Memoirs of Physical Education

So a little while ago I read a post on Anna's blog which inspired me to write this. To confess and to share for any of you who do not know my history with physical education. P.E. Even the name creates stress.

In the little town where I grew up there was one PE teacher and she was a large woman who didn't seem to like petite girls who preferred dancing to arm wrestling. PE was required for 2 1/2 years; I lasted 1 1/2. My parents decided the class was doing me more mental harm than physical good and found a good doctor who agreed.

My memories of her teaching style include:
*She gave permission to the popular girls to throw the least popular girl into the shower, because they thought she needed one. She also told them that they could cut classes and she'd cover for them, IF they came to her. Otherwise, if they were caught, she'd make sure they paid big.
*Jump rope skills were taught by demonstrating the skill, and then having all the girls practice until they had it. Once they had it, they sat on the floor. Just picture sixty girls sitting in a circle waiting for the last girl to figure out the grape vine with a jump rope. Need I say that Suzy Cheerleader wasn't the last one to figure out that maneuver?
*One day she announced that someone was chewing gum and told them to come up and deposit it in the wastebasket. Someone did. Then she said someone else was chewing gum. And the cycle repeated, and repeated, and repeated, until no one came up. Then she excused everyone in the class save one . . . Gloria, a quiet girl who never got in trouble. A while later Gloria was presented to the class where she gave a tearful apology for chewing gum.

Well, so you know, I was a mere bystander in all those incidents. For me, the painful memories came at the hands of my classmates. The teacher simply created an environment of fear and nonacceptance. Being chosen last. Being volunteered when someone was absent from the other team. Being yelled at for missing the ball. Being laughed at when I didn't miss it. "Did you see how happy she looked?!" I learned that PE (and therefore sports) was anything but fun.

Fast forward several decades. It's a mother-daughter volleyball game at the junior high and I'm being a good sport and a good mother. And I'm standing in front of the net, fighting the tears and the memories and self-talking my way through the experience. "It's okay that I can't hit a ball. I can make fudge. I can make prom dresses. I have given birth to seven children. Hitting a ball doesn't matter." It was a significant moment--a moment of coming to terms with myself.

My children have taught me--along with many other things--that sports with them can be fun. I remember the first time I kicked a ball. Literally, I think. I was at the park with my children. I told Danny, who was younger than Andrew then, that I didn't know how to play the games and he looked ever so sad and told me he would teach me. And so they have.

Now I love to play One Bounce and volleyball and soccer with the family. I love that my boys are so good to me that they hit the ball so that I can get it and apologize when they don't. Sports really can be fun! (But still not as fun as dancing!)

Dinner Discussions

It all began with a new 3rd grade student I'm working with. After Day One, I noticed that she had a really limited vocabulary. Words like "whirl" and "twirl" aren't in it. Day Three, I realized that "buns" isn't in it either. (She read the word as "bones" and when I asked her if that made sense, she looked at me as if it made as much sense as anything else she was attempting to read--which may be true, since I'm not sure that she understands a lot of what she reads!) You don't know what buns are? Nope. Hot dog buns? Hamburger buns? Nope. You know--the bread you put the meat between? Has this child never eaten at McDonalds?! Nope.

So I was telling the literacy specialist about her limited vocabulary--he called it lacking an academic vocabulary--(academic? BUNS!) and said, "Who uses words like "twirl" and "whirl" in their homes?" "Ummmmmm--we do," I think, but don't say. And then he says he'd bet she's struggling in science and social studies too, because (fill in the blank) who talks about science and social studies in their homes?! Uh--shall I answer this?

Recent dinner conversations have centered on poison dart frogs and breeding fruit flies to feed them. (Thanks Eric). And no, I'm not kidding.

And that's just the beginning. Sorry kids. You have a dad who's a walking encyclopedia and a mom who starts a conversation by saying things like, "If you were stranded in a hotel room and all your family was missing and you couldn't speak the language and you'd been told not to leave the room or really bad things would happen to you . . . what would you do?"

I guess normal families don't do that.