"Students Still Sweat, They Just Don't Shower"

[JerseyGirl415]

Originally Posted by BigGuy77

I think the whole notion of public school is itself creepy. In what other situation is a parent a remote bystander in a child's life, desperately hoping that whatever the child experiences every day is not "too bad"? Meanwhile the child is hustled around on a rigidly predetermined schedule not of the parent's devising, one that is saturated with a mixture of engineered "activities" and unsettling inactivity, in a social context that is one part panopticon and one part zoo... the whole of which is passed off as "education," while the dissemination of serious knowledge is avoided so as not to undermine the authority of the institution?

... Wow.

[NLVgal]

Why does not wanting to show my boobies and bush ( back when we had them ) make me a liberal? You conservatives are some twisted mofos.

( evil voice) yessssss, let's see the little boy's wieners and the budding breasts of the adolescent girls. Perhaps we can make some money while we are jerkin our gerkins.

/ end evil voice.

[ocnjgirl]

Originally Posted by armory

You are a kid, right? They did away with PE in your day so you never got the point of it. We used the same lockers and showers visiting teams did at our schools and they were first rate. When I was in school in TX we had field houses rather than lockers and showers in the main building. The showers were a big communal thing - nothing weird or homo about it - and there was even a guy handing towels out; usually one of the scrawny kids who merely hung out instead of participating. Most of the PE classes I took in the two states I lived in had full blown games of baseball, touch football, basketball, wrestling or lots of running. We would run cross country; about a mile after every class and then go in and shower.

When I was in ES we played hard as well. Baseball, football, rope climbing, kickball, dodgeball, running, you name it. We didn't have showers then, we got that in junior high.

As big a fuss as FLOTUS makes about eating healthy and exercise...why hasn't she gone after school administrators about PE? I might like her a little bit if she did so.

It's not that easy. When I worked in a large public school district, painful decisions needed to be made all the time...you can cut PE much easier than cutting academics.

School budget gets voted down by community...back to drawing board, cut, cut cut...get rid of music, after school program....vote again.....tax payers still voted no...back to drawing board to cut more...that's how it works. The people in the community, voters, have the power to demand the school they want for their kids, but we have to pay for it, can't have both every advantage in the schools AND cut property taxes.

[jimj]

Originally Posted by ocnjgirl

It's not that easy. When I worked in a large public school district, painful decisions needed to be made all the time...you can cut PE much easier than cutting academics.

School budget gets voted down by community...back to drawing board, cut, cut cut...get rid of music, after school program....vote again.....tax payers still voted no...back to drawing board to cut more...that's how it works. The people in the community, voters, have the power to demand the school they want for their kids, but we have to pay for it, can't have both every advantage in the schools AND cut property taxes.

And yet we as a nation spend the most per student of any other developed nation in the world. More money is the meme that is always repeated but study after study shows more money does not equal better.
We've gone seriously sideways in schools it seems. Think about it, how on earth did kids have P.E. and all the other programs/classes they had years ago (wood shop,auto shop,metals,band,choir, etc.) yet it seems they can't be done in today's world? What changed?

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-educa...t-study-shows/

[2nd trick op]

Originally Posted by jimj

And yet we as a nation spend the most per student of any other developed nation in the world. More money is the meme that is always repeated but study after study shows more money does not equal better.
We've gone seriously sideways in schools it seems. Think about it, how on earth did kids have P.E. and all the other programs/classes they had years ago (wood shop,auto shop,metals,band,choir, etc.) yet it seems they can't be done in today's world? What changed?

U.S. education spending tops global list, study shows - CBS News

I have three words for you: Public-Employee Unionism!

[nightcrawler]

gym class was only 45 minutes long, by the time you changed, did warm up excersises, played what ever sport of the day it was, the period was alomost over......so just how sweaty would you get. no one I ever knew showed after gym, first of all, there wasnt enough time.

[ocnjgirl]

Originally Posted by jimj

And yet we as a nation spend the most per student of any other developed nation in the world. More money is the meme that is always repeated but study after study shows more money does not equal better.
We've gone seriously sideways in schools it seems. Think about it, how on earth did kids have P.E. and all the other programs/classes they had years ago (wood shop,auto shop,metals,band,choir, etc.) yet it seems they can't be done in today's world? What changed?

U.S. education spending tops global list, study shows - CBS News

I can only speak for special Ed, as those are the kids I worked with in public schools, but special Ed is now a huge part of the budget much much much higher than 20-30 years ago. Parents sue now for one-one teachers and one-one bus aids and home Discrete Trials and other services, etc and they win in court. back in the day they didn't have nearly the degree of rehabilitative services in schools that they have today. I was astounded at the costs.

[villageidiot1]

I was in junior high from 1967 to 1970. In 7th grade, we were in a separate building from the junior high. We had to walk about a block and a half to the junior high building for gym and swimming class. In the winter, it meant wearing coats since it could've be raining or snowing.

The junior high building was built in 1916 and had a pool and very small locker rooms. Actually there were locker rooms in name only since they only had benches and hooks to hang your clothes.

We were told we had to take showers before swimming class, after both swimming and gym. The school didn't provide towels and didn't stand by the shower. He did tell us that if he caught you not taking a shower, that you would be paddled. The shower room was small with 8 shower nozzles. We were told to double up on the shower nozzles and quickly take a shower.

For swimming class, we were told that bathing suits were optional. I think this had gradually evolved to being optional over the years. You grew up hearing how boys would make fun of you if you didn't swim nude. You never had an excuse for not taking swimming class because you forgot your bathing suit. We also had an old YMCA in town with a tiny pool. Most of the boys there were also wearing bathing suits by the late 1960s.

For gym class we sometimes ran to a local park that was about a third of a mile from the school to play softball. That left us about 15 minutes to actually play softball before we had to run back to the school, shower, dress and go to out next class.

Originally Posted by NLVgal

Indeed. Is there a problem with shower stalls with curtains for crying out loud?

Is this such a revolutionary idea?

From playing sports, we often used the girls' locker room in other schools. Most had a combination of shower stalls and an open shower room for the girls. None of the boys' locker rooms had separate shower stalls.

Originally Posted by Saul Bunyan

I never really thought about it at the time, but after the Sandusky thing I realized how messed up gym class, school athletics and group showering is. I remember in football, there were at least a dozen volunteer "coaches" that would just hang out in the locker room in their jock straps after practice. Why did they have jock straps, they weren't playing? What kind of adult man wants to spend his evenings in the boy's locker room? Why did everyone's parents think it was "ok" that all these guys were "volunteering" to be around young boys in the locker room? I looked up the math teacher "coach" on Facebook and sure enough, now he's retired and living with a much younger man, and his Facebook photo album is filled with "Tom of Finland" drawings... Not that there's anything wrong with that between consenting adults, but the locker room stuff is a bit disturbing.

I highly doubt this is true. Jock straps were uncomfortable and you didn't wear them if you weren't playing a sport. You always wanted to take it off as soon as possible. And you had a dozen volunteer coaches? I think your imagination has gotten carried away.

Originally Posted by midgeorgiaman

Ok...so I posed the swimming nude at the YMCA many many years ago to an older man who recalled those tines and who worked there as a teen. This is what I got: "The Y served a different purpose then. Many of its users were not the rich people if you know what I mean. Many boys and men of the time didnt have bathing suits and their shorts were cutoffs...the kind that fray and come apart because they were old....and could cause a real problem with the filter. Plus, the wool suits of the time harbored bacteria if not cleaned properly. Also if they werent yet married, who knows when they were last properly washed. How to solve? Tell em to shower before and not wear anything in the pool. Today folks think that's crazy but men were different then. When I was a teen, all of the adult men had returned from WW2 and didn't think about privacy among men and most boys were 2 or 3 boys to a bedroom at home and 1 bathroom in the house. It was nothing for 1 to be in the shower, one on the toilet, and 1 at the sink before school. There was modesty around the fairer sex, but privacy around other males was a foreign concept."

I used quotes but it was my best recollection. By today's standards it seems very odd but given the cultural context of the time and the fact that the Y used to have a mission to serve nearly everyone including poor young lads (who may not have been the cleanest when it comes to clothing). It does make sense. If you look at the American Public Health guidelines...until 1962, they recommended men swim nude because of bacterial concerns with swimwear. My theory is that is how it started and then just tradition took it into the 60s and 70s when coed everything began and ended it. Lastly, America has grown to associate nudity with sex. In the past children werent viewed as even a possibility of being sexual and therfore nudity among children was not viewed negatively. Among men, it was not socially acceptable to be concerned with your looks and so modesty was not masculine. Among women, modesty was a virtue...thus the rules allowed them to wear suits, but few women swam indoors as female athleticism was not admirable among many.

One final thing that made me laugh though...the old guy said that "men in those days weren't obsessed with the way they look like youngsters today. Maybe that's why they think it's weird. For a date, we got a haircut, showered, and combed our hair. That was it."

This explanation is similar to what I heard back in the 1960s. Most of the boys in our town grew up swimming in a river wearing cutoffs. Bathing suits didn't last long sitting on the rocks around the river so many boys did not own swim trunks.

I definitely agree with the comment that, "When I was a teen, all of the adult men had returned from WW2 and didn't think about privacy among menand most boys were 2 or 3 boys to a bedroom at home and 1 bathroom in the house. It was nothing for 1 to be in the shower, one on the toilet, and 1 at the sink before school." People today don't realize that it wasn't long ago that most house didn't have more than three bedrooms and one bathroom. This is why many people around Pittsburgh installed a toilet in their basement and it wasn't unusual to see outhouses that people had left in their backyards up until at least 1970.

[Dane_in_LA]

Originally Posted by Vector1

First are you saying you are liberal in a political way, or in a social way?

By US standards, both.

Also I know people who come from countries that are so called "liberal", yet they are very old world values which equates to good common sense pragmatism (i.e. conservative)?

Some European practices are quite conservative, and I think Scandinavians see pragmatism as a virtue in itself.

Sure I was nude while showering, but it was just a perfunctory in & out function, not intentionally being nude in a social way, such as a spa.

You're on to something there - perhaps the word "undressed" is better? Completely functional - be it in a communal shower or on a beach or wherever, it's just not a sexually laden thing.

The other thing with you mentioning Germans, I remember a study that was done purported to determine person space comfort zones. Out of the multiple countries/cultures, the people who needed the least amount of space were Brazilians. Conversely the people that needed the greatest amount of personal space were the Germans.
Take from that what you will, but it seems to back up your perception that Germans might be more modest than many other ethnic groups/cultures.

It is true that Germans like their space, but in Northern Germany, at least, it does not translate to hang-ups about nudity. The human psyche is a weird one...

[Hollywood55]

Originally Posted by Vector1

This attitude is in no small part why our education system has gone to pot. Far too many people want what they want, and no one, or system is going to tell them differently.
Going along to get along has become it is my way or I will sue to get what I want.

Sadly, the old school system administrators are gone, that would stand up to those type of threats. Now anyone can do anything, with the threat of a lawsuit just a phone call away. So no more mandatory Pledge of Allegiance, no more corporal punishment, no more punishment via peer pressure by sitting alone in front of the class, etc.
Heck no more PE in many schools, and what they do have for PE now is a joke. No wonder so many hyper kids are being diagnosed with ADD, and drugged up since they have no way to burn off excess energy during PE.

God forbid your same sex classmates see you naked in the shower, thus your façade of a perfect self image can be maintained.
Heck, many college dorms have communal showers, so how does one avoid taking showers in such situtions? Waiting until everyone goes to sleep then sneaking a quick shower so no one sees you naked?

One wonders how our parents, grandparents, and all the previous generations who built this country and managed to get by, compared to the whiney me generation of today.

`

I could not agree more! Everybody wants to be the quarterback, and they want to be a first string player, no matter how lame they play the game. And their parents want little Johnny to have "the experience of being a player/hero." That does not happen in reality. This is not "Rudy." The pursuit of excellence is dead and gone. It is not limited to sports either. And then the kid wonders when the get out into the real world, why employers aren't willing to shell out big bucks to an under achiever who think he is special. He may be special to his mother, but one day, even to dear old mom, his "everyone owes me a life and a great experience, is going to get really old. You are not doing your kids any favors.