Ugh

So I was talking to one of my old favorite teachers from High School, and he told me that there was this brother and sister who were taken out of the school because of the swimming requirement.

I'm not sure what religion they are, but one of the practices is that they're not supposed to show their legs (this applies to both genders). The mother asked the gym teacher if they could just wear pants in the swimming pool, and he said no. So she asked if there was something else they could do instead of taking swimming, and he said no. They were required to take swimming, and if they didn't, they wouldn't be able to graduate.

This really pisses me off. Hi, ever heard of religious tolerence? This is so unfair. What really pisses me off is that they don't require the students to take swimming if they're taking one of the sports, but they wont let two kids wear pants in the pool so they wont go against their religion.

Read the first amendment recently? Something about Congress making no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise- eh, nevermind. That whole bill of rights thing is soooooo archaic.

So yeah, now they're being homeschooled. I guess that's the best thing for them, but it really sucks that this would be done in any school, let alone a public school. I'm suprised no one's sueing... I mean, if this was your kid, would you bring it to court? I would. I guess they just don't want to make a big fuss about it.

My former teacher, who told me about this, showed me the school newspaper, and the editorial section was full of some pretty harsh critisizm of the school and the way they handled it. Good.

So if you managed to get thru this whole long post, you deserve a cookie. Here, cookies for everyone.

 

mmm cookies


my school's were too poor to have swimming. Plus I was in 'special' programs for 'smart' people, too nerdy for physical activities but yeah, that was pretty awful. Some people just don't know how to handle situations.

why didn't those kids go into a sport to get out of swimming instead?

 

I totally agree that the teacher was completely out of line in telling those children that there was nothing else they could do except to take the swimming course or they would not graduate. I'm sure that there was something else that could have been done, given the circumstance. But, I also think it's ridiculous that their religion is so backward that they can't even participate in something as innocent as swimming. Sheesh!

When I was in school, I refused to participate in the dissection experiments involved with my science studies. My reason was that I felt it was cruel, I loved animals and I couldn't stand the thought of cutting into them, also not knowing where those animals came from, wondering if they were harvested and killed for the mere fact of dissection, and that I didn't want any part of it. I was excused, and simply did reports in place of the dissection for a grade. I think that no one should be forced to do something that they are not comfortable with, regardless of whether or not it is part of the "curriculum". They should have other options available in those circumstances.

 

right on hippychickmommy.... I ended up missing the last half of our dissections because the smell made me sick (literally threw up once because of it, ugh)... I drew diagrams of some anatomy instead (copied off the charts the teacher gave me) and got the same marks as everyone else.

 

In my old high school, we had a German Baptist girl who had similar religious ideas. She was allowed to trade-out the swimming requirement for something else. I would think that the parents of this boy & girl would be able to take legal action on it. Does the same school district waive the PE requirement with a doctor's excuse?
Disections, uggg; our science teacher let everyone partner up for the dicection & the written test; my farm-kid best friend did the yucky part, I did the written test. I've heard that some bigger schools use virtual disections now.

 

All the sports require tryouts, so if you're not good enough to make the team, that's a problem. And by now, they're already filled up. I don't know if that's actually the reason, but that may have something to dow ith it. The boy's graduating this year, I think, so it's not really an option at this point, anyway. (The swimming requirement is one semester, before you ask. You can actually take it as many times as you want, I took it every year, but you only need to take it for 5 months)

I just don't understand why the school wouldn't let them swimming with pants on? I do it all the time. The only time it really makes a difference is if you swim wearing jeans. So wear stretch pants or sweet pants or fucking scooba diving pants.

 

I HATE PE and PE teachers. It is a waste of our tax dollars and a blow to the self esteem of the majority of the kids with brains. Our schools give PE the same amount of points in the GPA as REAL subjects like English and Science and Math. I am 43 years old. I use my math skills every day. I use my English and writing skills daily. The history I learned helps me keep perspective and not fall prey to ridiculous ideas. The Science is not only part of my career, but it is used daily from every where from the kitchen to my job.

However, in the 25 years since I graduated High School I have not ONCE been called on, in either my home, my social or my professional life to:
Recite the rules of Volley Ball
Need to know the number of feet from home plate to the batter's box.'
Hit a ball with a stick/my hand/ a raquet.
Swim a pool length under water or above.

PE is useless.

Sadly enough, schools feel otherwise, and in most cases the Constitution doesn't apply to children.

I feel for these kids. But they are up against the mighty, useless, honored, over emphasized PE department. I doubt they will win. Sad.

 

PE does have an important place. I just don't think they're doing it right. Becuase you aren't forced to take PE for the rest of your life, shouldn't the point be to entice people to do it again when they aren't forced to? To make it fun, to have a genuine impact on their health? All our gym crap was competitive and talent-based, not effort based. And it was all the same thing - speed and cardiovascular health, nothing about weight strength. If we had done more weights, if we had done fewer competitive things I probably would've kept exercising for those years when I didn't ahve to (grade 11 to first year univ)... now I finally started exerciszing again after a few years of LOATHING physical activity because of PE. completely counter to what I think they should be doing.

/rant

 

i think saying PE is useless is pretty strong... I liked PE class it got me moving in the middle of a boring school day, and i got a chance to meet kids that i wouldnt normally meet in my other classes... but i think not being able to graduate because of a swimming requirement is pretty stupid... in my school we had to swim for 4 weeks in our freshman and sophmore years... there were SOOO many people who are lazy today that they'd fail because they didn't try, they'd come to school and not bring a bathing suit and expect to pass the class...( i think thats something you learn from PE sometimes you have to do something you don't really like... like in life).. but i was on the swim team and people would practice wearing nylons or tights, because it holds you back in teh water and makes you a more powerful swimmer... so i really wonder why that gym teacher wouldn't allow those students to do that, they make black tights so you're not really even showing your legs at all so i don't think that'd be going against there religion.

 

I was really lucky- my school only had a 1 semester requirement of a health/PE combo class for graduation, but even that I think was a waste of my time because all we did is run. Rather than do that, I would have prefered to have taken another language class so maybe I could get to AP French as well as my 2 AP Spanishs. Oh well...

We had kind of a similar situation when I was in marching band. There was a Hindu girl who couldn't show her legs on color guard, so she wore really baggy, airy pants during summer practices (which actually are surprisingly cool because the sun doesn't beat down on your legs). A few girls passed out (not this one though) so the director banned long pants on the field, even for this girl's religious beliefs. So, in retaliation, all the girls wore long pants on the field the next day so he was forced to recind his rule. It's surprising to me that more people didn't come to these kid's aid. I know I would have refused to swim without long pants had something like that happened at my school, as well as most of my classmates.

 

*

 

I think my attitude is common in Chicago educated kids, where the only thing that was stressed in PE was WINNING. They all went on about "sportsmanship" or some shit, but all they wanted was kids killing each other for a damn ball. This attitude is VERY common in the Chicago area, where they didn't even stop talking sports on the news on 9/11. (whining and moaning about how many games were going to be canceled OMG, we're gonna miss the PlayOffs!)

Maybe if we had learned a single co-operative thing in PE, I would feel differently, but they didn't bother with that. I remember there was a teacher who was all into "open classrooms" in the 60s and 70s and when she approached the PE department about Co Operative Games, they threatened to fire her. Lovely attitude, the psychotic sports frenzy towns like Chicago get into.

 

In my school sports are overvalued. They don't pay any attention to intellectual accomplishment but they have assemblys where they say the name of every person on every team. Our school pool is being renovated so I can't swim. I already took P.E. and I will never have to take it agian. I think P.E. can easily help or hurt the students who take it. I had a good P.E. teacher though, so I am happy. He gave grades based on effort as opposed to fucking standards.

Guys have to run the mile in 7'30" and girls in 10'30". This kills most guys chances of being top in their class because they set real standards for guys and girls get to practically walk.

That coach who told the kids they couldn't wear swim pants is a dumbass. There probably wasn't even a mention of it in the ethics of the school system. Even if there was he is the one who will be giving out the grade.

 

I also grew up in the Chicago area and I'm just about MaggieSugar's age and I have to agree about PE. It was almost sadistic,the amount of pressure PE placed on you. I was born prematurely and suffered a bit of damage to my whole physical coordination systems,not enough to be "handicapped" but enough that anything requiring coordination was difficult for me,especially as a kid.I couldn't ride a 2-wheeler until I was about 9,never learned to swim,etc. I was made to feel as though I was truly worthless because I couldn't climb that damn rope in PE> Also in those days dodge ball was incredibly violent,teachers did encourage kids to hit one another full force in the face with those hard red rubber balls.Nose bleeds were common in dodge ball games.It was brutal and pointless and really did a number on your self esteem. PE should be common sense physical activities you can do throughout your life like walking and yoga and not a bunch of competetive sports crap. Just my 2 cents on it.

 

I am so sorry you had to be exposed to sadistic PE teachers, too, TR. Ihated those evil teachers. ((((((((Terrapin))))))

UGH, Dodge Ball. I am a little person, and was a little girl, who cried easily. I would get "the flu" and go to the nurse when we did Dodge Ball in Gym Class! The year I was a junior my High School instituted Co Ed PE. Before that it was always segregated by sex. (This was about 1977 or1978.) We had one really sadistic male gym teacher, who, during swimming told us.
"Alright, I know you girls are gonna use your "girl thing" to get outta Swimming. But I KNOW you only have that "girl thing" for one day a month, so don't try to bullshit me."

We were all like "Mr.M. Our periods can last as long as a week!"

"Bullshit, you are just trying to get outta swimming."

I am serious, this dude had a wife and a bunch of kids, and still knew NOTHING about females. We had to have the nurse come down and talk to him because he INSISTED our "girl thing" was only a day long. He relented after the nurse came and talked to him, though.

We HATED HIM. The last day of our senior year, we asked if we could sign yearbooks, and he said no, so we all just stayed in the locker room and did it anyway. When we came out, he made all the girls "run laps" the rest of the PE period. The funny thing was, it was the end of the year, so all the grades were in, we were seniors, so there was nothing he could do to us the next year, so we all ran around the track giving him the finger the entire rest of the hour. LOL!

Amen! We did have a nice female teacher, who taught the girls Freshman and Sophmore year. We got to take Modern Dance from her, and she would teach us yoga, and let us nap. We loved her! The male gym teachers hate her and called her a "crazy lesbo." Nice.

 

I feel so sorry for you guys!!!
Here, PE is somewhat competative, but not that much. There is also a lot of gymnastics and Dancing, especially in girls PE (segregated here). But still it was a lot about outcomes instead of attitude.

But the best PE teacher I had, was american one. Of course we did a lot of usually competitive sports, but he made it that it was fun. We got grades for our efforts and attidutes (if you're on time, wear gym clothes, participated in the activities, you had an A). So gymclass actually was just a contrast to the all day seating down. 'And I actually Loved it (I am a PE HATER usually). Because I knew I was graded in order of my own performance and how much I improved from the last time, and not by some stoopid table that only top athletes can beat....
And about the period thing.... If you were not feeling well, he said we could walk laps instead of playing whatever. I think that is an ok solution, and there was never a stoopid debate, like with the female gym teacher I had in my junior and senior years here in germany. She was a bitch. Never understanding that one might not feel so good during these days. I simply got out of that by making nice eyes to a doc, who gave me a cool excuse for the rest of my senior year. I simply had to do the dancing grades at the end of the year and that was not prob.... ;-)

 

When I was at school (I left last year) I had P.E twice a week for an hour and a half from the age of 5, to 16 and I hated it. When I was in Primary school it wasn't so bad because we actually enjoyed ourselves. We got to do some climbing, little races, things like that. When I got into secondary school (aka High School) it got ugly, mainly because I've never been a team player and thats exactly what they were trying to turn me into with a class full of horrible people. We'd have to do things like play netball with a group of girls who were so spiteful they used to claw you or kick you in the shins, it was SO nasty! I think the one thing I enjoyed was hockey and aerobics because its a more individual thing.
I think p.e teachers need to start doing classes that kids will actually be able to carry on after school as well. Some of the stuff was so random that we'd never be able to encorperate it into our everday lives so I think they should try more 'normal' stuff like catering for different types of kids. Loads of people won't want to work in teams and spend the hour getting clawed and kicked, so there should be the option of doing something like aerobics where it can be carried on at a class at a gym or something when they leave.

 

I liked gym, ironically because of the swimming classes. I mean, this whole situation with those two kids is really upsetting, but the idea that the school had a pool was pretty sweet. It sucked a little though because I took swimming before I discovered the tampon, so I ended up missing classes a lot. Well, a couple days a month, anyway. Free friday was often makeup day for me.

I think that gym is taken a little too seriously, though. There really are more important classes to take than that, and they act as if it's of equal importance to English. I mean, come on. I know more people who can't speak the language than I know who are dangerously obese.

 

I believe that there IS a place for PE in schools. I think one thing we lack in American society is HEALTH education. Getting active and being healthy physically is important. Look at the rate of obesity in America...it's currently the leading cause of death (if my statistics are correct). Instead of promoting WINNING and who is BEST and picking teams. It should be about health, nutrition, showing kids how to stay healthy. I think that was the true goal of PE in the first place.

Where I went to school. WE used to pick teams. I wasn't the best at sports, nor was I the worst. But it's HUMILIATING for some people because they were always picked last. I, too, hated dodgeball. That isn't FUN, nor is it promoting any health issues. It's straight up VIOLENT. I'm not sure how that can continue to be played in school. We had gymnastics, which was fun and we didn't have to pick teams...it made us more aware of our bodies, if nothing else.

I think the PE curriculum needs some updating...this isn't 1930 anymore.