Gender separated phys. education school classes

Did you have physical education classes at any time when you went to school where the boys and girls were separated into their own clases with their own teachers?

Of course if you went to an all-girl's school, pretty obvious.

I went to co-ed schools. Separation of boys and girls for physical education/sports for me, started when I transferred to a primary school that had a girls' playground and boys' playground, each at different ends of the school. However for some classes for certain team sports..ie. baseball, broom hockey, ice skating we were co-ed. (We had an outdoor ice rink. Yes, the janitor was involved in making that rink).

Starting in Grades 7 onward, there were separate girls' and boys' classes with their individual teachers. Of course the big deal, was dancing...which was more like simple ballroom dancing and..square dancing. I'm not kiddin'. That's when the hormones start raging...

Are physical education classes more co-ed these days now? I don't have children but I do see packs of children/teens jogging together during the day when I'm cycling.

Yep... It probably shows a little of my age, but we had separate classes and instructors for PE back when I was in junior high and high school both.

Me, I dropped out and joined the band, which was co-ed and carried the same credits ;-)

Tom

For me, PE was co-ed in grammar school (late 50's-early 60's). In junior high, we were segregated from the boys. Good thing, too, because we had to wear these horrible blue gym suits :eek:. We had to wear these through high school as well. I was in both Colorado and Alabama in high school. Two states, same gym suit. No wonder girls didn't want to play sports back then! Not that we could. This was way before Title IX.

Those were the days...

I had partially separated PE for most of my grade school and HS days.

When we were younger, we were separated for some sports but together for others. Girls didn't wrestle with the boys, but we did play soccer or dodge ball together. I was just thinking about our 'square dancing' PE sessions - that was co-ed and actually a lot of fun (7th grade, if I am remembering correctly).

Once we got to HS, we were separated for most things and I always assumed it was because there was a clear difference in athletic abilities by then and if we didn't, the girls wouldn't get to play a lot of the time. Plus, I lived in New England and the boys didn't play either field hockey or lacrosse which was part of the program. Now that I think about it though, we were together for most of the winter indoor sports (like in the field house or for swimming) but separated for most of the fall/spring outdoor things (like field hockey and football). Maybe it was more a facilities issue than it was a gender thing?

I should mention that pretty much all of my PE experince was post Title IX.

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Originally Posted by five one

For me, PE was co-ed in grammar school (late 50's-early 60's). In junior high, we were segregated from the boys. Good thing, too, because we had to wear these horrible blue gym suits :eek:. We had to wear these through high school as well. I was in both Colorado and Alabama in high school. Two states, same gym suit. No wonder girls didn't want to play sports back then! Not that we could. This was way before Title IX.

Those were the days...

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Girls wore those gymsuits too, except they had a front zipper and did not have a cinched in waistline. Kinda like a blue zippered tube sack that was sleevless also. (Another requirement...shaving starts then for girls, right?) I felt so self-conscious because my mother sewed mine and hence, it was a different shade of blue. The gymsuit uniform was abandoned after Gr. 9 at our high school. But during Gr. 7-8, girls also had to make sure our white running shoes were clean looking..if not, white shoe polish. Can you imagine, on running shoes???? What was the rationale for that? Must be a throwback from military thinking or whatever.

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Originally Posted by GLC1968

When we were younger, we were separated for some sports but together for others. Girls didn't wrestle with the boys, but we did play soccer or dodge ball together. I was just thinking about our 'square dancing' PE sessions - that was co-ed and actually a lot of fun (7th grade, if I am remembering correctly).

Once we got to HS, we were separated for most things and I always assumed it was because there was a clear difference in athletic abilities by then and if we didn't, the girls wouldn't get to play a lot of the time. Plus, I lived in New England and the boys didn't play either field hockey or lacrosse which was part of the program. .

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Boys did get to play lacrosse for a few classes. Girls at our school did not learn lacrosse. It was field hockey which I loved to play.

Ice hockey was confined during classes to just the boys. I don't recall any girls, even the most consistently and naturally athletic girls being interested in playing ice hockey at the time. But most of the girls, like myself, did often watch the TV enthusiastically and consistently the National Hockey League games and 'Hockey night in Canada'. Unless these girls played hockey at home in their neighbourhoods which I wouldn't know. Girls' ice hockey teams did not exist at all in the city. Nor did any soccer exist for girls in the city as a tournament sport, during the time I was growing up. Soccer was still gender-separated at our school, even in high school.

Frankly, I felt better being in separate girls' phys ed. classes. I was a nerd and uncoordinated but did love certain sports. Of course, we never had any cycling class groups nor anything on bike safety.

We had to wear those gym suits too. Gawd.
like Jack Lalanne's jumpsuit, but shorts instead of long pants.

I had coed PE until middle school, then we were separated. We had to wear those bloomers in a bilious green color. And we had to shower and tell the teacher when we had our period to be excused from that. Same in HS. When I moved to Florida, their gym suits were white and I stood out like a sore thumb.
I loved field hockey!

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Originally Posted by Crankin

I And we had to shower and tell the teacher when we had our period to be excused from that. Same in HS.

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Wow. Don't recall that exception rule at all. Most likely if a girl felt ill for a variety reasons (not necessarily menstrual), she was allowed not to participate in certain activities during class or sit out. But that was extremely rare based on my memory of those classes.

Showering after gymn, was expected but at our own discretion. So if a girl had a period, she just didn't do it if she didn't want to.

Based on seeing some of the jogging teens today from school who are allowed to wear all sorts of attire to jog, there should be some base requirements for looser clothing. Saw teens jogging in tight jeans, etc. Uncomfortable.

No coed classes for me either. I had the icky uniforms - made of POLYESTER! HELLO?! No wicking technology on those things - just nice and hot whether you were moving or not. I purposely put PE as last thing in the day in both junior high and high school, so I could go home and shower.

I had two women PE teachers who never did anything with us, just watched. They were, uhm, rather overweight (I can say that because, well, I used to be!). While I was growing up, girls were supposed to take Home Ec and be looking to get that MRS degree. The only sports offered for girls were track and basketball....period. My mother even thinks it's weird that I actually ENJOY getting out and either cycling, running, hiking, whatever. In her eyes, I should be home, cooking and cleaning. Bleh.

Yup, glad things change!

Lorie

We had coed classes.. never separated... just separate locker rooms.

We were also not required to shower.. however there were 4 private showers (with locks) that were ONLY available to use if you had your period.. you had to ask for the keys and yes the teachers did keep track... and if you didn't fall right on that perfect 28 day schedule they would tell you that you couldn't use a private shower because obviously it "wasn't your time of the month" - it was stupid, since I'm sure many of you know 28 days isn't how it works for everyone :(

I rarely showered after gym anyways though - there was usually not enough time.. the 5 minutes they gave us was barely enough time to get back to the locker rooms, change, and go use the toilet if you had to, nevermind shower.

Our gym suits were navy blue with pin stripes. Snazzy.

We had gym uniforms in junior high/middle school. They were double thick cotton T's with light blue on one side and dark red on the other. And twill elastic waist shorts in light blue. They were issued to us and we were required to keep them clean. I remember that double sided t's were so fricken HOT because they were so thick! We'd have to go back into the locker room and flip them inside out depending on which team you were on.

Oh, and you could tell when someone's parents weren't paying attention to the laundry because if you washed them in anything but cold, the red would bleed through to the blue and you'd have a mottled purplely colored jersey that didn't match either team!

This is bad, but I have absolutely no recollection if our gym classes were separated by gender or not. I went to an all-girls high school so that wasn't an issue, and I know in grade school we were all in one class together but I don't remember junior high. Probably blocking it. I can remember having to change for gym, a million girls in a tiny restroom (and I never had the cool bag to carry my clothes in--the plastic bags with drawstrings were the cool ones and mine never had drawstrings), and I remember playing kickball and soccer and flag football and softball and capture the flag. And I remember interacting with Carrie and Kirsten and Laurie and Diana but I don't remember any boys out there with us at all, but if they weren't there, where were they? It was a tiny school with limited facilities and limited money so I doubt they could afford two gym teachers and I know we were all scheduled for gym class at the same time, so I think the classes must have been together and I just completely ignored the boys.

Sarah

Starting in 6th grade (I think) to 8th, we had seperate gym classes. I attended a VERY small Catholic school, with no p.e. facilities. So, once a week, we were all (the 3 classes) bussed to the local YMCA. For 6 weeks, the girls were in the pool, taking swimming lessons, and the boys were in the gym, doing gymnastics, playing basketball, and what-have-you. Then, after the time, we's swap - girls in the gym, boys in the pool. Gawd...I hated every moment of it. I don't recall ANY p.e. in high school. I was on the girl's basketball team, but I was awful. I hated to move my body.

I remember being gender separated as early as grade school.

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Originally Posted by Crankin

I had coed PE until middle school, then we were separated. We had to wear those bloomers in a bilious green color. And we had to shower and tell the teacher when we had our period to be excused from that. Same in HS. When I moved to Florida, their gym suits were white and I stood out like a sore thumb.
I loved field hockey!

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Same thing with my jr. high and the showers. Our gym suits were blue, too, but made of stretchy fabric, with blue bottoms and a horizontally striped top. Zipped up the front. Hated them. Plus, it was a culture shock because I moved from Chicago to an Arkansas town with 300 people when I was 11, and then in jr. high we moved to a town with 15,000 people--and gym suits. ?? I don't think anyone had gym suits in the schools my brothers went to in Chicagoland.

And we thought Mrs. Brewer was into girls because she insisted on watching us shower. :P And had no sympathy if you started your period and did not come prepared. I was so glad I didn't start my period until I was in 10th grade and at the high school.

Karen

Gawd, those blue gym suits bring back awful memories! That one piece suit didn't work very well on us long-torso'ed girls--ouch! I remember Mr. Cox standing at the back of the gym laughing as we (well, I) tried to be coordinated enough to do jumping jacks. Don't remember PE before junior high, but we were separated for junior high and high school.

I think the humiliation of junior high gym class is why I didn't do anything athletic until I was in my late 40's.

Well, I had to take remedial PE, aka flab lab, in 10th grade, because I flunked the physical fitness test, which consisted of such necessary skills as a basketball shoot.
However, remedial PE is where I found out I was good at endurance activities. One of the things we had to do was jog for 15 minutes. Since it was winter, we ran around the gym and locker room. Can you picture me, a 95 pound, 5 foot tall hippie with hair down to my back, leading a pack of of hugely overweight girls on a run?
Funny thing is, that once I passed the test to get out of this class (which was truly a fitness class), I promptly flunked the skills test again which got me in there in the first place. I mostly hated PE because it consisted of team sports that required eye hand coordination: baseball, basketball, kickball, or things like gymnastics, that terrified me. Soccer wasn't even heard of back then. I did love field hockey, but once I moved to Florida, they never heard of it. It wasn't until 1978, when I went to a fitness class at ASU when I was finishing my master's that I did anything physical at all.

We started splitting up by gender in middle school for gym (NYC public school less than 10 years ago). There were no showers, but separate locker rooms, and we had to change into school shorts and a t-shirt. I think in middle school every unit was separate, but there might have been one or two sports we played with the guys.

I went to such a large high school that you had a choice of gym classes, and most were separate, but a few were co-ed. I always tried to pick things like volleyball and handball, which could go either way depending on the semester. Basketball, track, and the like were always separated by gender. Then there were classes like dance that weren't officially separated, but if one or two guys signed up for it that would be a lot (my school was pretty progressive, so it wouldn't necessarily be *weird*, just not done often).

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Originally Posted by Crankin

Well, I had to take remedial PE, aka flab lab, in 10th grade, because I flunked the physical fitness test, which consisted of such necessary skills as a basketball shoot.
However, remedial PE is where I found out I was good at endurance activities. One of the things we had to do was jog for 15 minutes. Since it was winter, we ran around the gym and locker room. Can you picture me, a 95 pound, 5 foot tall hippie with hair down to my back, leading a pack of of hugely overweight girls on a run?
Funny thing is, that once I passed the test to get out of this class (which was truly a fitness class), I promptly flunked the skills test again which got me in there in the first place. I mostly hated PE because it consisted of team sports that required eye hand coordination: baseball, basketball, kickball, or things like gymnastics, that terrified me. Soccer wasn't even heard of back then. I did love field hockey, but once I moved to Florida, they never heard of it. It wasn't until 1978, when I went to a fitness class at ASU when I was finishing my master's that I did anything physical at all.

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Don't agree with remedial PE classes. There would be even more kids struggling with self-inferiority complexes. I had pretty good PE teachers but each woman had distinctly different style.

A. Jackson- she was a even-tempered, straight-shooter who did keep herself in good shape. Most girls respected her but found her distant as a person.

P.Miller-- a warm woman that smiled alot who made it her teaching philosophy to praise effort of her students, regardless of how lousy/good they were. Fashionable, chic and popular.

A. Greinbnow- after 1 year, I dropped out from PE. She was more of a motherly/matronly figure. Also popular but because of the latter style.

Now I realize for particularily the girls who were coached on school teams by any of these women, these women probably did serve as de facto role models (in addition to other adult female mentors in the lives of any girl.) Organized sports teams for girls outside of school did not really exist much in the small city where I grew up. So what the school provided for girls who wanted to pursue abit further, the school was the place.

I can't remember taking PE in elementary school, but I do remember that the receiver for the college football team (my elementary school was on the college campus) taught boy's PE. That was in Louisiana.

Moved to Michigan. Jr & Sr. High (two years) - had separate PE classes. Our uniforms were knit things - shorts & t-shirt combined with a zipper, blue bottoms, blue and white stripes on top. I think the designer had in mind the top would blouse over and it would look like we were wearing blue shorts with a blue & white T-shirt. Yeah, right. Seems the zipper was supposed to go up the back, but as they fitted so badly, we wore them with the zipper in the front. We also had swim classes, and the school supplied the suits - which were color coded according to size.

Moved to Arizona

Seems one year I had dance all year for PE. Or as an elective class. But I was also in Band. My senior year no PE and was in band. I think with that school district if you were in band you didn't take PE. Considering band practice was just before lunch we would sometimes march through lunch too.

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Originally Posted by Tuckervill

Same thing with my jr. high and the showers. Our gym suits were blue, too, but made of stretchy fabric, with blue bottoms and a horizontally striped top. Zipped up the front. Hated them...

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Augh! All those memories I had repressed came flooding back with this gym suit description. Ours were powder blue colored. Ick. As if the humiliation of wearing them in the school gym weren't bad enough, when the weather was nice we had to trudge to a nearby park for class (soft ball or soccer) and endure public humiliation. The guys just wore dark blue or black shorts with a blue t-shirt. By junior year a certain someone (:rolleyes: ahem, who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty :rolleyes:) rallied a few like minded females and showed up to class wearing the same thing the boys did. Created quite the stir (this was a parochial school...how dare we challenge authority!) but eventually led to the switch to "normal" gym shorts and t-shirts.

In elementary school we didn't have formal PE but the girls and boys had separate playgrounds. Later on PE classes were segregated.

I was in a co-ed jr high PE class and I remember having to play dodgeball and dodging those big red balls that the guys threw as hard and fast as possible. :eek: :mad:

Then we had to play tether ball. I can't think of any applicable skills I garnered from tether ball.

In high school we wore gray t-shirts and polyester double knit Rocky shorts, tube socks, and boys hand-me-down Converse high top tennis shoes that curled up after the coach washed it in the autoclave.

:eek: I was at K-mart this morning while running errands and saw thing that looked very much like Five-One's link to the ugly blue gym suit - for sale! :eek: Now maybe if one was drunk, the model was skinny, and your glasses were rose tinted, you might think "that's cute!" But NOO!!! I think some of this retro stuff is going a bit far.

They still sell those?? LOL!!

I grew up in Seattle, graduated about 10 years ago. Co-ed PE all the way, end-to-end. Separate locker rooms in middle/high school (in primary school it was just a matter of going to play, which is no different than any other day, right ;)). My brother is 16 now and having the same experiences here (eastern WA).

We had uniforms in middle school that they introduced my second year there, just cotton shirts and loose fitting shorts (that held true through my brother and sister who went through a few years after me). In high school, there was a dress code of basically the same thing, but no uniform. My brother went through the same thing recently, also a super-basic uniform of cotton tshirt/loose gym shorts in middle school and when he got to high school he just used a tshirt and the shorts he used in middle school.

Team sports are separated, of course, but neither of us are really team sports kind of people ;)

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Originally Posted by sundial

They still sell those?? LOL!!

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But they weren't with school uniforms (big around here), they were in summer clothes. Someone's idea of "cute summer fashion at a K-mart price". ARRRGGG! :eek:

Oh the memories. I went to NYC public schools and had "girls" gym from JHS thru HS. I do recall the classes being combined for square dancing in high school--I can't recall just what was the point of that. We girls were ordinarily in the "small" ill-equipped gym . . . which was fine w me at that time as phys ed was something I tried to avoid to the best of my ability.