Phys Ed Class = Childhood Humiliation
If you’re of a certain age, gender, and disposition, a few things will evoke memory:
the angst from the tinkling piano and chimes that open Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights,
the feeling of inadequacy that your hair will never be as blonde and smooth as Marcia Brady’s, and
the humiliation of phys ed class.
Today’s students are rewarded for effort and improvement, with a view to making students feel self-worth. This is a pendulum-swing from school 50 years ago. School in the 1970s was a time to demonstrate excellence and suppress anything less.
Full disclosure: I was a born student. I always knew the question the teacher meant to ask, however open it was to interpretation. I always knew the answer the teacher wanted. And I always had the confidence to put my hand up. I benefited from the system that rewarded academic excellence.
I was, however, abysmal at phys ed where it seemed the approach was even more geared to attaining perfection. From my earliest memory of gym class, I stuck close to a few other academically inclined uncoordinated weaklings. We jockeyed for last position in the lineup to be at bat, mocking but secretly envying the keenness of those who wanted to show off first. It was an entirely unattainable goal to make that bat make contact with that baseball. (I see the same defeat in the eyes of my own dog, Molly, as I throw a treat at her and she looks at the ground waiting for it to land instead of trying for the catch.) We stood there secretly hoping for others ahead of us in line to strike out so we could once again seek safety in the extreme outfield where we were safest from exposing our other inabilities: catching and running.
In cross country running season, my pals and I would stroll the course, hoping we could make it last the entire period without getting told off by the teacher. On track and field day, we would sign up for the required one event - volleyball throw, I believe was the least exerting - and create roles for ourselves as teachers’ assistants to keep track of heights achieved at the high jump or sprint times. The luckiest year of all was when I had mononucleosis a few weeks before the track day, allowing me a full exemption on the grounds that my liver might still be enlarged and therefore vulnerable to damage. My touch of asthma was also a great boon and it was not unusual for me to beg off phys ed class because I said I’d had an attack the night before. I have never been prone to lying but I’m not above a bit of exaggeration when necessary. When I was a little older, of course, menstrual cramps provided an excellent way to avoid gym and although we never talked about it (because no-one did), I know my unathletic male cronies were deeply envious of the biology that provided this truly unassailable excuse.
Every year, there was no greater round of humiliation afforded us than when Sports and Recreation Canada required 7- to 18-year-olds to be tested on six duration events in Canada’s Fitness Award Program: the 50 yard run, the 300 yard run, flexed arm hangs, the shuttle run, speed situps, and the standing long jump. If you met standards set nationally, you would get a badge of recognition — Bronze, Silver, Gold, or the much-coveted Award of Excellence. And if you didn’t, you stabbed your participation pin into the feeling of deep shame that wrapped ‘round you.
If each event could have been done privately with only the teacher watching, the shame would not have been as intense. It was, however, done very publicly, or so it seemed. The flexed arm hang, for example, was the event of most pronounced torture where, with the class watching, each student was expected to raise themselves off the ground using their arm strength so their eyes were at the height of the bar they were hanging from and maintain that hold for as long as possible. I believe that some of us were allowed to be lifted to the height of the bar and then see if we could hold ourselves there. In the millisecond it took for my feet to reach the ground again, I felt the heavy weight of humiliation envelop me, desperately wishing it was an invisibility cloak but knowing that indignity radiated from me like a beacon.
This week, I was reminded of these moments of mortification that dotted my childhood in a discussion with the handyman, Todd, who is renovating my house. In one of the door frames, a previous owner had affixed a rod that for Jack, was a place to demonstrate his ability to do chin-ups, something he would do every few months just because he could. Jack never worked out but had enormous physical strength and co-ordination. For me, that rod has been a place to hang clothes. I remarked to Todd that seeing it reminds me of the flexed arm hang and that I wanted it removed to avoid negative flashbacks. Todd is a Canadian of a similar age to me, and like most people, is fitter than I am. I was surprised to hear that he too had a difficult time with the Fitness Award Program. I think we can safely say the program was not intended to produce conversations of shared dread decades later. An epic fail, as we now say.
The blending of phys ed with health saved me from a D on my report card. But health was not without its shameful public moments (and I’m not talking about the painful way sex ed was taught - perhaps in another blog). I recall one particular horrifying day when our grade 6 teacher decided it would be fun(?) to weigh everyone and then post our weights on a large chart in descending order. There I was, just nudged from the top spot by a boy who was objectively fat. The point of this exercise remains a mystery. I was already, at age 10, self conscious about my body, although when I look back at photos, it’s hard to imagine a healthier looking kid (admittedly my fashion sense was a bit “meh”). Not long after this scarring event, a handsome boy in our class told me he would be my boyfriend if I lost 15 pounds. I passed on his kind offer and celebrated with a nice helping of mashed potatoes and gravy with my dinner. I can only hope that by now he’s fat and bald and therefore has a new sense of compassion for those who do not conform to the stereotypical notions of attractiveness.
I was delighted to get to high school where I was part of a brief cohort from whom the Huron County School Board did not require gym class. We could choose shop, home ec, or art instead. I selected the lesser of four evils and spent three years mucking about in watercolours and memorizing a definition for art.*
For decades, I considered my body a way to move my brain around. I don’t attribute this entirely to those early difficult times in elementary school gym class. I’m also a bit lazy. I didn’t opt for any kind of physical activity for decades, organized or otherwise. In my 30s, I dabbled a bit in hiking. In my early 40s, I started practising yoga, something I begin every day with today. In the couple of years just before the pandemic, I discovered the joy of aquafit together with a bevy of other unfit women of an age. All of these were positive developments, likely too late to have any significant counterbalance on the years of slothdom but a start. I would still be horrified to be up at bat, afraid of all eyes being on me knowing I would fail. And although I have almost no regrets in life, failing to conquer the intimidation I felt for and dismissive attitude that resulted about physical activity is one of them. I put the blame for this squarely on the shoulders of those behind the torture of elementary school phys ed. I hope it is better now.
* I still recite this with my friend Greg when fuelled by too much Prosecco: “Art is the production and appreciation of an object or an action by an individual or a group of people having heightened aesthetic value.” There are some misplaced modifiers in that sentence, I know, but that’s the way we were forced to chant it 42 years ago. response.
