heidi | Alas, gym class! (Reply)

bethbethbeth posted about gym class Issues, and it prompted me to complain about my junior high (age 11-12) experience, and I wonder if anyone had a more traumatizing or insane one that didn't involve actual violence?

Here's my tale of woe:

Our former-drill-nstructor (who'd been my dad's gym teacher in 1955) had us do 3 laps around the football field goalposts (approx 900 yards), then one around the whole field (1200 yards), and only then did we start calisthetics, then sports. It was a co-ed class mixing 7th & 8th grades, so 11 year old girls were in class with 14 year old boys. And the last 10 in my class of 70 to finish the 1200 yd run had to spend the rest of the period doing laps, and didn't get to do whatever sport it was, and so pulled a 0 forparticipation. And of course, 99% of the time it was all girls in that group. Occasionally a boy with a twisted ankle who forgot to bring a note joined us.

I brought home a failure notice in december because since school'd began, I'd participated twice.

Finally, my dad let me get a doctor's note to get out of the class, and I became a library assistent, where I got to read five archived years of Seventeen and all the Shoes books.

The field is gone now - they tore down the old school and built the new building where the field used to be. But I still glare at that place when I drive nearby.