(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

[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.

[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.

[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. :)

[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]

First: that's mean. In my school they always gave you a passing grade if you came to all the classes and generally 'tried to do' something at all. It's stupid to fail someone for PE.
Second: I <3 your icon

[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.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Oooh... yes... wandering away in the middle of games or just completely spacing out being stuck in left field with nothing to do. I mean the game does get boring after a while and there are much more interesting things to look at, like that flower over there or something. *grins*

[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!

[crossbow1.livejournal.com]

Arrgh! You gave me a flashback!

Once when we were playing softball, my team won, and I said something like, "Hey, we won!" and one girl said, "What do you mean WE won? YOU didn't make any runs!"

I wouldn't say it scarred me for life, but I was about as pissed off as I've ever been.

[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)

[wolfma.livejournal.com]

You're slightly younger than a lot of us. During the 70s, the whole additude towards children was different. Bullying was treated with a "let children be children" additude. We were supposed to learn to deal with it by ourselves so we'd know how to do it in the real world.

And the teacher I'm speaking of married my third cousin. I did get revenge on her, in a way. He had the same last name as one of my HS teachers, whom I was trying to reach on the phone (not related, btw, just a common last name.) At any rate, I reached this guy, and he said he had the same teacher in HS. He was actually FLIRTING with this little HS girl until he discovered we were cousins! So, my evil thought was, 'Well, well well. I see how happy she makes her husband.'

It's a sad, sad situation, and I should have pitied the woman, except that she did several things, not just this, to make my second grade experience completely miserable, mainly because I was smart.

In fact, come to think about it, now that I have some perspective, I do pity her. *sigh*

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

I'm still astounded at the number of teachers I had that were so horrible towards the kids they were supposed to be helping. It's like they were trying to get revenge or something.

Nothing like stomach twisting anxiety to round out a childhood, no?

[wolfma.livejournal.com]

It used to to make me very happy, when that big yellow bus went by, knowing I would never have to go to primary or secondary school again.

[crossbow1.livejournal.com]

Dodgeball was the worst. I always got hit right away, in the face Every time. I think I ended up in the nurse's office more than once.

[crossbow1.livejournal.com]

Catholics call him Yaweh, but also God.

I don't think Jews are supposed to name him at all.

[crossbow1.livejournal.com]

Track or gymnastics might be more his thing.

OT

[crossbow1.livejournal.com]

Bullying was common at my schools, but I don't know if the teachers thought it was healthy (forcing kids to learn to stick up for themselves) of if they just didn't notice. Since I was a girl, I only go verbal bullying (also, I established really early in grade school that if you actually HIT me, you were toast, because I actually liked a good physical fight; it was the teasing that got to me) but my brother got beaten up every day, until his voice changed and he learned he could scare the hell out of people by yelling at them...

[crossbow1.livejournal.com]

My teachers were OK to ME, but I remember them saying horrible things to some other kids. My second grade teacher, Mrs. Turdball - I men, Turnball - was the worst. I remember asking her for help once, and she said "In a minute, I'm helping this BOY here with this math problem," as if being a boy was the most offensive thing he could have done, and teaching him math was a big imposition on her valuable time. I wonder if that poor kid ever did finish school.

Ah, the 70s. (That would have been... 1974?) The woman had that horrible helmet-hair and wore this sky-blue polyster pants suit...

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

Right, which is why I thought I had backup for Yahweh being the Jewish term when any term is used. The whole bit about the ineffable name of G-d started out with YHWH, which was literally ineffable, and as that's so close to Yahweh I thought Yahweh was an archaic Jewish term.

I was raised Catholic and though I heard the word Yahweh from time to time I never heard anyone actually reference God that way except when they were reading a formal text.