semesters of PE. One of those semesters was a course required for freshmen called Body Mechanics. It was the only worthwhile PE course I ever took. They taught you how to pick up heavy objects without hurting your back They also taught similar useful skills.
One thing they taught was how to get in and out of a car. Many people get into a car by putting in their heads and their feet at the same time. Then they pull in their torsos. We were taught to put our feet in first, then our torsos and last our heads. It works much better that way.
The other three PE courses were useless. In my bowling class, someone pointed out that you got the same amount of exercise throwing a gutterball as you did bowling a strike.. The teacher said you couldn't possibly enjoy bowling if you did it badly.
Another gym class I hated was archery. Everytime I shot an arrow, I hit the inside of my upper arm with the string. The teacher said it was because I was doing it wrong. She appeared to think that I just couldn't be bothered to do it right, even though I kept getting nasty bruises.
We had to take 2 semesters of PE in college. One semester I took a basic conditioning and weights class, which has proven to be useful throughout life. (Though I’ve been better about that kind of exercise at some stages of life than at others.)
For the other semester, I chose to take fencing, just because it sounded more interesting than lots of other options. Can’t say I’ve used it since college, but it was a fun class, and a good workout.
It depends on what your major is here. I majored in music education, and anyone majoring in any form of education had to have specified hours in math, sciences, social sciences, history, a foreign language and PE. There was a fair degree of flexibility allowed in choosing courses that satisfied those requirements.
My roommate, by contrast, was a music performance major. He wasn’t required to take any PE classes, as best I can recall.
Someone here doing a primary (elementary) teaching qualification would have sessions on teaching primary school PE, but wouldn't have PE classes as such. Someone doing a secondary (high school) education qualification would only be expected to do PE if that was their specialist subject. In fact, they'd normally do a PE undergrad degree and then take a one year PGCE which would be about delivering PE education rather than having to do any PE themselves as such.
Same with all the subject areas really. For primary it's assumed having the GCSEs is sufficient to deliver the content; for secondary only your subject specialism really matters.
I'm rather jealous of anyone who got to take archery (sorry). We were coming up on it and I was hoping it would be the one thing I could actually do, as it didn't require walking or running around; and then they through me into "remedial PE," which was nothing but running on blacktop!
I'm rather jealous of anyone who got to take archery (sorry). We were coming up on it and I was hoping it would be the one thing I could actually do, as it didn't require walking or running around; and then they through me into "remedial PE," which was nothing but running on blacktop!
For some reason, Archery if offered at all seems to be a thing that the talented sportsmen get to do rather than something everyone's offered a chance at. I wonder if it's because it doesn't give PE teachers a chance to see the nerds and wets suffering from physical exhaustion so it's no fun?
My small waif-like sons both did archery at a UK state academy school recently so it is sometimes available. All that Tudor re-enactment (all men and boys do archery there just like all women spin on a spindle) was put to good use. (We have a traditional bow at home)
I hated PE, I was the smallest girl in my year, slight, asthmatic and very shy. My school was the biggest in Luton and on the roughest council estate so ripe for bullying.
I hated PE, I was the smallest girl in my year, slight, asthmatic and very shy. My school was the biggest in Luton and on the roughest council estate so ripe for bullying.
Most of my bullies were comfortably middle class. Nastiness knows no distinction.
My small waif-like sons both did archery at a UK state academy school.
My son - admittedly years ago - managed a bit of fencing!
Ah. Fencing. I thought I'd give that a try. Went on an introductory day. Went great, learnt the basics.
Unfortunately after six months of regular training I was still only able to not be completely aced by people who'd just started. The people I'd gone on the introductory day with could wipe the floor with me. It's a common pattern. I can never progress beyond the basics. It's like I'm a 0th level NPC who can never level up.
I should add - the internet is full of advice to "find the sport that's right for you". There is no reason why there should be a "right" sport for everyone, and indeed I do not believe there is. Certainly I've stopped looking.
Another gym class I hated was archery. Everytime I shot an arrow, I hit the inside of my upper arm with the string. The teacher said it was because I was doing it wrong. She appeared to think that I just couldn't be bothered to do it right, even though I kept getting nasty bruises.
I on the other hand loved archery. I took it only so I did not have to dress out for PE. I had no real interest in it. As it turns out I was very good at it and was on the all-city champion team.
My gripe was the boy's teams were given large fancy letters to wear on their sweaters when they earned them for sports, and the girl's teams were given small cheap felt ones.
My small waif-like sons both did archery at a UK state academy school.
My son - admittedly years ago - managed a bit of fencing!
Ah. Fencing. I thought I'd give that a try. Went on an introductory day. Went great, learnt the basics.
Unfortunately after six months of regular training I was still only able to not be completely aced by people who'd just started. The people I'd gone on the introductory day with could wipe the floor with me. It's a common pattern. I can never progress beyond the basics. It's like I'm a 0th level NPC who can never level up.
It's okay, I did the same in belly-dancing for years. Always in the intro class because my inability to make my limbs go where they ought to be, WHEN they ought to be, meant I could not move up. I was okay with that, though, because it was among adults, we were all there by choice, and at least the fifth time around I was a leader of sorts because I knew how things "ought" to go, though I was incapable of doing them perfectly myself.
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I've had it done privately by an audiologist at a cost of about £30.
About three weeks ago, we contacted the management of the building to say we had a water leak in our bathroom. The new concierge of the building came round to have a look, opened the trapdoor and concluded that the leak was coming from a higher floor.
Some time after that, a plumber arrived. He too opened the trapdoor and concluded that the leak was coming from a higher floor.
A week passes. The concierge knocks on the door and says he needs to look at our plumbing, because the people downstairs have a leak. It does not occur to him that the water leaking downstairs is probably coming from the same source as the water leaking in our apartment. I tell him he already looked at our plumbing and concluded it came from higher up. He goes to knock on the door upstairs (I assume, although maybe I shouldn’t).
Fast forward another two weeks. We are 700 km away, when the concierge calls us on the phone to tell us we need to turn our water off at the mains because it’s leaking through the ceiling downstairs. IT’S NOT OUR BLOODY LEAK WE’VE TOLD YOU THREE TIMES NOW THE LEAK’S UPSTAIRS.
When we got back this weekend the various neighbours basically gave up on the building management and took matters into our own hands by opening all the trapdoors to locate said leak. There is a big one the floor above ours, which they claim they also told the management about a fortnight ago and no one’s got round to fixing. The concierge came around *again* this afternoon to ask if we had a leak, apparently not making any link with anything that’s gone before. The scale of the incompetence is so mindboggling I feel like I’m something scripted by Kafka, except with plumbing instead of the legal system.
Time to set the insurers on them. I only hope the other residents are going to do the same.
My hope is that he might now be asked in in person, which would make him much less anxious.
Dad went to the school and had a little 'Come to Jesus' meeting with her. She reconsidered and changed my grade. (To an A.)
Within about 10 years after I had him, he was the principal of that school. Then cancer.
I think it’s safe to say that all of us who had him remember him fondly and respected him a great deal.
Hates non-sporty kids - check
Sides with sporty kids even if they're bullying others - check*
No neck - check
Whistle hanging round where neck should be - check
Assumes all boys like and know the rules of football - check
Apparently this teacher used to complain about Eldest Son's long hair as he considered it "girly".
Why are these ante-diluvian troglodytes still around and still teaching? They just use students to vicariously succeed for them by filling their cabinets with silverware. Anyone who's not likely to do that is at best ignored and at worst mocked.
*Apparently when another student used a slur referencing Eldest son's neurodivergence he refused to take any action. According to the school rules doing this is, quite rightly, considered a serious breach which should result in sanctions.
Sides with sporty kids even if they're bullying others - check
No neck - check
Whistle hanging round where neck should be - check
Assumes all boys like and know the rules of football - check
Sounds like Mr Rhyming Slang* at my grammar school 60 years ago, although in our case it was rugby, rather than football.
*I will not reveal his name, as you will easily guess what we called him, and TIACW.
Rugby? I was dragged out onto a field three times a fucking week to play that wretched, hateful, thugfest* masquerading as a sport for six fucking miserable years and I still don't understand the offside rule. Or indeed any of the other rules.
*Fancy beating the shit out of a nerd without suffering any consequences? Wait for rugby and do it in a maul. Or a scrum. Or an "unintentionally badly executed" tackle. Or just run fast and knock them over.
Not that Mr F T cared...
David said the PE teacher at his old school was an exception; he realised that D would get just as good exercise from playing the organ for an hour as playing rugger, and recognised his one sporting talent, which was swimming. He did suggest that D's speed might be improved if he used just his feet ...
Of course not. I imagine the thugs were his favourites. That's the usual pattern.
Why they claim sports build character when I've noticed a consistent tendency for "talented sportsmen" to be bullying arseholes I shall never know. There are far too many people it brings out the worst in.
I think this is it. I wonder how they pass their PGCE and then I'm reminded how the morons you see exhibiting appalling driving somehow passed a test. They know how they're meant to do it, and do it that way to pass the test, but they have no intention of doing it that way once they have the badge. Takes a dash of narcissistic arrogance but then these are the sorts of people for whom that was never in short supply.
If they do a "school based" route the involvement of a reputable provider of initial teacher education can be minimal. And if they're in an academy they may not even be a qualified teacher at all. There's a reason Scotland's General Teaching Council doesn't automatically accept teachers registered in England.
I reckon I was trying harder than just about anyone in the class because I still hoped I might avoid utter humiliation, but I was and am irredeemably crap at anything involving projectiles.
I think I probably qualify as dyspraxic, although dyspraxia wasn't invented when I was at school. It doesn't really matter these days and I've never bothered trying to get a diagnosis, because I have discovered that for most people the ability to throw and catch is much less important than the average PE teacher would have you believe.
(I say most people because a small proportion of the population do make good money from it. I once related the gist of the above to a professional rugby player of my acquaintance and he accepted I had a point.)
You might well be part of a sports club of some kind though - we have a golf club, a hockey club, a skiff rowing group, and an informal group that meet for football in a community of fewer than 700. Of course a good chunk of locals work manual jobs in crofting, fishing or construction so don't need the extra exercise.
That was my thinking when I joined my local cricket club. Unfortunately it turned out that I'm so irrideemably shit at anything involving co-ordination that it's embarrassing even playing in a 2000 population village team.
After a whole season of cricket practice I was still bowling 12 ball overs because 50% of my deliveries were no balls or wides. My batting average was 0.3 runs.
I think @la vie en rouge is on the money. I am to anyone with any kind of sporting competence as someone who cannot do basic arithmetic is to me. You just can't get your head round how they genuinely just can't do it. What I don't understand is why I can accept that some people genuinely are that bad at maths while PE teachers seemed unable to grasp that some people really are that bad at sports.
The only hypothesis I have is that they're half right, in that after a few years you do actually give up and stop putting much effort into an activity which you hate and at which it appears you will always be diabolically bad.
I agree with all of that too, and also wish our school had offered dance/aerobics/Zumba classes as a fitness alternative as I would have thoroughly enjoyed them. I believe schools do this now - at least, our local senior school used to.
Yeek! Dance/Zumba would have made football seem bearable by comparison!
I walk, scramble and cycle. However I stop enjoying any of them the moment they start getting uncomfortable. I'm not mentally or physically built for exercise, really.
The message I'd like PE teachers to get, TBH, is "Some people have no interest in your sporty hobbies. These people are not broken and do not need you to fix them."
That's just it. Long term health and wellbeing skills should be taught. Balance. Stretch. Rhythm or dance of sorts to support coordination. A little aerobic. Strength exercise. Moving about in a way that is beneficial. And so on.
If that had been taught when I was a kid, ok the chances are I would have scorned it, but it would have set me up for the future. As it is, I have real difficulty working out safely as I have a wild lack of body awareness. I'm lucky as I can go to the gym where we have instructors who patiently tell me over and over how to do the exercises because - I don't know my arse from my elbow.
Strangely enough I've become quite a dedicated swimmer just in the last couple of years, although I "trudge" up and down the pool rather than "fly". I do have to drive to the pool although I try to walk to the shops (and return by bus!).
This is me, and at the time I was undiagnosed with ED (hypermobility type). One of the symptoms is being absolutely shit at sports or any physical thing that involves coordination, quick changes of direction, etc. So, dance.... Picture a jellyfish attempting to do quick about-faces in the tide. Um yeah.
ED is actually a fairly common problem and massively under-diagnosed. So I expect the average high school in the U.S. has at least a handful of EDSers at any given time, who are shit at sports, don't know why, and hate PE.
One thing they taught was how to get in and out of a car. Many people get into a car by putting in their heads and their feet at the same time. Then they pull in their torsos. We were taught to put our feet in first, then our torsos and last our heads. It works much better that way.
The other three PE courses were useless. In my bowling class, someone pointed out that you got the same amount of exercise throwing a gutterball as you did bowling a strike.. The teacher said you couldn't possibly enjoy bowling if you did it badly.
Another gym class I hated was archery. Everytime I shot an arrow, I hit the inside of my upper arm with the string. The teacher said it was because I was doing it wrong. She appeared to think that I just couldn't be bothered to do it right, even though I kept getting nasty bruises.
For the other semester, I chose to take fencing, just because it sounded more interesting than lots of other options. Can’t say I’ve used it since college, but it was a fun class, and a good workout.
Unless you're doing a PE/Sports qualification (or at some independent school), no-one here has to do PE post-16, God be praised.
My roommate, by contrast, was a music performance major. He wasn’t required to take any PE classes, as best I can recall.
Same with all the subject areas really. For primary it's assumed having the GCSEs is sufficient to deliver the content; for secondary only your subject specialism really matters.
For some reason, Archery if offered at all seems to be a thing that the talented sportsmen get to do rather than something everyone's offered a chance at. I wonder if it's because it doesn't give PE teachers a chance to see the nerds and wets suffering from physical exhaustion so it's no fun?
I hated PE, I was the smallest girl in my year, slight, asthmatic and very shy. My school was the biggest in Luton and on the roughest council estate so ripe for bullying.
Most of my bullies were comfortably middle class. Nastiness knows no distinction.
Ah. Fencing. I thought I'd give that a try. Went on an introductory day. Went great, learnt the basics.
Unfortunately after six months of regular training I was still only able to not be completely aced by people who'd just started. The people I'd gone on the introductory day with could wipe the floor with me. It's a common pattern. I can never progress beyond the basics. It's like I'm a 0th level NPC who can never level up.
I on the other hand loved archery. I took it only so I did not have to dress out for PE. I had no real interest in it. As it turns out I was very good at it and was on the all-city champion team.
My gripe was the boy's teams were given large fancy letters to wear on their sweaters when they earned them for sports, and the girl's teams were given small cheap felt ones.
It's okay, I did the same in belly-dancing for years. Always in the intro class because my inability to make my limbs go where they ought to be, WHEN they ought to be, meant I could not move up. I was okay with that, though, because it was among adults, we were all there by choice, and at least the fifth time around I was a leader of sorts because I knew how things "ought" to go, though I was incapable of doing them perfectly myself.