Your opinion on Gym Class

[Supertegwyn]

My gym class was this: Every couple of weeks, we got to play a new sport. Repeat until the end of the year.

I loved gym class. It was my favorite period. It was fun, a good workout, and fun.

We did stuff similar to that. We would spend 3 - 4 weeks on a given area (such as Basketball, Football, or Badminton) but every week we would have a fitness session where we would do any sort of fitness-building activity (sprints, laps, other such things)

Was awesome.

Everyone knows about gym, in one way or another, so, I want to hear your opinion about it. To me, it's a waste of time I could be using to learn about the nature of the universe, human mind, mathematics, or how to dance.

It would be better if they actually taught you how to keep your body in shape... Knowing about how your body functions and how to keep it in shape, both mentally and physically (shock! Your brain is a part of your body too!!) is actually pretty damn important.

We do, in Australia. Every semester we would spend about a month on issues of the human body (Sex ed, how to eat properly, how to drink responsibly etc.)

Maybe not in America though.

 

[AngloDoom]

It's great, only it's also terrible.

While the idea of it is wonderful - get children moving, motivated, and healthy - it's prime ground for bullying and becomes sessions of misery for those who don't enjoy the sports they're playing, or simply aren't as capable.

When we were swimming I loved PE, it gave me a chance to actually get some exercise and I couldn't afford a swimming membership. I was also a pretty competent swimming and since all I had to do was laps, certain strokes, and occasionally race other people I was able to do my best without worrying about how I'd been seen by my peers: they were busy doing their own thing.

However, we did swimming a couple of months in five years and the rest of the time we played football. I hated football because I was terrible at it and everyone knew it. Standing there as the popular and sporty kids were picked out one at a time, then having teams argue over which one should be forced to have me was awful. I wasn't even physically unfit - I was just bad at football (since I'd never played it before moving to England) and unpopular because I used to live in Germany.

 

[Gottesstrafe]

I liked it, and I support the idea behind it. It promotes physical fitness, acts as a team building exercise (in theory) with the introduction of competitive sports, and helps relieve stress and pent up energy between long periods of sitting down hunched over a desk and studying. Of course in my gym class we had the advantages of a good set of gym teachers, plenty of space, good weather (I live in Hawaii, the worst we get out here is rain during the winter), and enough equipment and facilities to support a variety of different sports every semester, so I won't begrudge that I may have had a better experience of it than others. Aside from that though it was easy credits with no final exam, I went out of my way to take a class every semester and I had fun with it.

 

[Palademon]

Gym class is a good idea ruined by other students.

 

[TephlonPrice]

I liked it and hated it.

I liked it when it was about doing the best you can do and improving on it, like hitting the weight room and going hard in the squat rack or the bench press, or something like doing resistance band exercises or even something like stadium runs (running up and down a stadium's stairs). And I got to play some football, basketball, four square, dodgeball with my friends.

And it was easy credits as long as you dressed it and put forth effort in the exercises.

I hated it when it came to timed runs, namely because running isn't my thing too much (though these days I try) and dealing with some retarded ass coaches who thought it would be a good idea when everyone just finished a good lunch to do 4 laps running despite wanting to drop a deuce on the track.

Honestly, I wish gym class included some boxing or something of that nature. Something to really let off steam, teach important skills about how to handle yourself if shit pops off, and something that really trains you well. And included information on how to maximize your goals, like building the most muscle mass possible without hitting the steroid rack, or cutting the fat off.

 

[felbot]

I didn't like it, that's why I got to go a lap to centrum back and forth in stead in ninth grade, my current gymnasium doesn't have and gym class though so no worries here.

although I still had to do swimming in my previous school but that was actually fun.

 

[teebeeohh]

i liked gym class but i hated getting grades in it. by grading it the school managed to take all the fun out of 30 kids running around and throwing balls at each other. yes we got grades in dodgeball.
and whenever we did something like running we didn't have a clear goal like run 5 laps in 5 min but rather the fastest guy got 100% and everyone else got ranked accordingly. this way no matter how hard i tried i could never have gotten good grades since there was no way to be 80% as fast as the guy who was running every single day.

 

[Jamie Johnson]

ehh i never really enjoyed Gym but i think it was important seeing as most kids in my years and below (im 21 and out of school now) hardly ever did exersize outside of that class and the skills you learn from it ( ie team building determination and discipline) are all very good skills to have in any job, don't think of a class as a specific career path think of it as gaining skill to use in every aspect of life i no hardly do any physical activity because i oppted out of gym as soon as possible and never really learned these skills which i do regret =/ plus physical activity refreshes the mind and keeps you healthy lol which explains why my mind is messed up x,x i really should start excersizing more =/

 

[madwarper]

I would have enjoyed gym if it were something, anything, other than just free play basketball.

Sure, there was the one month, where there was a volleyball net up, which we used for badminton.
And, once in a blue moon, the weight room was open.

But, all the rest of the time, it was basketball and only basketball.
Since I lacked both skill and inclination, I made sure I was able to get out of gym right after attendance was taken.

 

[Evilpigeon]

I really enjoy sport, I'm not exactly amazing at any but I find exercise keeps me happier and able to concentrate better when I'm working. Some places attach grades to it however, which has never really made sense to me, it should be more about helping people to find a way to keep healthy and fit that they enjoy, there's nothing wrong with competition but making it mandatory misses the point of getting student to take part.

 

[Secret world leader (shhh)]

Oh Christ, don't make me remember PE.

Let's just say it was a little slice of hell and leave it at that.

I support it in theory though.

 

[Unia]

I get why it's there, personal experiences were just nothing short of terrible.

Picture having about 2/3rds of the body mass of everyone else in class at the best of times, not to mention about a head's worth less height. Said class comprised of people loathing sports, people naturally good at sports, and bullies who never missed a chance to trip others or have arguments over rules. All supervised by a teacher with the empathy of a shark who believed illness to be an excuse of the weak. She failed a student for tending a broken leg for half the semester, for example.

Then place these delightfull torture sessions in the middle of the day, with no leeway left in the schedule for changing or showering afterwards. Not that anyone would dare to shower anyway, what with the boys' and girls' showers seperated only by a thin plex the guys could (and often would) punch holes in.

 

[Tiger King]

i really enjoyed certain aspects of physical education/gym. i enjoyed running and a few other things but i did have some issues with it.
i didnt see the point in some of the sports we played.
there was never enough time to learn the technical side of a sport which would help you improve.
when playing a team sport and the other kids figured out you were a bit rubbish they wouldnt pass the ball or really include you in the game, thus making your participation pointless.

i think gym is important because you need to know how to look after yourself. also it is fun to compete.

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

I've seen many an overweight kid fail because they apparently weren't trying hard enough when they in fact were coming close to heart attacks trying and working as hard as they were able to.

Heart attacks are caused by the slow clogging (atherosclerosis)of the arteries to the heart muscle itself from years of bad diet and exercise, not exercise itself (though the temporary high blood pressure may immediately provoke a heart attack in someone who's a walking time bomb). Regardless, it won't cause a heart attack, a fatal arrhythmia would be more likely, but still incredibly rare.

The only people who ever failed PE in my school were people like myself who didn't show up. I didn't actually fail though, I scraped by with a C or a D for two years.

I was using it as a metaphor to try and show how hard they were working. I did not mean that any of them actually would have had heart attacks or that any did.
And plenty of kids that did show up and did participate failed in my school. And plenty more came close to failing. And I worked my butt off in gym and scraped by with a D for two years.

 

[Alexias_Sandar]

Personally, I enjoyed Gym, especially dodge ball, though not everything we did in such. Some Gym teachers...not so much. Especially one who was morbidly obese...and incapable of doing a single thing she ordered us to do... set an example if you're going to teach Gym class, don't spend the entire class eating Twinkies while telling children 'You should work out and eat better'...at 400 pounds and 5'2".

 

[Playful Pony]

Hated it, extremely happy I'm done with it. This can be due to the way Gym is done in Norway... 'They' say it's supposed to be fair for everyone based on how hard their work, not how well they end up doing. Still, it's always the people with sports interests that get out of it good, and we always played fucking football...

I HATE FOOTBALL! I'm afraid of the damn ball, and I'm not afraid of saying so... My teacher would not believe me, and I was forced to play it and other sports every week. Obviously my fellow classmates didn't look too kindly on me skipping about trying to avoid the ball as much as possible, and verbal abuse is the last thing I need when I'm already running scared X3. It's even more infuriating when our gym teacher (who so obviously still clings to a desperate hope of being a pro-footballer...) joins in on the shouting and name-calling! Shit makes me violent!

As a result I ended up not participating after a few years of trying... I became the strange emo girl sitting on a bench watching. Why emo? Idk, it seemed cool when I was a kid X3. I still haven't completely shaken it, I guess I just like gothic fashion...

EDIT: No I'm not fat damnit, I work out! I just do running instead, cause I can enjoy that =p.

 

[Fasckira]

I hated it, I often went to great lengths to "forget" my kit so I'd have to sit out till I realised that I could just not turn up and the PE teacher never noticed.

Now Im older, I play sport quite a bit but during my school life I'd rather do anything else (even school work) than PE.

 

[Dfskelleton]

I guess I don't really mind it in theory, it's just that I'm a little biased because this year about 80% of my Gym class consists of football jocks.

 

[Whitbane]

Sports are awesome. Keeps kids in shape, too.

 

[fix-the-spade]

To me, it's a waste of time I could be using to learn about the nature of the universe, human mind, mathematics, or how to dance.

People don't do nearly enough.

If I ruled the world all school children would do it for an hour a day every day, the school day would be an hour longer to avoid losing classes. No exceptions, kids with medical problems get tailored workouts.

The sheer number of fat kids, plus the strain fat people put on medical care throughout the western world, shows that gym classes are not a waste of time. In fact the opposite is true, too many kids grow up without having any idea how to look after themselves at a physical level.

The end result is legions of fat people, with all the medical and mental problems being over weight and unfit entails.