Did you like gym class in school?

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

While I wasn't very athletic until 16 or so, I was always competitive and always had fun.  I like competition.

Amen, brother but you do realize that today, competition is evil......we can't have winners and losers because the losers feelings might get hurt.  They play and don't keep score, we have to have co-winners, blah blah blah.

If they could they'd take competition for everything out of school.

Rant over. 

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

I did enjoy it more than most classes, but I hated how long it took to get everyone going, and getting dressed in the smelly locker room was a chore.  You didn't get credit for the day if you did not put the uniform on, which of course you had to pay for at the beginning of the year.  Justification of a ridiculous cash grab. 

I liked it overall, though, because volleyball was pretty fun and always an option, and when we got into softball and floor hockey I would kick ass, surprising everyone since I was a skinny kid that no one thought was athletic.  One time I picked a 5 person team of total nerds for a floor hockey game and we dominated a gaggle of jocks because I told them to always look for the pass first.  So funny. 

[muon2]

My JHS and HS were large enough so that students could be clustered in academic subjects by ability. Teachers could focus on the skills needed for a given group. PE was not that way, with all students lumped together regardless of ability.

I was a year younger than most of my classmates and noticeably smaller until about 11th grade. The teachers did nothing to try to work with me at my ability level, so I just got low marks. I found nothing to enjoy in the class. In college we had required PE from a basket of electives and I enjoyed those. As an adult I spent 20 years in martial arts rising to a third degree black belt, so there were athletic activities that I could enjoy and compete in.

[Tender Branson]

Yes (I/O).

We used to "block" hours during a week, which means adding them together and then went skiing on a few afternoons.

In summer, we were mostly outside together with the girls at the football (or as you Americans say, soccer) field, running and playing football, while the girls played volleyball at the court nearby.

[Smash255]

Yes, always enjoyed it, was generally my favorite subject.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

It was and still is the worst.

[Nutmeg]

Horrible activity. The one reason I never made honor roll/dean's list in middle and high school, of all things. I usually had a 97 to 100 in all actual classes and around an 80 in PE, so was ineligible for the honor roll (I think it was something like you couldn't have any grades below 85). Plus I really was acutely aware of my inability to throw a ball or whatever. No need to be publicly shamed 4 days a week for years. We had timed runs in high school where your grade depended on your time. Liberal education, mind-body-spirit kind of stuff. Except the focus on the body had negative effects on my spirit. Free time to move around outside would have been awesome.

[New_Conservative]

No, it is terrible and I think it is a waste of time. I would much rather use that class period as a study hall or some type of SAT prep course, alternating during the scheduling cycle. (talking about high school, of course)

I don't mind requiring 2 years of it for graduation (Freshman and Sophomore year), but requiring it for all 4 years (that's the way it is in Massachusetts) is a waste of resources.

I would like public high schools to start adopting some more career pathway courses for upperclassmen. Doing so would give kids the opportunity to have an introductory program of their college major before going into college, and may make a 2 year degree more attractive to employers. I'm not sure how feasible that is, but I think it is a good thought.

[Illuminati Blood Drinker]

There were like 5 hot girls in my freshman gym class so hell yeah.

[politicus]

Really surprised you have gym classes in college! Mandatory gym classes for grown ups just sound silly to me.

[New_Conservative]

When I am playing a game called "pickle ball" for 3 weeks straight, I am seriously wondering what the hell I am getting out of the class.

[TDAS04]

Horrible activity. The one reason I never made honor roll/dean's list in middle and high school, of all things. I usually had a 97 to 100 in all actual classes and around an 80 in PE, so was ineligible for the honor roll (I think it was something like you couldn't have any grades below 85). Plus I really was acutely aware of my inability to throw a ball or whatever. No need to be publicly shamed 4 days a week for years. We had timed runs in high school where your grade depended on your time. Liberal education, mind-body-spirit kind of stuff. Except the focus on the body had negative effects on my spirit. Free time to move around outside would have been awesome.

I'm sorry to hear that.  At my schools (especially in middle school), it was mostly an effort grade, so anyone could get an A. 

[angus]

Laptop computer:  $800
Monthly internet:  $30
Starbucks coffee to drink while posting:  $2.49

Asks whether a bunch of internet nerds on a politics forum liked gym class, and expresses surprise when the majority say no:  priceless.

[TDAS04]

Laptop computer:  $800
Monthly internet:  $30
Starbucks coffee to drink while posting:  $2.49

Asks whether a bunch of internet nerds on a politics forum liked gym class, and expresses surprise when the majority say no:  priceless.

I do not recall expressing any surprise.

[New_Conservative]

Horrible activity. The one reason I never made honor roll/dean's list in middle and high school, of all things. I usually had a 97 to 100 in all actual classes and around an 80 in PE, so was ineligible for the honor roll (I think it was something like you couldn't have any grades below 85). Plus I really was acutely aware of my inability to throw a ball or whatever. No need to be publicly shamed 4 days a week for years. We had timed runs in high school where your grade depended on your time. Liberal education, mind-body-spirit kind of stuff. Except the focus on the body had negative effects on my spirit. Free time to move around outside would have been awesome.

How the hell did they get away with that? That is ridiculously unfair, assuming you put in the effort and participated.

[muon2]

Horrible activity. The one reason I never made honor roll/dean's list in middle and high school, of all things. I usually had a 97 to 100 in all actual classes and around an 80 in PE, so was ineligible for the honor roll (I think it was something like you couldn't have any grades below 85). Plus I really was acutely aware of my inability to throw a ball or whatever. No need to be publicly shamed 4 days a week for years. We had timed runs in high school where your grade depended on your time. Liberal education, mind-body-spirit kind of stuff. Except the focus on the body had negative effects on my spirit. Free time to move around outside would have been awesome.

How the hell did they get away with that? That is ridiculously unfair, assuming you put in the effort and participated.

Academic subjects are graded on ability, not just effort. It's not unusual to see ability count in subjects outside the academic core.

[tik 🪀✨]

I dreaded gym class, but I had a small group of other friends that were all also not athletically ..gifted, so getting to goof around with them outside of a formal classroom was fun. But overall I found it pretty awful. I don't even mind physical activity - I love to push my physical endurance and la de da on my own, but that sort of setting just did not inspire me to care or try. All I did was try to avoid being embarrassed at all costs.

[Cobbler]

I was always athletic and competitive, and enjoyed gym when we were playing floor hockey, basketball, soccer, flag football, etc. Weight training was good too (it was a class you could take instead of gym). However, I thought some things shouldn't have been in a class centered at least in theory on physical fitness. I mean, pickle ball? Bocce ball?

[DemPGH]

Yeah, although it wasn't long enough (just as I was getting warmed up we had to quit) and you had to shower and it depended on what we were doing. But I loved football, so any chance to get out and throw around a football. We did a lot of that when the weather was nice. We'd play basketball half the winter, though, and I didn't enjoy that nearly as much probably because I wasn't very good at it.

[Hash]

Not much, no - mostly for the atlas.txt stereotypical reasons. namely that I'm not very athletic, my 'mobile' skills (or whatever they call it) are pretty crappy and that I'm generally bad at most sports and don't enjoy it. My attitude towards gym class varied from year to year, based on the teacher, from genuinely trying my hardest to not trying much. It hardly helped that my PE classes throughout the grades were terribly boring and redundant - the same never-ending basketball, volleyball, baseball/softball  and floor hockey units every single year, with very little change. I enjoyed it far more when it was track/field (I'm a pretty decent short-distance runner). A lot of PE teachers are pretty lazy domkops.

That being said, I don't think PE classes are a bad idea (until high school, when they shouldn't be mandatory) and the idea that we should abolish them so that the neckbeards would have more time to engage with higher intellectual activities is ridiculous (mind you, the idea of grading PE based on results/performance rather than effort is ridiculous too)

[user12345]

Ehh. I liked the part where you could just go off and do whatever you wanted and talk to people you know but the whole running a mile wasn't for me.

[New_Conservative]

Horrible activity. The one reason I never made honor roll/dean's list in middle and high school, of all things. I usually had a 97 to 100 in all actual classes and around an 80 in PE, so was ineligible for the honor roll (I think it was something like you couldn't have any grades below 85). Plus I really was acutely aware of my inability to throw a ball or whatever. No need to be publicly shamed 4 days a week for years. We had timed runs in high school where your grade depended on your time. Liberal education, mind-body-spirit kind of stuff. Except the focus on the body had negative effects on my spirit. Free time to move around outside would have been awesome.

How the hell did they get away with that? That is ridiculously unfair, assuming you put in the effort and participated.

Academic subjects are graded on ability, not just effort. It's not unusual to see ability count in subjects outside the academic core.

But grading people for ability in P.E. is ridiculous.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

But grading people for ability in P.E. is ridiculous.

Why?  Granted, anyone who is making an effort ought to get at least a C, but I see no problem with having better grades in P.E. being based on better performance, and I say that as someone for whom P.E. was not one of my better subjects for exactly that reason.

[Ban my account ffs!]

I was never very competitive and I hate team sports.  So much of gym class sucked.  But I loved parachute time and scooters and obstacle courses that required brain work too.
Most of my physical activity was individual stuff though... I grew up in the water and skiing (both nordic and downhill).  Sledding was also a favorite pastime.  And riding my bike everywhere.

[AkSaber]

Yes! I love exercise and it was a nice escape from the doldrums of the classrooms.