Gender separated phys. education school classes

[HillSlugger]

I remember being gender separated as early as grade school.

[Tuckervill]

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!

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

[divingbiker]

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.

[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.

[irrealised]

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).

[shootingstar]

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.

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.

[bmccasland]

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.

[nancielle]

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...

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 ( ahem, who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty ) 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.

[sundial]

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.

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.

[bmccasland]

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! 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.

[sundial]

They still sell those?? LOL!!

[colby]

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

[bmccasland]

They still sell those?? LOL!!

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!

[maryellen]

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.