I wonder how many people have been put off exercise by PE at school?

I really started to laugh at this question! I learned to hate sports and exercise in those horrible draconian PE classes.

In Junior High School in the late 1950s, I got a low grade in PE because I wasn't good at volleyball. I was punished by being placed in a special remedial PE class where a teacher who had been a Marine drill sergeant during WWII yelled at us and humiliated us by making us March around the room and do calesthenics. We had to wear ugly uniforms that showed more of our bodies than the usual uniforms. Since we had to be in class five minutes before the other classes started, we had to run a gauntlet of the other girls shouting at us and sometimes tripping us or kicking at us as we ran down the path then up the stairs to our hated class.

There was a happy ending to this but it didn't come until I was in my early 30s. I nervously signed up for a racquetball class at my alma mater university at that time because I thought it might actually be a fun sport. I got a very good, non-sadistic PE teacher and she took a lot of time making me feel comfortable with the sport. She gave me a whole new perspective on sports and exercise.

I don't think Generic PE should be a mandatory class, Instead we should offer different fitness classes to public school students. Sports Conditioning, Some sort of light weight cardio workout, and strength training are all good starts, probably the only options you need.

Our freshmen in pe have to do either a 5k run or a 2k swim. Sophomores have to complete a biathlon (run and swim). Juniors and seniors get a list of area 10k races, mimic marathons and other recent activities and need to participate in one or more while writing their own training plan to prep for it.

PE classes in junior high and high school were a waste of time and a joke...the teachers would take roll, say they were going to the office and come back 5 minutes before the bell rang and tell us to do jumping jacks or some other trivial stuff....this happened in at least 95% of the classes except when they were testing...then the bell would ring, we had 5 minutes to get dressed and get to class....they could have at least let us go outside and walk around the school or track. They kept the fees for towels too.

@cherokeepatti
That is appalling. Ours was not short of instruction, but was certainly strict and at times spartan almost, dragging us out in terrible weather and torturing us lol

JanDaw: I don't know what the teachers did during their absence from our class but back then it was legal to go in the teacher's lounge and have a smoke or cup of coffee...I'm thinking that's what they were doing. It was really stressful trying to get dressed and getting to the next class on time too.

All I can really remember of PE at school is that every single gym teacher seemed to have an unhealthy propensity for applying an outsize gymshoe across our young bottoms....

i hated pe at school as when teams was picked i was always the last one to be picked. Th funny thing was i could run faster than any of them and play foot ball. I just was not as popular as the others

I can understand that some pupils would opt for no exercise at all, and guided instruction is needed, I suppose it is a matter of resources available.