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Exercise as a punishment in middle schoolers
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I believe that operant conditioning works. Make someone do something and associate bad feelings with it, they will want to avoid it. I use exercise as a way of bonding with my kids. I do some running and footwork drills with them and then we play some active games. I take the time to help shape their characters and develop mental toughness and confidence in them. They LOVE when dad asks if they want to go work out. If I heard a gym teacher was using exercise as a form of punishment I would definitely have some words with them. Sure, get kids to listen, but always consider the message you're sending to the subconscious.4
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They were not being good sports and were cheating in their game. Personally I think that rather than saying "you have to do 30sec wall sit and if anyone falls we restart" as a punishment (which they are doing, according to what I have been told) why not teach them WHY sportsmanship is important when playing on a team?
I'm a former middle school teach with a M.Ed. and a two sport school coach I have two things...children generally have their moral compos set in their heads by their parents and by the age of 5-6. School is an academic environment that cannot, in the little time a teach may have with a child, undo what has been ingrained in their heads by the people most influential in their life.
By the age of 11, children KNOW "cheating" is wrong, weather in a game or in the classroom. That GYM teacher cannot teach sportsmanship. At that age, it is a moral choice. Peer pressure, however, can get children to do amazing things. I applaud that GYM teacher...because he/she is using the most valuable asset in the classroom...and the GYM is a classroom. He/She is using the power of peer pressure put upon those doing wrong by those doing right to fix themselves.9 -
I agree with most of the above posters...to me, it seems like a completely appropriate punishment for a gym class. If they cannot behave doing the "fun" activities, then having them do the "boring" exercises as punishment seems logical.
We're not talking kids forced to run laps until they vomit because their math homework was late, here. Just the removal of the privilege of playing games as exercise in favour of something less entertaining and more like work.4 -
BTW,
SHAPamerica.org is just one organization and not the policy every athletic department, school or intermural program all over America.
You wrote that it states: " Examples of the inappropriate use of physical activity include:
Withholding physical education class or recess time for students to complete unfinished
school work or as a consequence for misbehavior"
I am not only a former middle school teacher but the parent of a 9yo with poor classroom work ethics. Situations with his biological mother in his formable years put his head on sideways. He has tested exceptionally intellectually gifted...and we work very hard with his teacher to keep him learning. His future can be amazing.
We, his teacher, school, his Dad and I, all subscribe to withholding recess time to complete unfinished school work. He was "recessing" in the classroom when he should have been working on school work. Recess is an earned reward not an entitlement.
I am blessed that the teacher is willing to give up her time for him and the idea that he is entitled to recess outside the classroom when he chooses to not meet obligations is outrageous. He makes that choice and he lives by his choice. Exactly when...if not at this young age, should he be learning responsibilities for his actions? The rules are defined...he knows them...he is not going to get a reward for breaking the rules.
Like a previous poster stated...these kids are not made to exercise until they vomit nor is my son, missing recess to do math a science work going to make him vomit. It may however, teach him responsibility for his actions and decisions...or should that wait until it morphs into a more serious crime?
Honestly...this idea of ENTITLEMENTS is just ridicules.5 -
NorthCascades wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »
See Jruzer's comment after yours - I was in the same boat as him...
I'm sorry to hear that.
I guess I can't imagine not wanting to ski as an adult because a gym teacher made me do push-ups when I was a child.
Coincidentally, learning to ski was one of the things that got me more into exercising. But that was in spite of my education, not because of it.1 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »What in what the OP said makes you think this is some sort of permanent change to the ciriculum?
From the OP:My daughter came home the other day (11yrs old, 6th grade) and said that since they didn't follow the rules Friday last week in gym they are only going to be doing exercises--bodyweight stuff--for the rest of the year or until they can prove they can listen and follow rules.
I agree it's unlikely that the punishment would actually last all year, and said so upthread. Honestly I'm responding more to the myriad posters on this thread who seem to think this is totally fine. And since OP asked for opinions, I'm offering and sticking to mine. It's NOT OK.0 -
rheddmobile wrote: »
What "important parts"? There's no such thing, or at least there wasn't at my school. Exercise would at least have been useful. Learning the rules of volleyball? Not important.
If that's the case, then to hell with PE.0 -
I'm going to reply here and then stop because I do have to get to work...
Possibly. You are forming an opinion based upon hearsay and inserting a great deal of confirmation bias based upon a personal negative experience.
I agree that this is based on hearsay, but that's all the information I have. I did note above that I would be in contact with the teacher. And my personal experience is all I have to go on, I'm afraid. But I am also a parent of 4 sons and a Cub Scout leader, so I actually do have some experience in dealing with rowdy, misbehaving kids. I will also add that there seems to be plenty of confirmation bias to go around here.My 6th grade track coach corrected me for slacking off. I spent the next two weeks running events I had little to no experience in. Sure I was angry at first, but accepted responsibility for my actions. Going through this process was a tremendous learning experience.
It's all how you interpret and learn from the event.
I note that this is a coach in a voluntary sport. Not a forced educational process.
Nope - PE coach as part of the mandatory curriculum.
Note that this resulted with the coach suggesting that I try out for the track team after this.
I stand corrected. It sounds like you had a good relationship with your coach.0 -
I'm going to reply here and then stop because I do have to get to work...
Possibly. You are forming an opinion based upon hearsay and inserting a great deal of confirmation bias based upon a personal negative experience.
I agree that this is based on hearsay, but that's all the information I have. I did note above that I would be in contact with the teacher. And my personal experience is all I have to go on, I'm afraid. But I am also a parent of 4 sons and a Cub Scout leader, so I actually do have some experience in dealing with rowdy, misbehaving kids. I will also add that there seems to be plenty of confirmation bias to go around here.My 6th grade track coach corrected me for slacking off. I spent the next two weeks running events I had little to no experience in. Sure I was angry at first, but accepted responsibility for my actions. Going through this process was a tremendous learning experience.
It's all how you interpret and learn from the event.
I note that this is a coach in a voluntary sport. Not a forced educational process.
Nope - PE coach as part of the mandatory curriculum.
Note that this resulted with the coach suggesting that I try out for the track team after this.
I stand corrected. It sounds like you had a good relationship with your coach.
Oh I hated the man during this. I hated PE prior to this and was the class clown. Point is he challenged me to be better than I was. I never would have tried out for sports had it not been for this man.
I believe this has far more to do with the "sales pitch" of the coach. The goal is reaching students and this will take multiple attempts to reach kids. Some will be on board immediately, some need tough love, others a more gentle approach. There is nothing gained by lowering expectations.1 -
lisawolfinger wrote: »BTW,
SHAPamerica.org is just one organization and not the policy every athletic department, school or intermural program all over America.
You wrote that it states: " Examples of the inappropriate use of physical activity include:
Withholding physical education class or recess time for students to complete unfinished
school work or as a consequence for misbehavior"
I am not only a former middle school teacher but the parent of a 9yo with poor classroom work ethics. Situations with his biological mother in his formable years put his head on sideways. He has tested exceptionally intellectually gifted...and we work very hard with his teacher to keep him learning. His future can be amazing.
We, his teacher, school, his Dad and I, all subscribe to withholding recess time to complete unfinished school work. He was "recessing" in the classroom when he should have been working on school work. Recess is an earned reward not an entitlement.
I am blessed that the teacher is willing to give up her time for him and the idea that he is entitled to recess outside the classroom when he chooses to not meet obligations is outrageous. He makes that choice and he lives by his choice. Exactly when...if not at this young age, should he be learning responsibilities for his actions? The rules are defined...he knows them...he is not going to get a reward for breaking the rules.
Like a previous poster stated...these kids are not made to exercise until they vomit nor is my son, missing recess to do math a science work going to make him vomit. It may however, teach him responsibility for his actions and decisions...or should that wait until it morphs into a more serious crime?
Honestly...this idea of ENTITLEMENTS is just ridicules.
Who is talking about entitlements? I'm not. Our 11 yo often has to stay in for recess because he has work to make up. I have no issue with that.
But for crying out loud, if you're going to have gym class, have gym class. If you have mandatory exercise hour instead of PE, fire the PE teacher and get an hourly supervisor who can watch the kids do burpees.2 -
how is doing calisthenics not physical education? because that is essentially what push-ups/sit-ups etc are...1
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Aaron_K123 wrote: »What in what the OP said makes you think this is some sort of permanent change to the ciriculum?
From the OP:My daughter came home the other day (11yrs old, 6th grade) and said that since they didn't follow the rules Friday last week in gym they are only going to be doing exercises--bodyweight stuff--for the rest of the year or until they can prove they can listen and follow rules.
I agree it's unlikely that the punishment would actually last all year, and said so upthread. Honestly I'm responding more to the myriad posters on this thread who seem to think this is totally fine. And since OP asked for opinions, I'm offering and sticking to mine. It's NOT OK.
I mean I did read what the OP said but I am capable of reading context as well. I think we both know that the coach said this as a way of saying hey if you want to do X then what you need to do is listen and follow the rules. Shape up or ship out. That the coach is going to then instruct them on what to do to be in compliance with the rules and then they are going to go back to doing X. It is unfathomably unlikely that the coach's actual plan is to have them do bodyweight exercises for the rest of the year. Let us be realistic and not talk in terms of theoretical absolutes.
If you want to know my opinion on whether or not a single infraction by a group of people should result in a total change to the curriculum of a course for an entire year for the entire class then no I don't think that should happen. I also don't think that is going to happen so I'm not going to react to it as if it was going to happen. That said if I told my kid eat your vegetables or you are never going to get ice-cream again I would not expect to have child-protective services bust down my door to take my kid away because I was threatening them with an unreasonable punishment. Do this or you aren't going to be able to do this is a typical way of instructing a child.3 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »I have two children, currently young enough that they are not yet in school. When they do attend school I hope that the school they attend has teachers that are empowered with the ability to provide disciplinary action. They shouldn't be allowed to hit children or lock them in solitary but they certainly should be able to make them run some laps if they mouth off in gym class I mean come on.
I want my children to be resilient because the real world requires resilience. I want them to have discipline because being disciplined is how you become an effective adult. How are they going to become resilient if they aren't made to cope with situations that make them uncomfortable? How are they going to become disciplined if they cannot be punished for misbehavior? If there is an opportunity to discipline them for misbehavior in a way that is actually beneficial to their health while introducing a level of discomfort they then have to cope with then thumbs high up from me.
If we protect them all throughout school years from any sort of discomfort how are they going to survive the inevitable kick to the gut that real life will be giving them at some point. Are we protecting them or are we protecting ourselves because we don't like to see them uncomfortable or upset? Am I really that crazy?
Here's the last thing I'm going to say on this subject. To my mind, this discussion isn't about discipline, or teachers having authority in the classroom, or children being resilient, or protecting children from real-world consequences.
Who is saying that children should be "protect[ed] ... from any sort of discomfort" anyway? If you're claiming that I'm arguing this, then you are incorrect. It's maddening to me that I'm being interpreted this way. I listed multiple options for disciplining students, and one of my options was even to change the coursework for a few days! How would the options that I presented, including conferences, extra homework, and the like, count as "shielding them from situations that make them uncomfortable"? How did my listing multiple punishments somehow come to mean they "cannot be punished for their misbehavior"?
I've got 4 sons who are all fine young men, including 2 Eagle Scouts. We've dealt with many teachers and many situations. I don't think I've ever complained about discipline any teacher used on any of my sons.
This discussion is, as stated in the OP, should exercise be used as punishment? I still say no. It will make some children (not all, as many of you have pointed out) hate exercise. I've seen it in myself and in many of my friends and family. It's counterproductive toward the goal of making young people enjoy and appreciate exercise, and I doubt its efficacy as a punishment.4 -
i suspect a lot of it comes down to intangibles like the teacher's own attitude and the delivery of the message. my kid played baseball, so i've seen technically 'constructive' punishments handed out in a manner that was not backed by a constructive manner at all.
there's a huge difference between 'you're goofing off so do pushups to work out the energy' or 'you're throwing poorly so some scapular strength ought to help you with that' . . . and something that comes across to the kid as 'you're pissing me off so you have to suffer. physically.'
and i think the difference is quite real. it doesn't really work for me to say 'well, the outcome is positive [physically] so the tone is irrelevant'. the tone still counts and what the teacher intended is likely to come across regardless of what kind of gloss they paint on after the fact.
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Aaron_K123 wrote: »I have two children, currently young enough that they are not yet in school. When they do attend school I hope that the school they attend has teachers that are empowered with the ability to provide disciplinary action. They shouldn't be allowed to hit children or lock them in solitary but they certainly should be able to make them run some laps if they mouth off in gym class I mean come on.
I want my children to be resilient because the real world requires resilience. I want them to have discipline because being disciplined is how you become an effective adult. How are they going to become resilient if they aren't made to cope with situations that make them uncomfortable? How are they going to become disciplined if they cannot be punished for misbehavior? If there is an opportunity to discipline them for misbehavior in a way that is actually beneficial to their health while introducing a level of discomfort they then have to cope with then thumbs high up from me.
If we protect them all throughout school years from any sort of discomfort how are they going to survive the inevitable kick to the gut that real life will be giving them at some point. Are we protecting them or are we protecting ourselves because we don't like to see them uncomfortable or upset? Am I really that crazy?
Here's the last thing I'm going to say on this subject. To my mind, this discussion isn't about discipline, or teachers having authority in the classroom, or children being resilient, or protecting children from real-world consequences.
Who is saying that children should be "protect[ed] ... from any sort of discomfort" anyway? If you're claiming that I'm arguing this, then you are incorrect. It's maddening to me that I'm being interpreted this way. I listed multiple options for disciplining students, and one of my options was even to change the coursework for a few days! How would the options that I presented, including conferences, extra homework, and the like, count as "shielding them from situations that make them uncomfortable"? How did my listing multiple punishments somehow come to mean they "cannot be punished for their misbehavior"?
I've got 4 sons who are all fine young men, including 2 Eagle Scouts. We've dealt with many teachers and many situations. I don't think I've ever complained about discipline any teacher used on any of my sons.
This discussion is, as stated in the OP, should exercise be used as punishment? I still say no. It will make some children (not all, as many of you have pointed out) hate exercise. I've seen it in myself and in many of my friends and family. It's counterproductive toward the goal of making young people enjoy and appreciate exercise, and I doubt its efficacy as a punishment.
Alright fair enough I don't want to mischaracterize you and I certainly don't want to have some sort of parent-off about who has the better guiding principles for their children.
Out of curiosity if a student was goofing off in math class, passing notes...being disrespectful. Do you think it would be appropriate if the teacher took away their notepad that they were using for passing notes and put in front of them a pop-quiz of math problems and instructed the student to complete it by end of class? Or would you view that as inappropriately using math as punishment in a way that would turn the student away from math in the future?4 -
This isn't punishment, but a corrective and instructive measure. Military forces have this ingrained throughout their lives:
Not paying attention? 20 pushups
Last man in line? 20 pushups
Fall asleep in class? 20 pushups
My 9 year old son gets corrected for not paying attention in baseball and the team runs laps.
Punishment on the other hand incorporates an element of retribution.
Except that elementary school kids in gym class are not on a team and are not in the military. They are supposed to be getting educated along with participating in physical activity. This removes the education aspect in favor of a retributive measure. Athletic kids will do fine and probably will blow it off as easy, while the less athletic kids will be the ones who will find it miserable. Perhaps some of those kids will develop a distaste for exercise as a result. Maybe it will take them decades to develop a taste for it.
Ask me how I know.
Or maybe if they do some pushups and run some they will get better at those activities.1 -
Packerjohn wrote: »This isn't punishment, but a corrective and instructive measure. Military forces have this ingrained throughout their lives:
Not paying attention? 20 pushups
Last man in line? 20 pushups
Fall asleep in class? 20 pushups
My 9 year old son gets corrected for not paying attention in baseball and the team runs laps.
Punishment on the other hand incorporates an element of retribution.
Except that elementary school kids in gym class are not on a team and are not in the military. They are supposed to be getting educated along with participating in physical activity. This removes the education aspect in favor of a retributive measure. Athletic kids will do fine and probably will blow it off as easy, while the less athletic kids will be the ones who will find it miserable. Perhaps some of those kids will develop a distaste for exercise as a result. Maybe it will take them decades to develop a taste for it.
Ask me how I know.
Or maybe if they do some pushups and run some they will get better at those activities.
And I'd say that the educational aspect is "don't be cheating, disobedient brats and maybe you'll get to keep doing fun things"
I now blame my parents using chores as punishment for my hatred of housework. Alternatively, I could thank them for instilling in me the drive to be successful enough to be able to afford to pay someone else to do it for me?5 -
My daughter came home the other day (11yrs old, 6th grade) and said that since they didn't follow the rules Friday last week in gym they are only going to be doing exercises--bodyweight stuff--for the rest of the year or until they can prove they can listen and follow rules.
While I agree they need to be given some kind of repercussion for not following the rules I do not think that exercises as a "punishment" is the healthy way to go. Not that working out is bad for them but because they are being taught that working out is a punishment for being bad/not following the rules. With obesity issues all over I think it is better to foster a positive relationship with exercising, not a negative one.
What do you think about using exercising in school PE class as a punishment? Any alternatives you recommend instead if you don't agree with it?
I notice that you don't say that your daughter SAID that this was a punishment. And I'm not sure that it is. Somewhere in the thread there was some mention of cheating being involved? It makes sense to me - if the students are going to cheat, that problem can be solved by removing the competition. No games? No cheating! Tadah!
And beyond that, if they're using equipment - especially if they're throwing things! - students not listening / not following instructions can create a safety hazard. Obviously, given the amount of moving around even with bodyweight exercises, students still need to pay attention and follow directions. And according to what you say your daughter told you, if they do, they can earn back the privilege of doing other activities.
I don't agree with using exercise - or any academic learning opportunity - as punishment. I'm just not sure that's what's actually happening here.6 -
As to the question of whether this will turn children away from exercise forever, here's a good read:
https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/phys-ed-do-our-genes-influence-our-desire-to-exercise/
Is the urge to exercise bred in our bones? That’s the intriguing question that European researchers recently set out to examine by looking at the activity habits of 37,051 sets of twins. Twins are popular with geneticists, because they provide a neat statistical model for determining whether a behavior is influenced by genetics or exclusively by environment. Identical twins share 100 percent of their genome, fraternal twins share 50 percent. All twin pairs, if raised together, share approximately the same early environment. So if a behavior is more common between identical twins than between fraternal twins, it is presumably being directed to some degree by genes.
In the study, scientists looked at the decision to exercise or not. They turned to survey data covering twin pairs ages 19 to 40 in Australia, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Although the researchers set a very loose standard of one hour per week of light jogging or an equivalent activity to classify someone as an ‘‘exerciser,’’ only about 44 percent of the males and 35 percent of the females met the standard. Across the board, however, the identical-twin pairs were more likely to share an exercise pattern than the fraternal twins.
I ride a bike most of the year and ski cross country in the winter because I find these things enjoyable. That's why a lot of runners run. I think people who are drawn to exercise will still do it regardless of what happened in school, at least for the most part.0 -
I think what is happening there is over the line. Kids need team building fun activity while being exercise at the same time. A little bodyweight stuff to teach is fine but only that doesn't seem good to help foster a love of fitness for kids. Let's be honest, most kids may not find pushups and planks to be fun.
It's one thing to say "Hey you didn't stop throwing balls when I said so so you're gonna run an extra lap or 2" and a whole other to say "Only bodyweight exercises for the rest of the year. No more tag, kickball, or volleyball."
ETA: an 'extra lap' for not listening during P.E was typical in my grade school years. No one seemed traumatized over running around the gym an extra time. I don't see the problem with it now unless a kid has asthma.3
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