[ NOTE: You probably notice that the print and style of my entries looks larger than it used to be. Any entries made from the Framingham Public Library will look that (this) way. I still am unable to post anything on my blog from my home computer, but this larger style IS easier to read :-) ! ]
“For bodily exercise profiteth little:” (from I Timothy 4:8)
I do want to make it clear “right out of the box” that I’m not against physical exercising. If a person is totally out of shape and is what could be called “a physical wreck” that is not a good thing.
My understanding is that this week the Massachusetts State Legislature is debating a bill to reinstate a Physical Education requirement for all Massachusetts schools. Such a requirement existed until about ten years ago. I remember that during the time of the previous debate someone on a radio talk show said that it could be that any legislators who were picked on in gym class were now getting their revenge. That’s possible.
On one of Mike Barnacle's morning shows this week, he and his buddies were all talking about how much Physical Education should be reinstated and said that virtually all boys love gym class.
If you’ve ever watched “Freaks and Geeks” which ran on NBC during the 1999-2000 season and later ran on Cable in reruns for a few years, you know there’s another side to that argument. The “Geeks” on that show were the ones who experienced the stuff like a bunch of jocks annihilating them in gym class; being picked last for teams and being mocked for it, and even being thrown out of the gym area into a public hallway fully naked. While the last thing never happened to me, much of the rest did.
My late father was very athletic. He was NOT particularly big. He was about an inch and a half shorter than I am and at least fifty pounds lighter than I am. Even so, he played three sports in high school (I think they were baseball, hockey, and track) and he did remarkably well. He aspired to be a football player and was often turned down for being “too small”. It was hard to have him for a father because I was about as athletic as my mother, which is NOT AT ALL. My mother’s idea of athletics was maybe doing a slow jog to make it to the commuter train before it pulled out of the station. She was happiest watching movies, eating out in restaurants, and most of all, laying in bed reading.
Have you ever watched the animated show “King of the Hill”? Well, if you’ve seen Bobby Hill trying to do a pull up and completely failing, that was me. Well, in all fairness, I could not even do 1 pull up when I was ten. After I went through puberty, I could do around five of them. Most of my peers could do six or seven of them at ten and sixteen or seventeen of them at fifteen, so I just did not rate. In junior high and high school I hated gym class. In junior high, gym was once a week and the class was LONG. In high school, it was twice a week and the classes were quite short. I still don’t know which I preferred. With once a week, you got it over with in one shot. With the twice a week short classes, just when things were unbearable, you could “hit the showers”.
No, gym class was NOT all bad. We did do calisthenics to start each class, and I still do calisthenics pretty much each day. They DID allow us to do some weightlifting in high school during class time, and I kind of liked that.
I guess the bottom line for me is: IF they reinstate mandatory Physical Education classes, they’re going to HAVE to be a whole lot better than they were back in the 1970s!
“For bodily exercise profiteth little:” (from I Timothy 4:8)
I do want to make it clear “right out of the box” that I’m not against physical exercising. If a person is totally out of shape and is what could be called “a physical wreck” that is not a good thing.
My understanding is that this week the Massachusetts State Legislature is debating a bill to reinstate a Physical Education requirement for all Massachusetts schools. Such a requirement existed until about ten years ago. I remember that during the time of the previous debate someone on a radio talk show said that it could be that any legislators who were picked on in gym class were now getting their revenge. That’s possible.
On one of Mike Barnacle's morning shows this week, he and his buddies were all talking about how much Physical Education should be reinstated and said that virtually all boys love gym class.
If you’ve ever watched “Freaks and Geeks” which ran on NBC during the 1999-2000 season and later ran on Cable in reruns for a few years, you know there’s another side to that argument. The “Geeks” on that show were the ones who experienced the stuff like a bunch of jocks annihilating them in gym class; being picked last for teams and being mocked for it, and even being thrown out of the gym area into a public hallway fully naked. While the last thing never happened to me, much of the rest did.
My late father was very athletic. He was NOT particularly big. He was about an inch and a half shorter than I am and at least fifty pounds lighter than I am. Even so, he played three sports in high school (I think they were baseball, hockey, and track) and he did remarkably well. He aspired to be a football player and was often turned down for being “too small”. It was hard to have him for a father because I was about as athletic as my mother, which is NOT AT ALL. My mother’s idea of athletics was maybe doing a slow jog to make it to the commuter train before it pulled out of the station. She was happiest watching movies, eating out in restaurants, and most of all, laying in bed reading.
Have you ever watched the animated show “King of the Hill”? Well, if you’ve seen Bobby Hill trying to do a pull up and completely failing, that was me. Well, in all fairness, I could not even do 1 pull up when I was ten. After I went through puberty, I could do around five of them. Most of my peers could do six or seven of them at ten and sixteen or seventeen of them at fifteen, so I just did not rate. In junior high and high school I hated gym class. In junior high, gym was once a week and the class was LONG. In high school, it was twice a week and the classes were quite short. I still don’t know which I preferred. With once a week, you got it over with in one shot. With the twice a week short classes, just when things were unbearable, you could “hit the showers”.
No, gym class was NOT all bad. We did do calisthenics to start each class, and I still do calisthenics pretty much each day. They DID allow us to do some weightlifting in high school during class time, and I kind of liked that.
I guess the bottom line for me is: IF they reinstate mandatory Physical Education classes, they’re going to HAVE to be a whole lot better than they were back in the 1970s!
1 comment:
marian will still get out of it. they always do. i signed up to take my NCLEX july 9th 8am!!!
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