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Ok so in a lot of stories on this site gym in highschool is depicted as something totally alien to me, so I'm kinda curious if this is really how things are in America. Of course I realize America is kinda big and so different state, and probably different counties will have different ways to organise highschool gym so let's break this down in sections.
In most, if not all, stories I read involving highschool gym I noticed that there is a clear seperation of sexes. By which I mean guy's do one sport, while girls do something completely different, sometimes even going so far in having different schedules. Personally this strikes me as weird having always had co-ed gym class. So I'm curious, for how many of you seperation of the sexes was the norm, and how many of you also had co-ed gym class (or both when switching schools halfway through). As a side note, we had yearly endurance tests and while boys and girls participated at the same time, the girls were graded more leniently. So if there was co-ed gym class but for basically everything girls and boys were graded differently I'm also interested in knowing.
Secondly sports covered. I myself quite enjoyed gymclass when it wasn't running or soccer. We had a wide variety of sports changing pretty much every 4-6 weeks (with 2 classes a week). To list a few: Volleyball, field hockey, basketball, gymnastics (ballance beam optional) soccer, handball, netball, badminton, table tennis and mountaineering (had a wall). In a lot of stories it seemed that most guys only got to play (american) Football, baseball and sometimes basketball. While girls only had badminton, gymnastics and hockey. The time period between switching being up to an entire semester. So what I'm interested in is what is an accurate description of highschool sports played during gymclass, for both genders.
Lastly showers and this really weirds me out. The idea to having to get naked in front of my class mates just doesn't compute. In my school showers were optional and NOONE ever made use of it, except that one time three girls slipped and fell into the mud. And even then they kept their underwear on. (I know this because they also wore white trousers and wet underwear+white trousers= some very embarrising situation later in the day) I've later learned that showering is more common than I thought from my own experience, but most schools would have seperate stalls so nobody would have to see someones genitals. (And for the few schools that didn't, let's say some smart company made a lot of cash by making plastic underwear you can pull over your own so you can shower with it). Personally I would have completely balked if the school made me have a group shower, suspensions, expulsions and failing gym grades be damned, but what were your experiences regarding showring after gym?
P.S. For anyone interested, I am working on the next chapter of Selene, just having a bit of writers block.
Comments
High school was a long time
High school was a long time ago for me. I was in a very academically oriented school in a large city, all boys (haha, had them fooled), with little emphasis on sports. Gym (or PE, physical education) was mandatory, showering was not. The showers had stalls but few used them (I never did). The shower to student ratio was such that there wouldn't have been time for everyone to shower after gym anyway.
I recall doing calisthenics, gymnastics, basketball, soccer, tennis, golf, volleyball, and running. Team sports were another matter. If you tried out and made a team, say basketball, then your team practice and games fulfilled your PE requirement, and you didn't do the regular gym classes. Our school had few teams and I wasn't on any of them.
Kris
{I leave a trail of Kudos as I browse the site. Be careful where you step!}
Segregated Gym
How typical this is, I don't know, but here goes.
Gym had a strict segregation by sex. Our school had two gyms, the first a full-sized one with pull-out bleachers and a full basketball court. This is where the indoor sports events were held. During PE the boys generally used this gym. The second and smaller gym was about a third the size and girl's PE was generally held here.
Showers were open and capable of showering a dozen people at a time. Mostly showers were required, most PE classes were before lunch and the idea of walking around school all day after a physical workout without showering was just not acceptable. Even if you didn't mind others might.
After lunch the gyms were used for intramural and team sports. The wrestling, basketball, gymnastics, cheerleaders and such had their team practices in the afternoon. Team practices for outdoor sports were held during the appropriate seasons - football in the fall, track in the spring and so-on. Gym classes and team sports were 1 semester classes, and you had to have X number of gym class credits to graduate.
A few activities were considered acceptable substitutes for gym. For instance members of the marching band were not required to take gym as we got our physical activity during our extra practice which was held in the hour before start of classes. We worked hard learning the halftime performance practices. 2 days walking through the new show and three days with full instruments and playing the new music while performing the show. This meant learning at least 6 new shows during the semester. For homecoming we would have to work with the cheerleaders and pom squad as the halftime show was longer and more elaborate. It was considered that if you were in marching band all three years (grades 10-12) then you had fulfilled your PE requirement.
Any organized sport, cheerleading, or pom squad met during the afternoon and often meant staying after school for practice so these activities counted as a semester gym class. Other than these approved activities to get out of a standard gym class required a medical exemption. 1 1/2 credits ( 3 semesters) of gym were required to graduate. FYI: at that time 18 credits were required to graduate which practically guaranteed a full class schedule all 3 years for most students. There were activities that counted as class credit but that is outside the scope of this discussion.
That was the way things were in my high school back in the dark ages. There was some standardization of school dustricts in a state, but things could vary wildly from state to state. Transferring in from an out of state school such as I did when returning from Belgium could be a problem, credits were applied to the courses you took somewhere else and they could decide that some classes were not up to the school district standards and no credit was given. I had this problem with the PE classes I took in Belgium and right up to graduation there was some doubt that I had enough credits to graduate. I took a summer school course in typing after graduation just to make sure.
I don't doubt that things are done differently currently, what with block scheduling, different grade setups and such. This is just how we did it way back when.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
FYI
All references to football above were American football not soccer (football to the rest of you).
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
More than 50 years ago
Sexes were segregated, showers were communal though stalls were available for those who wanted them and were willing to wait for a free one. Showers after PE were "required" but this was not enforced. Still, an hour spent playing soccer in 100°F heat made people grateful for a shower.
Sports for regular gym rotated, 2 to 4 weeks at a time. Some sports were repeated, basketball for one.
For boys, gridiron (American, usually flag style) football, cross country, basketball, wrestling, track, baseball, tennis, soccer, gymnastics, volleyball, swimming, speedball (modified rugby with a soccer ball). Different orders at different schools and years and not all schools had all of those.
For girls, soccer, cross country, basketball, gymnastics, track, softball, tennis, volleyball, field hockey, badminton, swimming, speedball (no contact).
Cross Country, and Track were sort of co-ed, separate events for the sexes but done at pretty much the same time.
Intermural (competition between schools) sports for boys: gridiron football (full contact), cross country, basketball, wrestling, track, baseball, swimming, tennis, golf, gymnastics.
Intermural sports for girls: soccer, cross country, basketball, volleyball, track, softball, swimming, tennis, golf, gymnastics.
One school I went to had co-ed bowling teams. :) Also scholastic bowl and chess were considered sports and had co-ed teams but you didn't play them in gym.
There were junk sports played now and then like dodgeball and kickball, usually when some scheduled activity could not be done because of weather or field restrictions. Indoor softball and indoor soccer were two of these, also. Workup and three-flies (softball variations) were also played now and then.
Near Halloween there was the annual Powder Puff game where senior and junior girls played flag football as an event at the school carnival.
Cheering was also considered a sport but this was before organized cheer competitions between schools. Head cheerleader for each squad was an elected position and got you a seat on the Student Council. Most but not all cheer squads had one boy, usually an intensely athletic kid who was too small to play football.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
My experience and Hollywood's
My own experience and knowledge (public high school of 2200 students) is consistent with the comments from Karen J. and Erin; segregated PE, with girls playing volleyball, netball, and field hockey, primarily (a nightmare, that last one!) while boys concentrated on "the letter sports" of football, baseball, basketball, track -- those sports that could earn them a letter jacket. Sports like soccer, girls' basketball, etc. were played on "select" teams outside of school.
Showers were open and required and could be nasty; there were when attacks could occur, either "slipping in the shower" or in the locker area. And everyone compared their body's failings to someone else's. Not to mention the joy of sitting damply in your next class!
I direct you to the (infamous) opening scene of Brian De Palma's 1976 film "Carrie" --
Carrie in 1976
And the remake shows that things haven't changed too much over the years (except for cell phones and larger lockers) --
Carrie in 2013
Except for the weeping telekinetic, yep; pretty accurate to my school!
Karin
P.E.
I rarely attended P.E. In my high school (over fifty years ago) you didn't have to take P.E. if you were playing a sport. I was a four sport letterman so I was always in a sport. In that rare time between sports that I had to go to P.E. class I was appalled by what passed for physical education. If it was warm outside they played softball and if it was cold they played battleball (dodgeball elevated a bit).
I was also appalled by the serious number of slobs who would play battleball for an hour and then skip the shower. Showers were communal. Grab ass was common. Everyone knew how to make a towel lethal with a bit of water.
The girls didn't take showers either, but they had P.E. uniforms, which were color-coded dresses according to the class year. The boys simply pitted out their clothes and went back to school for final period.
I grew up on a farm that didn't feature running water. I would never miss out on an opportunity to take a shower. It was a huge luxury for me.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Depended on activity
Depended on activity technically speaking gym class was by gender however most of the time was coed with multiple teachers involved and this was in a subburban highschool after 2000
Another long time ago.
Gym class was segregated in both junior high school, now known as middle school, and high school. In junior high, the boys and girls were on a different schedule, girls on Monday and Wednesday, boys on Tuesday and Thursday. Friday was open. The days one wasn't in gym, they had Health class. The gym in high school was big enough that they could pull a folding wall across to separate it in half and the boys were on one side and the girls on the other. Showers were "mandatory", but no one ever checked. The worst part in JH was for the boys, when the gym teacher did "Jock Check". During attendance the boys would have to stand on their assigned number spot around the wall and pull the waist band of their jock strap out over the waist of their gym shorts.
P.E. Experience
I also find some of the experiences described regarding gym class odd, but from a different perspective.
My experience was as a male student attending school in the UK in the 80's and 90's.
The key differences to what people here have described is in the facilities. Showers in the schools I attended were communal and compulsory at the end of lessons. The was no option not to shower. The idea of private shower cubicles was unheard of.
The other key difference is in the changing rooms. US changing rooms are usually referred to as Locker rooms, and from photos I have seen, do indeed seem to contain lockers.
The schools I attended did not have lockers in the changing room. The changing rooms for my middle and high school were simply a room with wooden benches, and head level hooks for hanging things on. You would change into your P.E. kit and leave you clothes either on the bench, or in your kit bag. For security the room was usually locked during lessons.
While in middle school, we didn't have any lockers at all. In the classrooms the were coat hooks at the back of the room, and space to leave you bag. We did have a drawer, to keep our books in, but this was small, and did not lock. It was basically a plastic tray, a few inches deep, that could be pulled out of some mounted runners.
At high school, we did have lockers that would lock. The type we had were key operated and used the same type of lock often used in office filing cabinets. These were either positioned in our homeroom, or in the corridor if our homeroom wasn't accessible all the time (e.g. a science lab).
The key difference in the 80's and 90's was that we weren't carrying anything of value, and as such stealing wasn't a big issue. Mobile phones were unheard of outside a business setting, tablets hadn't been invented, and laptops were not something any student would carry. In my school, I only know of one student who had a laptop, and that was in the sixth form while he did A-levels. The most expensive item any student might have was a calculator, or possibly a walkman.
All the way through school, even into the sixth form, I never ever carried any money on me at all. I took a packed lunch, so didn't need to buy from the canteen. Those who did would have been carrying only enough for lunch. Having anything more than that was discouraged.
I suspect things have changed drastically in the last twenty years in regards to the value of items students carry. I guess most would now have mobile phones for example.
In regards to sports, this I suspect varies by facilities. My middle school was in a village in the middle of the countryside. We were therefore able to do cross-country running in the fields surrounding the school. The middle school also had an outdoor swimming pool, which was used during the summer. My high school was in a town and didn't have a pool, so swimming and cross-country running weren't an option.
I can also remember playing football(soccer), rugby (although we very rarely did tackling), badminton, tennis, cricket, athletics (long jump, high jump [into a sand pit - no mats, so no throwing yourself over backwards as professionals do], hurdles, running, and javelin), basketball, hockey, and rounders (similar game to baseball). The boys did occasionally use gym equipment, but the girls usually did this more.
The girls weren't allowed to do rugby, and I don't they did football either. I think this was something to do with insurance. The girls played a lot more hockey, and netball.
In my schools the girls and boys would usually be doing separate activities, at least once in high school. We did occasionally have co-ed P.E. but it was rare. It was more common in middle school. Our middle school only had one sports hall, so any indoor P.E. had to be co-ed. I remember swimming was also co-ed.
i'm
Even older, my schooling covered the 70's from end to end!
Until secondary school (age 11) everything was coed and the only users of the shower facilities were the school football (m) and netball (f) teams.
Once you moved up though it was different indeed. Although everyone had the same periods for PE coed sessions were restricted to bad weather and swimming (done at the town pool). Girls got most use of the sportshall, boys out in pretty much any weather. Until year 4 there was no choice - everyone did everything however good or bad you were. Y5 you could choose - I spent most sessions in the weight room which was coed and allowed you to do as much or little as you wanted.
Being a bit keen on cycling I used to do a lot of leg and core work - 200 sit ups, 50KG leg curl sets - I still have the legs to prove it!
Showers were communal - after the first couple of sessions any shyness was gone and you looked forward to getting clean. Only occasionally would you skip a shower if you had PE last period and went home without changing. No lockers, just benches and hooks, supply your own towel or use your PE kit - not uncommon to go commando after a wet outdoor session - we were kids, we didn't plan stuff like spare knickers!
Was never on a school team but any practice was always after school and most matches too although winter footy, hockey and rugby would be Saturday morning - no floodlit pitches - we struggled to power the lights in the houses!
The local boys only school would allow non school sport training instead of the usual stuff - some of my contemporaries were allowed to go out bike training (no supervision of course but it was the 70's!)
Madeline Anafrid Bell
Gym
When I went to high school, Girls and boys had different gym classes. They were during the same periods of the day and the only time we really interacted with one another was during the run in the beginning of class. As far as sports went---as far as I can remember---we'd play one sport for a few weeks then go to another one. We only ever showered after the swimming sessions of the year and usually with our bathing suits on.
Nude swimming
High School years were 1966 through 1969. I attended a high school in the borough of Queens NY. In addition to having similar experiences regarding classes separated by sex, we had required swimming sessions. This occurred once a week. The boys swimmed in the nude. The girls swimmed in over sizes tea shirts. I had 6 semesters of swimming.
As my High School was on double sessions, the first classes were as early as 7:00 AM and the last classes ended at 6 PM. Quite an experience to start the day swimming and not given much time to dry off, after the mandatory shower.
RAMI
Have to go back to the middle1950s and 1960s
to recall my experiences in school. I experienced 3 schools in different states. All were small and in rural poor areas.
1st grade through 3rd was in Ohio and Indiana. I didn't go to kindergarten because the district was too poor to fund one. These were small buildings that had one classroom for each grade and didn't have much of a gym and no showers. No cafeteria either, lunch was brought from home in a traditional lunch pail. The school building during my 2nd and 3rd grade contained 1st though 4th grade only (4 class rooms on the corners). Coed recess was after lunch and was considered our exercise. Mostly, we played on the swing sets, slides, teeter totters and monkey bars during good weather. There were teacher monitors to keep order but no gym teachers. They may have given us same kick balls to play with, I don't remember. During the winter or when raining we had an area where activities were held such as coed square dancing or just sitting around to study or talk on benches.
Our busses didn't pick us up until an hour after classes ceased so we again used the common area for mostly coed square dancing or studying until we were picked up. There were no organized after school activities. Most kids went right home from school to work on their parents' farms. Square dancing was enjoyable except for a few ripe farm kids who for various reasons didn't bathe regularly.
One experience I remember from this time was on our large slide. It must have been 10 ft tall and had two humps on the way down like a roller coaster. But it was slow, you stopped before reaching the bottom and had to schooch the last few feet to get to the end. The lower end was elevated about 2 ft off the ground. Because everyone brought their lunches, sandwiches were common. They were wrapped in waxed paper during this time. Sometimes we would sneak the waxed paper out to the playground to put under our fannies on the slide. What a difference that made. Instead of a 2-3 mph ride we got a 10-15 mph ride. Unfortunately, once the slide became well waxed from the paper, any child that used the side didn't have to have waxed paper under them for the fast slide. Some of the children with short legs couldn't run fast enough when they came off the end and pitched over on their faces. After enough crying children with skinned noses came in during recess, waxed paper on the playground was outlawed. Bummer.
4th -12th grades for me was a relatively small school system in WNY. Until 9th grade I was in an older building (1930s study brick WPA era) that housed k-12 grades. It had a gym about the size of a smaller basketball court. A moveable partition was used to split the court into boys and girls side for most indoor gym classes. The classes were conducted by grade level. Boys showers were also communal and I don't remember if they were mandatory, but most participated. The girls had cubicles in their showers but no doors I believe. The boys had to bring a t-shirt, blue shorts and sneakers for gym. The girls used simple blouses, shorts and sneaks. Once menstrual periods came into the picture those girls were allowed to sit on the bleachers during gym period. Indoors, boys ran around the gym, did calisthenics, played kickball, volleyball, dodgeball, wrestling, minor tumbling, and one week a year we had coed dancing. Outdoors we ran, played softball, kickball, some track events, soccer, flag football. The girls did similar activities without the wrestling or flag football. Oh, they had field hockey too.
There were no intramural school sponsored sports teams for grades below 9th grade. Summer baseball leagues for younger kids used the school athletic grounds. However, the individual neighborhoods sponsored the teams. Our neighborhood practice field was slightly better than a cow pasture with a chickenwire backstop.
One High School year was different. I believe in 1965 under president Lyndon Johnson, we had national fitness testing for the first time. A lot of effort was devoted to getting students in shape for those tests. As I recall, they were mostly indoor calisthenic type tests and exercises.
We had a new 7th -12th grade school built just before I attended HS 9-12. The gym set up, showers, and gym activities were very similar to the old school but had a larger area for the basketball court. Boys intramural sports were fall- cross country, football, winter- basketball, wrestling, spring- baseball, tennis, and track, all conducted after normal school hours. Girls had intramural field hockey, softball and cheerleading as I remember. We got a few new things such as climbing ropes and some gymnastic equipment. There were two male gym teachers for the boys, and one for the girls. The gym teachers and regular teachers coached the sports teams. No school sports were coached by non- school system teachers.
We did have one interesting activity that was not school sanctioned but was conducted on school grounds. The older 1930s school building I attended until 9th grade had a coed civilian marksmanship program rifle range in the basement. It was sponsored by the US government and they supplied competition grade 22 caliber guns and ammo. Adult supervision was by an NRA certified instructor. The program was originally started to foster improved marksmanship among younger civilians to improve military preparedness. By the time I enrolled in the program the priorities shifted to teaching marksmanship and fostering target competitions among youth and adults. Our program had nothing to do with ROTC, or hunting. It was just target shooting for personal satisfaction. There was no pressure to attend the weekly shooting sessions (late evening) or to achieve any particular shooting level. It was just a fun thing to do in our spare time. Seems like the NRA was a lot less militant and radically conservative back then, but maybe I just wasn't aware of the issues.
San Francisco, 1960s
Junior high (grades 7-8) involved a complete change into gym clothes (gray sweatshirt, jockstrap, gym shorts, heavy white gym socks, high-top basketball shoes) in the locker room, calisthenics (same every day) and then mandatory activities; seems in retrospect like mostly basketball inside and softball outside, probably some volleyball and maybe soccer. Seems now to have been a lot of testing on various equipment: pullups, pushups, situps, rope climb, softball throw, a line of rings to negotiate, also a short run. (I was good at situps and running, hopeless at anything else: way below average in arm strength, for one thing.)
Girls (white sweatshirts, dark shorts, gym socks and keds) had their own separate program on the opposite side of a folding floor-to-ceiling partition across the gym. Indoor activities were different but we didn't actually see them and I don't recall ever asking. I think folk dancing was one of theirs; at least, there was appropriate recorded music that we could hear through the wall. When outside, I think they played softball and possibly kickball or soccer, but they were at the far end of a very long field and I didn't pay much attention.
Showers were mandatory in a communal area with lots of shower heads, no partitions. The girls' locker room was a separate area across the hall from ours: no common wall, I think. I assume they had to shower as well, but don't know how their area was laid out.
I learned later that by the 1980s (possibly the 1970s), the city school administrators decided that boys' showers were a luxury they could no longer afford and only ran them for the afterschool sports teams. Not sure about the girls. No male cheerleaders then (1962-63). Girls cheered for boys' teams and in rallies, and there was a Girls' Athletic Association (no idea what they did), but no sports against other schools.
My high school (with the memorable but unattractive name of Lick-Wilmerding) was a small private all-boys school: 250 students over grades 9-12. P.E, was a mandatory class for freshmen and sophomores (grades 9-10) and unavailable after that. We took off our shirts (and undershirts, if we were wearing them) in the gym and left them on the bleachers, and then put on a reversible pullover gym shirt in the school colors: one side black, the other gold. The idea was that we'd be divided into teams (basketball, softball, soccer, touch football, volleyball) and wear the different sides. Wore our regular long pants, socks and shoes.
Besides the games which were the usual activities, there was a 75-yard sprint (in pairs) and a hill run, involving the whole class at once. The street alongside the school building had a moderate incline for two blocks and then a very steep long block (San Francisco famously is built on hills). There was a time limit for us to get up there and back, but some kids were reduced to walking by the end, and had to speed up for the last 50 feet or so to make it back in time.
Anyway, no showers; the small locker rooms with about six showers, unpartitioned, were just for the afterschool teams, not the PE classes. (The "JV locker room", used by opposing basketball teams, was smaller. When they'd built the place in the mid-1950s, there were thoughts of letting girls attend -- though that didn't happen until the mid or late 1970s -- and the second locker room was designed accordingly. The showers there may have been partitioned, though without doors, and there were no urinals in the lavatory area.)
Eric
OK, it's been over 30 years,
OK, it's been over 30 years (80-84), but I don't think much has changed. I went to a very large school, one of the largest in the state at the time.
First off in Illinois 4 years of high school PE are required (this is waived for early graduates) so every grade has PE every year. Some sports were divided by boys and girls, football (American), soccer, baseball, softball, and others were segregated by sex, but others weren't volleyball, dancing, basketball, archery, fencing. When you need activities for a few hundred students at a time, you have to get some "exotic" ones.
Showers weren't mandatory, but almost everyone took one. We were more worried about the PE teachers watching us, than the other students. I don't remember much in the way of shenanigans going on while showering, but the school was pretty strict on punishments.
this is from the late 80's in northern california
the class WAS co-ed, at least on paper, but separate locker/shower rooms (first 3 years, showers were mandatory, but 4th year they were NOT allowed due to a big foot fungus outbreak the year before). after dressing down as they called it, we would assemble for attendance, then separate. girls were generally soccer, volleyball, softball and basketball. boys was football, soccer, basketball and baseball. only time it was together was during rain, and it was held inside the one gym/auditorium we had.
from what i was told, the girls had stalls and an open area (so first come, first serve on the stalls, about enough for half the class) the others either had to wait and hope not to be late for the next class, or use the open area.
boys was just an open area, as back then i was repressing my memories, i only took physical education (PE) for short period i changed classes because i couldnt handle it (i was in Junior ROTC, which could be use for either science or PE credit) in my junior year, i took weight training (you know to "man up") but made sure it was final period so i could skip the showers and just went home.
we never had badminton, ping pong or a gymnastics class at all.
Teresa L.
School?
I stopped going to infant school at aged six (1952) placed in a psychiatric unit and never had another formal lesson again. Nor did I ever share any educational activities with any contemporaries. I was transferred to a 'borstal' at aged twelve and those Brits over sixty will know what that meant.
Education? What's that?
As of graduating American high school in 2005...
At least at my small rural school, PE was co-ed, and the only people who played the same sport every day were those who played for a team, which often let them opt out of gym itself. Games would vary, from volleyball to basketball to dodgeball and so on, on a weekly if not daily basis, usually preceded by half the class time being spent doing your typical jumping jacks, push ups, and the like. My school DID have communal showers, but other than the kids on the actual sports teams I don't recall anyone using them ever, and *I* certainly wasn't about to change that.
It should be noted I finished my last required year of PE with a D.
Melanie E.
Low grades
This sounds similar to my experience, communal showers excepted. I have to say I was lucky the gym-teacher was nice enough to grade me as a girl on the mandatory endurance tests. I would have failed gym otherwise.
Reading the other comments I have to say I count myself lucky regardless, I would not have been able to handle most of the scenarios regarding showers.
Good gymnast but terrible at ball games
I was a rather good gymast. In middle school I placed 3rd in my community (some 50 000 inhabitants). Unfortunately in high school the PE teacher loved ball games so my grade dropped to corresponding to a C+. I later learned that I live in a 2D world due to a vision problem while other people actually has got depth perception. Must be much easier for them to handle fast flying balls :)
As a someone not living in the US I keep being amazed by the US body fixation.
Los Angeles Unified School District in the late 80's/early 90's
For my school...
Gym was required for 7th, 8th, and 9th grades (Junior High School). These were not coed. Showering consisted up running through a dry shower area (nobody bothered turning on the shower) to grab a towel the 1/2 the size of a bath towel from a manned cage and every one ended up standing in a towel, until all guys have "showered" You'd stood there while one of the coaches would make some announcements then you were excused to go to your locker. You dressed as quickly as you could and left the locker room.
Guys had to wear reversible tops (red/white) and girls wore stripe t-shirts (the stripes were so small it looked pink from a distance) which were not reversible. Basically, you had to purchase the uniform from the school. Being small, I ended up wearing the x-small girl's shorts which had rounded white trim which peaked at the sides. The guy shorts were cut straight across and had no trim. I wore a plain white t-shirt (you could until the 2nd week then you had to purchase the reversible top) and later the smallest male shirt *medium", when it finally was stocked, which I was basically swimming in. When I forgot my gym clothes (happened a few times), The coaches didn't have anything my size. They told me to go to the girls gym office and borrow gym clothes. So, x-small girls stripe t-shirt and x-small shorts. I got odd looks in PE when that happened and yes it made me more of a target. Not surprisingly, I got into self-defense classes afterschool shortly their after. Only one boy laid his hands on me. He was on the business end of a front kick to his face and skulked away. I got a 'talking to' by the school administration and the matter quietly went away after I had to pick up trash for two weeks at lunch.
For the boys, it was calisthenics for the first 10 mins, then the 'sport' in three-week blocks. Three weeks of basketball, softball, then flag-football. Another class was volleyball, handball, badminton. The third was soccer, volleyball and basketball. You had to 'choose' a gym class, but generally it was a choice between two because it had to fit in your class schedule. Only the athletes 'played' the rest just tried to do as little as possible.
High School was coed and thankfully, I only had to take one year worth of PE. Volleyball, basketball, badminton. Then archery, golf, and softball. These were what the girls played and were taught by the girls coaches. The boys had baseball, basketball, and flag-football; similarly rotated. Being banged around in JHS, a couple of concussions and a few bullying incidents, I went with the girls. The girls PE classes were 90-10 girls to boys. After class, I didn't bother to shower, it wasn't mandatory. I just went to my locker changed and left the room. We had seperate locker rooms for boys and girls and even seperate athletic fields in HS.
Hugs,
Leila
High school sports... hmmm...
Well, I didn't go to high school until the fall of '84, and I don't recall ever taking gym classes in either high school at all.
When my adoption ended thanks to my adoptive father (read my latest blog here, I went into some detail there), I ended up in a group home environment; there were three actual buildings, I can't recall if the two other buildings were for older kids, court sends/remands or what, we were in the third building, the one furthest from the entrance to the property. There was room for ten or so kids in the building.
As I said in the blog, I was the second smallest boy there, this did not bode well, as many of the other boys were much bigger and used their size and weight to advantage against myself and David, the only boy smaller than me. For the 2.75 years that I lived there, we had classes in a small building near the front gates, I vaguely recall three or four people who were our teachers, one such class was physical education.
A few months after the third time I was male-to-male raped there, the boy who had raped me that time decided to be an utter ass and used all his weight and strength to slam me into the side wall of the Quonset type building we used as a gymnasium. To put it in perspective, at that time, I was just hitting 5 ft. and might have weighed 90 pounds (I had a big growth spurt that started about two months after I arrived at the group home and lasted just under a year), the other boy was 5'11" tall and weighed about 175 pounds. No contest at all, ya know?
I don't recall being badly hurt, I did end up with some bruises and a nice big goose egg, but the attack was so blatant, so deliberate, the staff were forced to press charges. He was removed from the group home within 24 hours and on his way to a "reformatory". I vaguely remember the name of the reformatory, let's just say this place had a bad reputation and their "reforming" of boys was pretty brutal IIRC.
I recovered fairly quickly after that, and the rest of my physical education experiences there were bearable, if not particularly pleasant. There were no after school activities (only ten students or so), so any activities done then were for our own interest, not to boost grades. I did a lot of walking near the property, sometimes putting in three to five miles, and I occasionally jogged or ran around that property.
As for what we did for physical education, that depended on the whim of the teacher running it each day, and ran from dodgeball to floor or field hockey to soccer (indoor or out), basketball, touch football. There were no "letter" teams, just a small group getting their exercise together.
Once thing I recall very fondly was the day we went for a field trip and I got to ride a horse for the first time in my life. The place we went to that day was not far away, in fact, their land backed onto ours, and I had a bit of a fright when the horse I was riding decided that she wanted a gallop, never mind what I wanted, and started running all over, then stopped and chucked me off right into a large pile of manure. Yuck! Even though that wasn't the way I would have preferred to end that day, it was still a lot of fun for me, and I remember it well.
No showers were needed, as the building we lived in was only a few hundred feet away from the buildings used for our classes.
the fear
Of communal showers or showering at all does seem to be a particularly American thing!
It's no surprise that personal hygiene (or lack of) is such an issue in some circles.
Borstal - we had one in our town, well you didn't get in there for nicking a bag of sweets! Higher security around that place than the adult nicks. Pretty sure that personal hygiene was pretty strict, the stench of teenage hormones would've made it unbearable inside otherwise!
Madeline Anafrid Bell
I'd say it's less a fear of showering
and more our culture of bullying anyone whose body doesn't fit the supposed ideal, or, heck, even those whose bodies DO.
In gym, I would always change in one of the toilet stalls rather than the locker room, because, well, I'm a GIRL for chrissakes. Even then, I would be able to constantly hear the banter in the other room as the guys picked at each other, popped each other with tee shirts and belts, and other things. I got enough torment without that, and I can promise you that taking a shower there, with *them,* would have been far, far worse.
At 30 I still won't go in public without wearing at least two tops. I changed in the main room in high school I think once, and that was because the coach was there and wouldn't let me change in the stall. You do the math on how likely it was I'd strip naked in front of anyone regardless of who or what they are.
Melanie E.
Gym in the US
I went to a Catholic high school, so even more was segregated than just our gym classes. In our school we had a large gymnasium and the boys and girls classes were run at the same time but completely separate. The girls seemed to do what appeared to be aerobics, dancing and gymnastics. We didn't have a pool and our outdoor activities occurred in a local park about 5 minutes walk from school.
Yep. American education dos not compute.
How it is possible to have totally different schedules for everybody in the same year? We had "classes". Year number with a letter. Depending on the number of "pupils" (as we were taught to call it in our English class) we had up to five letters per year. Normally it was under 40 "pupils" per class. In some cases - up to 45 if there were not enough classrooms to schedule more classes.
Everybody in a class had exactly same schedule. Number of hours per subject in a year was dependent on type of school and year number. Same type of school had exactly same number of hours per subject as any other school of the same type. There were four majour types of school: "ordinary", "deep learning of foreighn language", "deep learning of mathematics", "sports school".
Funny thing was: basic school provided education up to the level of "arts major colledge" tl the willing. At the same time, same pupils were taught math, physics, chemistry to the level of around the second year of "math/physics/chemistry major" colledge... Compared to US colledges and universities...
And gym class... Bane of my existence... No showers in "ordinary" school. So nobody excerted themselves in any way. Coed classes usualy with some differense in exercise for girls and boys. But not always. Of cause, separate changing facilities, but no lockers and no stalls...
US schools
I went through most my early years in the Florida keys, I was small back then, and between my wider than normal hips, narrow waist and longer than normal hair for the 1960's I was often mistaken for a girl. Which of course prompted the exact type of bullying and ridicule that you would expect. Middle school it was segregated gym classes, mostly field hockey, baseball and flag football. Showers were all in one big room with no dividers and we were forced to dress out in a jock strap, gym shorts and tee shirt.
I went through high school in a small town the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina near the border of Tennessee. Gym was similar in that the boys and girls were segregated into separate classes although there were two events that were co-ed, Swimming as there was only one pool and square dancing. Basketball and american football were the two main activities there. My favorite, baseball was non-existent and the coach must have thought that "ALL BOYS" know all the rules for every sport as the rules for basketball, a game I had never seen or played before, was never explained to me which of course eventually caused me to hate the game.
Showers were the same, one big room with the walls lined with shower heads. Gym shorts, jock straps and tee shirts. Wearing the gym kits were mandatory as was showering, although I expect it could have been easy to get away without showering if anyone tried.
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
Virginia, 1990s.
Virginia, 1990s.
Gym classes were co-ed. Showers were not required, and I avoided them because I got enough harassment in the changing rooms, and once had my clothes destroyed in my locker. High school in general was hell. But the worst beatings weren't in gym class.
High school in Czech Republic
Boys and girls had PE on different days in my high school. We had PE twice every week. For example boys could have PE on Monday and Wednesday and girls on Tuesday and Thursday. I think that showers were optional. I have never used them. The most common games indoors were football (soccer), floorball (played with a small ball and hockey sticks) and a kind of dodgeball with two groups that may not cross the dividing line and try to hit members of each other over the dividing line.
epain