And also, (she added with futher intrepidity) except for Salzberg's brief comment - we have not heard from the males amongst us. <P>How did you view PE? How would you change it?<P><p>[This message has been edited by Basheva (edited January 30, 2001).]

I don't know how it could be changed Basheva, especially in the U.S. which has such varied programs from state to state and district to district. I'm sure someone else will jump in soon with their ideas!<P>In Canada the money for education has been shrinking (just like the arts) and the public school system isn't open to outside investors like the U.S. model of donating to sports teams in schools, etc.--some have said to this has been to the detriment of students hoping for careers in athletics. This is a societal issue, private schools in Canada have very good, diverse physical education programs and the public school programs are not what they once were. Right now there is a fight to keep the programs that already exist. That includes arts programs as well. Dance is now a teachable subject in B.C. so many dancers I know are getting a degree in education so that they can work in the public school system where dance would be an elective instead of PE. I wish I had had that!<P>I'm curious to know about Australia. A lot of the elite swim coaches in Canada went to Australia because of the money that government puts into athletics. <P>I don't really believe in teacher bashing either, they work in a difficult system and aren't compensated monetarily either for all of the hard work they do. They're not all saints, but the last time I checked I didn't see anyone else wearing a halo either.<P>If I was a student again (yikes!) I would try to get something out of what was offered to me instead of bemoaning what I couldn't change. You know that expression, you reap what you sew?

Well Marie/Basheva:<P>The first step toward improving "PE" in the public high school will HAVE to be getting the girls out of a pair of stretch gym shorts that are cut like old ladies briefs and sticking them in the middle of the gym to do "exercises" while the boys practise basketball at the end of the court and make jokes about how you look.<P>And if they wouldn't send you out to do a mile run during 1st period at 7:30 in the morning after you just spent an hour doing your 14 year old hair and makeup, that would help too.<P>There is NOTHING as exciting to a 14 year as stinking for the rest of the day and looking like you went swimming with your makeup on.<P>I was lucky. I was in the band. And in Atlanta, at the time, if you took band you were exempt from PE (because we had to march after school everyday. But who CARES about your hair AFTER school?)<P>Things were a little better for my girls. Their gym shorts were cut like shorts. Not like underwear. But they still had to perform stupid things in front of guys sitting on the bleachers. And some of them still got caught with that track at 7:30am.<P>However one quarter of PE every year for them was spent SITTING, and discussing birth control, how to drive a car, and peer mediation. Boring for sure. But "doable" even if a large percentage of them found it a waste of time. Except drivers ed. They are all HOT for the drivers ed portion of PE <P>Middle school was fun. Intramurals after school everyday. They ALL stayed, and "tried on" the sport of the moment. They were taught different sports during the day in PE (except for the time of year they had to administer the Presidential Physical Fitness "test".)<P>You know if they did something to make "activity" FUN, it might just HELP. Instead they try to teach it like a "subject". Some kids delve into it, but the ones that don't "slack" (I was definitely a slacker after they took my kickball and jumprope away. I had no interest in chin ups.)<p>[This message has been edited by JaneGrey (edited January 30, 2001).]

Gee- we had showers - don't they have the kids take showers after PE any more?

Heck no!<P>(Of course I'm right outside the Nations Capital.)<P>They don't even trust them to go to their lockers except twice a day.<P>The showers are THERE. But they never have time to use them. Much less dry your hair and do "damage control" on your hair and face.<P>I don't know which was worse. Not having access to the shower or time to use it(like my kids) or having to shower without curtains in front of the PE teacher (like when I went to school.) THAT would have KILLED me, if I had had to DO it. I never would have been able to. Which is why I tooted that flute for 5 years even though I had lost interest in it.

Well, I guess the question is - do we really want to see schools without PE?

That's not the question at all, lol! <BR>The question is:<BR>Do we want schools to offer dance as an alternative to PE?

Marie you can DO that here. But only during the quarters that "are not" sex ed and drivers ed, and peer mediation and stuff.<P>And the teachers favor the kids that take dance outside of school when they have to "demonstrate what the dept. is doing", but have to "tone down" the class because "beginners" enter at any given quarter. And it more or less progrressed to "hip hop" classes, because that was the easiest common denominator for everybody.<P>When that happened, the ballet, modern and jazz kids that at least wanted to do a few stretches during the day instead of PE quit.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><I>How did you view PE? How would you change it?</I><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>I hated it. Every minute of it. I was fat, out of shape, and physically weak -- in short, I was exactly the kind of kid the program was designed to help -- but it didn't. All it did was hold the lesser-fit kids up to ridicule and embarrassment.

Salzberg- I felt the same way about math.........LOL

I don't want anyone to think I believe in "teacher bashing," per se, but --<P>Nearly every paper my fiance's son brings home, I have to go over with him myself to catch all the glaring errors the teacher does not catch. This has traditionally happened in Language and Social Studies courses. Example: He was given a mimeographed sheet that instructed him to write about various aspects of the "Artic" [sic]. This kind of goofiness puts a parent (and stepparent-to-be) in a quandary. I don't want to belittle the teacher to the child, but I can't let these errors just pass either. <P>We have had plenty of scandals in our state about teachers and salaries (being paid for work not done, incredible amounts of sick leave, etc.). There is plenty that stinks in Denmark -- or in this case, in the Bayou. We rank 50th out of 50 states. I plead for the 'court's indulgence' in this case about my inability to praise teachers across the board. This is why home schooling is growing so much in this area and why so many of my friends plan to leave the state when their children are of school age. <P>My stepson-to-be was in a play last year at his school for the first time. The woman directing it was hired as an outside director and made those children (11 years old) come to practice, no matter what the extent of their part, 4-5 times a week, from right after school until 9 p.m. Our boy was so dedicated to this play that the director wrote in a few lines for him (he was just standing there before). Then, one of his teachers assigned groups of 4-5 children to get together and work on a project outside of class. All of the children but our boy could make it on a particular Saturday. He went to the director and told her, one week ahead of time, that he needed time off from one rehearsal (not a dress rehearsal) to participate in this school project. She lambasted him. He came to us and asked what he should do. We told him that he needed to think this one through for himself and we would stand by him. He decided on his own to do the school project. We gave him our blessing on it. <P>When he came to the next practice, another boy, not the spineless director, came up to him and said that he would be replacing him for one of the two performances and that he would also have to share his costume (which we bought). The director backed up the other child. I spoke to the principal the following day (this was agreed upon by my fiance, whose work schedule would not allow the call, the boy, and I), who thought I was just a goofy little mother. In retaliation, he called the boy into his office and yelled at him. Moreover, the teacher who assigned the project wouldn't back him. He got a hard lesson in what doing the right thing cost him. This same principal, who, when learning what high school the child has just applied to, told him in front of his class, "You'll never get in."<P>Teaching is and always will be a noble profession, and there are many unsung heroes in the profession. But there are some real goofballs out there who need to go find a hole to crawl into instead of taking up space in our schools. <P><BR>I was very lucky. I had some pretty brittle nuns teaching me English in high school. It wasn't until the SECOND SEMESTER OF MY SENIOR YEAR that out of heaven (it was actually the hospital) came my saving grace -- the wonderful Sister John Eudes, portrayed by Hayley Mills in "The Trouble With Angels." That woman had a large enough heart and a small enough ego to praise and encourage me, so that in just a few short years I would receive top honors as a local columnist by the state newspaper association. <P>I understand that the above veers somewhat from the issue of whether PE has any merit in our school system. But I also think it's important to raise, among others, the issue of getting our children to learn how to balance their performing lives with academia. <BR>

You should have had me as a Math teacher, Basheva.

From the Los Angeles Times - just in time for this discussion - here is how one school is doing it with not only PE but <B>DANCE</B>!!!!<P><B>A STUDY IN EXERCISE</B><P><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>PANORAMA CITY--The Spanish teacher at St. Genevieve High School has lost 20 pounds dancing salsa, merengue and tango. The religion teacher has firmed up playing flag football and the English teacher has improved her cardiovascular conditioning by doing aerobics to loud music. <BR> The school's 300 students are getting in shape along with their teachers by participating in a fitness program implemented by Principal Dan Horn to fight child and adult obesity.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><BR><A HREF="http://www.calendarlive.com/top/1,1419,L-LATimes-Search-X!ArticleDetail-19407,00.html?" TARGET=_blank>MORE</A><P> <BR> <BR>

Basheva -- Let's move to Panama City!! How I wish that's what we'd had.<P>I forgot (I dunno how) about the experience I had in PE the second time around. When I returned to my former high school undercover as a 29-year-old senior (newspaper reporter), I took PE again. But it WAS different, just 12 years later. For one thing, it was CO-ED! It was a hoot. Led by a co-ed duo of teachers. The woman was fun and the guy was just great, except that he almost caught on (who's that new girl -- she looks a little mature, more like 19 or so). We did nothing but actual sports. Had bowling tourneys, badminton tourneys, and basketball tourneys. I don't know why I forgot about that, but it really was different at that private school the second time around because it was actual "play" instead of boring calisthenics. The uni was gym shorts and a t-shirt. Also an improvement. <P>And incidentally, when I took "Anatomy for Dancers" in college, using Lulu Sweigard's groundbreaking "Human Movement Potential" as our text, it was taught that PE and Dance had very different schools of thought which clashed with one another, as to how to train the human body. The argument was that old school PE teachers taught that which did not make sense. <P>E.G.: "Drop your shoulders" -- how can you when they're already hanging? <P>Also critical of such admonitions as tucking the chin, pushing out the chest, etc. <P>For that reason, we concentrated on what the body already does by itself and worked so as not to contradict that, or to use extra muscles and effort to achieve that which is already natural. <P>I found out that a Tulane dance professor also studied Sweigard when she was in college and loved it. Is anyone else familiar with her teachings?<BR>

I just did a little searching for more info on Lulu Sweigard, and up comes my teacher who introduced me to it, Myron Nadel, who, I have just learned, is currently asst. to Dean for Fine and Performing Arts at U of Texas, El Paso. But, I also see that he has written for Australasian (is that correct spell?) Dance Magazine and has taught in Melbourne and Sydney. I know it's a big country, Grace, but have you heard of him? Or any others of you, down under.