Get Rid of PE and Bullying In Schools

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Okay, the official plan is we fight for district wide PE and bullying reform, and we set a 6-9 month deadline before we take reports to media, etc.

If (when, hopefully) the PE and bully reforms go through in the district, we bring the argument to the California Board of Education.

And yes, there are cops at my school, but they're usually busy in the break room or dealing with traffic.

i strongly disagree with this...i think PE, if anything, should be taken more seriously and should be given more money and more support. have it consist of cardio and working with weights. teach proper diet. teach how to save a life!! !


there's important stuff with PE.


and this is coming from someone who is pretty out of shape and hated PE in school.....i wish they had done more to instill some form of idea about taking care of your body rather than just doing stupid games like football or kickball and just randomly popping that stupid presidential fitness test thing.

^That's EXACTLY what I mean by "reform."

I want it to be a fairer class, but I also want it to be a class that helps people, a class that acheives its purpose.

Thanks for that, I'm adding that in to the letter to the superintendant.

Looking through some of the comments, I was going to say that PE would be something that is something that should be redesigned.

But then again, what benefits it's supposed to serve to begin with already seem questionable, a lot of what goes on seems to be based on some bad thinking.


It probably get's done better in different places. I know I had a fair amount of trouble with it too. (Not nearly as bad as you seem to have though).


But yeah. There needs to be some serious work done there. The whole education system really. For more reasons then just bullying.

For more reasons then just bullying.
Care to share?

I argued this point once, and my high school chemistry teacher,who was a good guy and not involved in the sports program,
presented this counter argument-high school football-and illegal sports betting!- generated the enthuisiam to pass the school levis.(which where we were then got property taxs from the steel mills.

I like that arguement!

I like that arguement!

<quote>I argued this point once, and my high school chemistry teacher,who was a good guy and not involved in the sports program,
presented this counter argument-high school football-and illegal sports betting!- generated the enthuisiam to pass the school levis.(which where we were then got property taxs from the steel mills.</quote>

So basically what he is saying is that people do not care to fund education and would not fund it all if there was not a sports program attached to it. No wonder the USA has the worse education system of any industrialized nation.

Schools have a responsibility to help people reach their full potential by giving them access to programs that will help develop their skills. These include team-work and competitiveness, and football is an ideal way to teach people those skills, as it is interesting and relevant to many kids and teens. Not everyone is academic, so teaching kids these skills in the classroom alone isn't as effective. That, I imagine is one of many rationales for keeping sports funded by schools.

Another is simply that football is a good way to stay healthy. It's no good being a whiz at everything if you die halfway through your working life from a heart attack because you weren't encouraged to do physical exercise in school.

^*throws shoe*

Football is the worst sport devised by mankind. If I have to play f*cking football one more time, I'm going to go back in time and kill the man who invented the sport by ripping his chest open, tearing out his heart, and replacing it... with a football.

Yes, I'm very sadistic. And yes, I've thought about this.

But really, football is the perfect place for bullies to have an excuse to beat you up.

Bully: "We were just playing the game."

Me: "You shoved the ball up my ass!"

Bully: "Shutup, queef."

Me: "Damn it!"

Yes, that one actually happened. 5th grade, folks. And again in 8th. And both times we were supposed to be playing touch football.

Football is another one of those jock-oriented teamsports in which if you're not good at it, you get abused and left out.

Screw football. American football, I mean.

Plus, what skills does it teach? "How to be an as*hole?" No, really, you don't have to work together, all you have to do is run around hoping you get to do something while the jocks take the ball and throw it at people or keep it away from you. F*ck, man, what school did you go to where you had it so good?

The thing about the education system is that it takes a kind of mass production view. Where supposedly educated people are the end product.

Standardized tests are used to determine 'value', and are just short of being worshipped.


Furthermore, there is content that has very little actual value, while there is so much more that could be there.

Is it just me that:
The more Sorce writes, the less convinced I am he was ever bullied?

Last edited by Iammeandnooneelse on 04 Jun 2006, 2:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Hey, I didn't say I liked football. I don't even think it's played over here. To be honest, I don't even know what football is over in America. I think it's what we call soccer over here, isn't it?

And I was just stating what reasons there were for funding football and other sports in schools. They're legitimate reasons.

About my old school, I think the incidence of bullying was virtually zero, with just a few isolated incidences every now and then. That could probably be credited to the excellent staff and policies we had in place there. So perhaps at your school there just needs to be a greater emphasis on getting staff to combat bullying. You did say that your PE teachers were pretty lax on supervision, didn't you? Then that's the problem; they need to pull their finger out.

OK, I think there are a few points to be made here:

American Football is more similar to rugby (or Australian Football) than to what Europeans call Football (to which Americans call Soccer). Although there is to really be no physical contact in Soccer, the bullies still get their licks in, just not as many.

As far as PE teachers, most of them in the US are actually sports coaches and as such, that is the only way to teach PE. That is fine if you are athletic but the concequences are horrible if you are not. I think PE does need a massive overhaul but that will never happen unless something revolutionary such as a group with clout calling for PE to be removed from the cirriculum. In fact, some schools in the US have gone to the more education of fitness style PE rather than the sports style. Unfortunately, that is not catching on. As a result, we have a nation of people who are mostly taught to abhor physical activity and an obesity problem as a result. The original poster is not going to forget what happened to him 5, 10, 15 years after he graduates. Those memories are going to remain with him for the rest of his life.

As far as sports programs, I do not know how things are done in Austrailia but I do know districts in the US where the football stadium at a High School would match those in the NFL while the school building is so out of code that it is dangerous to even send your child to school. The issue is priorities and they will remain screwed up until something radical happens to make the priorities change. When was the last time a HS alumni association supported the chess club or math team. No wonder our schools have problems in the academic arena.

The bully problem in schools is the result of lax supervision but no school wants to do anything about it. After Columbine, the first reaction was to ostrasize those who are different even more by punishing the students for being different. Some students were even forced to submit to strip searches. If you do not believe me, follow the links at the bottom of the page and particularly read through the comments. In the first story, you may have to wade through the gun control debate but you will eventually get to the crux of the problem.

Schools ignore the problem because their purpose is to create beings that are willing to follow their masters and be interchangeable cogs in the work machine. Anyone who is different upsets that machine. Granted, we in the US are now getting our arses kicked because of that type of thinking but the powers that be will not let go of that mentallity (It is easier to trample on the Bill of Rights if people are not thinking for themselves). If a few students off themselves, so what, they were damaged goods anyways and they needed to tossed. The goods were no good to their masters and in large numbers, they could be dangerous. That is why the saying "If you would only change to be more like the rest of the group".

As you can see, I do not like schools too much. I feel that I am actually transporting prisoners everyday that I drive a school bus because of the mentallity of the school system.

Links (You will have to cut and paste because Alex decided to turn off HTML):
Why Kids Kill - http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/0 ... ode=thread
Voices from the Hellmouth - http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/0 ... ode=thread
More Stories from the Hellmouth - http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/0 ... ode=thread
Hope In The Hellmouth: Looking Ahead - http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/0 ... ode=thread
The Price of Being Different - http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/0 ... ode=thread

School isn't the only place a person can be bullied. I used to live in an apartment complex for four years. Bad neighborhood, and the kids couldn't get to me at school so they messed with me on the bus and followed me home. Nothing is more fun then being chased home by forty other kids trying to force you into a fight. My parents were never home, so I didn't have anyone to tell. It never really occured to me to tell any of the teachers at school because it didn't happen at school. My mind is funny that way.