WAG Overzealous Middle School PE Teacher

[JoyAvenueMom]

This is a great example of how the government continues to take control out of the hands of parents and give it to the school. I agree you should advocate for your child and use any means you can to get her out of this situation. Ultimately, no one will care what she earned in middle school PE. Kipper would be mortified to earn less than an "A" , so I understand what you're dealing with. However, your dd's health is MUCH more important. If they won't give her appropriate modifications, and you can't get out of the class, then instruct her to stop running! Go to the news media, go to the school board, use every avenue you have. Your instincts are right, this is just wrong. It's wrong for them to have this kind of power trip, and to bully you and your dd into complying. Sure is easy to see why so many choose private school or home school!!!!

 

[Canjump]

This is crazy American PE seems crazy! In Australia at my school at least primary we did games once a week and secondary we have 3 sessions a week where it is manly game one running component that you can walk or not do if you are injured. Once passed year 9 pe is optional.

 

[Canadian_gym_mom]

I know it isn't like this all over the US. But look at the general population and how many kids truly are overweight and this is probably one State's attempt to change that. I just think it is unreasonable to basically say to kids that if they are overweight or if they have asthma or another breathing condition they fail.

I do shake my head all the time when I see my friends in the US on Facebook, posting pictures of their kids who are clearly very overweight, and posting pictures of them all the time eating crap food. And so many of the 5th graders clearly well into puberty as well.

There does need to be a solution, but it does not come from shaming kids or basing grades on what they weigh.

 

[Iwannabemargo]

we have compulsory PE in school here, and we also have a lot of overweight kids. In my son's school ( 11-16) if you are unable to do traditional things due to mobility / weight/ breathing issues, and most PE is still traditional Rugby/football/cricket/athletics for boys and Netball/hockey/rounders/athletics for girls, they play ping pong, short mat bowls, etc just to get the a bit active. They also do drama and Dance as part of their English rotation

 

[xxStumpyxx]

we have compulsory PE in school here, and we also have a lot of overweight kids. In my son's school ( 11-16) if you are unable to do traditional things due to mobility / weight/ breathing issues, and most PE is still traditional Rugby/football/cricket/athletics for boys and Netball/hockey/rounders/athletics for girls, they play ping pong, short mat bowls, etc just to get the a bit active. They also do drama and Dance as part of their English rotation

My oldest is about to start Secondary School in September, she is the height of a 5 year old and has mobility issues, PE will be a struggle but I was told they will be the children who have additional mobility needs in a smaller group so they can still take part, doing Hockey, athletics and Netball without modifications will be extremely hard for her, Hockey sticks too hig and heavy, protective shin pads etc will not fit, athletics will be a challenge, hurdles will be too high, running short distances will be ok at her own pace, any more will be a struggle, Netball would be difficult due to the height of the net and size of the balls, at them moment her equipment is modified, lower netball posts, step over size hurdles (and this is primary school where even the equipment suitable for 8 plus year olds is too big for her). I would not want her to be excused from PE as she enjoys it, it is down to the school to modify things so she can be included, dance would be ok (not a dancer though), gymnastics would be ok if some at her level (nothing to hard) and trampolining would be ok.

 

[profmom]

You know, in my children's public school system, grades in PE (which is required) are based primarily upon effort. The high school program starts with a general class and then provides a wide variety of electives, ranging from weight room to team sports to golf and bowling. If a child is injured or has a disability, a doctor's confirmation places the child in modified PE, where the teachers design the classes around the students' abilities. Last year at some awards ceremony, we heard a student given a top award speak very movingly about how an injury that had sidelined him from his varsity team changed his life because he made some close friends with permanent disabilities in modified PE for the months he was there. The public PE program from K through 12 emphasizes lifelong fitness as part of a healthy, well rounded lifestyle and teaches kids the basic tools they need to become and stay active.

I have three fairly physically inclined kids, but it's a great program for all kids and focuses heavily on encouragement and celebrating the athletic accomplishments achieved through effort and progress. Upper middle class children like my own are not as likely to need to be taught how to be physically active and will have a broad range of enriching athletic activities available to them, but their friends from families without these economic and social resources benefit tremendously from a strong PE program.

I think it's pretty easy for us, largely as parents of kids who love physical activity and spend a lot of time doing it, to look down on PE and see it as something with very little relevance or importance. But we should remember that our kids are not the norm.

 

[skschlag]

While I have one very actively inclined child, i also have one who is not. At all. He is 15, 6'3" 130 lbs and as uncoordinated as they come. Picture a baby horse walking for the first time. All arms and legs. He is a decent swimmer, can ski down a mountain, but PE was a disaster for him. Dressing out, having to play sports with athletes, expected to be able to do these things when not only was it hard for him, he had absolutely no interest whatsoever!

So when he hit high school, he did online PE. Sounds dumb, I know. BUt instead of dressing out, being teased, and playing sports that he hates, we were able to spend the summer finding lifelong physical activities that he could do. Swimming, Elliptical, Bike Riding, Walking, etc. It was not easy. He had to do about 2 hours a day of physical activity (and yes, I made him do it). But it was the best thing we ever did.

The hardest thing I think for PE teachers to realize is that not all kid are going to play sports, or even like sports. It is more important to teach them a lifelong physical activity that they can do forever. Making kids run a mile in a certain amount of time, etc is not going to do that. Most likely it will have the opposite effect. But helping kids learn to stay healthy should be the focus.

They are now looking at 2 tracks for PE. One that focuses more on sports, and one that focuses more on fitness. I jokingly called it PE for Jocks and PE for Nerds, but that isn't polictically correct.....

 

[profmom]

At the high school my offspring attend/will attend, after ninth grade, they can choose team sports (that's basically Jock PE, lol!), rec sports (which includes, among other things, archery and bocce), net sports, Project Adventure (which culminates in a high ropes course), bowling and golf, lifetime sports and fitness (that's weight room but also includes a yoga unit), and lifeguarding, which culminates in licensing. I really wish I'd had that kind of PE program when I was in high school!

 

[bogwoppit]

My youngest has not done PE for two years at school. Constant back pain and no clear diagnosis has made the school nervous. SO she manages the basketball team and rides the bench. She just gets no grade at all, as though PE does not exist for her.

 

[kandkfunk]

I think what we're seeing from the OP's post is one state's very rigorous and rigid attempt to increase physical activity in young people. I don't think it's a successful approach and it's definitely not like that across the US. When I was a kid, we had PE every day in primary school. Activities ranged from playing sports to parachute games to square dancing. I have a lot of fond memories of primary school PE. By the time my kids were in school, budget cuts had reduced PE to one day per week in primary school. Sometimes, that is the only physical activity a kid gets, so it has really been detrimental in our area.

By the time kids reach middle and high school, they are back to every day PE for at least part of the year. In high school, they have many more choices for the types of activities and class focus. Most grading is based on participation (i.e. points for dressing down). However, in the grand scheme of life, PE grades are meaningless. The habits or activities that one may develop through a PE class are what really matters.

 

[Pineapple_Lump]

I know it isn't like this all over the US. But look at the general population and how many kids truly are overweight and this is probably one State's attempt to change that.

Good on them, intentions are good - application is poor. It is like dragging the horse to the water, shoving it's face right down in the trough and then wondering why that horse will never step foot near the trough again. You have to coax and make this horse want to drink.

 

[Canadian_gym_mom]

Good on them, intentions are good - application is poor. It is like dragging the horse to the water, shoving it's face right down in the trough and then wondering why that horse will never step foot near the trough again. You have to coax and make this horse want to drink.

Absolutely. The rest of my post reflected that. I also don't ever think that a person's weight or other health conditions should be the basis of any rating system, be it grades or anything else. In the case of PE, it should be participation and improvement. Did they start the year not even being able to walk a mile, then end the year being able to complete it or even run for 10 seconds? That should be rewarded.

 

[raenndrops]

Back when I was in high school, we had "girls gym" and "boys gym" that were required in 9th and 10th grades. In either class, you had a fitness "pre-test" at the beginning of the semester and a fitness "post-test" at the end. The semester exam grade was based on our improvement... but since the 10th graders knew this, some of them would slack off on the pre-test so they didn't have to work as hard to improve.
I think it was:
Do worse = F
No improvement = D
1%-5% improvement = C
6%-15% improvement = B
More than 15% improvement = A

 

[LucyTRA]

As far as I know, it was never designed to be used for children at all.

It wasn't designed for use with individuals, let alone children! Bmi was initially for comparing populations, and it's useful and meaningful for that. Apply it to individual adults and it becomes less so, and apply it to kids and it's just stupid.

To the OP, I can't believe that American PE is this hardcore! I'm a trainee teacher (for 5-11 year olds) specialising in PE and I can't imagine doing ANYTHING even remotely like what you described to the kids I work with. And the idea of them getting a grade for anything other than effort and maybe personal progression (from wherever they started moving forward to wherever they are now) seems ludicrous. Take it to the press if the school don't back down.

 

[2G1B]

Even the thought of grading on improvement bothers me. I mean, take one of the kids from this board. Outside of school, this kid is already working out 15+ hours per week. The go into the pretest already in better shape than 90% of their classmates. They manage to improve a little bit; but they started at such a high fitness level that maybe it isn't realistic to expect them to improve more than say 5%. Now take that same kid, they have a bad injury mid year, it take them out if PE and gym for 8 weeks. It is very likely that kid will get worse. Or, worse still, take that same kid... She quits gymnastics that quarter. She very likely will do worse after time out of the gym than she did at the start of the year, when she was practicing so much. She is still healthier than 85% of her classmates; but she is going to fail because she isn't staying in the gym? Hardly seems like a good system...

 

[Sari]

I'm of the opinion that PE as a whole should have a participation and effort grade only. Seems like it's all over the place everywhere in the world.

My particular PE teacher based our grades largely on one fitness test a year (national sports badge). This test was athletics only. If you didn't pass, your grade for the year could exclusively be a C or worse.
Now I'm not a sprinter. I can run long distances just fine. I could always just barely hit the pass mark for sprinting. As I got older and the pass times got more difficult, I stopped passing. It would've meant spending my free time training which I (at 16/17) was not up for. So C's for me for the last three years of school.

 

[Teezi]

This is crazy! I live in Canada and at leased where I live there is program you can enter to (for athletes) that can excuse you for gym or for practice/competitions. The only PE that is mandatory is PE 10. Other than that I have friends who haven't done PE since 5 grade but will have to next year