Conference turris::womannotes-v1

    Sandy thankyou for entering this note. The public radio
    new program had a piece on Dr Frisch this morning and I was
    hoping that someone would put something in on it.
    Some additional information from the radio program.
    
    Scientists aren't sure of what the mechanism is for turning
    menstration on and off. One hypothesis is that the neurochemicals
    - such as endorphins - may act directly on the hypothalamus (which
    in turn controls ovulation). Dr Frisch's theory is that there is
    a direct relationship between body fat content and mensturation
    because body fat stores estrogen. She apparently has graphed weight
    vs stopping menstruation and can predicit at what weight menstruation
    will stop. As I remember it a woman athelete who is 5'3" will
    stop menstruating at 108 pounds. In addition the gaining back of
    4 or 5 pounds will start things up again and these women have
    been able to have normal pregnancies.
    
    There was also some discussion about the correlation between weight
    and healthy babies. That the 'turning off' is a survival mechanism
    to keep a woman from getting pregnant when her body fat reserves
    are too low to maintain a healthy pregnancy.
    
    I suspect that science news or the Globe Science section will have
    more on this in the future. Lets watch for it.
    
    Bonnie
    

    I have read that women, in order to menstruate normally, must have
    11% body fat or more (there are various ways of measuring this,
    including underwater in an official method, and using calipers in
    a less accurate but easier way).  There have been objections that
    strenuous exercise would tear the hymen of young girls at an early
    age (I don't think that's a major criteria nowadays, but I could
    be wrong).  
    
    Several objections to skipping periods are:
    
    a) it could make it difficult to get pregnant
    b) it could mean you already ARE pregnant
    
    I have heard that women who stop menstruating early (via very early
    menopause or hysterectomy or whatever) are very likely to get breast
    or ovary cancer or some such (someone clarify if they know, please?),
    and thus they are often put on hormones until they normally would
    have reached menopause to prevent these cancers...
    
    -Jody
    
    

    Oh, no - not a torn HYMEN!  ;-)  We all know how much we women care
    about hymens!
    
    According to this article, "Those who have delayed or irregular
    periods during their teenage years seem to suffer no long-term
    problems.  Frisch's study found that athletic women had just as
    many children as those who were less active".
    
    The body-fat aspect wasn't mentioned in the article and that's
    very interesting because women who DON'T exercise but have very
    little bodyfat also won't menstruate.  That kind of makes the
    connection between missed periods and exercise less direct.  If
    a heavy woman exercises regularly, then, and I mean a good 20 minute
    aerobic workout with a warmup and cooldown period, she will continue
    to have regular periods until her bodyfat actually decreases beyond
    a certain limit.  More food for thought!
    
    AT any rate, those of us who still have a few cramps left in our
    futures still have time to stave some of them off and I for one
    am going for it.  I remember missing periods often in my teens and
    20s and for some funny reason, not in my 30s!  (the demon 30's during
    which I have been carrying around about 15 more pounds than usual!)
    
    "Feel great in 88" the hype goes, to which I add,
    
    "And take control of your own fate!" 

    The average woman has anywhere from 18 to 25 percent body fat.
     
    I think .2 is fairly accurate in the point that she made that in
    order to menstruate normally a woman must have 11% body fat or
    more, although I thought it was closer to 8% or more.
    
    Women with 8 - 11% body fat or LESS probably cease
    menstruation because the body is "shutting down" the reproductive
    process because the percent body fat is too low to sustain
    a living fetus.  One of the reasons that women have a higher
    percentage of body fat than men is so that there will be
    "extra fuel" in case the woman gets pregnant.
    
    In order to attain 8% body fat (which by the way is the percentage
    fat of most female marathoners) you would have to train as
    much as a marathoner in order to get a low percentage body fat.
    Even if you starved yourself (which isn't very smart) - your
    weight would be low but you'd still have a  higher percentage of
    body fat than that which is necessary to cease menstruation.
    
    The only safe way to lower your body fat to less than 11% is to
    get as much exercise as a marathoner - and then your reproductive
    system will shut down as a body signal that your %fat level has
    gotten down to a dangerously low level. 
    
    This issue has been discussed in many women's fitness magazines.
    I would be glad to post additional information on this to alleviate
    any confusion.
    
    
    
    Nancy-the-jock   ;^)
     

    I also wanted to mention that many severely anorexic women 
    cease menstruation for the same reason.
    
    And I wanted to add that ANY exercise (whether it be walking,
    jogging, skiing etc.) is GOOD for you as long as you are don't overdue
    it and get a doctor's ok if you have been inactive for awhile.
    
    

    Ummm, you don't have to look like (or excercise like) a marathon
    runner to stop menstruating -- I have stopped menstruating twice
    because of low body fat, and neither time was I excercising.  I
    was a tad thin and had a very erratic eating schedule (no money
    = no food), but I didn't look anorexic.  Don't know off-hand what
    the actual bodyfat content was, but there were several ribs not
    showing.
    
    It seems to be related to the rapid loss of body fat as well as
    overall anxiety and health.  
    
    Lee

    re: .6 --
    
    Lee, the situation you describe sounds like what the body would
    recognize as famine.  All of a sudden, no food.
    
    Presumably in the natural course of things it would be better for
    the survival of the species if women did not get pregnant during
    times of famine -- malnourished fetuses are much less likely to
    survive to birth and tend to remain less robust after birth.  
    
    --bonnie
    

    Re .5:
    
    "...as long as you don't _overdue_ it"? :)
    

RE: .0

"I have always felt wonderful about having a complex and miraculous female body
rather than a boring, same-everyday male one and now I feel totally elated."

I resent the statement that male bodies are "boring, same-everyday...".

Must you put men down to build yourself up?

Jim.

There was a study about women, breast-feeding and breast cancer.
Results for cultures where a high percentage (99.9%) of women 
breast fed their children - a marked decrease in breast cancer.

Can't remember when the article was written but I think it was 
in an issue of Mother Jones that also discussed 3rd world 
countries and the practices of some American baby formula 
companies -- encouraging mothers to use formulas instead of 
breast-feeding, regardless of the lack of fresh water, firewood 
(for sterilizing water and bottles, etc. resulting in a new 
phenomenon - bottle-baby death.

Rox

    Yes, you'll probably remember the boycott of Nestle because of their
    practices of giving away "sample" formula in third-world countries. It
    was a very successful boycott as I recall:  the Chairman eventually (it
    took years) apologised.  Well, not really apologised; said it had been
    a bad idea and they weren't going to continue.  Sorta apologised.
    My kids were scandalised when I explained to them why I wasn't buying
    Nestle cocoa or other products...and they promptly told their friends.
    Much more effective than the Coors boycott, I think.
    
    						=maggie 

    Re .0, "Armed with this knowledge our schools should not hesitate
    a day longer to make gym for girls as vigorous as it is for boys."
    
    This line reminds me how thankful I am to be an adult civilian in
    a relatively free nation where nobody can force me to do any more
    exercise than I want.  I suffered through years of enforced gym
    classes in the 60's.  I hated them and would hate to think of other
    young girls in the future forced into even more "vigorous" gym
    classes than I was ... unless ... they WANTED TO.   Freedom of choice
    is so important to the happiness of the individual.  What good is
    a longer life to me if I have to spend it doing something I loathe?
     I have always felt that phys. ed. should be treated as art, chorus
    and band are in the schools - not mandatory.  Not everyone enjoys
    vigorous exercise, just as not everyone enjoys oil painting or singing.
     I think that men and women should have the same athletic opportunities
    but as a choice, not mandatory.
    
    By the way, I weigh the same as I did when I graduated from high
    school almost 21 years ago.
    
    Re .9, Jim, what do you care if one woman says she thinks men's
    bodies are boring?  You're so funny sometimes.
    
    Lorna
    

    re.0 I saw the article, and my reaction was, Will more young girls,
    anxious to "grow up", give up athletics so as to reach menarche
    sooner ? The human mind is amazing in it's ability to adopt 
    unhealthy priorities.
    
    Dana
    

    re .-1
    What young girl, if she knew what an awful nuisance the process
    is, would try to hurry into menstruation??

    There is a biological theory that has been current for
    quite a while now about the effects of light on menarche.
    The theory is that the increased exposure to artificial lights
    mediated by the pineal gland has brought about earlier commencement
    of menstruation. I am wondering if the decreased amount of physical
    activity in more recent times would also contribute to this
    phenomenon.
    
    in in re .12 if you had ever explained mensturation to a prepubsecant
    girl you wouldn't ask that question! :-) Most of them would go out
    of their way to *avoid* starting!
    
    Bonnie

    But after the age of 12, many will lie about it and tell their friends
    they have started.  It's an important rite of passage.  By 14, a
    number of them are sure they are abnormal if they haven't started!
    
    I remember one friend of mine who told the girls in our 'group' that
    she had started menstruating when we were 13, even though she had not.
    I was the only friend who knew the truth.  (All the rest of us had
    started.)  One day at a sleepover one of the other girls suddenly got
    her period and asked my friend's mother for some supplies.  My friend's
    mother said something like "There's a box of teenage pads in Lynn's
    drawer. She doesn't use them yet, so there are plenty there for you."
    
    I thought Lynn was going to kill her mother, her friend and herself.
    She refused to speak to her mother for days. 
                   
    It's hard to believe, but it really did seem that important.

    Is there new research on the association of more frequent menstruation
    and certain kinds of cancers?  I thought this theory was just building
    on the research of a couple of years ago, which was far from proving
    that more menstruation causes cancer; at most, conditions that promote
    one might promote the other. 
    
    For example, do women who menstruate more frequently have more cancer?
    A woman with a 24-day cycle will have almost a third more periods in
    her life than a woman with a 31-day cycle; if this theory is true,
    women with 32-day cycles should have fewer cancers.  I thought I
    had read this was not true.

    While lack of menstruation might be a natural response to certain
    conditions, it doesn't sound to me like those conditions -- stress
    and lack of food -- are exactly healthy!
    
    It's not just exercise, either.  My daughter and I were both very
    active and we both started mestruation before we were 12.  But I
    might be willing to believe the light theory.
    
    --bonnie    

    re.14 The same ones who start smoking at 13, drinking and pot at
    14, etc... 

    In college a woman friend of mine stopped having her period - she was a
    runner with an extremely well toned body.  She went to the doctor
    because she was worried.  He told her that when a womans body fat
    goes below a certain percentage she will stop menstruating and there
    was nothing to worry about.
    
    Then we found out another friend of ours was anorexic (yes we didn't
    know and we lived with her but that is another story).  She had been
    losing weight for quite a while and was going to counseling to deal
    with her anorexia. Well, she finally put herself on a weight gaining
    diet but not as a direct result of her counseling.  It seems that she
    stopped getting her period and she was worried about it.  Her doctor
    told her that when a womans body fat equals that of a "childs" she will
    stop menstruating and he suggested "strongly" that she gain some fat
    weight (not muscle weight) so that she could be a woman again!  Imagine
    that - your not a woman if you don't menstruate.
    
    That is how us teeny boppers use to think of it too - teenagers
    try so hard to be grown up - menstruation means becoming a woman
    to them.
    
    

    RE: .12
    
    As an ex-phys. ed. teacher, I feel I should present the other side.
    First, let me say that I think Art and MANY other subjects should
    be treated like Phys. Ed. is: MANDATORY. (It is a rathole for me
    to go into my belief that the schools are producing UN-well-rounded
    students and that MORE, not FEWER subjects should be required.)
    
    I taught my classes with the view that not everyone is an athlete,
    but that some form of recreational exercise is good for everyone.
    Thus, we exposed the kids to a wide variety of activites with the
    thought that they might find one they could develop an interest
    in, either as a student or later in life. 
    
    Phys. Ed. is as good for you as Social  Studies is.
    
    RE: missing periods due to exercise.
    
    The body has a hierarchy of functions which it shuts down in a
    particular order under stress. Reproduction is low on the list.
    Maintenance of the life processes is highest. When or if a woman
    stops menstruating due to exercise depends on the amount of "reserve"
    she has to maintain her life processes.
    
    I'd bet a quart of Hagen Dazs that pioneer women had fewer periods
    because their lives had a good deal of physical stress. I don't
    believe this is a problem. IT is a natural response. It *becomes*
    a problem if there are no obvious stresses to account for it, or
    if the woman herself thinks it's a problem, regardless of the stress.
    
    RE: cancer
    
    I'll wait for the movie. These folks change their minds every other
    study.
    
    --DE
    

    Re .20, you feel that phys. ed. is as good for people as social
    studies, for example.  I disagree.  I also think it is silly to
    say that everyone should be in band or take chorus.  What is the
    sense if one has no interest or talent?  If you think that phys.
    ed. is "good" for me, but I don't want to do it, what right do you
    have to make me do it?  (This isn't the first time I've asked a
    gym teacher this question! :-)  )  There are certain of society's
    rules I have accepted that I must adhere to in order to "get by"
    in this world, but having to play baseball when I hate it is not
    one of them.  I can't see how it will benefit the world if I have
    made to exercise or play sports when I don't want to.  And, when
    you were a gym teacher, why would you want to have kids in your
    class who hate to be there - who may hate you because of what you
    make them do - then you have to punish them - it's sadistic.  Wouldn't
    you rather just let the people who hate sports go do something else,
    while you get to teach only those people who love what you are trying
    to teach them?  Wouldn't that make for a happier world?  Maybe a
    lot of people aren't meant to be, or don't have it in them, to be
    completely well-rounded.  If all I want to do is read and paint
    for example, why should I be forced to participate in sports which
    I hate, why can't I just be allowed to read and paint?  I just don't
    get it.  It's why I hated school.  I couldn't spend my time doing
    just what I wanted to do.  I had to do what I hated as well.  
 
    Well, just be thankful you never had me in your phys. ed. class.
     You wouldn't have liked my attitude :-).
    
    Lorna
    

    Re: .20 and .21
    
    Part of the reason I am out of shape now and have so much trouble
    starting an exercize program is what gym teachers did to me.  
    
    They taught me I was clumsy.  They tried to tell me I was deliberately
    stupid, but I didn't buy that one.  Clumsy was bad enough.  Yes,
    in so many words.  Six out of six gym teachers.
    
    I was always active, played baseball and football with the rest
    of the kids (that's a unisex kids, by the way), cycled all summer
    long, but any sport that requires learning a new skill doesn't work
    As soon as I pick up a tennis racket or a golf club I hear in my
    mind a gym teacher's belittling, humiliating voice telling me if
    I worked harder I could learn to hit a volleyball over the net,
    or whatever. 
    
    The truly unfortunate thing is if you're thinking about making a
    fool of yourself on the court, that's what you'll do.  You have
    to be loose and natural to do athletics.  Tense up, forget it.

    One gym teacher tried to flunk me for the term because I couldn't run a
    mile in under ten minutes.  I had to go to the principal to get my
    grade raised to a C-. 
    
    I'm sure there had to be good gym teachers somewhere -- I'll give
    Dawn the benefit of the doubt -- but I never had one.  

    --bonnie, wishing she had had an attitude problem

    Re .21:
    
    Gosh, Lorna, I was going to start in by asking whether kids who
    hated math or English should be excused from it as well as kids
    who hated phys ed - and then you said you hated *school*! 
    
    Enlightenment!
    
    I pretty much loved school, even phys. ed. - but, love it or hate
    it, until children reach a level of competence in such survival
    skills as reading, writing, and 'rithmetic, somebody has to force
    them to study. (Yes, I know, the debate about what level should
    be required - and in what subjects - rages on.)

    Re phys ed, music, etc.: I am of the belief that kids should be exposed
    to as many different spheres as possible during their school years. For
    many, it's the first (and perhaps only) chance they'll have to see
    something outside their current activities. HOWEVER... I don't believe
    in pushing this to the level of sadism. Phys ed, yes; insistence on one
    particular sport, no, especially when some of the kids have shown no
    aptitude for it. 
    
    I always did well in swimming, especially since I didn't care that
    it "messed up my hair." I did poorly in team sports because I was
    very small for my age, and although I wasn't treated badly, I still
    felt ill at ease whenever I had to try and serve the volleyball.
    More to the point, I never got to play for more than one (abortive)
    serve - so it didn't even teach me anything about the game.

    Ideally, kids would be presented with the possibilities of art,
    music, literature, sports, exercise - and anything else we can think
    of - but in such a way that their different levels of ability are
    not turned into sources of ridicule. This can be tough in a small
    school without the resources to cater to a dozen different sports,
    but the attempt should still be made. 

    Not that I think my "ideal" will ever be reached, especially when
    it's so difficult to find - and keep - good teachers - but it's
    worth a try.

    -b

    
    re .21
    
    Gee, I don't know... If Dawn had been my phys. ed. teacher, I might have
    had a much better attitude :-)
    
    Justine

    Thanks, Justine. 
    
    Gee, Bonnie - "the benefit of the doubt is kind of 'damning
    with faint praise' isn't it?"
    
    My attitude was: I understood not everone would like everything
    we did in the course of the year. What I asked was that they do
    their best at it, exhibit proper behavior for a social animal,
    and realize that life is not one long string of "what's fun to do."
    I NEVER failed a kid because of their skill level. If a child failed,
    it was because they didn't show up for class, didn't wear proper
    gym clothes, or didn't behave.  I taught KIDS, not Phys. Ed.
    
    The lessons I tried to teach were not necessarily physical skills,
    but fair play, helping others, learning to live with a situation
    you might not like, and to make the best of it. The kids I had
    be team captains were the ones with the worst physical skills. I
    did this for many reasons, not the least of which had to do with
    the kids' self-esteem - but it turns out you get the fairest teams
    that way. If one of these kids was the worst *player* but a good
    team *manager*, they got an 'A' for that skill.
    
    And we had fun. 
    
    I was told many times in the course of my carrer that if I had been
    a particular kid's gym teacher, they'dve liked gym better. And they
    would've. 
    
    Bonnie, I won't apologize for all the teachers you had. I'm sorry
    you had a bad experience. One of the tings I tried hardest to remember
    was that making gym a bad experience would leave that taste int
    he kid's mouth forever. You're a perfect example. 
    
    Lorna, we disagree as violently on this as two people can. There
    were many things I didn't like as a student. But I learned the stuff
    anyway. And I'm a better person for it. Maybe you don't *need* to
    learn a variety of things. *I* think exposing children to many,
    many disciplines is the best way to produce well-educated,
    intellectually curious people. And the more I see the product of
    the schools which have gone heavily for electives rather than a
    well-rounded curriculum, the more I believe I'm right.
    
    --DE
    

    Your school had a pool???!!!  (oh, well, probably had tennis courts,
    too...)
    
    My memories of phys. ed. class, which I also hated, are of playing
    field hockey outside in the snow in January with a soccer ball because
    there wasn't enough room inside, where the boys were playing
    basketball.  I guess this is what you get for going to a public school,
    but I did get a good education in academic subjects, and graduated
    number two out of nearly 400 in my class (number one was also a
    woman, by the way).  But I hate field hockey to this day!!!
    
                 

>    Your school had a pool???!!!  (oh, well, probably had tennis courts,
>    too...)
    
    Excuse me, but was this directed at me? (I *think* I'm the only
    one who mentioned swimming recently...) If so, methinks I've conveyed
    the wrong impression!
    
    I went to (public) high school in Rock Springs, Wyoming, and graduated
    third in a class of 398; both the valedictorian and salutatorian were
    female also. We did have a pool, thank heavens, but no tennis courts.
    Our P.E. classes were far from ideal, but at least we didn't get sent
    outside to play field hockey (or anything else). (Admittedly, this
    *may* have been because the guys had the football field and the track.)
    It was, as I recall, a pretty decent public school, but hardly a
    country club (she said, grinning at the memory of the dusty hills
    surrounding a town that put coal dust on the streets in the winter
    because it was cheaper than salt...)
    
    My favorite parts of P.E., aside from swimming, were (a) being able to
    wear something besides a dress for an hour, and (b) the "tumbling"
    section (a curtailed version of gymnastic floor exercises). As it
    happened, being the smallest in the class, I was much in demand as the
    "top man" in the pyramids, or the one who got to stand on peoples'
    shoulders. It *almost* made up for being so rotten at volleyball;
    but I have to admit I shy away from volleyball to this day. So much
    for learning about teamwork...

    -b

"Ever since the Stone Age, symbols of female fertility have been fat,
particularly in the breasts, hips, thighs and buttocks -- the places where
estrogen, the female sex hormone, promotes fat storage.  This historical
linking of fatness and fertility actually makes biological sense; in fact,
I propose that body fat, or adipose tissue, has a regulatory role in
reproduction."

From "Fatness and Fertility" by Rose E. Frisch, in the March 1988
Scientific American (with a Renoir on the cover and a photograph of
a stone-age fertility figure inside).

------

Some comments about the earlier responses:

-- good (not world-class) female runners vary considerably in body fat.
   Some friends (who have run marathons in 2:50-3:15)  run around 16-22%
   body fat.  Some elite marathoners (Rosa Mota, Lisa Martin) are scrawny.
   Others, such as Alison Roe and Patty Catalano are definitely not.

-- If you want to lose weight by running, you must run at a slow, easy
   pace for a long time (minimum of 45 minutes/day 6 days/week).  It may
   take a year or more to be able to sustain this effort without injury
   -- you must build up to it slowly in order to strengthen joints, tendons,
   and muscles.  Running 60 miles a week (7� miles/day for five days and 22
   miles on the seventh) will burn off "about" 6000 calories.  You may find
   this very unpleasant; some of my friends thrive on this amount of effort.

Martin.

    The problem with phys ed as opposed to academic subjects, as far
    as I'm concerned, is that even though you may have to study something
    you disagree with in an academic class, you can more or less ignore it.
    Phys ed, on the other hand, definitely changes your body, and not
    necessarily in the direction you want it changed.  I used to really
    resent this aspect of it.
     

    I hated Phys Ed classes with a passion, too, Lorna. I was never
    very adept at, nor had I any particular interest in, sports or
    exercise. I loathed going to gym classes. But I also saw why they
    were required, and I agree that they should be required. There
    were lots of academic classes I hated just as much, but I under-
    stood why they were required.
    
    Like Bonnie, most of the reason why I hated gym wasn't so much
    the physical exertion (though that was a good part of it), but
    because of the belittlement I received from other students as well
    as the teacher because I wasn't as good as others at sports. Of
    course, I sort of had my revenge when I proved to be much more
    adept than anyone else in the class at archery, but it was pretty
    much a pyrrhic victory.
    
    I can't agree with you (once again :-)). The *way* gym classes
    are taught may be flawed, but the concept of Phys Ed as a required
    school subject is as valid as any of the "3 R's".
    
    --- jerry

    Gym classes wouldn't be so bad if they helped students on a more
    personalized basis - helping kids overcome defficiencies in 
    skills on an individual level. But pitting people of different
    levels of ability and interest against each other is NOT helping
    anyone. 
    
    RE.30 Gym and archery - my gym teacher in high school was Joseph
    "G.I. Joe" Slozek - ex-Marine hardcore type.  He ran my scrawny,
    clumsy a** into the dirt and I hated him for it. Now I see him at 
    the archery course and we get along just fine. Course, it helps
    that I outweigh him by thirty pounds, and outshoot him to boot 8-)
    
    Dana
    
    PS Any woman archers out there ? 

    Dawn, I think it would have been fun to have you as a teacher, too!
    
    (I always feel humiliated for my ex-colleagues when people start
    telling me music teacher horror stories...)
    
    Like Bonnie-R-S, I too learned from gym teachers that I was clumsy
    and inept and like Lorna, I learned that I had an attitude problem.
    I hated having my junior high gym teacher tweak my back or breast
    every class to make sure I was NOT wearing a bra.  I was quite well
    developed and experienced a lot of pain from bouncing.  The humiliation
    was by far the worst part.
    
    So I hated gym from 6th grade through 10th because it was focused
    on sports, and learning the rules of sports I couldn't care less
    about.  I think that part should be optional.  Field hockey...gag.
    What's the horrid game that's a hybrid of field hockey and soccer
    that we had to learn one year? Something-ball, ugh. (I just remembered:
    speedball...)
    
    One year though, they got a new enlightened gym teacher who decided
    that we should be physically fit, and that we should improve our
    personal baseline physical fitness, but that we could choose electives
    to do that.  I had such fun that year.  I did apparatus, I did some
    kind of dancing that you do with wands and scarves, I played badminton,
    I played volleyball for fun (not for blood), and I swam.  I loved
    gym that year, and found out that it was *sports* I hated, not exercise.
    
    I had always been good at the individual sports that I did at Girl
    Scout camp like canoeing, sailing, hiking, and badminton, and I'm
    glad I learned that it wasn't exercise in general I hated.
    
    Dawn, why is there such emphasis on sports per se, and not on fun
    activities you can do throughout your life to keep fit?  I agree
    with Lorna about the *sports* part being an elective, but think
    that fun physical activity is a very important part of the curriculum.  
    
    Holly

    Dawn, I hope you didn't take my remarks about my gym experience
    personally.  I didn't mean to sound so negative -- I'm sorry. From what
    you've said, I think I would have enjoyed your classes! 
    
    I don't have any trouble with requiring p.e.  I just don't like the way
    it's taught.  In general, I agree that kids should be required to take
    a lot of different things, from home ec and p.e. to ancient history,
    lab physics, and animal science.  Obviously resources will limit this
    choice, but it seems like the more things you try, the more likely you
    are to find something that you like. 
    
    I used to think I hated psychology, but you were required to take a
    psych or social science course as part of the group requirements at my
    college, so I found myself in Psych 101 -- and I loved it. I wound up
    minoring in it.  There were a lot of classes I hated at the time
    and a lot of things I would never willingly study again, but I think
    it's all worth it for having discovered what has turned out to be
    a major interest in my life.

    The end result of my gym experiences, though, is that I think of
    fitness as an inborn talent, like writing or singing, that I don't have
    so it's no use doing anything about. Is there such a thing as a support
    group for the high-school-gym- damaged -- Adult Survivors of PE, or
    something?  I'm only half joking here. 
    
    --bonnie
    
    p.s. Holly, they checked for NO bra at your school?  In ours, we
    had to turn around while the teacher ran her fingers down our backs
    to make sure we WERE wearing a bra!  

    Bonnie,
    If you start an adult surviors of PE I will be one of your charter
    members! These notes bring back so many memories (most of them
    unpleasant!) I also hated the competitiveness. I was *always* the
    last to be chosen for teams (or so it seemed) and felt like a total
    clutz. The only way I was able to pass gym was because I could do
    well on the tests of the rules and I always had my gym suit ironed!
    (and wearing those suits was a speical kind of torture in and of
    itself!) One year I nearly flunked because our grade was based on
    how well we did on a physical fitness test, throwing, rope climbing,
    running etc.
    
    When I got to college I found some activities that I enjoyed - archery,
    canoeing, badminton, bicycling, and swiming.
    
    Today I am very inactive and have an abiding distaste for most types
    of physical activity that goes back to my high school gym experiences
    I have to push myself even to walk or do other types of
    activity that I actually enjoy once I get over a major amount of
    inertia. What makes it worse is that being a Biologist I am all
    too well aware of the kinds of problems I will be letting myself
    into in the future by not being physically active.
    
    Bonnie Jeanne

    	RE: 726.22
    
    	My wife says the same things (more or less). She's never
    	been much for sports, and she says part of the reason is
    	due to a gym teacher who told her she should never run,
    	because she ran/runs funny. So, my wife does not get
    	involved in anything that closely resembles exercise.
    
    	Scott
    

    Maybe the most positive lesson I learned from being forced to take
    phys. ed. is the ability to have compassion for others.  Thanks
    to my memories of gym class, I will always know how it feels to
    be ostracized, humiliated, picked-in, and degraded for something
    that I cannot control.  I'll never forget the loneliness and misery
    of the outsider.  Gym was the class I did the worst in and had the
    most trouble in and if I hadn't had to deal with that misery twice
    a week I would have had more energy and time left for the academic
    subjects that gave me trouble.
    
    Remember the Janis Ian song:
    
    "For those of us who knew the pain 
     of Valentines that never came,
     Whose names were never called
     when choosing sides for basketball,
     It was long ago and far away
     the world was younger than today,
     And dreams were all they gave for free,
     To ugly duckling girls like me,
     At 17"
    
    As far as I'm concerned, that was high school.
    
    I was so glad to get out of school and be an adult so I could
    start enjoying life!
    
    Lorna
    

    Miscellaneous:
    
    I think the "Adult Survivors of PE" idea is marvelous! (I bet if
    you put it in SOAPBOX there'd be a run on PE horror stories...)
    It might even work as a serious (!) therapy group to ease us
    competition-shy people back into team-sports-for-the-fun-of-it.
    
    Re archery: There *is* an ARCHERY conference, which I just now looked
    into (press KP7 or SELECT to add); however, the membership appears to
    be primarily bowhunters. While I've never done any serious archery, it
    has always appealed to me (the target-shooting part, anyway; I'll only
    go bow-hunting when there's no other way to find food!). 
    
    Re phys ed in general: I would have found it fascinating if our
    PE classes had included such useful information as how to take one's
    pulse, the difference between resting heart rate and optimum "exercise"
    rate, etc. As was mentioned in several previous notes, the classes
    would have been much more useful if they taught good exercise habits
    instead of concentrating on the rules of the teacher's favorite
    sport.

    Hey, how about a new Olympic event - a summer biathlon consisting
    of a cross-country steeplechase and an archery competition? The
    "Robin Hood" event...

    -b

    Marching band saved me eventually.  It was harder than PE, and for
    most of the year meant we had 2 hours of outdoor work instead of
    just one, plus the evening and weekend practices and performances.
    It also taught physical and mental discipline and team spirit
    without ridicule from jocks, and it allowed a certain level of
    anonymity.
    
    At our school, gym created an atmosphere of forced vulnerability.
    The mental cruelty of several of the instructors propagated down
    through the students, and the students were much more abominable
    to each other than they were when they were together at other times.
    One quarter we had a sub who had Dawn's attitude...she almost made
    it tempting.  But I escaped into band, where there was less ridicule
    and less sexism (at the time there were drastic differences between
    the amounts of money and space).

    Oh my - this should've been required reading for future P.E.
    instructors. I honestly never realized there were so many 
    (as Bonnie R. put it) "drill instructor" types out there.
    
    I will admit I *had* some of those types myself, but it was a
    teacher in high school who saved *my* attitude.
    
    The thing is, *I* was always the kid who got picked last for teams.
    I'm not a great athlete. I'm good in a variety of  stuff. I *detest*
    playing field hockey, for instance, but I really enjoyed coaching
    it. I'm not a gymnast AT ALL, but I enjoyed teaching it, and as
    I learned the physics of it and am quite strong, I could spot the
    kids in doing more advanced moves. We had various skill level charts
    posted on the walls, and you worked out at your skill level. (like
    level 1 for parallel bars was walking 4 "steps" on your hands -
    I mean, you couldn't fail if you just tried)
    
    RE: sports per se, vs. lifetime fitness activities.
    
    First of all, I taught junior high, in which the emphasis is more
    on team sports with a variety of individual sports peppered in the
    curriculum. Kids at this age developmentally like, and should be
    exposed to, team sports. At the high school level, you want to begin
    getting them into more lifetime activities. (At junior high age,
    one of your most important goals is to keep them ACTIVE and BUSY.
    All those hormones, dontcha know. Team sports allows for more kids
    to be active at one time.)
    
    Lifetime sports take up a lot of room. There are liability
    considerations for things like jogging. Could they be allowed to
    jog around town? What if they get hit by a car?  What if they don't
    come back? How do you supervise them? 
    
    Class size is a consideration, too. If you have 1 gym and 100 kids
    (which is what we had my last year) how do you tailor everyone's
    program? Tennis is a great sport for lifetime. But how can you keep
    100 kids active on 5 tennis courts? Golf's a good lifetime sport.
    You need a LOT of room to teach golf. What happens is, you expose
    small groups of kids to these activities as much as you can, and
    hope that if they like it, they'll pick it up on their own.
    
    
    For those people who got dumped on by their class mates. Well, that
    was up high on my list of rules. "If you think you're so teriffic,
    how about giving somebody a hand instead of laughing at 'em? ANd
    if you can't do *that* then put a sock in it." I had very few problems
    with kids ridiculing other kids in my class. But ya gotta keep in
    mind, no matter who you are, you'll get dumped on *somehow* in your
    school carrer.
    
    
    Bonnie J. - yes, please do SOMETHING. Walk, swim, aerobic dance,
    ANYTHING. I'm learning in my Massage Therapy classes that MOST of
    the problems we have as we age are due to under-use of our bodies.
    Joints *want* to be moved - that's their happiest state. Bones under
    stress create *more* bone - this helps prevent osteoporosis. Physical
    activity can help alleviate the problems associated with (mental
    and emotional) stress. Please find something that you like and DO
    it. Tell that old gym teacher in your head to f**k off, you're not
    going to let him/her ruin your enjoyment of <something>. And be
    good to yourself.
    
    (Ican't BELIEVE the checking-of-bras deal - my God, if you did that
    to a junior high kid in the early 70's 2 things would happen. She'd
    probably faint! And the teacher would get *sued*!)
    
    (No, I am NOT advocating suing teachers. But in this day and age,
    it's not so far-fetched to think it would happen!)
    
    --DE
    

    I basically enjoyed gym, which was probably because I was at least
    decent at everything (never exellent at anything).  Anyway, at the
    college I attended, P.E. was MANDATORY for 6 SEMESTERS!  If you
    can imagine a bunch of engineering types taking 20 credits/semester,
    with P.E. accounting for only 1, being forced to spend 50 minutes
    doing something they HATE, then you have pictured Stevens Institute
    of Technology.  Of course, most of us didn't find this out until
    we got there.  Evenso, it was a good experience for me because
    I was able to try and improve in a lot of different athletic activities 
    for free.  For example, racquetball, archery, competitive badmitton,
    and even bowling.   Of course P.E. was all for the sake of being
    well rounded (we also had to take a humanities course EVERY semester;
    almost unheard of at an engineering school).
    
    D.
    P.S. -- "engineering types" should be taken to mean people (persons?)
    	     whose primary focus is on math/science oriented subjects.

    
    Our high school had great gym classes. Granted I wasn't a jock(ette)
    in high school, but I enjoyed gym. Freshmen year you had to do the
    normal gym things...football, gymnastics, softball, etc. But after
    that we had elective gym classes. You could take fencing, dancing,
    weight lifting, achery[sp], swimming (and get a lifesaving certificate
    so you could lifeguard in the summer), golf, tennis, track, indoor
    running (we ran through the halls), badminton, volleyball, aerobics,
    etc. I used to take the easy stuff. I'm quite atheletic now. I guess
    my gym classes left me with some pleasant memories...except one...
    in junior high the teacher made me do a front drop on the trapoline
    I did a face drop and broke my nose.
    
    Mel

    re:.31, .37
    
    The most entertaining part about my doing so much better than the
    others at archery was that I never really pursued it as a hobby.
    I was first exposed to archery during my one-and-only trip to Boy
    Scout Summer Camp. Believe it or not, I was able to shoot quite
    well there right from the start by remembering an episode of the
    old Richard Greene Robin Hood tv show in which Robin taught a kid
    how to shoot a bow (I'm serious!). I remembered "Robin"'s instructions,
    and by Jove, they worked.
    
    My second exposure to archery was about 3 years later when I was
    a junior counsellor at a YMCA camp. I was the only one of the
    counsellors who even remotely knew about archery, so it was given
    to me to instruct the kids (ages 5-6) how to shoot.
    
    --- jerry

                          
    	As I read through the replies, 'seems a lot of Womennoters hated
    PE for various reasons...Dare I say this is "typical" of women?
    (I think of a friend's 16 year old daughter who's will not graduate
    H.S. "this year" - because of GYM).
    
    	At what age is it acceptable to be able to say "Ah! I dont feel
    like it" and have everything just be OK; "Oh, this person doesnt like
    GYM, so, we'll just let them slide on thru, no big deal" Apparently,
    it *is* a big deal to the board of education! 
    
    	I like seeing the comprehension of the benefits associated with
    the so called "well rounded" education...I understand that many
    "teachers" probably presented their curriculum as "ya gotta do it"
    instead of an oppurtunity to find some physical activities that
    you may like. I'm sure the "teachers" used only positive motivation
    too. But "teachers" have been known to belittle and single out students
    in other classes, besides GYM - I remember a lot of that from
    grades 0 - 5! I cant imagine why a teacher, of all people, would
    use negative motivation in an attempt to give someone positive direction.
    But obviously, they do.
    
    	I do an aerobics class 3 times a week, for CV maintainence.
    It's expensive, when compared to some form of exercise that I could
    do by myself or as part of a somewhat organized sports team. I've
    been at it for a year now, and am finding the classes are still
    an effort to get through. I motivate myself to go by knowing that
    having a strong heart and being in an efficient body_state might be 
    useful someday. Also, I know that my personal default always ends up 
    being "to do nothing" athletic, and, I figure at 30, it's time for
    a change. So far, the classes have been a lot of fun and the rewards
    in terms of "how I feel about myself" have been super!
    
    	But that's "typical" of *anyone* regularly into an athletic
    activity of some sort.
    
    	Joe Jas

    Re .43, my heart really goes out to that 16 year old girl who will
    not graduate from H.S. this year because of gym.  Hating gym class
    actually helped me to develop my persuasive powers.  In jr. high
    and freshman year I seem to recall getting C's and D's in gym. 
    Sophomore year I flunked it.  Junior year I was thrown out of class
    in the middle of the year and given an incomplete.  Because I realized
    that students are supposed to have a certain amount of credit in
    gym to graduate I took it upon myself to arrange a meeting with
    the school principal, the guidance counselor and my phys. ed. teacher.
     I was able to convince them that trying to participate in gym was
    causing me more harm than good, that I wanted to be able to graduate
    on time and be able to concentrate on my academic subjects without
    having the worry of gym.  Amazingly enough, I convinced them, and
    I was officially excused from gym for my senior year on the condition
    that I made up the lost credits in another area, which I did.  I
    took art class every day, which I loved, for the extra credits.
     It was a great relief to be able to go to school without the dread
    of gym class hanging over me.  I found that I made more friends
    and had more respect from my peers, too, when they didn't get the
    opportunity to see me at my worst (like they did in gym!).
    
    I think what happens to unathletic kids in gym is that they start
    out trying, only to find that not only do they not do well, but
    they get laughed at, put-down, rejected as friends, used as an example
    by sadistic coaches, never picked to be on teams - until they either
    just give up or get more and more nervous and do worse and worse
    even if they do try.  As has been said a million times, kids can
    be cruel.  But, it's really a sad thing that teachers can be cruel
    too - and believe me they can.  I guess they're only human after
    all, and we humans are capable of cruelty.  My reaction in gym after
    awhile was to just say no.  I refused to do whatever I didn't want
    to do.  It was the 60's and everybody was protesting something so
    I protested gym class.
    
    Maybe it would have been different if we could have picked what
    we wanted to do for exercise.  I would have been happy walking,
    running or riding a bicycle - but I have always detested team sports
    that involve a ball.  I was always the smallest one in the class
    and these huge people would be running towards me and I was always
    afraid I would get hurt.  And, I could never make myself care about
    who won!  How could I care about that dumb ball and who could do
    whatever with it?  I guess I could settle for choice in exercise
    as a compromise to no phys. ed. at all.
    
    Lorna
    

    re: .43 , re others:
    
    It's interesting that the kind of humiliation inflicted by gym teachers
    on women is so much more lasting and damaging than the similar
    techniques used by other bad teachers.  
    
    Is it perhaps because society teaches us so young that a woman's
    body is her main asset in the markets of life, and when a P.E. teacher
    tells us our bodies are irredeemably inadequate, we are damaged
    in a far more fundamental way than when a teacher tells us we're
    hopeless at math or that it's ridiculous for someone as stupid as
    us to want to be a manager?  We almost *expect* to be told we're
    bad at math.  Certainly it doesn't surprise us.  And it only means
    we've failed at math, not at life.
    
    But if our bodies are so ugly they aren't fit to be seen in shorts
    and so clumsy no one else wants to associate with us, then we've
    failed not at gym but in some sense at being a woman.  The feminine
    ideal may not be athletic, but neither is it clumsy.  
    
    Does this make sense to anyone else, or am I barking up the wrong
    tree?
    
    --bonnie

    

    RE: archery
     
    Reminds me of the p.e. class I was teaching with the male gym teacher.
    We went over how to stand, how to nock the arrow, how to draw the
    bow back. We said try it - go thru the procedure, draw the bow back,
    then return to start position.
    
    The kid directly in front ofthe other teacher nocked the arrow,
    drew the bow back, then turned around 180 degrees to face the
    other teacher and said, "Hey Mr. Jones! Is this right?!?!"
    
    I never saw anybody hit the deck so fast.
    
    --DE
    

    I like that story...
    
    I haven't really felt I had anything to contribute, and after reading
    this some of you may feel that I still don't... All the schools I attended
    as a child, and the ones I taught at, even when co-ed had sexually
    segregated gym classes, so I have never experienced the sarcasm of a
    gym/games teacher when aimed at a pupil of the opposite sex (though
    I can attest to the fact that male gym teachers would frequently cast
    aspersions on the manhood of male students who failed to meet their
    criteria for success in the gym or on the playing field).
    
    I know of at least one school where the boys can choose archery as a
    sport and where the girls cannot. This caused a minor scandal and was
    much debated at PTA meetings, and even elevated to the Board of Governors
    of the school, however the decision stood (and as far as I know still
    stands).
    
    However a few years back I was involved in the sport of field archery,
    and one day one of the club members brought along his teen aged daughter
    who wanted to try it. The instructors duly showed her, and we were all
    set for her to actually try it when one of the women members produced,
    and offered to the girl, a leather chest protector. The girl was clearly
    horrified and refused point blank to wear it, saying it made her look
    like an Amazon warrior. After her first arrow she decided that the Amazon
    analogy was apt�, and accepted the protector rather shame facedly and
    put it on.
    
    The good news is that she went on with the sport and became County Champion
    in her age group, and as far as I know has continued to progress...
    
    /. Ian .\
                    
    �
    
    For those not familiar with the legends of the Amazon warriors, they
    surgically removed the right breast in order not to interfere with the
    free action of their bow strings.

    in re .45 Bonnie I think you have hit on something important.
    
    Bonnie Jeanne

    RE: gym teachers ruining your life
    
    Bonnie, even when I was last teaching (almost 6 years ago, now)
    girls were not "expected" to be good athletes. Times had changed
    in that it was finally OK to be a good athlete, but it was also
    OK if you weren't.
    
    I felt badly for the boys who had the male gym teachers that *really*
    ridiculed the non-athletic types. Sorry, women, but NOBODY can make
    a junior high school boy want to die better than a macho-man gym
    teacher with a point to prove. If you thought you had it bad, mulitply
    that by 100 to feel what a non-athletic boy feels when a
    male-gym-teacher-jock rags on him. Men are still *expected* to be
    jocks. 
    
    I remember I had a boy in my class who was TOTALLY un-coordinated
    - not athletic at all. He was a real computer hacker, tho' and I
    was taking night courses in programming at that time. I remember
    the look on his face when I made a few remarks about accumulators
    and such to let him know I knew what he was into, and approved.
    He actually tried harder in class after that and the kids were
    supportive of his efforts. I still cringe when I think of how he
    must've been treated by (most of) the male gym teachers he had.
    
    --DE
    
    

    RE: .49
    
    I think I must have mistated something -- I didn't mean to say I
    thought girls were ever expected to be athletic.  But the feminine
    ideal is to be *graceful*.  For example, you wouldn't be expected to be
    good at tennis but you would be expected to look good on the court.
    
    As I recall, clumsiness and awkwardness were the biggest sins, not
    ability per se.  Plus being robustly built.   
    
    I agree that very few things in life are as painful as the young boy's
    experiences you describe.  But that tends to remain acute rather than
    chronic pain.  I talked about this with my husband and some people in
    my group, and it didn't appear that the men were still damaged by that
    humiliation in the same way or degree that the women were.  We all had
    similar experiences in gym (and sometimes in other subjects too) but
    the men had been able to shake it off and tell that gym instructor in
    their mind to buzz off. 
    
    I've always been an active, physically strong woman, but the only
    activities I enjoy are those I don't associate in any way with gym
    classes -- cycling, ice skating, cross-country skiing.  And I don't
    enjoy those activities if I think of them as exercize.  Only if I
    entirely divorce the concepts in my mind can I enjoy what I'm doing. 
    
    I would be the first to admit that I did not go through any
    extraordinary amount of humiliation in gym.  I'm not sure I was even
    the most-picked-on one in my class.  And yet the scars go so deep that
    even now I have to fight irrational tears over an aerobics instructor's
    gentle reminder to straighten my leg so I won't strain my back. 

    I know several men who don't like exercize because of school gym
    experiences, but they can do it when they have to, when they really
    make themselves do it.  They don't seem to feel like there's a dirty
    shameful secret hiding inside and that secret gets revealed every
    time they step on the gym floor.
    
    --bonnie

	I also hated gym class.   I skipped it all the time.   I always
hated team sports, and even now only enjoy individual sports such as
bicycling or hiking.   As a result of my gym experiences I only started
to get in shape after I was 25.   I almost didn't graduate from high
school because of my refusal to attend gym class, and my class standing
dropped from the top ten percent of the class down to the bottom half,
mostly due to my grades in gym.

	Many of my gym teachers acted like military
drill instructors, and assigned "rank" to each student according
to strength and athletic skill.   These ranks were displayed by
colored T-shirts each student was required to wear.   The ranking
exercises gave an advantage to smaller students who find it easier
to do such things as rope climbing or chin-ups.   Almost half of
every class was stigmatized by not even qualifying for the lowest
rank, and had to wear their white T-shirts.   This system is used
in many of the Colorado Springs public schools, and I think it is
cruel and should be stopped.

	I think there is a difference between gym and other school
classes, in that gym requires participation, while many other
classes are passive.   In most classes a child can protest passively,
and this is not so noticeable as in a gym class.   Children are not
allowed to go their own path, and so often the only protest that
they can make is to withdraw.   I think that withdrawl is just a lot
more obvious in a gym class than in many other classes.

	Alan.

	When I was vacationing in New Zealand, one day I saw a public
television special on the Rudolf Steiner schools.   These schools are
also sometimes called Waldorf schools.   There are a few of these
private schools in the United States also, but there is no reason
why Steiner's methods could not be used in our public schools.

	I was very impressed with the methods used.   The kids are
not given very many required activities, and most often are able
to spend most of their time in independent study or in small group
projects of their own choice.   They develop an unusual degree of
initiative, and their graduates are known to do well.   Steiner
believed that the free will of children should never be taken away,
and designed his educational method to enhance the desire of the
child to seek out learning on their own.

	They said the daily schedule usually consists of a group
meeting in the morning, with music and participation.   Then the
students spend the rest of the day on their current projects, while
the teachers act as resources rather than disciplinarians or
babysitters.   The students are not given grades, and cannot flunk.
No class standing is awarded on graduation.   They seem to have no
"problem students" in the Steiner schools, except for those students
who have only recently been transferred from public schools.   A teacher
said that students would be encouraged to deal with subjects they
didn't like (math was mentioned) and that although a student might
ignore one discipline for a few years that eventually through encouragement
most students got a well rounded education.

	These schools disprove the need for a restrictive curriculum
with many required classes.   This  television special said that
the graduates of the Rudolf Steiner schools were "six times as likely
to succeed in college", when compared to public school students, in
a survey taken in Australia and New Zealand.

		Alan.

    being an asthmatic - I dreaded the 50-yard dash and such for many
    years.  I also hated any team sport in which everything depends
    on one person at any given point in time (I still do hate participating
    in them).  But through this trial and error process I discovered I liked:
    
    Swimming (got up to Advanced Swimmer) (I like both laps & synchro)
    Archery  (got my Bowman 1st Rank at daycamp)
    Gymnastics (I'm flexible, it suits me)
    Throw&catch a tennis ball (nothing harder/heavier, haven't got the wrists
        for it)
    Weightlifting
    Low impact aerobics
    Walking
    Racquetball (just volleying for fun, not playing for points)
    
    someday I want to learn to:
              Belly Dance
              Throw balanced knives
    (not at the same time, though)

    all in all, an odd collection, but they complement what I'm capable
    of, and even if I'm not really great at some of them, I FEEL good
    when I'm doing them, I enjoy them...and that's what counts...

    -Jody (another person who was one of the last ones picked for teams)
    

    Long ago and far away, I attended an all boys boarding school. At weekly
    gym classes and games sessions each lesson ended with what was
    euphemistically called "the cool down" consiting of 10 laps of the gym
    (over the equipment) or 2 laps of the playing field (with a couple of
    gym-horses to negotiate on the way round).
    
    The teachers stood with stop watch in hand and timed the slowest three
    boys: they then got one stroke of the gym shoe on their posteriors for
    each second they lagged behind... known as "inspirational strokes"
    
    This of course ignores the remarks made whilst lessons where in progress
    (common remarks suggested that poor performance was due to over-indulgence
    in one of several forms of sexual behaviour strictly forbidden by school
    rules).
    
    /. Ian .\
    
    

    I wrote a paper on Rudolf Steiner schools when I was in graduate
    school.  Many things about them impressed me positively, although I
    found their curriculum highly structured.  
    
    There is a great emphasis on the innate creativity of each child. Young
    children are taught using natural (rather than human-made) materials
    when possible. Knitting is taught in first grade to enhance finger
    coordination, and all the children learn to model in beeswax. Children
    in Waldorf schools appear to develop a very high level of artistic
    ability.  They make and illustrate their own textbooks which are
    extremely beautiful.  They study many hand arts, and a great deal
    of folklore.  
    
    Children aren't encouraged to read until after they get their second
    teeth.
    
    Children often have the same teacher for grades 1-8.  The teachers
    negotiate salaries among themselves based on their families' needs!
    
    

    Waldorf education is also discussed in WORDS::PARENTING notes 9.*
    and VADER::PARENTING_V1 notes 18.*.
    
    	-Neil

    TIME magazine article reprinted without permission:
    
    
    
                                 "Sweat Cure"
                         Exercise may prevent cancer
    
    "If lower blood pressure and a better mood are not incentive enough
    for starting to exercise regularly, consider this: scientists now
    believe that lifelong physical exertion also protects against cancer
    and diabetes.  In Boston last week researchers at the annual meeting
    of the American Association for the Advancement of Science reported
    that athletic women cut their risk of breast and uterine cancer
    in half and of the most common form of diabetes by two-thirds. 
    Says Harvard Reproductive Biologist Rose Rfrisch, who led the
    5,398-woman study: "The long-term effects of early exercise on health
    are impressive."
    
    Researchers believe the benefits occur because exercise shuts down
    the production of certain reproductive hormones in both men and
    women.  The effect is more pronounced, however, in females.  Vigorours
    training, for exeample, can temporarily lengthen or even eliminate
    a runner's menstrual cycle.  The response appears to have a healthy
    effect.  In a separate study of ten rowers at Harvard, Frisch found
    that active women produce a less potent form of estrogen thatn their
    sedentary counterparts.  Result: breat and uterine tumors that depend
    on the hormone cannot develop as easily.  In addition, athletes
    lack excess body fat, which can predispose people to diabetes.
    
    Frisch cautions that low estrogen leves can lead to temporary
    infertility.  Still the benefits of exercise seem to outweigh the
    risks, particularly for teenagers.  Frisch notes that very active
    girls started menstruating around 15, three years later than average.
    The advantages, she believes are twofold: better health later in
    life and a lower risk of teenage pregnancy."

        RE: 726.50
        
        I'm not sure that the fact that it is true that the scars run
        deeper with women than with men. My own viewpoint on your
        statement, 
        
            I know several men who don't like exercize because of
            school gym experiences, but they can do it when they
            have to, when they really make themselves do it.  They
            don't seem to feel like there's a dirty shameful secret
            hiding inside and that secret gets revealed every time
            they step on the gym floor.
        
        is that the "dirty shameful secret" gets revealed each time a
        man chickens out and doesn't go onto the gym floor. It's not so
        much that men can make themselves do it, it's that after a dozen
        or more years of being ridiculed both for doing it badly and
        ridiculed even more for NOT doing it, that the bullies and the
        coaches in their past jeer them and goose-step them out into the
        gym. "Real men" don't admit to having problems with gym or their
        self-image or sports. "Real women" just don't do sports.
        
        The pressure feels to me to be of the same magnitude, just to be
        directed differently. Of course, I still will do almost anything
        in preference to using a public locker room, so I may just have
        had more trouble with it than most boys did. (I had somewhere
        bewteen 9 and 11 fingers broken by ad hoc "dodge ball" games
        which invovled everyone throwing every volley ball, soccer ball
        and basket ball in the gym at me. Real boys don't cry when they
        get hurt either. Even when bones are broken.) 
        
        JimB.

    RE:.58
    
    I noticed a real bizarre "rite-of-passage" when teaching boys in
    gym. THe idea with many games was not the game itself, but to throw
    the ball involved as hard as you could at each other - inflict as
    much damage as possible. I fought this and finally gave up as the
    male teach didn't support me in it. *I* even had to "pass the test"
    the first years we had co-ed classes. I caught more Bullet Football
    throws than I could count. But by God, I caught 'em all. And threw
    some myself. :-}
    
    I had an idea why women might be more "scarred". Could it perhaps
    be that girls/women tend to get our personal validation from the
    opinions of others, and as boys grow into men, their validation
    comes from other places?
    
    --DE
    

    re: .58 --
    
    That's a very good point.  
    
    I feel so bad about my own inactivity that it never occured to me that
    men's participation in activities might be feigned or imposed. 
    
    The biggest single lesson women's liberation has taught me over
    the years, as I've worked and struggled to learn to do what comes
    easily to men --
    
    is that it doesn't come easily to men.  
    
    They've been trained for it for many a year, shamed and browbeaten
    and often denied love in order to make them harder and more competitive
    and more macho.  And it still doesn't come easily to most of them.
    
    Thank you for once again reminding me that women aren't the only
    victims of sexism.  We need human liberation, not women's liberation.
    
    --bonnie
    
    
    

    Re .60, but without women's liberation how can we be certain that
    human liberation will include women??
    
    Lorna
    

    Especially since in the past, it's only referred to men.

    re: .61 and .62
    
    My whole point was that it's not possible to liberate women as a
    class without liberating men as a class -- in fact without
    changing society as a whole, though I didn't want to get into that
    here.  If you don't agree, I'd like it to be on better grounds
    than that you don't like my choice of the word I used to describe
    men and women as collective members of the same species. Would
    "People liberation" make you happier? It's a grammatical atrocity,
    but I can live with it. 

    I used to think that "women's liberation" meant raising women's
    consciousness to the point where they understood they had been
    shut out of society's power structures.  Once enabled to see
    the power inside themselves, they would reach out and take
    their rightful place in the world.
    
    That was when I thought that the power structure of this society
    was something worth being part of.  I thought that even though
    it had left out a few important people, it was basically healthy.
    But the years have forced me to change my mind.

    The oppression of women, the job discrimination, the harrassment,
    the belittling, is only one aspect of a sick, violent,
    power-hungry society.  
    
    Children are hated and abused, and those who want to do something
    about it are branded anti-family.  Even the education system
    supports and propagates mental abuse, shame, humiliation. 
    
    Old people are discriminated against and those who want to do
    something about it are wasteful. 

    Blacks are still lynched and have crosses burned on their lawns
    and the people who want to do something about it are bleeding
    hearts.
    
    Gays and poor people and single mothers and single fathers
    and Hispanics and people in obsolete professions like linotype
    operators are discriminated against and the people who want
    to do something about it are demagogues and troublemakers at
    best, or more likely communist rabblerousers.

    The ambitious men and women who bought into the dress-for-success
    game have been tricked into trading their hearts, their families,
    their personal lives, their soul and their integrity, for power. 

    This whole society is sick, trapped in rigid stereotyped roles,
    often media-defined, that don't reflect how anybody of any sex,
    race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or profession
    really lives and feels.  It's becoming a whole complex of "thou
    shalt nots" both religious and social, and most of us pass our
    lives trying to do what we think we should, feel the way we think
    we should, trying to live up to everybody else's expectations, and
    wondering why we're so miserable. 
    
    I don't agree with the women's separatists -- I'm too heterosexual
    to be happy without sex with men -- but they've at least
    recognized that this present society does not allow them any
    meaningful liberation. 
    
    --bonnie    

    Yes, well, liberation is a process, remember.  And in order for
    the structure to be criticized, some previously ignored 
    voices have to empower themselves.  (And if self-liberation was easy,
    all psychoanalysts would be charlatans.)  If the active voices are
    criticized, it's only to be expected, since it's always turbulent
    on the front of change.  What to watch for is censorship.
    
    Not really quibbling, but it seems more that you agree with
    separatists, because you allow that their choice is valid, 
    if not the model you chose. 

    Re .63, Bonnie, I agree with everything you've said.  I simply think
    that in order to make all of society and all of humanity better
    - to liberate all of humanity - we need the women's rights activists
    working for women's rights (therefore we still need women's
    liberation), we need gay rights activists working for gay rights,
    we need black rights activists continuing the fight for black rights.
     We need all these people working on their own individual causes
    to help make the world a better place.  It's the people who don't
    have a cause we should worry about.  They're happy with things the
    way they are - which as you've said is far from perfect.
    
    Another aspect of my remark about needing women's liberation (which
    is also why we need black rights groups, and gay rights groups)
    is that in the past when white men who ran the country made things
    better they only made things better for themselves - such as the
    constitution when it was first written.  I think white men still
    run this country so if white men should decide to make living
    conditions better for "humanity" then women, blacks and gays need
    to make sure that the white men running things realize that the
    women, blacks and gays are part of "humanity".  The way things have
    been done in the past it looks like "humanity" means white men.
     That's what I meant.  I did not mean I only want things to be fair
    and just and better for women.  Of course, I would like to see this
    world a better place for everyone - even men.
    
    Lorna
    

    re: .63
    
    Bonnie, I'd hazard a guess that Lorna and Lisa's remarks were
    simply meant to highlight the fact that "liberation" movements
    of the past haven't always been as advertised.  F'rinstance, in
    the late '60's and '70's it became very clear to many black 
    women that the "Black Liberation" movement was, in reality, a
    "Black Male Liberation" movement.  I think many/most of us would
    agree that if it were truly all-inclusive, human liberation (what-
    ever that may be) is a desirable goal.
    
    One thing puzzles me a bit.  Why do you feel that people who's jobs
    become obsolete are discriminated against?  To be sure, time and
    technology tend to make some jobs obsolete and other ones "hot",
    but I don't see that as "unfair".  And while I think that this
    country could do more than it does to re-skill it's workforce, I
    also think that people in displaced jobs could do more for themselves.
    
    Before I get flamed to a crisp, I should add that I'm currently
    a Human Resource Consultant and one of my major efforts for last
    year was to co-author our plant's (successful) $2.3M re-skilling
    proposal.  One of my (and my colleagues') major headaches for *this*
    year is getting people to take advantage of the opportunities that
    now exist; a surprising number of them take the position of "I've
    been doing this job for "nn" years and I don't *want* to learn something
    new."
    
    Steve
    

    re: .65 
    
    I agree with your point about white men telling us, and the other
    oppressed groups, what's good for humanity.  Certainly there's a
    tendency for the white men to take over control of everything. 

    But a lot of white men are supporting the power structure because
    they think they are benefiting from it when in fact they, too, are
    being repressed by it. While the power structure is controlled by
    white men, not all white men are part of the power structure.  I
    think this is a major contributing factor to domestic violence --
    men who bought into the American myth and found out it was rotten
    take out their anger, disappointment, grief, and rage on the
    handiest thing that's more powerless than they are. 

    If we could make the average man see that he is not benefitting
    from helping maintain the status quo, indeed that he's being
    hurt by sexism . . . but I dream.  

    A bunch of disparate groups each working for its own benefit
    will do some good, but we could do so much more if we were
    united for a common goal.
    
    And when our efforts are fragmented in groups that are all looking
    to themselves, there's a tendency to forget that you want to
    change the entire structure and to instead just swap dictators --
    to put, for example, blacks or gay women or Armenian truck drivers
    on top and the white men underneath.
    
    Separatism doesn't improve life for anyone except those who leave.
    And I don't believe in gratuitious killing, so armed revolution is
    out.  Your way at least produces some progress.
    
    --bonnie

    It's great to hear about DEC doing something about reskilling, and
    it's something I've always admired.  However, many industries do
    not do anything at all.  Defense and automobile manufacturing concerns
    come to my mind as gargantuan examples.  
    
    I've had close experience with this, having
    been born and raised a NASA brat...and in 1968 my father lost his
    job as part of the industry wide RIF, a debilitating experience
    from which he never completely recovered.  Losing your career at
    40 with no hope of replacing it with a similar job is tougher than
    you can imagine.  When you don't have any money, you can't move.
    Even if you can move, the jobs you can find may require physical
    skills you could have developed 20 years ago, but you're less resilient
    now--it's the way humans are built.  There were no safety nets for
    any of those caught in the RIF 20 years ago, and many standard
    procedures for relocation or termination were ignored in the interests
    of saving money.  While I agree that many people grow resistant
    to change, for many when their job vanishes, there aren't any
    alternatives.  It's easy to speculate on how people can help themselves
    until you find yourself caught in the flood of the unemployed.
    Yes, many people do recover, and I'm always glad to hear their voices.
    But remember that how we ignore the homeless and never hear their
    stories of failure despite effort.

    re: .68
    
    Well, said, Lisa.  And point taken; one thing I need to remember
    from time to time that, relatively speaking, DEC is the land of
    milk and honey.  And I personally have always been in a kind of
    job's-always-changing mode.  Thanks for the reminder.
    
    Steve
    

    No, no, no: fragmentation only occurs when each group ignores the
    others.  Perhaps we have some misunderstanding about the word
    "separatist" and what each other means by it.  Strength is found
    by looking for our own selves and sharing it with each other.
    That's more what I meant--that you look at yourself and be open
    to differences from what the mainstream may be telling you.
    
    It's worse than just taking out frustration on the handiest thing
    --they've been told that those battered wives were the right thing
    to take it out on.  Sometimes it's a familial example, but we really
    can't shut our eyes to the cultural affirmation of violence against
    a woman.  60 minutes some weeks ago had a section on battering women,
    and they showed a clip from the movie "Footloose" in which a young
    woman is punched in the face until she's on the ground bleeding.
    This movie was widely shown and received no condemnations from popular
    screen critics, and one can only deduce from this that it was because
    it fits within our US-cultural model of acceptable behavior.  This
    sort of thing became so prevalent that I stopped my habit of attending
    first-run movies and in general stopped going to see most mainstream
    movies because I didn't want this sickening surprise.  In this sense,
    I separated myself from my peers, so that I could think about women
    and men in a positive manner and not feel defeatist about violence
    against women.
    
    Last night I was in my favorite bookstore.  There's a women's studies
    section there, but no men's studies.  It's long past time.  Gatsby
    gets shot, although Daisy and Tom lived on in their fashion--people
    have been writing about the failure of the american dream for awhile.
    But I'm not the one to start a men's studies.
    
    Someone I met last night complained that men have now become accepted
    experts at women's voices again, that she sees time and time again,
    posts advertising for someone with strong feminist studies background
    and it ends up being given to a man.  While I acknowlege the validity
    of many men's feminism, women still have to speak for themselves
    a majority of the time.  We haven't gotten anywhere if white males 
    end up speaking for all of us again.
    
    Perhaps humanist is the better word, but it has to let us each
    celebrate our differences and our similarities with others of our
    gender and race.  Denying our differences will just let those who've
    been brought up already to be the loudest to continue to overwhelm.

    re: .67
    
    Steve, I meant no implicit criticism of retraining programs.  I'm
    sure you're doing the best you can, and if DEC can come up with
    a program that works, I'll be in the front row applauding you. 
    Let me explain what I did mean.
    
    When I was in high school, my father decided he didn't want to be an
    auto mechanic the rest of his life.  He enjoyed working with cars, but
    the innards were changing so much, what with electronic ignitions and
    computerized fuel injection and all, that he couldn't really do a good
    job with them any more, and it was hard to get training to keep up with
    the younger men who were starting out on the new cars.
    
    Since he had always been interested in and good at electronics,
    he trained as a radio engineer, finished the schooling near the
    top of his class, passed the first-class radio engineer's licensing
    exam with a very high score, and proceeded to interview with about
    a dozen radio stations for a job. 
    
    wasn't just the lack of experience, or directly his age.  It seemed
    to be that a man who wanted to change his career direction was seen
    as fickle, lacking in dedication.  Who knows, he might want to change
    his mind again in another 20 years?
    
    That's what I meant by discrimination against people whose careers
    have been obsoleted by technology.  (Note that I'm not opposed to
    changes -- far from it!  I think technology can help make a better
    life for all of us.  But not this way!)
    
    And I can't blame the people you're retraining for not believing
    they're going to have any better luck finding a new job.
    
    --bonnie

I don't know if this was mentioned or not; the furthest I got in this note
was discussions on phys. ed. classes, and then my batch job choked... (?):

Last night, we saw a show on NOVA about breast cancer.  It discussed possible
causes, treatments, and preventive actions.  I assume it will be rebroadcast
this weekend (it usually is rebroadcast, which is why I'm writing this pointer
to it; check your listings).  This is in the Boston area, Channel 2 (PBS).
They talked about things like body fat, dietary fat, and exercise.

Jill

    Re: .72
    
    There was a small story on the news recently about the death rate
    from breast cancer increasing dramatically the past few years. 
    It sounded like they had no idea why.  A passing mention was made of
    the prevalence of less mutilating forms of surgery increasing at the
    same time, but it wasn't clear if this was known to be a causitive
    agent or not.  (I thought they'd done studies that had shown the
    5-year survival rates were nearly identical?)  Anyone know any more
    about this?
    
    

    re: .71
    
    Like Lisa's, a good example, Bonnie.  And know that I felt no
    criticism of retraining - I was just having trouble figuring
    out (through my own myopia) how the job-displaced were being
    discriminated against.  Having read your (and Lisa's), I can
    now "see" better.  Come to think of it, I can see a beautiful
    "catch-22":  "If you want to switch careers, you're fickle and
    we won't hire you; if you *don't* want to learn a new career, you're
    resistant to change and we won't hire you."
    
    Steve
    

    re: .74 --
    
    All too often, that's exactly how it works.  I imagine that a lot of
    the people you're working with are aware of the problem and pessimistic
    about the likelihood of having anything good come of all their effort.
    Why work to learn something that's never going to do you any good?
    
    But having someone who's sensitive to those issues (as it sounds
    like you are) can make all the difference in the world.  This is
    an important job for the individuals and for society as a whole.
    
    --bonnie

    The NOVA program (caught a snippet of it) also said that even with
    radical mastectomies, 50% of the patients died anyway, and showed
    the development of techniques using less and less surgery.

    I was under the impression (not from NOVA but from other reading)
    that the only major variable in the survival rate for breast cancer
    was how early it was detected.  For lumps under 1 cm., the survival
    rate is good no matter how it's treated; for lumps over 2.5 cm.
    the survival rate is very poor.  
    
    --bonnie

RE: .70

"60 minutes some weeks ago had a section on battering women, and they showed a
clip from the movie "Footloose" in which a young woman is punched in the face
until she's on the ground bleeding. This movie was widely shown and received no
condemnations from popular screen critics, and one can only deduce from this
that it was because it fits within our US-cultural model of acceptable
behavior."

When in "Footloose" does this happen?  Not everything depicted in a movie is
depicted as 'good'; there are role models for what is 'bad' as well as role
models for what is 'good'.

Jim. 

    Re: .78
    
    >When in "Footloose" does this happen?
    
    I think it's when Ariel is breaking up with her old boyfriend. 
    If I've got this right, then your point about 'bad' role models
    holds, since the guy was definitely the antagonist of the movie
    (and got trashed by the hero in the end, in the grand style of
    traditional Westerns).

    	RE: .79
    
    	> If I've got this right, then your point about 'bad' role
    	> models holds, since the guy was definitely the antagonist
    	> of the movie...
    
    	You do realize, of course, that not all teenagers identify
    	with the "heroes" of movies.  The scene in Footloose could
    	be telling *some* teenage boys (who may already feel rejected by
    	former girlfriends and who don't quite "fit" into the "hero" image
    	and/or wouldn't want to anyway) that the appropriate way to
    	deal with girlfriends who break up with them is to punch out
    	their lights and send them sprawling to the ground with faces
    	covered with blood (ESPECIALLY if they suspect that there are
    	male_rival_hero_types just *waiting* to step in as new love
    	interests.)

    Re: .80
    
    >You do realize, of course, that not all teenagers identify
    >with the "heroes" of movies.
    
    Sure.  I also realize that each individual has to screen inputs
    about "appropriate behavior" from several sources.  Hitting women
    because the guy in _Footloose_ did it is like killing people because
    Jason did it.  If a kid is at the point of choosing "anti-social"
    role models, then I suspect most of the damage has already been
    done.

    	RE:  .81
    
    	It's not *really* the same thing (comparing killing_people_after
    	_watching_Jason with the effects of having KIDS watch other
    	KIDS commit violent acts in movies.)

    	I personally know a man whose son quit his job and joined the
    	Army the *day after* he saw Rambo II (admitting to his father
    	that the only reason he decided to join the Army was for the
    	GLORY of being in combat and killing the enemy.)
    
    	There was also a case where children watched a Linda Blair movie
    	(where she was in a girls' reformatory or some such) and after
    	watching Linda get raped with a broomstick, they went out and
    	raped *another* young child in the identical way (a 6 year old
    	girl, if I remember correctly.)  As I recall, the rapists were
    	male *and* female (the eldest of which was something like 10
    	years old.)
    
    	I'm not trying to make a case for censorship, etc. (I'm not
    	at all sure where to draw the line on such things, even where
    	children are involved.)  I'm just saying that it has been my
    	understanding that children are more susceptible to certain
    	kinds of violent images that they see in movies and on TV
    	(especially where the violence is committed by one child against
    	another.)
    
    	In the case of the Rambo Kid, he was 19 years old (which is
    	close to the average age of soldiers in combat.)  I'm sure there
    	was a strong identification there for him (as he was willing
    	to admit himself.)
    
    	The children who committed the broomstick rape were so young
    	that I'm sure the rape was as much an act of violence (as opposed
    	to an act of sex) as any adult rape.  
    
    	Sure, the kids most likely had problems already.  However, if
    	I had produced the movie, I'd have a pretty rough time facing
    	myself after finding out that a film I made for profit ended
    	up causing the broomstick rape of a young child.
    
    	Veering off on an even FARTHUR tangent here -- isn't there a
    	Sean Penn movie coming out (or is it out?) about gang violence
    	that the police fear will set off significantly *more* of the
    	kind of gang violence that this movie portrays?  (Sean Penn
    	plays a cop in this movie, but police don't think for a minute
    	that any sort of regard for him will offset the effects of seeing
    	gang violence glorified on the big screen.)

    	Again, it won't matter in the least if the gangs are portrayed
    	as "bad guys."

    I hate to bring this up again, but isn't that what the rating system
    is about?  Don't parents have a responsiblity to guide their children
    in what they are watching?  If you take your children to a PG-13
    or R (not to mention X) rated movie, you have been warned that that
    some or most of the material is not suitable for children.  If it
    includes severe acts of violence (rape with a broomstick, kicking
    an ex-girlfriend until she is bloody), you have the responsibility
    to be sure that they understand that this is unacceptable behaviour.
    In regard to the Linda Blair movie, there were some positive social
    comentaries in it, as I recall.
    
    If adults choose to watch and make violent or sexual movies, that's
    their right under the law.  Because some people don't pay attention
    to what messages their children are getting and what values they
    are adopting is not sufficient grounds for sensorship.
    
    Elizabeth

    	RE: .83
    
    	The Linda Blair movie in question (with the broomstick rape)
    	was on network television (a "Made for TV movie" as I recall.)
    
    	I saw the movie myself when it first aired (which is why the
    	case of the *real life* broomstick rape caught my attention
    	when I saw it on ... 60 minutes or some other TV news program.)
    
    	Even upon first viewing, I thought the rape scene was gratuitous.
    	Linda was cornered in the bathroom by some other inmates (and
    	could just as easily have been slapped or pushed to get across
    	the idea that the inmate 'gang' was trying to intimidate her.)
    
    	The broomstick rape gave me chills (even though most of it was
    	"suggested" since they couldn't show an explicit scene on network
    	TV.)  As I recall, it was very, very clear what was happening
    	(and the terrorizing effect it had on the victim.)
    
    	In my opinion, it was unnecessary (especially for network TV.)

    also, movie ratings seem to be based on the slightest hints of sex
    or obscene language. killings, beatings, bombings, and suicides
    seem to have no effect on the ratings.
    
    liz

    Also, about a month ago on the 20/20 TV program, the problem of
    kids having access to some of the goriest, sexually violent movies
    around through video stores was examined.  At one point, they
    interviewed a group of mothers, many of whom thought their children
    were getting innocent horror movies from video stores, until they
    started really looking at the movies.  Some of the mothers were literally
    sick to their stomachs at what they saw.   It sounded like video
    stores have ways of getting around the rating system.
    
    Brenda

    	RE: .86
    
    	  Tell the whole story please, yes some of the parents
    	were upset. 20/20 also interviewed some of those kids
    	on what the movies did suggest to them and the reaction
    	was a BIG "NOTHING. That's so unreal." It seems the kids
    	are able to srt out alot more than most adults are willing
    	to give them credit for.

    .87: I was following the most recent flow of the discussion and
    responding to the
    note about parents censoring what their children see by paying
    attention to the ratings and suggested that that might not always be so
    easy.  As I recall, that was the thrust of the TV story and was
    how it was advertised.  The point seemed to be that most parents
    are unaware of what their kids have easy access to, and they assume
    that the horror section of the video store is filled with old
    Frankenstein types of movies.  Whether or not kids think it's a
    big deal is moving on to another thing. 
    

    When I was in junior high school, the standard response to adult
    inquiries about the things that we were most fascinated by was
    "Oh, that.  Boring".  A teacher caught me with a copy of Peyton
    Place inside the cover of what was supposed to be a French Dictionary
    (well, they were the same size!) and was ready to suspend me internally
    until I told her and the assistant principal that I had found
    it in the lunchroom, didn't understand what all the fuss was about,
    and thought it looked like a pretty boring book.
      
    I guess it still works...
    
    Holly

    There was a digression on Rudolf Steiner schools back in .52, .55,
    and .56.  I thought that the following discussion on physical
    education in Waldorf schools brings the digression rather neatly
    back into the main stream of the discussion. 
    
    This is a portion of an article by Dorothea Altgelt, the physical
    education teacher at the Pine Hill Waldorf School in Wilton, NH. It
    is a report on a physical education conference for North American
    Waldorf teachers.  The article is reprinted from the
    _Pine_Hill_Forum_. 

    	-Neil

    ========================================================================
    
    As teachers, we discussed the physical education curriculum in
    connection with the changing relationship to space of the incarnating
    child.  In an evening session with Hawthorne Valley School parents we
    shared some vivid pictures of the typical movements of the growing
    child, beginning with the young baby, who lives in the periphery.  Its
    first exploration of the space around it is motivated by an interest
    in something in its environment:  perhaps the oil bottle on the
    changing table, which it sees and tries to touch.  We looked at the
    preschooler, who is almost always running, a little ahead of himself,
    to explore what is around him.  In the early grades, the children live
    into the world around them, motivated by their interest in the world
    outside themselves.  This interest gives us our approach for the
    physical education program.  We bring fantasy to the movements, moving
    to rhymes, or we play games, using a picture or an image to lead into
    the different movements.  We let the children imitate us, without
    correcting them (as we would a teenager).  As the children grow older,
    we challenge them more and more, but the main tool is imagination.

    An example of a pictorial rhyme that takes third or fourth graders
    through a series of movements about lumberjacks was translated--or
    actually newly cast into English--for us by Jaimen during the
    conference:

	... To the woods, away, away,
	To start our work at break of day.

	Swing your axe, high and low,
	Cut by cut, blow by blow,
	Not too quick, not too slow,
	One more chop ... down it gooooes!

	Flashing teeth of sharpest steel
	Eat their way with burning zeal;
	To and fro the saw must chew
	Till the log is sawn clean through...

    And finally:

	To our homes we're on our way,
	Work well done at end of day!

    By the fifth grade, the children are very coordinated and can do almost
    anything.  They are like young Greeks, and we practice the five Greek
    exercises:  running, jumping, wrestling, and throwing the javelin and
    the discus.  As they approach puberty, they become more and more clumsy
    and heavy and are much more conscious of their movements.  We challenge
    their muscular capacities and abilities to the utmost.  (We challenge
    them, for example, through the difficulty of juggling.)  Now we teach
    them conscious skills and techniques.

    As students move on into the high school, it becomes important in our
    physical education classes to give them a sense for the freedom of the
    human being.  Learning to throw the javelin precisely, or the discus so
    that it flies beautifully and far, working on skills in basketball,
    baseball, volleyball, or fencing -- these are some of the activities
    appropriate for high school students. ...