Hair straightener bid to boost PE

[marzipanthecat]

I spotted this story on the BBC, all about how the local schools in the UK are trying to get girls to do physical exercise. They reckon girls don't want to do it because it messes up their hair. So they've put hair straighteners in the changing areas.

(Check out the photo on the story - that's a crazy shot!)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8260716.stm

Just my own experience - we would have liked showers. Our school did have them, but they had been taken out of use over 20 years before (so we're talking over 40 years ago now!) because girls kept beating each other up in them. So everyone went around all sweaty for the rest of the day after PE. We were told we MUST use anti-perspirant before every PE lesson (we were even supervised putting it on). I still would have liked a shower...

Does anyone think this is really going to make girls do PE? Even when I was at school, girls carried their own gas-powered hair tongs in their school bags (straight was deeply unfashionable back then!).

[Dars]

That's ridiculous. I wish these types of teachers would harden up. Well, it's the person who approved it that really shouldn't be in that seat of power anymore...

[Sissy]

That is an interesting article but who has time to straighten their hair after PE class. In my school we were only given like 5 minutes to shower and dress before the bell rang. I wouldn't be able to straighten my hair in that time too. Oh, you'd think the way school violence is these days something like a hot iron straightener wouldn't be allowed in a locker room.

[marzipanthecat]

Oh crumbs, I've started this thread in the wrong place entirely - it should be in "The Mane Forum" (I think!). How can I move it? Or get it moved?

[wolf girl]

well.... (with guilty look) even now I have to admitt that I don't like doing a lot of phyical activity that makes me sweat because I don't want to have to wash my head too often. So, I do my heavy house cleaning and yard work only on wash days. :rolleyes: Is that bad?

I was the same way in school. The straighener was not a problem. Going to class with a wet head was! ;) Class rooms are cold and even then, I didn't like using a blow-frier or washing everyday.

[Dars]

Oh crumbs, I've started this thread in the wrong place entirely - it should be in "The Mane Forum" (I think!). How can I move it? Or get it moved?
I thought you didn't mean to have it here. :p Ask/message a mod to move it.

[teela1978]

We had shower facilities in our locker rooms for PE, but we had no towel service (cut from the budget years before) and as mentioned above, only about 10 minutes to change and get to our next class. I think you'd need an extra 5 or so if you were going to have 50-100 students showering and drying... there definitely weren't enough showers for everyone to go at once... plus, there was enough complaining about changing in front of each other. I can't imagine the whining that would occur if 12 year olds had to get naked in front of each other.

I don't really have much of an issue with a school supplying flat irons for girls in the locker room. It is a bit odd though.

[Anje]

We had about 3 minutes to change after PE for the next class. I don't think anyone showered, since there wasn't time.

Schools have towel services? Heck, we swimmers had to bring our own.

[teela1978]

We had about 3 minutes to change after PE for the next class. I don't think anyone showered, since there wasn't time.

Schools have towel services? Heck, we swimmers had to bring our own.

you had a pool? we had to use the community one a few miles away :)

My mother had towel service when she went to junior and high school, and they were expected to shower after PE. I attended the same schools but we did not have towel service, and were not expected to shower. The school where I did my PhD had towel service, and I LOVED it. You could go exercise and not have to carry around a gross damp towel all day with you!!!

[Heidi_234]

I'm sorry, I can help but to roll my eyes. When I was in school there wasn't a question of attending or not attending. And like marzipanthecat, we didn't have showers either. How spoiled kids need to be?! That's ridiculous. They could use some hardship, it gives character.

[rach]

:confused: hasn't the school got anything else better to spend the money on!!!! that is ridiculous!!!

didn't have showers at my school.........

[Anje]

Yep, we had a pool at the high school. It was shared between the school and the community park and rec, but we had one. When I was little, I took swim lessons there in the winter and played with my hair when it froze walking out to the car... (No, it doesn't snap off, but I hate to think what it did do.)

[pradabacon]

I'm sorry, I can help but to roll my eyes. When I was in school there wasn't a question of attending or not attending. And like marzipanthecat, we didn't have showers either. How spoiled kids need to be?! That's ridiculous. They could use some hardship, it gives character.

This...........

[ambychelle]

Weird.

I was a PE drop out and it had nothing to do with my hair. I think if they want more people to participate to be physically fit, they should stop making everything about PE competitive. I'm totally unathletic and I hated competitive sports for that reason. If there was any way for me to be there and not be the "loser" everyday, I'd have stayed. I mean really, why can't it be like having a gym membership? Some treadmills, stationary bikes, weights etc.??

And if it WAS the hair causing the issue, girls would just bring their flat iron from home and use it. It's not like they weight too much to carry around or something.

[Fractalsofhair]

Well, a lot of girls in my high school do refuse to work out since it makes their hair "curly"(Note, most people in my town naturally have hair in the 2 range, or a 3a/b, with quite a few 1cs/1bs, and very few 3b. Basically, they don't have terribly curly hair. ), and a lot of girls are ashamed to change in public if they have stubble(I've been told to change in private according to a gym teacher since pubic hair is offensive. I'm wearing underwear, so how people see it... o.O), or they didn't tan their whole body, since girls do honestly get bullied about things like that(and men as well). However, gym was kinda joke. Very sexist as well. If I threw something hard, even with my horrid aim, I was told I was acting like a man(by a former gym teacher, and one of the current ones), and should stand with the other girls. Thankfully my school has a better one now, but that doesn't mean all the problems are solved. Straighteners and blowdryers would encourage more women to work out, I'm sure, but really, I think it would be better to provide private changing areas, or just change the attitude of girls that having messed up hair is a bad thing. If you worked out hard enough for your hair to get messed up, it's a good thing, IMO.

[marikamt]

I'm sorry, I can help but to roll my eyes. When I was in school there wasn't a question of attending or not attending. And like marzipanthecat, we didn't have showers either. How spoiled kids need to be?! That's ridiculous. They could use some hardship, it gives character.

Oooohhh!!! That is EXACTLY what I was going to say!

[teela1978]

I'm sorry, I can help but to roll my eyes. When I was in school there wasn't a question of attending or not attending. And like marzipanthecat, we didn't have showers either. How spoiled kids need to be?! That's ridiculous. They could use some hardship, it gives character.

I was taking it as less 'lets get the girls to go to PE' and more as 'lets get the girls to do more than just stand out in the field during PE'. You can't really force a student to participate to their full potential if they're not interested or don't want to have their hair be a mess for the whole day after their 1st period PE class.

[enfys]

Oh I could go on all day about this.

Firstly, the article can't decide if the council bought 6 or 9 straighteners.
Secondly, as was mentioned, straighteners are dangerous around bullies and even clumsy people. 230 degrees near naked teenagers. Good call.
Thirdly. If my council tax paid for that, they would never hear the end of it in my letters.

All they are teaching girls is vanity. Mrs Rhodes barely gave us time to lace our shoes, never mind redo our hair. Yes, I know you get bobble bumps when you tie your hair back. Live with it, you're a child.

Wouldn't it have been a lot lot cheaper (free) to have PE as the last class of the day. One year it was before lunch so we had extra time to change before the changing rooms were locked. All they needed to do was jiggle the timetable and it'd solve a few problems. I don't think many schools here have working showers now, so last lesson PE means less smelly students. Ok, boys. They never changed out of their rugby socks.

Another note could be that the girls said bad hir put them off PE but in reality it's probably a lot more. I only left high school five years ago and our biggest concerns then were not having enough time to change, being humiliated by not being good at netball, feeling self concious about your teenage body as you compare your development with your classmates, worring our stuff would get nicked, going to geography with a red face, carrying our kit around all day...lot of stuff besides our hair.

Council run gyms don't have hairdriers and straighteners here for adults, never mind twelve year olds.

[enfys]

I was taking it as less 'lets get the girls to go to PE' and more as 'lets get the girls to do more than just stand out in the field during PE'. You can't really force a student to participate to their full potential if they're not interested or don't want to have their hair be a mess for the whole day after their 1st period PE class.

When I did PE, a lot of the standing still was because we were so cold, too cold to move. PE was almost exclusively outdoors and unless it was raining heavily or snowing we were only allowed to wear a polo shirt and kilt style skirt.

There are so many wrong things about this initiative.

What are they going to spend £800 on to benefit the male students? What if boys want to straighten their hair?

[longhairedfairy]

Oh, good grief! What a waste of money on a fire hazard.
When I was in junior high school PE was not an option. It was required. We didn't even have the luxury of showering because there was not nearly enough time and I don't think there were shower curtains anyway. What 12-14 year old kid wants to be naked in front of anyone?

[JamieLeigh]

That is absolutely ridiculous!!! This is exactly the problem with kids today - they need to learn that there are things they HAVE to do, even if they don't LIKE them. :rolleyes: Some people are in for a rough wake-up call.

[florenonite]

Weird.

I was a PE drop out and it had nothing to do with my hair. I think if they want more people to participate to be physically fit, they should stop making everything about PE competitive. I'm totally unathletic and I hated competitive sports for that reason. If there was any way for me to be there and not be the "loser" everyday, I'd have stayed. I mean really, why can't it be like having a gym membership? Some treadmills, stationary bikes, weights etc.??

And if it WAS the hair causing the issue, girls would just bring their flat iron from home and use it. It's not like they weight too much to carry around or something.

THIS.

I dropped PE as soon as I could because I was rubbish at it and hated losing all the time. I took Outdoor Ed in grade 12, though, nd loved it because it was more individually-focussed (things like canoeing and skiing) and you didn't have to be good, you just had to improve.

And I think showers would be a far better investment than hair straighteners. At least that promotes hygiene rather than vanity.

[Nevermore]

I'm with everyone who said the issue isn't hair, it's the nature of gym class and the incredible cruelty that teenagers are capable of. Gym class was actually about 20 minutes of having my classmates pick on me for various things in front of the teacher, who did nothing about it, while delibrately throwing balls at my face, which the teacher did do something about-she told me to put my glasses in my locker because I was too clumsy to wear them (yes, because making a seriously near-sighted student try to even hit a ball without her glasses is smart!). This was between two 15 minute periods of unsupervised locker room time, during which peoples' clothes and jewelry were routinely stolen or ruined, people were beaten up and verbally bullied and even without hair straighteners, we had several make up-related injuries (one girl was shoved while doing her mascara and got her eye scratched for instance). I don't think kids need to "learn to cope with hardship" nor do they need to have more dangerous items in the locker room.

They need better supervision, better anti-bullying rules and enforcement and schools that don't equate straight hair with better self esteem.

[Lamb]

This is insane. (And insulting, but let's not go there.)
First off, the problem with PE is not that it messes up your hair, but that it messes up everything and ten minutes between classes is barely enough to get from one class to the next, let alone change clothes and look decent.
The way PE classes were scheduled (in the middle of the day) used to drive me insane. Why not put them at the end or very beginning of the day, and give students at least 20 minutes after them to change and wash?

[Loviatar]

Oh yeah. There's the remake of Carrie right there, only they're throwing 230 degree straighteners at her.

Unimpressed.

[Fractalsofhair]

I'm with everyone who said the issue isn't hair, it's the nature of gym class and the incredible cruelty that teenagers are capable of. Gym class was actually about 20 minutes of having my classmates pick on me for various things in front of the teacher, who did nothing about it, while delibrately throwing balls at my face, which the teacher did do something about-she told me to put my glasses in my locker because I was too clumsy to wear them (yes, because making a seriously near-sighted student try to even hit a ball without her glasses is smart!). This was between two 15 minute periods of unsupervised locker room time, during which peoples' clothes and jewelry were routinely stolen or ruined, people were beaten up and verbally bullied and even without hair straighteners, we had several make up-related injuries (one girl was shoved while doing her mascara and got her eye scratched for instance). I don't think kids need to "learn to cope with hardship" nor do they need to have more dangerous items in the locker room.

They need better supervision, better anti-bullying rules and enforcement and schools that don't equate straight hair with better self esteem.
Well, one thing about anti bullying. My high school has a zero tolerance that means in effect that teachers do nothing since friends do joke physically. I have a male friend who "strangles" me in an attempt to get a hug from me(Don't worry, it's not as sketchy as it sounds if you knew him), and the first time he did it, I ended up getting flung across the hallway and fell onto a locker(He forgot I'm only 110 pounds and short... He's muscular and pretty strong. XD), and a new teacher reported him for starting a fight. That was a very tricky one to explain! Our other teachers had to explain to the principal that Nick is a very sweet guy, and that he's not a jerk. But then there are people who do throw people across the hallways in a mean act, and it's very hard to tell when you just hear someone screaming "Owww, F-you Nick! Why'd you try to kill me!"(Since I had fallen very uncomfortably on my elbow.) and a guy laughing(Not knowing that I was actually in pain, once he saw the bruise the next day, he actually started crying and freaking out since he thought I was joking) if it's a joke between friends, or a guy beating up some random chick. Generally teachers rely on the chance that it's friends joking around, because that's what it most often is. Anti bullying is a tricky area. I don't think bullying can ever be destroyed without destroying friendships. I think that if basic respect and debates were taught from a young age, it would help many students, but some students simply can't express their feelings in any way but physically. And there's a huge difference between elementry school "bullying" of young children(because quite frankly, most 3rd graders and such aren't mentally mature enough to know how to do polite conflict resolution. Some are, but many/most aren't.), and the fights that happen in late middle school and high school. But a lot of parents don't know how to deal with the fact that the young child that beats up their child really isn't a jerk, so it's hard to draft policies that reconize that young children are not mature, without giving total leeway for cruel behavior in all sorts of forms.

[cuddledumplin]

It sounds like a good way to spread head lice. Those are expensive straighteners at £800 for nine.

[teela1978]

It sounds like a good way to spread head lice. Those are expensive straighteners at £800 for nine.

yikes. i hadn't seen the price tag, that seems a bit steep.

[Nevermore]

Well, one thing about anti bullying. My high school has a zero tolerance that means in effect that teachers do nothing since friends do joke physically. I have a male friend who "strangles" me in an attempt to get a hug from me(Don't worry, it's not as sketchy as it sounds if you knew him), and the first time he did it, I ended up getting flung across the hallway and fell onto a locker(He forgot I'm only 110 pounds and short... He's muscular and pretty strong. XD), and a new teacher reported him for starting a fight. That was a very tricky one to explain! Our other teachers had to explain to the principal that Nick is a very sweet guy, and that he's not a jerk. But then there are people who do throw people across the hallways in a mean act, and it's very hard to tell when you just hear someone screaming "Owww, F-you Nick! Why'd you try to kill me!"(Since I had fallen very uncomfortably on my elbow.) and a guy laughing(Not knowing that I was actually in pain, once he saw the bruise the next day, he actually started crying and freaking out since he thought I was joking) if it's a joke between friends, or a guy beating up some random chick. Generally teachers rely on the chance that it's friends joking around, because that's what it most often is. Anti bullying is a tricky area. I don't think bullying can ever be destroyed without destroying friendships. I think that if basic respect and debates were taught from a young age, it would help many students, but some students simply can't express their feelings in any way but physically. And there's a huge difference between elementry school "bullying" of young children(because quite frankly, most 3rd graders and such aren't mentally mature enough to know how to do polite conflict resolution. Some are, but many/most aren't.), and the fights that happen in late middle school and high school. But a lot of parents don't know how to deal with the fact that the young child that beats up their child really isn't a jerk, so it's hard to draft policies that reconize that young children are not mature, without giving total leeway for cruel behavior in all sorts of forms.

I agree that zero tolerance policies are not helping. Nor are they anything but CYA moves for schools. They get the wrong people in trouble. Fights, friendly joking, bullying and spats between elementary kids are all separate issues. A fight assumes that the people are more or less evenly matched and capable of aggressing. Two third graders in a shoving contest are doing the third grade version of the above. Friends messing around aren't doing anything wrong. Bullying, defined as continual mental and physical harrassment from classmates, is a whole other ball of wax and it's obvious to both students and staff when it's happening. The problem is that it's easier to ignore it until someone is seriously injured. Real bullying isn't a rite of passage, it's pathological and it's serious. We need to stop putting harmless play fighting and a lack of childhood maturity under the same banner as people being repeatedly ganged up on and tormented.

[Flynn]

THIS.

I dropped PE as soon as I could because I was rubbish at it and hated losing all the time. I took Outdoor Ed in grade 12, though, nd loved it because it was more individually-focussed (things like canoeing and skiing) and you didn't have to be good, you just had to improve.

And I think showers would be a far better investment than hair straighteners. At least that promotes hygiene rather than vanity.

Agreed also.

Are you sure they don't have showers already?



Also, in general response to "that's not the problem", are you sure they didn't survey the students? Maybe that actually was the problem at this school?

[young&reckless]

Read the story but all I can think of is why are all of these girls not getting big fat F's in gym.

If you don't participate, fully, you failed in my school, no if's ands or bad hair days about that.

[nowxisxforever]

I would've enjoyed PE more if it did something to enrich the mind.

Also: if we didn't have to change. Nothing was worse to me than having to change in a room full of people. I feel the same way now. PE was one of the biggest reasons why I got my GED-- it made me uncomfortable to change in a room full of snobby horrible girls, and beyond that, it had nothing to do with why I was going to school.

I enjoyed physical activity until I was forced to do it in school rather than something useful. Now I hate it. Funny.

[nowxisxforever]

Weird.

I was a PE drop out and it had nothing to do with my hair. I think if they want more people to participate to be physically fit, they should stop making everything about PE competitive. I'm totally unathletic and I hated competitive sports for that reason. If there was any way for me to be there and not be the "loser" everyday, I'd have stayed. I mean really, why can't it be like having a gym membership? Some treadmills, stationary bikes, weights etc.??

And if it WAS the hair causing the issue, girls would just bring their flat iron from home and use it. It's not like they weight too much to carry around or something.

Agreed with this as well. If you're taking students who don't want to go to PE to begin with, and then make them compete with more skilled/athletic peers, nevermind the whole changing in front of classless classmates thing, what do you think they are going to associate physical activity with: fun, or misery?

[Flynn]

Read the story but all I can think of is why are all of these girls not getting big fat F's in gym.

If you don't participate, fully, you failed in my school, no if's ands or bad hair days about that.

I don't know that you can fail in the UK school system (and you definitely can't in the Aus one) like you do in the UK...

[longhairedfairy]

Read the story but all I can think of is why are all of these girls not getting big fat F's in gym.

If you don't participate, fully, you failed in my school, no if's ands or bad hair days about that.
Exactly! How can they get a passing grade for a class they didn't even attend?

ETA: I thought skipping a class could get a kid expelled.

[Cinnamon Hair]

Hah a straightener would be the least of my worries. Changing in front of other people was a big one, runny makeup, and not enough time before the next class were my biggest issues.

[WritergirlAD]

Ugh, I hated PE. I don't think it should be a required course at all. No one I knew got enough of a workout during PE for it to have any health benefits; at my school it was mostly just standing around, since all you had to do was show up and pretend to participate to get an A. I got my real exercise at home. The only lesson I learned from PE was not to play team sports or you'll get hit in the face over and over and probably excluded and humiliated. :confused:

anyway, I can't believe anyone is spoiled enough to have to straighten their hair after class. We didn't even have time to shower at my school. When we had to do a swimming course in 10th grade, I had to dry my hair by standing under one of those hand dryers that shoot out hot air. (lol, way before lhc, obviously!) They didn't provide towels, let alone straighteners!

[Quixii]

Wow, that's ridiculous.

But yeah, just adding in: we have 2-5 minutes to get ready. We have showers, but don't have the time to use them unless we are actually doing the swimming unit (and yes, we bring our own towels). It's bad enough that girls will rush back to the locker room (after doing hardly anything in PE) to reapply their make up. Do we really need to add something damaging as well?

Edit: I'll add that I have my own personal issues with PE, which sound similar to some other LHC members' complaints. I'm trying to get out of it, because I should be able to get credits for my sport of choice that I actually enjoy, but they're being obnoxious and not letting me. >.<

[Laylah]

I'm in a state in US where p.e. class is required. I always hated gym because I don't and never bothered to understand all the rules of sports...But I actually find it quite relaxing, because it is the one class I don't have to stress over tests, homework, grades, etc. The only complaints I have is that I only have 3 minutes to change and get ready for next class.

I've seen a lot of girls bring their own battery powered mini straighteners to run over their hair in the locker room. Heck, if that's what they want, that's great, but it shouldn't be the state's responsibility to pay for their student's hair irons, lol.

[pradabacon]

Read the story but all I can think of is why are all of these girls not getting big fat F's in gym.

If you don't participate, fully, you failed in my school, no if's ands or bad hair days about that.

Mine, too. :D

Now I'm pretty ambivalent about requiring P.E. in the first place. I agree with those who have said it's a great opportunity for bullying and also not all that effective in actually providing exercise benefits to those who aren't athletic. But I also think that at some point kids need to realize that life isn't all cupcakes and roses and that sometimes you just have to learn to cope with difficult situations. I don't think it's a great idea to protect kids so much that they feel fragile and lost when they get thrown out into the big bad world once school has ended.

You might not be naturally good at math, and you might not like it, and it might hurt your self-esteem a little not to do well in it, and the kids who are good at it might call you dumb, but everyone still has to take it. It's the same with P.E. And with P.E./Athletics, like most of the other subjects, you can usually choose to take more or less intensive classes in it as you get to the higher levels in school. I realize that P.E. is quite a bit more personal a thing than math, but that's all part of life as well.

Where I live, in elementary (up to about age 12), everyone takes the same P.E. class and it isn't all that strenuous. In Jr. High, you can choose either Athletics (which is 3 competitive sports as appropriate to the season) or P.E. (which is more standard repetitive types of exercise, such as walking, etc. for health purposes focused). And in high school, you can try-out for and participate in your preferred sport, or choose not to take any physical education course at all (although everyone still must take a Health/Nutrition course).

As far as I'm concerned, that is as it should be. Kids should have more say in their own lives as they get older, but they should also have to be exposed to the fundamentals when they are younger, so they have the opportunity to learn their strengths and weaknesses and can make informed choices later.

I know there are things I would never have known I loved (or hated) if I hadn't been forced to take a class on them in school. :shrug:

[Runzel]

Schools are meant to educate. Education should include the hard fact that the world doesn't revolve around you. :rolleyes: By catering to their whims and giving in to their tantrums, we teach the exact opposite.

I grew up being taught that working hard, getting sweaty, breaking a nail, getting your hands and clothes dirty, and yes, getting your hair messed up is nothing to be ashamed of and my siblings and I integrate that belief into our lifestyles to this day. Oh, and the majority of our education was homeschooled. :D

ETA: That's not to say we do not put forth a neat appearance by default.

[Masara]

Read the story but all I can think of is why are all of these girls not getting big fat F's in gym.

I can't speak for the UK now, but I teach that age range in France. In every class, there are a few kids who are completely unbothered by bad grades: They've decided they can't do it, don't bother trying and the bad grade just proves (to them) that they were right.
Plus, (also in France) most kids and parents consider that PE isn't important and bad grades there, don't matter as much as in other subjects.

Back to PE. When I was a pupil in the UK, we did have showers. We just didn't have the time to use them. In a 45 minute lesson, you're not going to take out 10 minutes showering time. Plus they didn't always work, what are you going to do with a damp towel for the rest of the day and the water was usually cold. Our double period sports lessons were always at the end of the day so you could go home and shower if you wanted to.

Even back then when straight hair wasn't necessarily fashionable, people still tried to avoid PE lessons because they had body issues and didn't want to change in pupilc or wander around in shorts (or netball skirts!) a lot of teenage girls would just stand around in PE lessons. It was seen as "uncool" to try in sport.

My problem was more that I was bad at most sports which was embarrassing and there were alot of team sports and my team would resent the fact I was a dead weight. But here in France there are less team sports and in most lessons you work on improving your own personal ability and the teachers still have the same problems motivating the girls.

[Arashi]

I'm with everyone who said the issue isn't hair, it's the nature of gym class and the incredible cruelty that teenagers are capable of. Gym class was actually about 20 minutes of having my classmates pick on me for various things in front of the teacher, who did nothing about it, while delibrately throwing balls at my face, which the teacher did do something about-she told me to put my glasses in my locker because I was too clumsy to wear them (yes, because making a seriously near-sighted student try to even hit a ball without her glasses is smart!). This was between two 15 minute periods of unsupervised locker room time, during which peoples' clothes and jewelry were routinely stolen or ruined, people were beaten up and verbally bullied and even without hair straighteners, we had several make up-related injuries (one girl was shoved while doing her mascara and got her eye scratched for instance). I don't think kids need to "learn to cope with hardship" nor do they need to have more dangerous items in the locker room.

They need better supervision, better anti-bullying rules and enforcement and schools that don't equate straight hair with better self esteem.
Exactly! I couldn't agree more.
Better teachers, too, for that matter: my gym teachers were verbally abusive, using obscenities and personal attacks on students on a regular basis.

I also agree with the person who said that gym class would be so much better if it wasn't so competitive. When I was in that gym class, I quickly began to loathe competitive sports, and then by association, any sort of physical activity. Now that I'm out of that school, I couldn't imagine life without my exercise equipment. Turns out that I LOVE solo exercise.

The hair thing just seems like a convenient excuse for much bigger issues.

[adiapalic]

They couldn't just buy a big bag of those no-snag rubberbands? Straightening hair is ridiculous. The best girl in my volleyball class was a curly-haired redhead! (gorgeous hair, and boy could she spike one). She kept hers in a ponytail.

I'm surprised they're not forcing haircuts!

[Nevermore]

Arashi: I'm sorry to hear about your gym teachers (who should be fired). Unfortunately, I've seen alot of good teachers lose to the system-they can't enact changes when the higher ups won't. Certainly, a good teacher can make a difference, but they're working within a system that's all too willing to just let things happen. You can send someone to the principal, only to have them back in class within ten minutes, still acting out. I think some teachers just give up after awhile and some of them were raised with some seriously messed up ideas of the victim-blaming sort.

I, too, have found out that I love solo exercise and even good-natured competitive physical activity (volleyball, for instance).

[florenonite]

Agreed also.

Are you sure they don't have showers already?

They might do, but in my experience (and that of my friends) most schools either haven't got showers, don't have enough or don't give you time to use them. We had showers at my high school, but they didn't give us enough time to make it to our next class without showering between, let alone with!


I don't know that you can fail in the UK school system (and you definitely can't in the Aus one) like you do in the UK...

In Scotland (which is slightly different from England/Wales), you can fail individual courses at Standard Grade, Higher and Advanced Higher, and these are standardised exams sat at the ages of 15, 16 and 17. However, you choose what you study for these exams starting at the age of 13 (two years' prep for Standard Grade), with the exception of "standard" subjects like English and maths, and I don't think anyone does PE after second year of high school because they're doing their subjects for Standard Grade. It's possible that PE's an option for Standard Grade, but I haven't met anyone who did it, and I imagine those who do do it would be the ones who don't mind participating in it.

Anyway, back to fail/not fail. I don't think you can fail a subject prior to Standard Grade, because you'd have to retake the entire year. If you're absolutely abysmal at several important ones then you might have to repeat a year, but I doubt they'd make anyone repeat a year just for PE.

[Flynn]

They might do, but in my experience (and that of my friends) most schools either haven't got showers, don't have enough or don't give you time to use them. We had showers at my high school, but they didn't give us enough time to make it to our next class without showering between, let alone with!

But at a school swanky enough that they'd give the girls hair straighteners, surely...

We always had a double for PE -- that is, a two-hour session, so it would always be followed by a break, home-time, or an assembly (or chapel, or tutor group meeting, etc). If it was an assembly, we were not really meant to attend in PE uniform, so we got fifteen minutes to change, and shower if we needed to, when we were doing "dry" sports, and at least half an hour if we had been in the pool. The showers were also open at lunchtime, so you had the chance to shower then if you ran out of time before assembly.

ETA: Also, there was the big "rugby locker-room" type "group shower", which had something like ten showerheads, but really fifteen girls could use that at once if they needed or wanted to, and also five "private" showers. Mostly the boarders were the only ones who weren't too shy to use the "group shower". (Sorry, I don't know what the proper term is. We just called it GROOOOOUP SHOWWAH! Eep.) If you weren't scared of being seen naked, you were pretty well guaranteed to get a change to shower.

[florenonite]

But at a school swanky enough that they'd give the girls hair straighteners, surely...

We always had a double for PE -- that is, a two-hour session, so it would always be followed by a break, home-time, or an assembly (or chapel, or tutor group meeting, etc). If it was an assembly, we were not really meant to attend in PE uniform, so we got fifteen minutes to change, and shower if we needed to, when we were doing "dry" sports, and at least half an hour if we had been in the pool. The showers were also open at lunchtime, so you had the chance to shower then if you ran out of time before assembly.

It's just a regular council, though, that's providing the straighteners. They're not private schools or anything.

We got about five minutes to change, if we were lucky. At the school I was at till the end of grade 9, there wasn't any time between classes because they were all in the same corridor (it was a small school), and sometimes PE ended when the period did, which meant that you were meant to be in your next class when you were still in your PE clothes.

[Dars]

At my highschool we didn't have showers and no one changed clothes. If you had PE that day you'd be in your PE clothes all day.