Why are PE teachers in the UK mostly just awful at encouraging exercise in less active kids?

Posted by Expensive_Star8981@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 262 comments

I have started couch to 5k and I am really enjoying it despite finding it difficult. It's took me about 15 years after my last PE lesson at school to try running again because my memories of it from school were just awful, be it from the bleep tests and the teachers looking at you like you shat in a kettle when you had to walk off, to getting yelled at like a dog when doing cross country. There was always a bias to the athletic kids, which is kinda understandable in that there was also a bias to more brainy kids in science and math subjects and those kids more easier to teach in those subjects would make the teacher's job a bit easier. However, the unfairness regardless of effort was more prominent in PE compared to other subjects. What I mean is if someone less academic went to a science teacher for help with an equation, they would talk through it even if the end result was the kid still not getting it, but if a less athletic kid went to a PE teacher for help with running, they'd just get told "well you need to put in more effort" without any actual guidance on something that would help, like do strength exercises, posture or work on breathing, or even refer them to a club or something. So why is that? Why are a lot of PE teachers not actually good at encouraging exercise in less active kids? Is it an attitude issue with them? Is it a lack of knowledge and ego? I am genuinely intrigued.

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Mindless_Count5562@reddit

Every teacher engages more with the pupils who like their subject

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Optimal-Room-8586@reddit

But "liking the subject" depends upon the atmosphere that the teacher fosters. Lots more kids would probably enjoy sport if the lessons were conducted in a more inclusive fashion.

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kirkum2020@reddit

And it's exacerbated in PE due to a lack of sets.

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PassiveTheme@reddit

We had sets in PE. I was in the bottom set which meant I, a kid that wanted to be healthier and better at sports but lacked the confidence and training, was in a class with a bunch of kids with zero interest in doing any activity. The teacher treated us all as lost causes and just wanted to do the bare minimum. He was openly annoyed at the lack of ability, but did nothing to coach us because he just assumed none of us were interested in trying.

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Musashi1596@reddit

Weirdly, our PE sets were determined by the Maths sets. I have no idea how this was considered to be a good idea.

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saccerzd@reddit

In our school, the cleverest kids tended to be the sporty, popular kids as well - obviously there were a few exceptions, but I was part of a friendship group where we were top of the top sets in the academic subjects but also played football, rugby, cricket, did athletics etc for the school. So it would've worked mostly fine for us, but I imagine that would be rare!

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disappointedinitall@reddit

How did they know what the kids' abilities were? I don't recall ever having anything like a review with teachers at school (70s/80s). I'm not sure that they even knew our names.

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saccerzd@reddit

For academic subjects? I was at secondary school in the early noughties, and IIRC, at the start of year 8 it was a mix of teachers evaluation and tests that sorted us into sets based on ability. I think it was possible to move sets after that - I was in the top set for everything except French, where I was put in set 2 because I was messing about in lessons, but I think I either complained or did another test or something and got moved up.

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disappointedinitall@reddit

Thanks for that I insight, that sounds pretty different to what I experienced. Doing a quick search, was this process called "Standard Assessment Tasks (SATs)"? If so, it looks like we missed that by a fair margin. I was in the year that took the new GCSE exams in 1988. But yeah, in my own experience, everyone was expected to just get on with it. If a kid was exceptional, then they didn't get any extra help; if a kid was struggling, then they didn't get any extra help either. Pass or fail, it made no difference. In hindsight, it's not really surprising that some folks just don't see the point of trying to excell at work ;-)

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PassiveTheme@reddit

No, SATs was an external set of exams. Sets were based on internal exams and just generally how we did in class (at least that was the case in my school)

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disappointedinitall@reddit

Thanks for clarifying that. Yep, we didn't have anything like that :-(

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AdaandFred@reddit

>why is it always geography teachers? Because they used to be PE teachers then realised it was slightly nicer being inside the school where the kids were still little shits but at least you weren't in the rain.

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Realistic-River-1941@reddit

Just invert them, it could be near enough...

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cowbutt6@reddit

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/soft_bigotry_of_low_expectations

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ffs_not_this_again@reddit

And the fact that the worst kid on the team can ruin the game for the good kids by being so shit they can't even hit the ball.

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ToastedCrumpet@reddit

They forced the top set that I was in to mix with the bottom set. Every. Year. Suffice to say I fucking hated P.E and all the teachers and their total lack of supervision or care

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Realistic-River-1941@reddit

We kind of setted ourselves by the end of secondary school. They also had playing badminton as punishment for kids who weren't good at football/rugby/etc. "Just checking sir, this means the stupid and useless kids, who will never amount to anything in life, get to be indoors, in the dry, with no one breaking their glasses, punching them or any risk of falling in dog shit? And no supervision? Right? Oops, I seem to have kicked the football the wrong way, as have all my friends".

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cowbutt6@reddit

And this is how I, a boy, ended up with a bunch of other boys playing badminton, and eventually hockey. The girls did better when playing hockey on grass - no doubt down to more experience dealing with the uneven surface of the field, but the boys had the advantage of brute force when playing on the tarmac playground.

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GodsBicep@reddit

My school had sets. They top 3 top sets in other class for example all did PE at the same time and it was split into two sets (per gender.) Eventually in year 10/11 we got to just choose what sport to do and they combibed the two classes half chose football other half basketball and shit. I just played football constantly haha

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UncleJoesMintyBalls@reddit

We managed to blag the secret third option, the weights room. It was a closely guarded secret but I had an older brother so I knew it existed. We petitioned our head of year and it was determined that we chosen few would be given access to a dusty old room with a pull up bar, a punch bag, and a weights machine. We promptly wrote a 'work out' routine that included a half hour run at the start. No teacher could be arsed supervising that so we simply had to pop by the office when we got back to make sure we had all returned. We obviously took full advantage of this scenario and spent our time wisely smoking weed under a bridge. Quick jump in the stream to get suitably wet and muddy then back to class, great times.

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kavik2022@reddit

Sounds a cracking day tbh. Im 33 and somehow jealous

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Nibbles1348@reddit

Mine also had sets. I guess i likes PE. I was in top set most of the time.

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GodsBicep@reddit

Was the only lesson I never skived for haha

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headphones1@reddit

I feel horrible for laughing at the idea of bottom set PE classes.

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paulmclaughlin@reddit

Football leagues are sets for professional players

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eventworker@reddit

Nah, if you have a couple of shit games against Wycombe and Luton you can't suddenly turn it round with pasting your team mates at badminton the week after.

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shyshyoctopi@reddit

Where they compete for house points and, maybe, the school trophy

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bacon_cake@reddit

We had bottom set. We played Frisbee and went cycling lol.

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Pooter1313@reddit

I’m not sure teachers should be exacerbating around students

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Triana89@reddit

Our was by academic class to start with, then eventually the grouped us mostly by bleep test results with a bit of choice if you actually liked sports or not to separate out a few of the bleep test groups that were too big for a class. Then the teacher most known for bullying kids who were either not good or medically signed off was assigned to the lowest scoring least enthusiastic class. I still remember her trying to indimidate me into "admitting" that my medical problems were a lie by telling me she had spoken to my physiotherapist. And threatening a kid with a medical condition to do something that would harm them. Gee I wonder why I left school with a hatred of sports?

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eww1991@reddit

Every good teacher finds a way to engage those who are only there because they have to be, especially if it's something that doesn't have any real pass/fail curriculum requirements. I hated rugby, and the rest of the U16 B team (bar one boy who had delusions of his own skill) were only there because we had to be. Thankfully our teacher was well aware of this and rather than focusing on the rugby element just made sure we were having fun running around doing something with a silly shaped ball. We got exercise and didn''t hate being made to go outside even in winter. He was a good English teacher generally, but this is what I really remember from my school days.

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68_namfloW@reddit

Exactly. Why isn’t the kid interested? Is it cause of reading/writing skills, confidence? I had an English teacher for a year that got the least interested kid involved.

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Maybe_not_a_chicken@reddit

Also they go into subjects that they enjoyed and a place they enjoyed A PE teacher probably enjoined PE lessons at school and has absolutely no understanding of kids who didn’t

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coastalghost17@reddit

Id argue that’s not always the case. I hated PE in school and I was ridiculously awkward and uncoordinated. At parent’s night one year, my PE teacher told my mum that I was “a secret favourite” because I “tried hard”. As an adult, I’m now on a weight loss journey and that idea that I’m at least someone who “tries” has been a major motivator. I’ve taught kids before (I was an ESL teacher) and I have seen for myself how great it is to have a class full of “triers”. always had a soft spot for the ones who at least tried their best. My “best” pupils were always the ones willing to get something wrong, and who could tolerate me correcting them. The worst ones were the gifted ones who felt like they didn’t have to try. The “triers” rarely said my class was their favourite. That made no difference to me at all.

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Electricbell20@reddit

As OP said, they also engage with those who aren't as good. Where as PE teachers simply don't.

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Individual-Fox9173@reddit

Exactly what I thought. Luckily, my main PE teacher liked me despite me always "forgetting my kit" but I think it's because he was also my Head of Year and I excelled in most other subjects. Saying that, he absolutely loved the kid that picked on me because he was great at every sport.

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JoeyJoeC@reddit

Oh we had a design & technology teacher who had a disabled daughter. He absolutely hated able bodied kids. Every opportunity to punish them he would. Absolutely nasty man. He pushed a kid backwards through a door to the storage cupboard once because he misheard him.

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Significant-Gene9639@reddit

Isn’t that…basically all the kids.

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Optimal-Room-8586@reddit

You’ve touched on a subject close to my heart. My son used to be really enthusiastic about football, but as he’s progressed through primary and especially into secondary school, I've seen that enthusiasm fade. He's gone from looking forward to playing to dreading PE lessons involving football, largely because (by his account) the biggest, loudest, most competitive kids dominate and create an intimidating atmosphere and the PE teacher seems not to care. It mirrors my own school experience, though I remember one PE teacher who broke the mould by framing PE as a health activity rather than a competition. I often hear adults say things like “life's competitive, if you can't handle competition then you shouldn't be in sport.” But that attitude doesn’t build resilience in non-competitive children, it just pushes them away from sport altogether. It's the equivalent of a maths teacher saying to a disruptive pupil, “maths takes concentration, if you can't concentrate then you shouldn't be in the classroom”, and just as complacent (by the way - I'm not criticising teachers generally - by and large they do a great, and important job). My theory is that most PE teachers are naturally sporty people who thrive on competition. For them, a competitive environment isn’t a problem - it's the whole point. So when they encounter children who don't flourish in that setting, they see the kids as the problem rather than the environment. Apologies to any PE teachers, but I think they simply lack empathy for the non-sporty or non-competitive, or the insight to see it from another perspective.

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squigs@reddit

Right. It makes me so angry! When I was in school I didn't know how to climb a rope. Nobody taught me. When I was in my 20s I decided to try an aerials class. The teacher's teenage daughter assisted. She explained to a class how to getup and down a rope. All of us managed! I'm doing couch to 5k as well. Turns out that building up to a distance is a lot more effective than shouting at us because we're unfit. However, shoutout to Mr. Peace, who *did* make an attempt to show me how to tackle in football. Unfortunately he was only filling in for that lesson.

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ND8586@reddit

Yes, we had this in PE (in the 90s), especially with running and especially with ball sports. As odd as it sounds, I sometimes wonder if they didn't actually know how to teach sports to kids. Like obviously they had trained as a teacher but it might be that there is a big gap between what they are taught and what they actually need to know. They know how to coach kids football when the kids already know how to play but they don't know how to teach a less able kid to kick a ball.

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IcyAtmosphere582@reddit

Pretty much, come to think of it all the sports I did in school we were never actually taught how to play. I bet if I’d have actually been taught how to play rugby I might have had a chance at being decent at it, but I kinda just got thrown onto the pitch with everyone else in my class and left to fend for myself. It wasn’t until I took up combat sports after I left school that I realised that I actually do like sports, I always thought I hated sports and was bad at them until I started doing sports in my own time with people who actually wanted to teach me what to do!

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Realistic-River-1941@reddit

Same. It was assumed you just know. A PE teacher once mockingly asked if I actually knew how to play whatever sport it was. I said no, I didn't. He got confused. He tried to humiliate me by asking who else didn't know. About half the class put their hands up.

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liseusester@reddit

I moved school when I was nine because we moved most of the length of the country. My primary school didn't play netball, the primary schools where we moved to obviously did. I went to PE my first week in a new school and was handed a bib with some letters on it and told to get into position. My PE teacher didn't believe me when I said I didn't know how to play netball - because everyone else did - and insisted on speaking to my mother at the end of the day. She did not apologise once my mother explained I had never even heard of netball.

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arpw@reddit

Pretty much I think. I remember when they had us doing rugby in PE - they never really taught us the rules of rugby, beyond maybe "no forward passes", they pretty much just told us to go for it. A load of kids were bundled together after a tackle I think (ruck? scrum? maul?) and I just ran round the other side of the bundle and threw myself at someone with the other colour bibs on. The teacher blew his whistle and told me I was offside - I was like "well how the fuck was I meant to know that, you've never taught us that rule?!"

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lost_send_berries@reddit

In Year 9 we were doing basketball and my best friend who was very unsporty got the ball and just held it under his arm and ran with it 😂

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Pretty-Box8658@reddit

This is such a good point - my PE teachers seemed to have no concept of how to teach us anything about exercise. When we did 'running' it was literally just stand up, run, get yelled at if you stopped. Learning about intervals and how to build up fitness or push steadily through the first minutes of hell in running were a revelation to me in my 20s. I'd thought I was just physically incapable of running.

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Violet351@reddit

In athletics we would just hang around until it was our turn to run the 100m or throw the javelin etc. it was pretty much only the 800m or 1600m where we didn’t spend most of the lesson waiting.

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HankHippopopolous@reddit

Maybe my school was different, I was at school In the mid 2000s but I remember doing basic stuff during PE like passing and dribbling drills which would be applicable to the kids who were good and bad at football. Same with every other sport we did. There would normally be some kind of technical drills to improve our skills for a while and then we’d pick teams and have a match for the last part. We used to do a 2 or 3 lessons per week with a couple of different sports each half term so I remember doing football, rugby, hockey, cricket, basketball, gymnastics, badminton, athletics, tennis, trampolining and maybe more I’m forgetting during my PE lessons. From what I remember they tried to get everyone involved and would teach the basics.

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FeelTheConcern@reddit

I think you're pretty much bang on the mark here. I was working as a teaching assistant pretty recently and of all rhe subjects is saw, I think that PE is one of the more difficult ones to teach. For starters, a lot of sports are played outside of school and different pupils at the school will have different amounts of experience with each sport, thus makes it very hard to gauge where each lesson should be aimed; make it too simple and all the kids who've got experience I'm that sport will be bored, make it too advanced and the kids who've never played will be alienated. It's almost impossible to pitch the lesson at a level that will engage all the kids, aiming somewhere in the middle is probably the best bet. As well as this, the school I was working at had sets for PE, three were sets for children with no additional needs and one was the set for children with special needs. This is great on paper but special educational needs occasionally bear no regard to athletic ability, there will be plenty of children who struggle in classrooms but are great at sport, however their emotional needs mean that they need to be in a group with added support which will normally be the group where the athletic ability is at its lowest, this leads to frustration fir these kids however their ehcps require them to be in these groups. It's a logistical nightmare

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KingOfStarch@reddit

I hate to sound like I'm whining, because I'm 23 now and my experience with PE has little bearing on my day to day life, but yeah, it was very true of the PE teachers at my high school that they didn't really engage with less able kids. It wasn't unique to the PE department but it was really marked in PE lessons. In Year 8 (I think it was, it was very early in high school) I got my progress report back for the half term and was told my attitude to learning needed improving. Fair enough, let's talk about it at parents' evening then. When I asked the PE staff for an appointment, they said they really only did that for people who planned to take it at GCSE. Oh okay. I think it's stuff like that that makes less sport-inclined kids more likely to mess about and appear disengaged/lazy. I was definitely like that because they didn't put much effort into actually helping us improve our confidence or technical abilities. The best experiences with sport I had in high school were after school clubs. We all actually wanted to be there so we were all engaged and wanted to improve - at these after school clubs I mentioned, as well as sports days, the teachers were surprised at the good performances of some of the kids in bottom set PE and that actually coloured their opinions of us positively. I did gymnastics after school for about 6 months one year and that spurred me to join the gymnastics club at university - I went from a complete novice to competing on parallel bars, floor and vault, all thanks to clubmates and coaches who met me where I was and helped me get better. Now I lift weights after being taught how to by a flatmate and it's one of the highlights of my day. I actually do think that a lot of the focus on team sports in PE classes (I see a lot of people have mentioned this) might have had a lot to do with logistics looking back. Each set only had one teacher, so as much as it would have been great for us to pick what we wanted to do and get better at sports we enjoyed, it would have been difficult on staff to supervise everyone at once - much easier to just chuck everyone on a rugby pitch instead, so I get that. I don't think it's likely that our PE teachers had contempt for us, but it seemed like that at the time. I think it was self-fulfilling - we didn't try because they didn't care, they didn't care because we didn't try. Makes more sense in a way to attend to students who have potential and like the subject than care about students who you think (rightly or wrongly) are beyond helping.

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OilPillowEmu@reddit

How would you encourage a bunch of sleep deprived teens to exercise in a middle of the day between maths and English Literature. Or at the end of the day when hey are already dead tired?

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saccerzd@reddit

Why would they be sleep deprived or be dead tired at the end of the day at that age?

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OilPillowEmu@reddit

Because teens have a much different sleep cycle than adults and children, basically, school is too early for them. Also, at school you literally have no beaks between classes, which is nuts for me

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saccerzd@reddit

Yeah, that's true re the sleep cycles tbf, I've read before that school should start later for teens. Still, regardless of that, they should have bags of energy at the end of the day - they're teenagers! If I had my approach/discipline to exercise I have now combined with the energy I had as a teen, I'd be running sub-15 5ks!

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OilPillowEmu@reddit

I was dead tired after school. The only energy I had was over the weekend when I could sleep in

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saccerzd@reddit

I think I had cricket or football or rugby almost every night after school - I probably was tired but didn't have time to think about it haha

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Medium_Lab_200@reddit

Too much wanking

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paulmclaughlin@reddit

By treating it as a subject to be taught, not just expecting kids to be naturally able and yelling at them for not being inherently good at ball games, or expecting them to run a crosscountry course continuously without building up their endurance?

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Expensive_Star8981@reddit (OP)

I can only speak for myself but what encouraged me when that was me was the PE teachers being understanding and encouraging. It was sometimes rare but nonetheless effective. When they were encouraging despite little engagement due to tiredness, I tried harder the next lesson, but when they were discouraging regardless of effort, I'd think "what's the point?" and not bother as much.

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badgerkingtattoo@reddit

Same boat. Hated being relentlessly made to feel less-than because I wasn’t an active kid. Even after I lost all my excess weight about 14-15, I just wasn’t good at sport etc. Now I love exercise and at 35 I even play 1-on-1 basketball with my girlfriend at the park. But overall I am more engaged with stuff I hated at school. I was great at maths but hated it, now I actively seek out and watch maths-related YouTube videos. I could have done a whole lot better at school if I’d had the resources (or maybe the patience and perspective) that I do now I think a big issue is teachers of all subjects used to be quite happy to use ridicule as a weapon. Maybe it still happens but it’s not a particularly good tactic. Less brainy kids will probably have a similar story in science etc but you weren’t aware of it because you never felt that ridicule. And because ridicule for being fat/not good at sports is something that matters to kids a lot more than “you struggled with the quadratic equation the first time you heard it so you disengaged and became disruptive in class”

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movienerd7042@reddit

As someone with dyspraxia, which was always going to make me pretty terrible at sports, I always remember how most of my PE teachers just made me feel like I wasn’t trying hard enough. That and the sporty kids screaming their heads off at me as soon as it was my turn or any ball came in my direction just put me off even more.

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IainMCool@reddit

Why do so many people write weirdly unverifiable and generalized questions that cannot possibly hope to get a reasonable answer for?

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elohir@reddit

Because they're karma farming, hence the hidden profile. _"DAE PE? Amirite!?"_

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IainMCool@reddit

And it seems to work, and those pointing it out get downvoted. Ironic, huh?

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AnonymousTimewaster@reddit

You might be in the wrong subreddit

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IainMCool@reddit

There are lots of reasonable questions. I just dislike the recent trend of questions of this kind

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Expensive_Star8981@reddit (OP)

God forbid someone wants a discussion where we might not get a solid black and white answer but we might get some insight and understanding behind a common experience, Iain. Yeesh...

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IainMCool@reddit

It's not just you. Reddit seems full of "Why does everyone do [insert localised activity or trope] nowadays?" questions.

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Warriorcatv2@reddit

I can't speak for everyone but I think it's lack of enthusiasm on part of the students mixed with apathy on the teachers part. I'm in my mid twenties so my experience was relatively recent & at my school we had two types of PE. Everyone had a one hour slot once a week that was pretty generalist. Not much ever really got done or taught. Then, each year group had two whole afternoons per week (I think it was listed as games on our timetables) where everyone got to select one out of five or so sports for the term. They varied depending on the season, for example, cricket was only available in Summer but Rowing & sailing were available year round. I did Rowing for three solid years & it was miles better than any PE. Everyone was fairly enthusiastic & engaged, the teachers clearly loved the sports they chose to teach along with being knowledgeable & the amount of physical activity everyone got was massive. I went from around 100KG when I started to around 73KG during my final year. I still remember everyone cheering when I kept up with them for a whole run for the first time. In regular PE I'd just be laughed at.

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sjr0754@reddit

Rowing and sailing? How much did your school cost per term?

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Expensive_Star8981@reddit (OP)

That made me smile because I wish we had a similar system and I am glad you had that! I don't know what I would have chosen tbh, but I think I could have had more joy from being able to focus on one activity to improve my skill in that rather than just getting somewhere with something and it changing again and being back to square one. Could have also opened up a sport to people who couldn't do it otherwise as a potentially expensive extra curricular. It's great you had that!

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TheWanderingEyebrow@reddit

My memories were just freezing in a field either the other lads that weren't massively into footie and the teacher basically took the piss saying how gay we must be for not being footie people.

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RaspberryJammm@reddit

My PE teachers tried to push me to exercise through asthma attacks and never actually taught me how to breathe properly while running which would have made all the difference. They were bullies. And they don't actually teach in the conventional sense because if you're naturally bad at sport or they just don't like you, they just ignore you or scream at you. Nothing constructive. Only other subject which comes close is drama where the favouritism was laughable.

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FenrisSquirrel@reddit

Yep, tbis aligns with my experience. Most PE teachers are bullying scum who don't understand the first thing about health.

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whatanabsolutefrog@reddit

Lots of the "non-core" subjects are a bit like that, it seems. Much less actual teaching than you'd expect. I even took Art GCSE and still, I never really learned the basic principles of how to draw, like proportions, how perspective works, how to sketch.

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yuzusnail@reddit

I was one of the 'artists' in school who the teachers liked, but I was also still frustrated with how little was taught! With us they just got us to do artist studies with whatever medium without any instruction in technique, and then make a pretty page with artist facts on it. I think artist studies are important, but not solely, without lessons on how mediums work etc. My grades would always be pulled down by the research pages too, cause they weren't pretty enough lol 😭 In the last few years I've revisited watercolour, and have only JUST learned that you shouldn't layer wet on top of dry, or itll pull colour off the page/cause cauliflowering. Like that seems like a basic thing that shouldve been taught

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TheTjalian@reddit

Art GCSE *really* fucked me off. I took it because I enjoyed drawing and wanted to get really good at it. I think I did everything *but* draw, to the point where I essentially "dropped out" of the GCSE by accepting a failing grade due to not attending the exam or lessons. I tried to explain this is actually what I wanted to learn, but obviously due to strict curricular requirements there was no leeway. However I ended up learning how to do the bare basics of pottery and put glitter and leaves on a piece of paper so go me I guess?

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Sil_Lavellan@reddit

Same here. We got given a theme, sometimes a medium, told to plan some ideas on paper and pick something for a final work. Show your workings, and i was bad enough at that in maths. We got told off for not shading properly or using coloured pencils wrong but not a lot else. I was never working fast enough. I am and was a compulsive doodler, I like art and crafts a lot. Our teacher seemed more concerned with her own projects than she was ours. I got good feedback from her sometimes but got crappy grades. The good feedback was more than I ever got in PE though. I was an uncoordinated nervous wreck and thought PE was just there to torture me into hating my body more than ever..

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Realistic-River-1941@reddit

I hope no one who the academic art establishment sees as lacking the skills necessary for success ever takes being rejected really badly.

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vario_@reddit

I'll never forget that my teacher made me run laps for forgetting my shin pads and kept screaming at me whenever I stopped. Left my inhaler in my bag and genuinely thought I was gonna die.

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Jamie2556@reddit

I feel like that was definitely true when I was at school. But “Music” lessons were worse. If you were having paid instrument lessons you learnt music, if you went to the general music lessons you learnt nothing. Then they would have a concert or something showing off how good the “musical kids” were, but all that was private lessons etc and nothing to do with the school at all.

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disappointedinitall@reddit

I don't know. I went to school in the 70s/80s, and don't remember interacting with the PE teachers at school whatsoever. That whole class just seemed like a complete waste of time. Quite frankly though, I don't recall any kind of encouragement or support in any of the other classes either. I'm not sure that the teachers even knew our names, let alone whether we were absorbing any knowledge ;-) Having said that, I think that it was one of the PE teachers who did our one and only "careers advice" exit interview, about two weeks before finishing school at 16. I'd not spoken with him before then, and I forget what the "advice" was. PE, like everything else was basically show up, do the thing, and on to the next class.

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Sensitive-Vast-4979@reddit

Well tbh every pe teacher (minutes the couple who are great and dont go into either category) , force you to do running all the time , doing cross country most of thr yards, bleep test , and a couple ent ball adn badminton lessons, or the lazy ones that just do the sport everyone wants to do (usally football ) and leaves you to yoru own devices . So just set up nets , make a decent sized pitch andref bad fouls , the rest of the time is spent on phone Currently I have the one which is the perfect mix of the 2 , start of the lesso is a quick warm , then we'll do a few different sports sahred between lessons over the half term . Obviously we did more football then anything else since its the one sport no one complains about . We have done so far , basketball (only one lesson started on netball was gonna move to basketball but I think we're changing sports next week since its new half term ) , rugby(unsure if being changed only did one lesson but seemed preferred by teacher ) , then badminton (please for love of god remove it )

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CameramanNick@reddit

I had very much the same experience. I was good at academic subjects, but I realise that if you are bad at languages or geography, you get extra help. If you're bad at PE you get screamed at. It is a peculiarity of the kind of person who becomes a PE teacher. Most teachers understand not everyone will love the subject they teach. PE teachers don't seem to understand that some people are genuinely not into sports. Anyone who isn't into it is seen as somehow defective, a bad person, to be scorned and derided. [Cruel jokes about the intelligence of PE teachers aside](https://youtu.be/0mfvPHCVMp0?t=136), this actually has serious real-world consequences by putting people off sports for life. As far as I'm aware this has been going on for decades and the societal impact of this is likely to have been very serious.

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Silver_Switch_3109@reddit

Most people just don’t like exercising.

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lol25potatofarm@reddit

They're just elitist pricks

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CastleMeadowJim@reddit

They don't want to have sex with the unathletic ones, do they?

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Medium_Lab_200@reddit

Hey, not all women PE teachers are lesbians with an unhealthy interest in young girls. There must be a few out there who aren’t anyway.

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plz_understand@reddit

I had the exact same experience - my only interaction with PE teachers was being yelled at because they told us to run 5x around the hockey field and I obviously couldn't. I once got berated in front of the whole year because I did so badly on the bloody bleep test. I left school hating exercise with a passion but something drove me to do C25K and I discovered that actually, I'm pretty damn athletic. I ended up as a 1st VIII rower at Oxford! I've run half and full marathons! I'm a licensed run leader! It was ridiculously easy to uncover my love of fitness. All it would have taken was one PE teacher to tell me that fitness is something you need to build up, and I could have had years more of enjoyment rather than absolutely dreading double PE on a Monday afternoon. What makes it even more baffling is that my (deceased) father was an Olympic athlete, which was known by my PE teachers as one of them had trained with him. Why no one thought, hey perhaps this kid actually just needs a little guidance (so let's do our actual job of teaching her) is beyond me.

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Expensive_Star8981@reddit (OP)

The bleep test is vile. My hatred of it is extensive. Our school did it at a part of the school where the seniors could watch from a corridor with windows high up for whatever reason, and I didn't know this until our final year when we were up there that people watched and cheered when the fat kid got kicked out first, which is when I went "oop, they did the same for me..." because I was that fat kid who went out first. You've really inspired me because I just did week 4 of C25K and I would really love to do something like a 5k or 10k for charity one day but it feels so far away. It's so nice to read of experiences like your's where there's fitness success beyond PE classes. It is sad how quickly it is almost as if teachers just give up on some kids, especially when they'd actually be receptive to guidance.

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wilease@reddit

Why don't you try teaching teenagers?? Please come back to this post once you have been in a classroom and seen that it isn't the teachers being 'awful', some of the time, it is due to children being stubborn or entitled. Some of the time, kids don't like PE and refuse to do it for various reasons. Why do you feel the need to lay the blame solely on teachers? What about the parents/guardians? Teachers see students a handful of times a week for 60 minutes at a time. Tell me, what life changing things so you expect?

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Expensive_Star8981@reddit (OP)

I am not completely blaming teachers, some kids won't care at all and it is understandable when teachers would rather spend time on those who do, but it is wild to me that in a post where the comments are majority saying the same thing about their experiences with PE, your approach is to not see that and just go "you try teaching teenagers". I am not at all saying it is easy. Not a teacher but was the fat kid who was the punching bag. Teens can be vile, but when the majority is people are saying despite trying to engage, they were either dismissed, mocked, humiliated, and sometimes even dangerously pushed beyond the limits of health conditions like asthma, that's shit! But if the shoe fits, as they say, because we have had another teacher respond more empathetically and let's just say your response in comparison tells us a lot.

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KelpFox05@reddit

PE is pretty heavily focused on being good at specific types of exercise rather than focusing on the idea of joyful movement. Some people just really don't like sports, or competitive games, and would prefer to take walks in nature for their exercise, or dance, or rollerskate, or anything else. But those aren't introduced as options. It sucks and I think that more people would be more active if we reinforced from an early age that exercise can be basically ANYTHING that gets you to move.

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RaspberryJammm@reddit

I was terrible at PE at school but did judo, ballet, rollerskating and trampolining outside of school. Teachers just acted like I was lazy because I had poorly controlled asthma so struggled with cardio.

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Amazing-Horse732@reddit

This happened with me too, I was a competitive gymnast training 4/5 times a week but my school only did running and hockey and I hated both. My PE teacher really took against me and would always make shitty comments, told me I was lazy, going to get fat and develop diabetes once! Anyway one year our school entered the county athletics competition and we all had to try out, I got by far and away the best score in the year for high jump and the attitude switch from that same PE teacher was insane, simpering over my high score. Telling her I had no interest in the competition and would not be taking part because I had enough going on with my gymnast training was so satisfying. I can still hear her 'WHAT?!' in my head now :')

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catschimeras@reddit

ah yes, gymnastics, famous for it's larger-bodied participants

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iwanttobeacavediver@reddit

This was my experience. My favourite sport in school was swimming but for some stupid reason this was only part of PE class until year 9. Outside of school I rode 200 miles a week on my bike, was keenly interested in joining cycling road events and also did walking and some other stuff. School PE after year 9 essentially turned me away from caring about sports of any description for a LONG time. I ended up continuing to swim but not with any organized team or group, just on my own, and still cycled too. But realistically I just didn’t care about truly being involved in a sport until I discovered freediving more recently.

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bunnybunnybaby@reddit

Precisely this. My daughter is probably one of the most active kids in her year group, she dances competitively and takes between 6-10 hours of dance classes a week. She hates PE because it's all football, hockey, or cross country running.

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Gisschace@reddit

My school randomly had a bunch of rollerblades so some lessons were literally just us going round and round the sports hall when the radio on - it was the best lesson! I feel like every lesson in PE should be about getting the kids as worn out as possible and then teaching them what’s happening, why it benefits the body etc.

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FeelTheConcern@reddit

That depends where you go to school; the school I worked at had PE subjects on orienteering, freeform dance, do what you like gymnastics, and capture the flag. The problem is kids who are used to more traditional sports don't engage with things like orienteering and dance particularly well which isn't too much of an issue except for the kids who struggle academically but excel at sports

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GruffScottishGuy@reddit

This was the thing with me. There was nothing wrong with my physical fitness as a child, if anything I was easily one of the fittest but I just had absolutely no desire to play organized team sports. There was zero benefit to having me running around a football pitch pretending to give a fuck about a sport I had no desire to play especially with a bunch of other young lads who I had no desire to interact with.

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TheTjalian@reddit

I absolutely hated PE due to not really understanding how to do any of the activities well. I didn't grow up in a sporty household so I never really understood the rules of football and rugby so I was absolutely shit at those, plus I was blind as fuck without my glasses so I could barely see what I was doing anyway. My mates at school weren't really big on sports either and were also nerdy like me, so outside of PE I didn't really get any exposure to football outside of when England was playing. Similarly, I was never really taught how to pace myself while running so ended up consistently coming in the bottom 5 for cross country. Once I left high school I ended up around a group of people who were passionate about football and actually taught me how football works and the strategies involved. Turns out it's a really fun sport! Also met another friend who was into running and took me under his wing as he wanted a running partner and I was game for getting more exercise. Ended up getting a 7 minute mile as my PB and really enjoyed it. These days my joints are kinda fucked so most of my exercise comes from getting my steps in where I can - but I still enjoy it! If PE teachers actually *taught* rather than *supervised*, I'd have probably discovered a love of exercise at a much earlier age.

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gishwater@reddit

My PE teacher only picked the sports he liked, which meant that, for my class full of girls with a few dickhead guys who did everything they could to pelt you with footballs, he wanted us to do rugby and football for the year. I dropped it very quickly.

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springsomnia@reddit

As a disabled child, I was pretty much forced to do stuff I clearly didn’t have the ability to do by my PE teachers, and there wasn’t much positive encouragement. I was either forced or babied and there wasn’t really an inbetween. I in fact had to confront one of my PE teachers at secondary school who was overly babying me and treating me like I was wholly incapable or she would treat me or talk to me like I was a 5 year old. I hope sports is more inclusive now, but when I was at school, there wasn’t a lot of accessibility for disabled kids in sport.

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abradubravka@reddit

Really feel this. Probably sound insane but the thing I don't understand is how they just expected everyone to know rules for all sports. Growing up I didn't have any mates to play out with, didn't have sky, my dad only played squash. Like I turned up to PE excited to learn. Got put in goal because I was useless, then got told to just jog round the pitch because I was ruining everyone else's fun.

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Expensive_Star8981@reddit (OP)

Yeah, my guardian was old and disabled, so they tried but sports was just a no no for them. It also got to me that PE teachers never embraced the idea that some would enjoy exercise on a leisurely, individual level. In a society with a growing health problem, surely it would make more sense to encourage general physical exercise than discourage it because a kid wasn't good at team sports.

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abradubravka@reddit

Appreciate you making this post man - realising I needed to vent about this for a while. I hope we can do better in the future.

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Expensive_Star8981@reddit (OP)

No bother at all. It's just made me a bit sad that it's an almost universal experience for us to have an awful time in PE when exercise in general, however you do it, is actually fun and great for our minds. I hope we can do better too.

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belu_belu@reddit

Our PE teachers - late 80’s - were downright evil . When the female teacher was off ( and they were bad enough ) and we had to do PE with the male teachers , girls would be crying and trying to hide in the changing rooms. They’d make us straddle benches and have to stand up and run with them between our legs - they’d always team really short kids with really tall kids making it almost impossible and downright painful for the girls / short kids. I remember a class - following us having had bcg injections - we were in two teams that had to swap position at the blow of a whistle, the panic to do so had kids bashing into each other resulting in some kids bleeding from the injection site . Mentally scarred me . Hateful people on power trips .

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Poo_Poo_La_Foo@reddit

PE was absolute hell for me. Like literally a form of torture. I was never believed if I was hurt. Which I regularly was. Turns out decades later I have a chronic illness that means my body doesn't work as it should. Hence the constant injuries. Being forced to work through the pain and never be believed was so damaging both physically and mentally. I suppose, in short, believe children when they tell you something is wrong.

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saccerzd@reddit

That must've been horrible, but I can see how it would be difficult for the teachers to always believe kids as well - when we did PE, there were always a few kids making excuses simply because they didn't want to exercise and wanted to go and smoke behind the tennis courts.

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Poo_Poo_La_Foo@reddit

Yeah, they even ignored written notices from doctors and occupational health therapists...cross country was the worst. The pain, unimaginable.

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iwanttobeacavediver@reddit

This was my experience. I have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome which means my joints and coordination are basically messed up and I can easily injure myself including bruising my skin and messing up ligaments/joints. Yet nobody seemed to want to actually go beyond the problem, join the dots and actually figure out why I had the problems or what I could do about it. I ended up getting a proper diagnosis at 28 after some extreme bruising. The haematologist I saw picked up on my symptoms, put two and two together and got me the referrals which saw me finally get some answers. Perhaps even better is that I discovered scuba diving and freediving where my EDS isn’t really a limitation in the same way as it is for other sports/physical activities. I’m now aspiring to become a scuba/freediving instructor and to compete in freedive competitions!

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Poo_Poo_La_Foo@reddit

That's so fabulous 😍 I also have EDS and like you, was about 29ish when I was diagnosed, following so many surgeries and breaks of my lower limbs. Not fun! Am yet to find any kind of activity that suits me. Frankly even walking is a problem. But I get by.

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iwanttobeacavediver@reddit

Yeah, my case is supposed to be decently mild as far as EDS goes, but even then I’ve still got my fair share of problems including annoying muscle strains and random injuries. I somehow managed to absolutely royally mess up a ligament near my metatarsals one time walking down stairs…

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Poo_Poo_La_Foo@reddit

Don't talk to me about stairs 😂 we are not friends at the moment!

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Lethbridge-Totty@reddit

Hah, are you me? I had the exact same experience.

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Poo_Poo_La_Foo@reddit

😓😓😓 Honestly. Teachers were so evil. Literally were so horrible. Has put me off any kind of exercise for life.

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shooteshute@reddit

You sure showed them

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yumyummymum@reddit

This reminds me of when I was at secondary school. I was (still am😩) overweight and I plucked up the courage to talk to the PE teacher to tell her I wanted to join the swimming club, and she chuckled at me and walked away. Horrible. I was actually a good swimmer too!

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BundleDeFormula@reddit

Former fatty here. One of my PE teachers was quite nice and well-meaning but had the terrible idea of randomly selecting which team we went in for football. This meant that all the kids who were passionate at football were annoyed when half of their team couldn't play football. For me this meant that most of my PE lesson football matches were spent talking to the goalkeeper until the ball came towards me, at which point I would just run around trying to look busy. PE teachers can't really teach, they can only build upon pre-existing skills that a kid might have.

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SleipnirSolid@reddit

Also a former fatty but I excelled in goal/defense for the first few years cos I was so aggressive to make up for a lack of ability or speed. I'd just aim for people's legs or barge them over then blast the ball up the pitch!

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saccerzd@reddit

It probably makes sense to sort games by ability sets, otherwise everybody gets annoyed with each other.

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Sil_Lavellan@reddit

My brother and I (F 49) went to the same senior school for 2 years. We're both unathletic and overweight. I became overweight while at that school, though to be fair, I think he did too. We joke that there's so many comedians who used to be teachers but didn't enjoy it. Ours weren't funny enough to get on stage. Except the Drama teacher, all he did was tell long, very funny stories . Few of the teachers seemed to want to be there any more than the students. It wasn't a good school, and achieved the status as worst school in Hampshire after we'd both left. None of my PE teachers seemed that keen on interacting with kids. The best one married a Maths teacher and at least switched activities up so that we stood half a chance of finding a sport/activity we didn't hate. The worst was, I swear, the inspiration for Sue Sylvester from Glee. Without the warmth or comic timing. The boys might have gotten a better deal, my brother got a teacher who was mildly sympathetic to his lack of athletic ability. To this day I'm convinced that PE was about endurance, humiliation and self loathing. That might have been the whole school ethos though, an RE teacher (you know, the ones who generally teach about concepts like brotherly love, charity, kindness and respect) told my mother that the problem with us was that we weren't tough enough. I'd quite liked her lessons too.

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SleipnirSolid@reddit

Running was used as a punishment in PE. I hated running because of it for years until my mid 20s when I got a HRM and taught myself. Now I fucking love running. I go insane if I don't get a run in every other day.

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Kayanne1990@reddit

Because the majority of them are failed or retired athletes and hate their life. And also, I kinda feel, at least for me, it was a mutual understanding of neither of us really wanting me to be there. Like I was a good student, but I always viewed PE as a massive waste of time so I didn't care enough to put a lot of effort in. And fair to her, my PE teacher seemed to respect this and just left me alone. ... She was actually pretty cool.

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jonpenryn@reddit

PE and the prospect of a PE lesson colored my school experience so negatively i wish id just refused to do it at all. It wasn't just me either when in a solemn assembly they announced a PE teacher had died, we cheered.

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buy_me_a_pint@reddit

In the secondary school year 7 to year 9 PE was taught in our form groups, which worked well for me as I have dyspraxia , was never picked last. as the PE picked teams each week Did not like PE in year 10 and year 11 as it became single sexes and we were mixed with other form groups , but worked out well as I got out doing Rugby and did multi gym instead. One PE lesson we had our form tutor standing in to take the lesson instead of PE it involved a lot of Geography instead.

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geeered@reddit

Similar to you. well, still not sure I enjoy running *that* much, but have done a couple of ultras. But for I'd say it was the same across most subjects. Actually as someone that did okay academically in some subjects in a very mediocre school, often not much attention was given to me either in those - left to get on with it, because I could often still do fine if not engaged and subjects I didn't do as well in, weren't such a worry. Unfortunately overall teaching isn't paid well enough and teachers absolutely aren't treated well enough to get enough teachers that make a great effort.

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Expensive_Star8981@reddit (OP)

You're right about teachers not being appreciated. I think that's what maybe helped me out. I was just there but I was also actively nice so that probably gave a kinda incentive to want to help me. Extra effort in knowledge but none dealing with bad attitude? Probably also why my opinion is heightened with PE teachers in particular because it felt like I couldn't do anything right. They just seen me as fat and a write off regardless of effort, even if it was a particularly good effort in some sports.

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Teembeau@reddit

No-one really gives a crap about PE. You can teach it as badly as you like and no-one cares. How often do you play football? How often does someone ask if you have a GCSE in it? Most people, during or after they leave school find some sort of exercise that they like. Something that suits their abilities and personalities. We should scrap it completely and just let kids have 3 hours off school. Why do we need schools to "teach" PE, other than perhaps learning to swim or ride a bike? Are there many jobs for cricketers? Kids can decide to go for a walk, a swim, play cricket in the park or if they're more serious join a club in a particular sport with supportive coaches.

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Expensive_Star8981@reddit (OP)

Physical exercise is great for health which is why it is a thing. It can also be a gateway to a sport in which a kid from a disadvantaged background would never get to try otherwise for cost related reasons. Not everything has to actually lead to a job, it can also be a skill used for leisure for healthy work life balance.

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Teembeau@reddit

"Physical exercise is great for health which is why it is a thing." So is brushing your teeth but schools aren't doing that with kids. The point is, this doesn't need "teaching". I used to kick a ball around, or play cricket with my mates or my dad. "It can also be a gateway to a sport in which a kid from a disadvantaged background would never get to try otherwise for cost related reasons" Really? How many kids can't afford a ball, or a cricket bat? I have no idea why you're defending what is clearly a stupid idea. It doesn't work because of the variety of abilities and interests of kids. So teachers mostly take an interest in the kids that will be in the school teams.

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Expensive_Star8981@reddit (OP)

"So is brushing your teeth but schools aren't doing that witb kids" lawl because we would occasionally have a dentist come in with the school nurse to talk to us about brushing our teeth during P1-P3. Granted, about once a year, but it still happened. "My dad" well at least you had one, I guess. What about people with a disabled parent or guardian? What about kids with parents who are neglectful and abusive? "How many kids can't afford a ball or cricket bat?" We don't really play cricket here but whatever, what about trampolining, or tennis, even running if you are looking at sprinting, probably best to have access to a track or club for longer runs for supervision. Swimming lessons cost money some may not have. Like why is it hard for you to wrap your head around that not everyone likes football and cricket? I am defending it because it isn't a stupid idea, it's a decent idea poorly executed often by teachers lacking in empathy working with a poor curriculum in a profession that is generally not appreciated anyway. It could be the thing that makes someone realise they could have something to enjoy that is exercise for them, or that they'd enjoy coaching, like the kid who takes art and realises they like drawing or painting, or the kid who takes chemistry and realise they'd like to work in a lab. Your logic would be like saying not everyone wants to be an accountant so we could scrap maths.

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Teembeau@reddit

By that logic, anything that parents should do should be replaced with school, because of some bad parents. Why not just take them away at birth?

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Expensive_Star8981@reddit (OP)

It's wild to me you can't grasp that it is probably easier for society to have more well rounded education based on life skills as well as academics because you could have very well meaning parents who do their best but either can't do something, don't know about something or just do it wrong without realising. Who do you honestly think social services care more about? Obviously neglected kids who are starving and abused, or the kid who learned to use a pea sized amount of toothpaste from a one off lesson thing from the dentist when they were 6. I don't know why this concept angers you so much but it must be grim being so pedantic.

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Teembeau@reddit

Schools are not about "life skills". They're about specialist education. Parents can teach life skills. But don't have the first clue about physics. So we pay experts to do it.

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Expensive_Star8981@reddit (OP)

Cute idea: what if specialised education can in turn teach us valuable life skills? Like home ec and cooking? Or tech with using tools? Or biology where we learn about antibiotic resistance so take the full course? And what is wrong with school expanding upon life skills? What is wrong with the idea that school can also be an extension of community as well as a place of specialist education?

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Teembeau@reddit

For starters, it's expensive. You want to learn to cook? Parents, or Delia Smith videos. And what if you just don't care about cookery? Wouldn't it be better for those people to just do it rather than forcing other kids to?

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Expensive_Star8981@reddit (OP)

I genuinely think you're just being dense for the sake of being dense because that is what happens and you pay towards ingredients anyway. In the first 2 years, you try everything on a rotation, and then you choose what you focus on for exams, so nobody is forced to do cookery or home ec after first and second year if they don't want to. Kinda like with the "specialist" subjects too. Don't like physics? Don't take it. Only compulsory ones after that were English and Maths at a qualification level, with PE and PSE classes. It's like you are creating problems to fit your narrative when it is something that's already been thought of for decades.

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carmillamircalla@reddit

I work in a secondary school and can confirm that nothing has changed.

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CosyCastle@reddit

I’m pushing 60. I’ve never really got over the humiliation of being bad at PE. I really think that school PE lessons should help the less talented to find some kind of exercise they enjoy, to introduce a lifetime of healthy activity. Sure, by all means have competitive sport for those that way inclined, but have alternatives too. When my son was in 6th form he asked (at my suggestion) them if they could go on a walk instead of doing sports and they did that a few times. And how about litter-picking as an option?

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Expensive_Star8981@reddit (OP)

It is hard to get over because you don't necessarily need academic stuff in its entirety so you can go without it here and there, but if you have negative emotions about exercise from PE, it can negatively impact your health (as I have found out and am trying to recover from). I would panic when I am running or doing anything at a gym in case someone made comments because that's what would happen in PE and the teachers would essentially just allow it (besides one, she was awesome). Litter picking is a great option, it can be really fun! I am glad your son's teachers are more receptive to kids not wanting to do sport to still doing something for exercise.

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ShockingHair63@reddit

I was a PE teacher for many years. I always to be supportive of those who needed to develop their fitness and had a willingness to do so. I did experience some colleagues being less patient and considerate with those who had natural athletic prowess. Like with the academic subjects, it comes easier to some than others. Unfortunately, in the later years of my career I saw huge drops in willingness of students to put any effort in and improve, and fitness levels falling substantially

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HawkTenRose@reddit

You sound like a good PE teacher. Mine told me that I didn’t do enough exercise, and when I pointed out I danced at my school six hours a week, trained younger kids for an extra two per week, swim twice a week for an hour (2 hours), did trampoline (1 hour a week) and horse riding (2hours a week) and spent my whole Saturday physically active mucking stables and walked 3 miles to and from school each day…. Apparently that wasn’t enough. Yeah, she just didn’t like me because I was not good at ball sports.

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Funguswoman@reddit

I think PE being so focused on competitive sports is really detrimental to the goal of getting kids into a habit of exercise. Competitive sports are just one type of exercise, and are very much not for everybody, and definitely not for those of us who are not physically gifted. I think PE should also focus on exercise that non-athletic kids might find enjoyable and want to continue out of school. Eg yoga, dancing (for fun, not for how it looks or doing it "correctly"), walking etc. Or "just for fun" versions of the usual stuff. If the goal is fitness, rather than passing physical exams, then surely this is the way.

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Down-Right-Mystical@reddit

I posted in r/unpopularopinion once that the emphasis on team sports in PE is what puts the less athletic off exercise, so team sports should be something students do as an extra, and PE should concentrate more on individual exercise, and people absolutely ripped into me. Most places have team sports as extra curricular anyway, and I really don't see how expecting people who enjoy football, hockey, basketball or whatever to do those things in their spare time is any different to how, say, someone who is interested in music will have to learn an instrument in their own time. PE lessons should be about encouraging *all* students to develop a healthy relationship with exercise, not just catering to those who are already good at it.

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Realistic-River-1941@reddit

Our teacher said cycling to school and going for so long he didn't believe us bike rides at weekends wasn't exercise. But watching sport on telly was healthy...

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_Nefarium@reddit

This is similar to my experience, I didn't particularly enjoy PE on account of most of it being teamed ball sports, which as someone who unknowingly needed glasses I was consequently rubbish at, I was also very quiet and stubborn at that age so I wasn't really on good terms with teachers to begin with. One time I had a newer teacher absolutely lose it with me because I don't know how to play football, devolved into him insinuating that I was a lazy bastard (half right at least), he ended up demanding that I attend the optional 6th period pe lessons after school because I obviously wasn't doing enough exercise if I didn't know how to play football. Optional pe was generally only taken by those who enjoyed it, I turned up and bared it and on the second week I was there we did a bleep test, we also ran the cross country track. Got second in the bleep test and 3rd in the race because outside of school I was practically glued to my bike, it's just all I did, lived next to a decent part of the cycle network so most days id just drop my stuff at home, go on autopilot and cycle miles and miles until I was tired and then have to endure the return journey.

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butwhatsmyname@reddit

School stole so much of my enjoyment of things. Either I wasn't doing things "the right way", or whatever activity it was got rolled out flat and sloooowly pulled apart into dusty little pieces until it was as enjoyable as eating cold rice one grain at a time. And as a bonus, anything you were good at you got picked on for. Anything you were bad at you got picked on for. I hated competitive stuff, it's just not me, and I'm not built for speed, but I loved rollerskating and swimming. They felt like an escape for me too. Those "didn't count" as sports because I did them alone and outside of school - and therefore couldn't win, I guess. I stopped doing those too after a while because being constantly picked on and heckled about your body while you're "exercising" in PE gets into your head after a few years. You learn that you deserve to feel ashamed and humiliated when you're moving around, so you stop doing it. Secondary school taught me that all of the mandatory things in life are boring and frustrating, and that study is a punishment to be endured until you can escape it. Which is a real shame, because it turns out that I love learning shit. It just took me a decade post-degree to get past the mental blockers and discover that for the first time.

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Gisschace@reddit

You sounded like me at school, took my years after to realise I actually love physical activity in my 40s I am a 5x gym goer, started aerial a few years back, play golf, walk, paddle board etc. But none of these were PE, so even though after school I always ‘out’ and I swam, kayaked, climbed, anything which got me moving, I never considered myself an active person. I am now with a PE teacher (we liked each other cause we’re both so active) but clash when we discuss PE for this reason!

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ToriaLyons@reddit

They never liked me either, despite being active and always trying. I fucked off to play rugby for the local club instead.

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DarkStarComics333@reddit

I was always the kid who preferred to read than run. I cried so much when i was little over not being able to run fast and climb a rope. But I tried hard in every school subject including PE. I got worn down by simple things like teachers not recognising that I was left handed and trying to pair me with other left handed people in things like tennis and badminton even when I pointed it out to them, and never actually being taught netball, just chucked a bib with some random letters on it and told to get on with it. Teachers finally gave up on me in year 9 when we did athletics. I was put in front of the high jump and told to try it (no direction in methodology or anything) and when I said it was too high for me and I wouldn't make it got an eye roll and told to do it anyway. So I did. I landed on the plastic strip between the two poles and one of the poles came crashing down on to my head. I was never asked to do anything again for which I was grateful. I was never able to choose what I wanted to do in PE either which was a shame because I quite liked step aerobics the two times we did it and I'd much rather have done that than team sports or anything that required running (big boobs from the age of 12 is a terrible thing, especially when you're forced to do cross country and stuff)

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Ambitious_League4606@reddit

I loved sports and training and played outside school for teams. Hated PE. Just couldn't see the point of it. Won 5 events at sports day once for a laugh. Really depends on the school setup and teachers.

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Expensive_Star8981@reddit (OP)

Thank you for being a good teacher. It will have helped many. I had one teacher who was consistently great too and she was like a beacon for us who tried but were just not athletic. I just wish more were like her because I probably would have enjoyed exercise more in the long run. I will say, there was a lot in my year who would always have "something" that meant they would sit out despite being able and I think some teachers just got into the habit of assuming anyone outwith the enthusiastic sporty kid bubble were a chancer.

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bachatacam@reddit

"However, the unfairness regardless of effort was more prominent in PE compared to other subjects." Absolute bollocks I was a county level cross country athlete but not gifted academically, I remember asking several teachers of academic subjects for help and was repeatedly told just put more work in, or my favourite quote "running comes easy to you, the problem here is you have to work hard to be good at maths" its easy as an academic person to see it that way but there are plenty teachers of all subjects who are uninspiring and allow their ego to run rampant. Good luck with the C25K

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Expensive_Star8981@reddit (OP)

God that's awful. I wasn't academic but more jack of all trades, master at none so I needed help with everything. I did have trouble with a couple of teachers, an English teacher comes to mind who was particularly awful but she got a class of kids good at English besides a few and she knew she didn't have to care. Otherwise most teachers were generally receptive to someone trying. But then it came to PE and it was almost like "they're fat, not even bothering". I'm sorry you had that experience. Thank you, I am dreading today's run but here we go!

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ExoticPlankton8287@reddit

“Those who can, teach. Those who can’t, teach PE.” I jest, of course. I was like you, one of those kids who just hated sport and anyone who taught it. Now, 30 years later, and by a strange turn of events, I now teach PE. To be fair, I’m a primary school teacher so I teach everything but I also do a lot of sport myself and I run two school sport clubs. But it took me decades to get past the negativity of my own PE teachers. I tend to take the ones who hate it under my wing in an “we’re all in this together” kind of way. But I think a lot of sports teachers are so passionate about it that they cannot comprehend anyone not being, and I think some see themselves as some kind of Alex Ferguson or Sarina Weigman figure, where they are on the cusp of greatness, and lose sight of the fact they are teaching 11 year olds, probably 2/3 of which can’t think of anywhere they would less like to be. A bit like when someone asks what team a person supports, and the person says “I don’t”, and the first person is genuinely astonished.

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dualdee@reddit

> I think a lot of sports teachers are so passionate about it that they cannot comprehend anyone not being, Yeah, both from my own experience in school and from reading threads like this, I get the impression that for a lot of PE teachers "person who doesn't enjoy competitive sports" is as unthinkable a concept as "rectangular sphere".

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Realistic-River-1941@reddit

Someone who had once gone to our school had achieved some minor success in a sport. Every PE teacher was convinced it was entirely down to them... even if the sport wasn't done in school.

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sgst@reddit

>But I think a lot of sports teachers are so passionate about it that they cannot comprehend anyone not being This is a big part of it, I'm sure. Mostly made up of people who always liked sports, were always good at sports, loved doing sports, and can't understand how someone wouldn't also love sports. We had a temporary maths teacher once who was apparently a somewhat influential mathematician, PhDs, etc, but she was a shit teacher. She just didn't understand how we didn't get it right away (like I'm sure she did). In fairness to PE teachers, we had music teachers who were the same. Didn't get how anyone wouldn't understand what they were teaching, and spent all their time with the musically gifted kids. Leaving the rest of us to fuck around finding the silly instruments on the keyboard.

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ExoticPlankton8287@reddit

I remember once, we had a guy who had been in the petrochemical industry for about 30 years, then decide to retrain as a primary school teacher, came to us, had to deliver an observed science lesson to my Y3 class for a job interview. In theory it should have been brilliant, but he was way over everyone’s head, I had to keep bringing the kids to order because they were bored shitless. He said afterwards “I take it they Don like science?” I said, in my very polite voice, “It’s not that. It’s that they’re seven.” I sometimes wonder what happened to him. It wasn’t getting a job at my place, that’s for sure.

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iwanttobeacavediver@reddit

People assume that being an expert/experienced in something makes them an excellent candidate to teach it to others. Nope, teaching is a skillset in itself that needs to be developed and actually learned.

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Obvious_Flamingo3@reddit

I always saw the kids in primary who weren’t academic but were good kids being treated fairly and (generally) encouraged by the class teacher In PE if you weren’t athletic you were invisible or picked on. They had that awful picking your teams systems that humiliated any child who was unathletic, unpopular, or physically or mentally disabled

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Expensive_Star8981@reddit (OP)

Yep, my primary teachers were fantastic at encouraging exercise and making it fun. A lot of PE teachers on the other hand just did not want to work with kids who required a little bit more assistance even if they were enthusiastic kids. It's why I have a lot of respect for the ones who did try with kids like myself but I also wonder why the bar was lower for them as teachers.

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Obvious_Flamingo3@reddit

Yes 100%. Maybe it’s because they have a closer relationship? I was really academic as a child, and often saw the “naughty boys” be praised for trying even if they weren’t great Whereas in PE you were basically useless if you weren’t good

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Expensive_Star8981@reddit (OP)

Pretty much the same experience. I think the other factor was PE wasn't graded, so it didn't cost the teacher anything to brush aside the less athletic kids as opposed to a science teacher who would be pulled up on a kid repeatedly failing their tests.

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Realistic-River-1941@reddit

In my day (1980s-90s) there was a big split between the subjects that were taught and the ones you were expected to just know. Maths and English teachers knew we were starting from a position of knowing nothing about quadratic equations or Shakespeare. In contrast, we were expected to just know how to do sport, or the words to the magic spells Christians use. Also, if you were bad at maths the teachers would assume you might be good at English, and vice versa. If you were bad at PE, you were irretrievably worthless as a human.

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Obvious_Flamingo3@reddit

Yes! And I went to school in the 2000s

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RestaurantAntique497@reddit

There's just some people who aren't sporty and with their very limited time with a class it's much more value to focus on the people who actually want to participate

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Expensive_Star8981@reddit (OP)

Fair, but why not just encourage something then? If running was never used as punishment and instead treated as an alternative activity, more probably would have enjoyed it. I probably would have been more receptive to running from a younger age if it was put to me as an option like "we're doing football today. We know you don't enjoy it, so put on some music or something and have a walk and run" as opposed to "you missed the ball and aren't enjoying this, so do 3 laps and come back when you have a better attitude".

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Ilikeporkpie117@reddit

It's probably because basically everything you do at school is cardio based, football, rugby, cross-country, etc, and a lot of people aren't built for cardio, so PE teachers just think you're being lazy. They need to have more strength based excerise options like climbing or weightlifting.

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Expensive_Star8981@reddit (OP)

True! And even for the cadio stuff, some weight training goes a long way. Some weight training could be the difference between you doing OK and doing really well at something like running.

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Leading_Exercise3155@reddit

I had undiagnosed SVT in school and thought I was just super unfit and healthy despite being slim, turns out sometimes my heart was beating at up to 260BPM lol and I was blacking out at times. They thought I was putting it on. When I fully passed out and an ambulance came for me they were very apologetic to me.. not too long after I had heart surgery and never did PE again 🫣 Now days I’m super active and love long walks, hikes, etc. Not into playing sports though. Some kids genuinely are having problems

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Oolonger@reddit

Me too! I never ended up passing out, but anything aerobic would make me start to wobble about and have to sit down. My teachers never accused me of putting it on, but there was a lot of eye rolling that the weak kid had to sit down again.

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DD230191@reddit

Can't flog a chub horse

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Hazeri@reddit

Those who can, do Those who can't, teach Those who can't teach, teach PE

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butwhatsmyname@reddit

I finished school in the late 90s so I'm hoping things are different now. My experience was that there were these set activities - badminton, athletics, cross country, cricket, netball - and these were the things you had to be good at. The other term for PE class was Games. All of them competitive. All of them focussed on either 'winning' or improving your skills as a team player so the team could win. I am not in any way a competitive person - I'm 40 now. It's not going to happen. I loved swimming and roller skating but those didn't 'count' as exercise / physical activities in the world of my school's PE classes. Those were 'playing'. Because I did them alone and therefore couldn't "win". I couldn't have done them in class time, but they weren't considered physical exercise at all. I was also horrifically bullied in school and PE became an open field for that. I couldn't do _anything_ without someone picking on me about it and that was just how things worked in that environment. The teachers didn't mean me harm themselves, but they never put a stop to it. So I had to play games I was bad at and did not enjoy, competing against people who fucking hated me and delighted in making that clear, and psychologically intertwined"physical exercise" with "humiliation" in a way that took me till my 30s to start usefully overcoming. I stopped swimming. I stopped skating. I stayed indoors where there was no chance of anyone making fun of me. Because PE classes taught me that I was "bad at exercise" and deserved all the ridicule and humiliation - because nobody stepped in to stop it. There was no option to do less humiliating activities or something non-competitive. We weren't allowed to use the gym facilities and there wasn't any opportunity to have a chat with the teachers about other options or activities. I was short, overweight and - as it turns out - dealing with painful joint hyper mobility, and I was never going to win the school any athletics medals, so I was a waste of time. Five years of that took 20 years to start overcoming.

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iwanttobeacavediver@reddit

As someone with joint hypermobility thanks to EDS, I can only sympathize with you! This was more or less my experience in the early 2000s.

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Teembeau@reddit

Someone replied (now gone) to me that "you sound like you were fat at school" but no, I wasn't I just liked certain sorts of exercise like swimming and walking. I was skinny because I would do a lot of that. I just wasn't good at team sports and co-ordination.

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Immediate-Platform59@reddit

I was awful at PE. A neuromuscular myopathy means I can't run or jump or throw anything with any distance, even my walking is slow and unsteady. Every year my parents had to have a meeting with the PE teachers to stop them being absolutely horrible to me. They would accuse me of being lazy and not trying when I literally had a genetic diagnosis and visits to Great Ormond Street on my record. None of them had any idea what to do with a disabled kid. If they had just let me do what I could and sit out the rest I would have been happy but they always tried to push me to do things I physically couldn't. Now as an adult I enjoy walking and swimming but I do it at my very slow pace.

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Immediate-Platform59@reddit

I will say I think it has improved. My sister is 11 years younger than me with the same disability. I think her teachers were much more understanding and encouraging. She is far more active than me now in consequence, she does a lot of wall climbing which can be done at her own pace and to her ability.

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Usual-Junket1601@reddit

PE teacher here. In the schools I've worked at, thankfully the days of forced bleep tests and cross country are coming to an end. I want my students to enjoy PE, take away positive memories of the subject (where possible), which allows them to continue staying physically active outside of school. I did have one former colleague who used to make students run the bleep test twice a year for no apparent purpose. When I did query him on why he does this, his response was "well I had to do it at school 20 years ago." Sums it up really.

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HistoricalCold4299@reddit

Yeah, I generally found at school, the PE teachers were more focused on the sporty children. But as another commenter said, kids that are more fascinated towards a subject tend to receive more attention from the teacher. Having said that: I was bottom set PE at school, and I found the teachers were generally quite good towards our group. If you showed a willingness to participate, they were more inclined to help. I didn't really like PE at school, but somehow, one of the teachers seemed to like me and thought I was better at sports than I perceived myself to be.

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Hastle87@reddit

Can't learn, teach. Can't teach, teach PE.

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SocieteRoyale@reddit

cos PE teachers are hulking great idiots with no sense of empathy

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CodeToManagement@reddit

Because putting the effort in makes the job harder than it has to be. Send all the kids to run the cross country course and put the winners into the school team - easy, but filter out the kids who came last and teach them how to improve stamina over weeks or months is hard. Generally my experience has been any teachers doing subjects like PE, Music, Art only really cared about the kids who were already into those things or good at them.

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Goblin_Deez_@reddit

My PE teachers were amazing. They made everyone feel included, gave out nicknames and nurtured us and encouraged us individually.

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lost_send_berries@reddit

Couch to 5k works for you, if there are 10 unathletic kids in a class there could be 10 different approaches of physical exercise they enjoy.

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jackburnetts@reddit

Part of the problem is the history of the subject. PE hasn’t been physical education, but ‘sport’ for most of its history. Therefore the large majority of PE teachers are ones that enjoyed ‘sport’ enough to do it to degree level. Whether the curriculum changes and includes exercise beyond sport is up to those teachers and those teachers are passionate about sport. So they teach sport. This isn’t the case everywhere, but I do wonder why in a world where there is every type of exercise under the sun offered outside of school, we stick largely to sport. I danced from the ages of 2-17. I love dance. I did ballet (a physically taxing but also very precise art) as well as other styles. I was physically fit. I don’t think my PE teachers knew any of that because I didn’t enjoy sport.

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justthrowa2@reddit

It's such a shame that a subject meant to be about health and movement can leave so many with such negative associations. Your point about the lack of practical guidance, like advice on breathing or posture, really hits home. It seems the system often confuses natural talent with effort and fails to equip teachers to actually coach improvement. Breaking down those barriers to find enjoyment in exercise as an adult is a huge achievement.

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Electricbell20@reddit

I didn't really engage with PE because of this. If you were crap, they didn't care. When I was at uni I joined the jitsu society. It was interesting to see how different the teaching was. He would set off the session with some break falling exercises, they'd note who wasn't getting it. They'd set the rest the group off with that day's exercise. Then go back to the break falling group until they got it. Whilst doing this they would be watching the exercise play out. Then he would introduce another exercise and focus on those not getting the previous. What I noticed in this approach is it was better for everyone, as the one who got it, could spar with anyone.

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MeasurementDouble324@reddit

I’m not saying every PE teacher is this way but I’ve spent a lot of time around gym instructors and trainers both as a fat person and after losing all the weight and they seem to come in two sizes: those who appreciate those that turn up, understand we’re all different and who celebrate small wins like it’s a huge deal… and those who think anyone who isn’t their ideal weight is a lazy, disgusting excuse for a human who will only get better if you make them hate themselves. I’ve definitely had PE teachers that fall in the latter category and for a long time those experiences made me scared to do PE in public because of the judgment and ridicule I thought I’d face. Like you, I did c25k and actually (eventually) fell in love with running/exercise.

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Wits_end_24@reddit

I feel like my PE teacher loved school so much she decided never to leave. She was one of the 'cool' kids growing up and so only really interacted with the current 'cool' kids and everyone else was treated with disdain. I'm incredibly competitive and actually loved team sports but I was always given the worst positions or just kept in reserve because I wasn't part of the in crowd.

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dazedandconfused2265@reddit

In my experience, PE teachers were bullies in school… they just go on to become professional bullies 🤷‍♂️

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Da5ren@reddit

I’m the same. I didn’t realise running could actually be FUN until about 15 years after I left school. It was always this thing that was treated like punishment. Tbf, I think PE has changed a lot based on speaking to young people in my family, but my experience of any physical education at school was negative

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Any-Web-3347@reddit

This is sad - I had assumed that PE teachers would have become kinder over the last 40 years as the rest seem to have done. Maybe in the last 15? Mine were sadistic halfwits, and when I went to a polytechnic which included a sports education department, I witnessed the fledgling ones. The men were all knuckle heads, bragging about their made-up sexual conquests and collectively measuring their penises (no I’m not joking, the resulting nicknames they gave each other were so, so funny and original). The women were less obviously pathetic, but not good with words either. Well done on the running. I imagine that not being constantly belittled works quite well.

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jerryafterdark@reddit

I had a PE teacher who seemed to do this a lot. But the thing was that, as a massive nerd, I didn’t really mind as it let me spend a lot of PE lessons sitting on the benches chatting to my friends. I genuinely spent about a year thinking that this teacher just did not care about the less sporty kids. Then there was one basketball lesson. She told the sporty kids, who all already had a good level of skill and enthusiasm to stay up one end and play a game. Meanwhile, down the other end she actually taught us. I’ll never forget the trick for getting a basket by throwing the ball with both hands and then leaving your last hand like your reaching into a cookie jar. I don’t know if that’s a normal lesson, but I have seen the same sort of gesture in real basketball fans and I know that I went from maybe getting one in ten to managing about one in two baskets per shots. She also did one lesson like that with tennis. So two lessons in about two years. That was still better than all of the other PE teachers I had who maybe offered a couple of words of advice before going back to the more skilled kids. As I said before, I didn’t really mind as I did like just chatting to my friends; but if I’d had more lessons like those two I might have ended up doing actual sports normally. I can’t do anything like that now as I’m disabled, but a bit more muscle mass back then would have helped me now!

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SubstantialAd8632@reddit

Those who can’t do, teach. Those who can’t teach, teach PE.

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OldLondon@reddit

This has always been the way. Same in the 80s. Kids that could play football were all taken off and the rest of us left to run around like twats. Idk maybe teach people how to do simple things like trap the ball and accept a pass. Wild idea.

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Basketball312@reddit

I'm a junior sports coach at a club. If a kid doesn't want to be there they often just won't do what I say. I try my best, but ultimately it's more rewarding working with the kids who learn and grow in front of you. I guess it's a version of that. The adults are there to help but it isn't their mission in life to make you good at something you don't like. If you're difficult and they're a decent person, they'll try, but they won't necessarily succeed. You're not the main character in the movie.

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obliviious@reddit

Maybe someone can shed some light on why my PE teacher called me jebber or possibly gebba? It never made any sense to me or anyone else.

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sc33g11@reddit

My friend’s housemate is a PE teacher and in her high school now they do yoga, Pilates, mini trampolines and guided gym sessions in their onsite gym. If I had this at school it would have changed my life! I hated competitive sports and it wasn’t until I got to uni that I discovered exercise can make you feel good.

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Chemical-Cake4208@reddit

I might be entirely wrong in this, but I think there is an element of encouraging the ones you know will do the GCSE and do well because that's where they (the teachers);are marked? If you have a healthy class I don't think that matters so much to Ofsted. i think is there had been running and swimming more on the curriculum I'd have been much better off, team sports confuse the hell out of me, but PE was mostly netball hockey and tennis.

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DisplacedLondoner@reddit

It's really sad to read these comments and see nothing much has changed. Was at school in the early 2000s and PE was hell on earth. I wasnt exactly an athletic kid but we regularly went on long family walks/bike rides because my parents realised they had 4 kids who all liked various sedentary activities so had to get them outside abd moving. PE was one of the key things that made me afraid to exercise. Literally 20+ years later I still have to fight the feeling of being watched when I try to exercise for my health that was instilled in me by being bullied during PE. I still have that awful feeling of 'doing it wrong' because that was all I was ever told. When I told the teachers I had to stop running because my chest hurt and I couldnt breathe they just said I was unfit and breathing wrong and to keep going. I made it round because my one sporty friend came back to do it with me and encourage me, but the teachers were just mad I was taking so long and holding them up. Maybe I just had shitty teachers, and it wasnt their fault that I was the girl everyone picked on. But these experiences seem to be universal and it's so sad to think so many other people struggle with the same issues I do where the idea of exercise is so off putting that it's hard to do for your health. PE made me think all exercise was stupid, painful and pointless, an attitude I am really struggling to shift and that makes trying to carve out time for my health really difficult =/ It's not something a school can teach really as its so individual, so as a subject it fails at the first hurdle. Maybe it should be more about learning how your body works, nutrition, that kind of thing.

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SpongeFixation@reddit

Those thay can't do, teach. Those that cant teach, teach PE. 😉

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Salt-Trade-5210@reddit

I hated PE at school (early 80s) because it was split into gendered activities. Boys did football, hockey and did cross-country. Girls did netball and dance. I loved hockey and cross-country but I wasn't allowed. Until one day our usual PE teacher was off I'll and our science teacher took the lesson. He liked me because I loved science, so allowed me to join in a hockey game. My team absolutely thrashed the other team and it was amazing. Got told off by my usual teacher the next week for lying to my science teacher that girls were capable of playing hockey to the same standard as boys. Bitch, I scored mover half the goals in the entire game!

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DrBob2016@reddit

It is probably different nowadays, I was at one of the last Grammar schools in the late 60's/70's. The whole hierarchy was biased towards sport and sporting achievements. Anyone who wasn't of sporting excellence was generally ignored. Sports and sports result tables (especially for events against other schools) were seen as a great promotional propaganda for the school. Only the teachers favourites were allowed to participate in 'niche' activities like Golf or Tennis. Even though I was fairly athletic I hated both Rugby and Cricket and lack of any encouragement just increased my hatred.

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Alert-Top6812@reddit

This resonates a lot. Good on you for getting out and doing couch to 5k. This was exactly me and I eventually did a half marathon. Despite being academically successful I still call that run my proudest ever achievement.

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xxx654@reddit

I was decent at PE. Not top of the class, but far from the last pick. I don’t have any traumatic experiences from it. However, every single PE teacher I’ve ever met at school or since has been a complete wanker. Given the obesity challenges that threaten to overwhelm our social security and health systems in the coming decades, increased physical health and positivity around exercise in children is vital. But we’re leaving it in the hands of low calibre flat track bullies to borderline sociopaths.

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Dyalikedagz@reddit

Ah PE. Or 'Games'. By far my happiest memories of school.

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Orned1x@reddit

Man this post hits home. My PE teacher's entire coaching philosophy was basically just "run faster." Like gee thanks, never thought of that. It's no wonder it took me over a decade to even think about exercising for fun again. They really did just favour the sporty kids and ignore the rest of us.

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Swimming_Possible_68@reddit

Wow! Is that still a thing? I went to school in the 1980s and that's how it was then, I kind of assumed things had improved! I hated sport and any kind of physical exercise for years after school because of how scarred I was by PE. I genuinely hoped things had changed. I guess not. Maybe its to do with the kind of personality types that decide PE teaching is the thing for them!

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ShockingHair63@reddit

Oh no! What made you hate it so much?

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Swimming_Possible_68@reddit

Teacher was only interested in the kids who were on sports teams. The choice of physical activity was so limited. Some of the sports teachers were bullies. Literally shouting abuse at kids who weren't naturally gifted. I still recall a sports teacher pushing a kid against a wall because of a bit of backchat. I recall one lesson. Football. I was put in goal by my teammates (I'm short and lack hand eye coordination). I got abuse of them for letting a goal in. Teacher offered me no support, just let them hurl abuse at me. I just walked off the pitch. The only time I walked out or came close to skipping any kind of lesson. I've never been fast, or skilled, or had good hand eye coordination. The teachers made me think sport and physical exercise wasn't for me. This was despite being a scout who would happily go on a 10 mile hike without even thinking of it as exercise! It was only after I left school and started playing a sport i truly enjoyed I realised exercise could be rewarding. Honestly, I don't think PE teachers have any idea of the harm they can do to kids.

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Greedy_Heron_3034@reddit

This sounds like my school. Bullying in pe was rampant both by the kids and the teachers. Most of our sports were team sports and if you had bad co-ordination like me and let goals in you’d be shouted at. Put me off sport for a long time.

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7148675309@reddit

Well, presumably now they aren’t purving out watching kids go to the showers like they did in the 80s and 90s

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yuelaiyuehao@reddit

At my school we played football nearly every PE class, the football team would go off with the teacher and the rest of us would have a kick about

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MTFUandPedal@reddit

Always has been terrible. The absolute lack of anything to do with education is also a big issue. If I knew a fraction of what I now know I'd have been all over it. Instead you were either 'good at sport' or left to rot. At school - asthmatic fat kid. Zero exercise.zero knowledge of diet and fitness. Now - Ultra distance cyclist, ultramarathon runner, triathlete. Supported by a large pile of qualifications and a much larger pool of knowledge.

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ellisellisrocks@reddit

I hated pe and I'm now a climbing instructor and coach. My secondary school has a climbing a wall and it was never used. We had to play rugby and shit whilst a sadist teacher watched the "lads" batter everybody else in the name of fitness.

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vario_@reddit

PE was torture for me. I was quite severely asthmatic, which was triggered by exercise and cold weather, so running around a field at 9am in winter, with someone yelling at you if you stopped, was great. I've also recently found out that I'm autistic, but back then, I was just considered to be socially awkward with terrible hand-eye coordination. I was a good kid and hated getting told off, but PE teachers just saw how shit I was and picked on me so bad. I can't do any exercise now anyway because I'm disabled, but it really ruined my relationship with exercise in general. I've always seen it as a chore.

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BugAdministrative683@reddit

PE at school was somehow about who was the best at taking part in team games, so all the usual dickish knobs who had massive egos, or the naturally athletic people were favoured, and the more unfit or less socially popular children that didn't were neglected or even bullied, by the other students, sometimes slightly by teachers. There was this thing that somehow, team sports = the whole of physical education, but that's just not a healthy way of thinking about things. You can look after your body and exercise without having a big bugger kicking you in a rugby scrum. I fear that so many people who as children did not naturally take to having to change into a PE kit in the zoo-like atmosphere of a school changing room, and go outside and play football with a load of mostly twats on a frozen December morning have been put off the idea of looking after your own health and fitness ever since, and suffer as adults with obesity or a lack of fitness. I loved athletics in the summer - you were only really competing against yourself.

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Underwritingking@reddit

Certainly true when I was a kid. It wasn't until I was in my late 20s/early 30s that I took up kayaking and running. Ended up paddling white water all over the UK, French Alps, Austria and Slovenia and participated in the Liffey Decent 10 years on the trot, and have run several half marathons and lots of 10kms All of this was in spite of the PE teachers at school who generally did their best to mock and belittle anyone who wasn't into rugby or cricket and generally seemed to enjoy being a bully

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VillageHorse@reddit

The idea that the teachers sided with the brainy kids in maths or science is new to me. In my experience they sided with the outgoing kids who were occasionally disruptive, presumably as part of a peace deal strategy. As someone who was both shy and performed well at school I barely had contact with my teachers, other than through marked homework and the occasional parents evenings. If you were less academically able you probably had very minimal contact at my school until GCSE extra revision sessions. Maybe I went to a shit school but I couldn’t see how it would be any different in PE for OP. PE in my day was just football, rugby and cricket depending on the weather. If the less active kids didn’t run they weren’t made to - it just meant the sporty kids ran passed them scored yet another hattrick.

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ayeayefitlike@reddit

My issue with PE wasn’t the sports they made us do. I wasn’t great at most of them but for most of them I had a go. I personally was an active kid - I played basketball for 2 hrs a week, and 6hrs a week later on in high school; I was a competitive swimmer training 2-3 mornings and an evening a week; I rode horses 4ish times a week and spent all Saturday doing yard chores; I played netball 2hrs a week; I was in the rock wall club and did one lunchtime a week climbing on the wall. But I have dyspraxia, which meant I was slow to pick up new sports needing coordination. And I was bullied pretty badly. So changing rooms at school were my worst nightmare. There was a horrible catch-22 where I couldn’t risk showering, but if I’d put in any effort in PE I would smell later on, so I basically had to not sweat. Even then, getting changed was bad enough and I had to go to my next class in gym clothes a few times due to my uniform disappearing (and obv told off for it). Every little imperfection on my body was bullied - I remember when I first grew underarm hair, and someone spotted in the swimming pool and for weeks they made monkey noises at me whenever I walked past. It didn’t help that my bullies generally excelled in PE. I could deal with being picked last every time but it was feeling like I had to go to this class and endure whatever was coming my way, and feeling literally and figuratively naked to these people. My PE teachers just got mad that I regularly ‘forgot’ my kit, and challenged my mum’s letter getting me out of swimming in PE because I swam competitively outside of class. There was no understanding of how horrible that whole thing was. Ironically, in fifth year we had to pick an elective from a range of non-examined supplementary classes. Things like art, home ec, music, drama, and PE was one of them. Because that PE class was just for fun, and none of the ones who’d chosen PE as an examined subject could take it, it was bully free. We got to just pick our sport every week and I really enjoyed playing badminton or a bit of basketball with my mates who’d also taken it with me (instead of being split into different classes). It was much more enjoyable.

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Total_HD@reddit

Those who can’t, teach, those who can’t teach, teach PE.

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AccomplishedGap6985@reddit

Would it be better to sign up to a sport at the start of term have a training program for the rest of the term. At our school it was just to easy to play football which I had no interest in playing. Every amateur sport in this country is organised by the club system or organisation. In my opinion this would make easier to spot talent and forge links with local sporting clubs.

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SheikahSlate20@reddit

I think mostly because they are underfunded compared to a lot of other departments. In my school it consisted of playing football every lesson which I hated. It was all activities which was free. If it wasn’t football it was basketball outside… which was somehow more bare able than another session of football which some kids think they are playing a league game. It was only toward the ends of my school years that the actually got better gear such as dance mats and different activities.

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ohmyblahblah@reddit

When i was at school they mainly just focused on the lads who were gonna be on the school football team. The rest of us were fairly irrelevant

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PLCF1@reddit

Gym owner here, serving 30-60 year olds who’re not on the breadline…. PE may not be helping, but if the kid witnesses their parents moaning/complaining/not wanting to participate in exercise they will adopt the concept of “exercise is for children/teens only; exercise is not for adults” and this is far more damaging than PE could ever be. If the kid witnesses mummy going off to hockey on an Monday and Thursday night, and daddy goes to rugby on Tuesday and Friday night and they both have a mini gym (low quality, but gets it done) gym in the garage they each use once per week… guess what the kid will think is ‘normal’? My contention is that PE may get blamed, but it’s actually just (lazy) parents who don’t get it.

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JudgeStandard9903@reddit

My experience is that PE teachers at my school not only had a bias towards the athletic kids but a bias towards the sports the teacher liked as well as a weird focus on team sport. My PE teachers were basically only interested in the girls who played netball or hockey or both. I was quite a sporty kid - I was a figure skater and competed and a swimmer at a club and used to race and I was also a decent middle distance runner. There were other kids in my local swim club at school at we were all basically ignored at PE because we didnt play hockey or netball. I think part of the reason is this weird focus on team competitive sports that discourages lots of kids from PE. Not everyone likes team sports, some people prefer individual sport and not everyone likes overtly competitive sports - figure skating for example can be competitive but its also creative, artistic and yc ou can just practise it by yourself for yourself. Other examples would be dance, yoga, martial arts or indoor climbing. I think the over-focus on competitive team sport in PE really compounds this teacher favoritism and turns the majority off PE.

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Valherudragonlords@reddit

I remember one P.E. that was nice. And she told me that her job was to set kids up so that they engaged in physical activity in adult life. I remember her and remember that, she actually got into my head the point of exercise.

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mo_tag@reddit

Probably because the bar is lower.. the amount of favouritism and attention the athletic kids got isn't even the worst part, it just stings more when contrasted with the level of disdain or disappointment you get even when you're genuinely trying your best.. it always felt so personal with PE teachers, and would even side with or play down when an athletic student was being a prick or obviously bullying another kid.. they give that "I always wanted a son but got you instead" energy

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semicombobulated@reddit

To this day it still baffles me that PE teachers get paid the same as real teachers who have to spend hours every evening marking homework and prepping lessons. All they do is stand in a field and shout. I can remember being yelled at by a PE teacher when I was in Year 7 because she wanted us to play rugby and I had absolutely zero concept of how rugby works. 30 years later, I still don’t know how rugby works, so I think it’s safe to say that yelling at a small child does not provide them with the necessary information.

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Ok-Title9190@reddit

It’s wild how much impact a teacher can have, positive or negative. Glad you found something you enjoy outside of that experience…

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Expensive_Star8981@reddit (OP)

Thank you! It is wild. On the flip side, I had such a fantastic teacher for another subject that I tried it at uni and realised I didn't actually like it that much 😂

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Regular-Ad1814@reddit

I think this is a terrible take (p.s. not a PE Teacher). P.E. teachers, like all teachers, have a tough job. They are challenged with creating a class plan for a large group of kids of hugely varying abilities. They also have a very limited timeframe with those classes each week. They just don't have the time to be a P.T. for every child. Also, a more unique challenge with PE is that for a lot of sports you need a base level of fitness/skill before more detailed coaching will make much of a difference. So yes, an athletic kid may get some more coaching but that is just because they are at a level where minor form or technique suggestions can be used. While for a less athletic kid their limiting factor could literally be their base fitness and the way to improve is hard work. Compare this to say maths, a student who doesn't understand a basic equation can be helped by a teacher spending time with them and explaining it but just repeatedly trying it without any input wouldn't work. I know in my school the PE teachers were bloody excellent. They treated every student great and set different goals for each student. Like each year we did a 3k run, for some people in the group the goal was breaking a school record for that year group, for others it was sub 12 mins and a PB, for others it was just finishing it. But no matter what there was equal encouragement for everyone even if the level of specific coaching varied. Think of it like this... As an adult if you went to a group exercise class of 30 people for 1 hour a week would you expect dedicated coaching for yourself? No you wouldn't, you would expect encouragement and general instruction. If you wanted more than that you would look into a personal trainer or smaller group sessions. All of this being said, PE teachers are just people and people can be horrible. It is possible your PE teachers were horrible people but that does not mean it is true for all PE teachers.

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Expensive_Star8981@reddit (OP)

I think that you think my take is terrible because you had excellent teachers, and I get that because if all of my teachers were like the one excellent one I had myself, I would probably have the same thoughts. The reality is a lot, maybe even the majority of people don't have that experience and we have at least one PE teacher who made the subject awful for those who weren't athletic or had chronic health issues that prevented them from being able to participate to the same level. I am really glad you had such a positive time in PE and had fantastic teachers. I would have loved to have had the experience you had in your 3k runs now I am also doing 3k runs in my adult years and actually finding joy in them away from my teachers who weren't so encouraging. It might be a terrible take for you but unfortunately it's a common experience for a lot of others.

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Regular-Ad1814@reddit

🤷🏻 I still think your expectations are a bit unrealistic tbh. 1 hour a week for 1 PE teacher with 30 odd kids, there is only so much they will ever be able to do. To be clear though, I don't think it's unrealistic to expect the teachers to be encouraging and supportive that should be the baseline. I should also probably clarify my PE career was very odd, I experienced nearly everything haha. I was a slow grower so was very small and skinny until about year 5. I loved sports but was hopelessly slow and weak. In year 3 I had to stop sport and most PE lessons due to medical issues with my knees due to different parts growing at different rates. Then by year 5 I grew about 1 foot to be 6 foot, knees sorted themselves out, gained a huge cardio base and in one year went from doing a 28 min 3k to a sub 12min 3k. I also went from being slow to being one of the fastest sprinters in the school. So when I share my experience, it is coming from someone who has been rubbish at PE, been unable to do PE due to medical issues through to becoming one of the fitter people in my school. My take is not coming from someone who was always athletic and had an easy time in PE of being naturally good at it

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Expensive_Star8981@reddit (OP)

I get you, like I am not saying I expect PT like coaching for every student because not every student will want it anyway. My point is a lot of PE teachers out there aren't even meeting your baseline, even when kids are trying their best to be enthusiastic about the subject despite limitations. I appreciate you sharing your journey and I am glad you were able to recover from your knee issues. I am assuming your PE teachers were supportive during this? There's a good few people commenting on this post that they've had their own health issues, such as asthma and connective tissue disorders, where they were pushed beyond their limits to the point it caused medical harm and sometimes even spoken to disrespectfully because of this. I don't expect the world from PE teachers because the reality is, teaching is a underfunded and under-appreciated profession. That said, there is a very common theme where a lot of people felt discouraged in PE at times where it just was not necessary and even dangerous, and a lot go into adult life discouraged from physical activity because of it. I am glad you had brilliant PE teachers but even almost consistently decent PE teachers is not the universal experience and I was wondering for some insight as to why that is.

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SnooHabits8484@reddit

My PE teachers only had public humiliation in their toolkit and didn’t interact at all with anyone not on the rugby team after the equivalent of year 8

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Neefew@reddit

Every PE teacher I had was an absolute cunt. I was forced to play rugby for 5 years and when I didn'tike being shoved into the mud by all the bigger boys, I was forced to run laps. Eventually I asked to run laps just to get out of it. This was in the 2010s as well, so nothing has changed since the 80s

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Rude-Possibility4682@reddit

I used to come last in everything, but I always liked taking part. I've always been crap at sports, with zero coordination, but I would have a go at anything. Turns out I was pretty decent at the javelin, and my P. E teacher who could be a tough old bastard, must have seen that I was trying, let me have a go at anything, to see if I could achieve something in the lessons. I don't think he encouraged me, verbally, he would just give me a different sport to try every lesson.. Probably thought Ffs! He's gotta be useful at something for sports day.

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lilleralleh@reddit

Ugh, I struggled to engage with fitness for years as an adult because my PE teacher told me I was “running wrong” but couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me exactly how. Never tried to use a treadmill again

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testydonkey@reddit

I went to high school in the 90's. Every PE lesson the class was split in half by the teacher...the 'athletic' and not so athletic. We pretty much always played football, the athletic side had the PE teacher being a ref and had proper goals. The rest of us had jumpers for goal posts and basically left to it. Me and my friend would just play defense and talk about red dwarf

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lonesome_okapi_314@reddit

I was really really interested in athletics at secondary school. I sweat my back off for a few years, got into reasonably good shape (wasnt overweight or anything, just a teenager who'd rather be in a field drinking than running around it). Head of PE changed in year 10, he got serious and was a demonstratively grim guy. He demanded quantitative improvement and I instantly decided I hated him and actively disengaged. He introduced new stuff, like dodgeball, basketball, baseball etc. I would purposely row until I passed out, throw a javelin massively short on the third go, do the cross country run at a fantastic pace to then stand by the gate for twenty minutes. My own idiotic teenage ego chose extra maths over extra PE, even though I liked/wanted exercise. He was objectively a good teacher, he wanted everyone to improve, but he would never be able to encourage someone like me, and that wasn't his fault. Due to this I wonder if actually, shit PE teachers are actually great to a few, or average to many, but never perfect for all. Much like all teachers.

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WowzersTrousers0@reddit

A child who is unmotivated to be active has had a terrible upbringings. It is not the teachers job to undo the toxic culture of the home.

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SnooHabits8484@reddit

So scrap heap for those kids then?

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Expensive_Star8981@reddit (OP)

Interesting. I had a traumatic upbringing but would always throw myself into PE full throttle because even if I came last and looked a clown, somehow still felt better (probably endorphins). But I get what you mean, lacking motivation in general could be a sign of a knock on effect of trauma or something. That said, if they know that lack of motivation could come from a troubling circumstance, should more kindness or adjustment be shown as opposed to judgement? (PE wasn't graded if not taken as a qualification anyway so nothing to lose in saying "I'm glad you took part a bit" as opposed to "you didn't do enough" imo)

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Lethbridge-Totty@reddit

I have no idea, but a lot are. I had a mix of PE teachers at school. Some were fairly decent, who encouraged me and really celebrated when I did something well. However a lot were really, really bad. Such a shit experience being made to feel worthless and impotent despite genuinely trying as hard as you can. Seeing other kids glide away effortlessly while you flail around pathetically, all the while being looked down on and berated for doing so. A lot of PE teachers often seemed to think I was trying it on, and were openly disdainful and accused me of laziness. In my twenties I got diagnosed with a genetic tissue disorder that causes my joints to dislocate incredibly easily. In retrospect experiencing at least 3 separate full dislocations per lesson of rugby and then being sneered at for saying you don’t want to get up and are in pain kinda sours your relationship with sport. I hope more teachers these days are the good type (13 odd years since I left school). Things that I could actually do well (Badminton, shot-put) were very fun when I had a good teacher for them, and I have a genuine passion for cricket, but never had a PE teacher who taught me how to play it in any fashion. However lesson after lesson of Football and Athletics when I have the hand eye coordination of a drunk sloth, genuine physical injuries, and poor muscle tone were among the worst experiences of my life. Without those I’d probably enjoy sports I like and can do recreationally, rather than having a mental block bordering on post traumatic stress disorder at the thought of outdoor physical activity due to repeated experiences where I experienced both agonising physical pain and acute humiliation simultaneously. Ho hum. Maybe someone will teach me how to bowl off-spin and play a forward defensive as a 31 year old. I’d like that.

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Wretched_Colin@reddit

I left school aged 18 in 1995. PE wasn’t compulsory at A Level, so I guess I didn’t have it timetabled after the age of 16. But for those five years, the teachers didn’t give a toss about whether I participated or not. It was mostly either soccer or Gaelic football each week. Lots of weeks I just wouldn’t bring my kit, and was never challenged. Other weeks, I’d bring the kit and would stand on the sideline, chatting with other non athletic kids. I can’t think of another subject where I could get away without participating for months on end. As long as there were enough players to form a good team to play other schools, our PE teachers were happy. Everyone else didn’t matter.

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Batalfie@reddit

Those who can't do; teach. Those who can't teach; teach PE

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Els236@reddit

I'm 30 and I don't have any particularly negative memories of actual PE class as a kid during the mid-late 90s and early 00s. The only thing that comes to mind was when I did football club in year 3 or year 4 and for some reason my brain is telling me the maths teacher was also the football club coach. He wasn't all too pleased with the kids who couldn't already play football, and therefore much to my mother's chagrin (because football boots weren't cheap), I asked to stop going, and she ended up having a go at him lol. I also remember that when I was in year 6, myself and several of my classmates were going through puberty already, and we were a little tubby. My school invited several football players from either Southampton or Bournemouth club, and they came to teach us a couple of lessons. They did not know how to interact with less active or slightly chubbier kids, and were quite rude. I complained about it to my teacher and yeah, the teachers were not happy with them at all. Overall, not a bad experience with the PE classes themselves, or sports day, even though I wasn't the most athletic kid. Although back then, running around and going around town on bicycles with your mates was commonplace, so a lot of us had a minimum level of fitness. However, when I was a teen, I had a right piece of work as a PE teacher. A really arrogant type that I strongly disliked. Never said how to improve or do things correctly, only how wrong you did something. He was nice to the athletic kids though, go figure (easier life for him). It was also around this time, either due to puberty/embarrassment or not being bothered, but many of my peers straight up refused to even participate in PE, whether they liked the teacher or not. "I forgot my kit" every single week of the year. They just sat on the benches chatting, or slyly going on their phones. Again, I didn't like the teacher, but realistically what could he do about it? Spend 20 minutes trying to get them to participate or motivate them (and then wait for them to change and join us) and then the other 25 of us miss 20+ minutes of lessons, or ignore those who couldn't be bothered/didn't want to participate and dedicate the full hour or 2 hours to those of us who did.

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AnyOlUsername@reddit

No idea. My PE teachers scoffed at me when I asked for guidance and then penalised me for not knowing what to do. 🤷‍♀️ But Tbf, most teachers in the 90s didn’t give a shit about the kids they taught unless they were ‘easy’ to teach.

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azp74@reddit

I think that they're limited in what they can teach, so it reaches a very narrow subset of students. I was a 'less active' child (in another country, so this is not just a UK issue) and basically once I left school and could explore lots of different sports I found things that suited. Also, the PE teacher telling 14/15 yo me that if I didn't do sport I'd get fat probably didn't help ...

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Candid-Bike-9165@reddit

They were too busy working them

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TheYorkshireGripper@reddit

Cos fat cunts come to school with a note from mum saying "I can't do pe today"

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Expensive_Star8981@reddit (OP)

Irony was, when I was at school anyway, the fat kids tried while the ones who always had notes were skinny

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RandomiseUsr0@reddit

It’s a cognitive bias, they have a remit and a personal experience of satisfaction based on their own proficiency, I’d love to believe that teachers could step outside their “zone” but probably not, they have a whole life reinforced on success = prowess. I’m not arguing btw, the body is one’s vehicle in life, make it strong, don’t accept “blah” with your own prosperity. When you realise, hit the gym, do the work, and enjoy the cognitive gainz

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WeSavedLives@reddit

Underpaid & thankless. 3 out of the 4 teachers I know i wouldnt trust with to organize a pissup in a brewery let alone teach my kids.

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