(no subject)

[charliesmum]

I've been reading Charlie this book called "The Math Wiz". It's about a boy who is really good at math, but terrible during "PE" i.e., Physical education, Sport, or Gym class. In the book he is upset because he is always picked last when choosing up teams (and I can't help but wonder if there is a class all Gym teachers go to where they learn how to be as insensitive and cruel as possible)

I liked the book because it was about a boy who was good at maths like Charlie, but always got picked last in gym class. I have no idea if Charlie has suffered that humiliation yet, but I know I have, and it got me to thinking.

When I got to high school, I finally found a large group of friends, and it turned out they, too, had suffered the humiliation of standing all alone in the gym, waiting until the last team captain rolled his or her eyes and said "I guess I'll take (insert name here). My college friends were comprised of the same sort of people, and that helped me get over the trauma that had been Gym Class grade school through junior high.

Since people on flists are also comprised of a bunch of people who share similar interests, I was curious as to how many of you had the same sort of experience - were you chosen last? First? Don't remember and don't care to? So, I did a poll. (I love polls)

[Poll #518569]

Comments

[zoepaleologa.livejournal.com]

I was never picked. What I loathed was that it was a school you had to pass an exam to get into, and yet there was this idiotic emphasis on sports. As I cared. When I was seven, I had a tested reading age of 19.

I now feel that sport was good in that it gave the stupid ones a chance to shine at something, but being picked last for some stupid game was not my finest moment. I console myself they all probably have seven kids and live in highrise council flats.

Not that I'm bitter, you understand

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

See, I knew I wouldn't be the only one on my Flist this happened to.

I like your theory that it gives the stupid ones a chance to shine.

Did you have to play stupid games like volleyball and dodgeball and...well volleyball was the worst for me - I was short and not very strong and could never get the ball over the net.

[lietya.livejournal.com]

I suppose, more accurately, I *was* bad at sports. I had a learning disability involving spatial relations which virtually guaranteed that without extra coaching (which, surprise surprise, I never got), I'd fail miserably. But I'm actually pretty good at some sports stuff now.

[lizzyrose89.livejournal.com]

We didn't do that whole 'pick teams' thing. We were either separated by the teacher or told to get into groups of whatever number, and that was it. I liked some PE lessons, I just hated hockey with a vengeance. I ♥ netball and athletics, though.

[dindin.livejournal.com]

At first I picked "It was painful at the time, but I have learned to let it go", but I don't know that it's true, so I picked "Finally realise I'm not the only one that happened to". Some things in as much as you get past them, I don't know if you ever truly let them go.

Gym class was a cruel cruel experience. I didn't have "natural" athletic ability and it certainly wasn't nurtured at home. My parents weren't athletic, I wasn't overly interested in it, but could have been under the right circumstances.

Charlie'll find his niche.

[hairymonster.livejournal.com]

I still remember the words "Oh well I guess somebody's got to have him" as I got picked.

[bookgrrrl.livejournal.com]

I was relatively good at sports. However, and this is a big however-- my class was comprised of about 26 people. It didn't take much to be "above average" when there were so few people. I wasn't ever picked last, but I don't recall getting picked first much either. Also, when I was captain I always tried to pick people who I thought would be fun to play with rather than those who might ensure victory.

I had an interesting level of too nerdy for the jocks and to "jocky" for the nerds.

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Interesting.

I was always picked very close to last if not actually last in gym class, but I never worried much about it because I expected it so. If I embarrassed myself in any overt way, like the time that we were playing football and I didn't know how and I tried to pass the ball to someone else after it had already been passed to me, *that* was upsetting. But I was so quiet and unpopular in high school (not in the sense of people not liking me, but in the sense of their not noticing me at all) that I never expected anyone to notice me to pick me until there was no one else left.

When we used to play volleyball at our summer home and I wanted so much to be good at it and I would be allowed to play grudgingly and picked dead last, THAT upset me. One time I was told, at sixteen, that I couldn't play in the adult game. My twelve-year-old brother played. I cried for hours. My family is very, very competitive, and they do not suffer people who screw up their volleyball games lightly. Every time I made a lousy play, everyone would cringe.

[dindin.livejournal.com]

Uh, Jews don't call G-d Yahweh.

[erinlin.livejournal.com]

The worst gym class I ever had was the day we had a substitute; we had to run laps for the warm up, and the substitute pulled out a new rule: “No Passing!”

So there we are: I’m plodding along, at about the speed of molasses running up hill, and trailing behind me are all 30 of my classmates, grumbling and cursing like a surly caboose.

I am *so* glad she was just a substitute, if I had to do that every gym class I would have shot someone.

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

That's kind of an amusing image, actually. :)

[fourthage.livejournal.com]

As one of two (so far) who have answered "good at sports", I suspect I'm not really the target for this post. I don't think any of my schools had students pick teams past elementary school. I was always in the middle then, because the boys, regardless of physical ability, would get picked first. I was generally among the first of the girls to get picked, though. But yeah, I like sports and am generally good at them. Got a killer competitive streak too. ^_^

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

Well, the fact that you were one of the 'picked first' people proves that even people you might think don't have anything in common with you, actually do.

Or something...I don't know.

I am not terribly competitive, but mostly because I'd lose so why bother? :)

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

I was not only picked last, I was the one that the teams fought not to take.

"I'm not taking HER! She'll lose the game for us!"

"Well, I'm not taking her. YOU take her!"

I tended to try to sneak out of the gymnasium when this was going on. Or pleaded a sprained ankle. (Which was honest--I have weak ankles, and tended to sprain at least one ankle once a week.)

Gym made me cry a lot. I knew I wasn't any good at it (lack of small motor control, plus a leg that was already starting to go lame), but I tried so hard. Yet everyone, including the teacher, made fun of me. So much for effort being what counted. I knew THAT was a crock. Just one of the many lies that grown-ups tell kids.

Oh, and I almost didn't graduate from grammar school because I was so bad at gym. I was an A student (except for math) but I couldn't do well enough to scrape by a passing grade in gym. If my mother hadn't taken on the entire West Hartford school board, I never would have gotten past sixth grade.

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that kind of thing happened to me, too. I never understood why teachers would give kids that kind of power, at the time in their lives where they reveled in being mean to others.

Anyway, I'd pick you for my team. :)

[agatha-s.livejournal.com]

I didn't answer the poll because we didn't have "picking for teams" at all -- when we had to play a team sport the teacher was the one who divided us into teams.

But I was always the worst in gym class. Always the slowest runner, and afraid of the ball whenever I had to play any sport with a ball.

[http://users.livejournal.com/butter_cup_/]

I wasn't so much "good at sports" as "good at a sport". I was first singles on the varsity tennis team since my freshman year, but basketball and gymnastics were the bane of my existence. Gymnastics were the bane of almost everyone's existence, so I had plenty of company there, and I had a sense of humor about my basketball dorkiness.

The must humiliating thing about gym class for me were those ever so attractive one piece rompers they made us wear. The ones that snapped up the front and looked like a baby's bubble suit.

Yes, I am older than dirt.

[bass-babe.livejournal.com]

i wasnt a jock, but, yep, i was captain of the swim team, captain of the volley ball team, a member of the soccer team, and the ONLY girl on teh football team.....challenging myself in triathalons was my idea of fun...besides partying, hehe....

[jessii-6.livejournal.com]

Well I was mostly okay in PE. However I never had tennis or swimming in school (you people are lucky). When I was younger I was good, so I was in the first half of the chosen people, usually. When I was in highschool already the boys played football (soccer) and basketball and since I didn't play with them I was not 'chosen' - but if I would be, I'd obviously be last. In highschool I spent my sport hours mostly in the gym :)

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

I rather liked sports in the lets run around crazy sort of way. But I never got the concept of teams and could never remember who was on my team and I couldn't do it very well. I wasn't very well cordinated or well liked so I never got picked for teams, or I was the last one to be picked. I liked running though, track and stuff because that wasn't really a team sport and I was good at it. I hated it in Jr. High school when we had to change clothes for gym.

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

That's what I worry about with Charlie - he isn't good with teams either, and tends to wander away in the middle of games.

Yes, changing the clothes was always weird.

[finmagik.livejournal.com]

I hated sports, so much... Middle school was the worst though, I used to get sick durning Gym class.

[crossbow1.livejournal.com]

Intersting... I found that each question brought to mind a different sport.

For example, in grade school gym, I was always picked last and I was no good at any sports. It pissed me off, because I knew the reason I was no good was because I never got picked.

In Junior high, I was on the basketball team, and I was good and I liked playing, but the team had this INSANE dynamic where you passed the ball to the person you liked the best instead of the one that was in the best position to score. What the FUCK??? needless to say, we never had any great winning streaks and our coaches ended up crying a lot. Anyway, I played forward, and I NEVER missed a basket. If you got the ball to me, I could almost guarantee you two points. But no one passed me the ball because I wasn't popular. Made probably 4 baskets in one whole season. Most fucked up B-ball team EVER. When people tell me how sports taught them teamwork, I think, "Are you SURE about that? Are you sure you just didn't learn not to see people you don't like?"

Jr. High gym I mostly don't remember except that we did a unit on dance, and I faked an ulcer so I wouldn't have to do it.

High school gym, I wasn't really paying attention. I know that I learned that I'm prone to shin splints and that I'm better at sprinting-type things than endurance-type things. I sucked at arcery but I liked it anyway. What was really educational about high school gym was that my partner was Bouasavahn, a girl from Laos who didn't speak any English at all. Not one cotton-picking word. It was an education in non-verbal communication!

[swordmage.livejournal.com]

Gym class-what a load of bs. Thank god I could get out of it (and athletics in general) during high school.

That said, I remember playing silent dodgeball in middle school. And it being kind of fun.

[wolfma.livejournal.com]

Hi. I came across you from jessii_6.

I, too, was always picked last for gym and sports. I hated it so bad that once I begged my second-grade teacher not to make me go out on the field. She looked up at me and, in her most contemptous voice, said, "What makes you so special?"

How about the fact that I was always sickly? I had anemia, asthma, a nervous disorder (physically-based, I was to find out three years later-long story), shocking thinness, and the tendency to nearly black out if I exerted myself too much (caused by the same physical problems)? But there were no exceptions; PE was "good" for everybody.

The other kids were absolutely swinish towards me, but I've pretty much gotten over that, but I have a hard time forgiving the teacher for treating an obviously suffering child in such a way.

[jessii-6.livejournal.com]

you know what. From reading all of the answers above Ican't help but think 'isn't this suppose to only happen in movies?'. It sounds so surreal to me. Here from junior high onwards you could just show up and pretend you did anything and nothing would happen at all. And you can take it from me as a demonstrating case and not the exception because I was in 6 different schools (7, actually, but it doesn't count in this entry)

[sookail.livejournal.com]

Ugh. It was soooo humiliating, to be picked as last. I guess it made me hate sports, as a kid.