School PE lessons, children made to pick teams, disgusting or what

[DistingusedSocialCommentator]

I've just read a thread by an FM here asking if "schools were getting children to choose teams" and FM felt it was "old-fashioned"

Schools bang on about inclusion/fairness/caring/MH well-being, etc etc

FFS (sorry about my language) how the F does a child feel when they are the group of children who are almost the last ones to be picked???

What ruddy clowns at schools still allow this disgusting and ignorant method of choosing teams?? Are you not ruddy aware that this method of choosing teams can and does affect children's MH and can scar them for like

Any teachers here care to comment, or justify this ludicrously pathetic and ancient method of hosing teams??

does it go in your child's school or one you work in? If so, have you pulled up the culprits?

AIBU to believe this method of choosing teams is outdated and harmful to many of our DC?

Tomorrow, I will get on to the papers/radio and tv stations to outlaw this crass method of choosing teams in PE and other settings in schools.

Snowflakes are generally a result of being spoilt and pampered and are usually quite entitled people, that's very different to being belittled or sidelined. Resilience isn't built by treating people badly, resilience is built by strength. Very, very different things

Tone it down?

tell that to the kid who is physically sick the night before PE as they’re so stressed and worried about being embarrassed about this.

The irony of the author of this hyperbolic post accusing others of melodrama 🙄

Why are those situations hyperbole? They’re playing out as we speak.

How very last century.

It can't be educationally justified.

I was rarely picked - rugby needed 30 lads. 30+ in the group. The spares were sent on a road run, like a cross country but on country lanes.

Supposed to go round twice - we did it once and stopped off at a friends house for a cup of tea, sat in barns. To be honest it was preferable.

A school doing that today would have a 20 minute OFSTED. Unsatisfactory.

Those who aren't picked can have failure stamped on them. Every child needs to experience some public success.

Disagree. If someone is being reminded on a regular basis that they're 'last', hopeless or disliked, that would be soul destroying - especially if that person is young.

Thanks for that unnecessary analysis! No, Im actually bad at team sports as well as team work. Other people drain me so I prefer doing stuff alone

I’m interested to know what situations they think will develop resilience in our mentally frail young people if not something like this..? Can anyone say

It honestly genuinely wasn’t being picked last that made me think I was crap at team sports. It was being crap at team sports that made me think that. It may have been something to do with having undiagnosed short-sightedness. But ultimately I didn’t have the required skills.

Don’t get me wrong - PE lessons were horrible, and made me feel useless. But it was the actual sport experience that did that. Not the team picking at the start. I barely remember the team picking, but the torture of ice cold netball is etched on my memory!

Is it the team selection that your child dislikes, or the actual sport? If your child was picked first, by the teacher, would he/she enjoy PE?

It didn’t stress me being picked close to last, it stressed out whoever was forced to pick me as I’d retaliate by refusing to put any effort in and would drag the team down 😂

You think kids themselves don’t discuss this anyway??

Great for you that there were things you excelled at.

You do realise that there are plenty of kids who aren’t particularly good at anything, so don’t have that to buffer them against being publicly marked out as the shittest by their peers, yet still have to go through that weekly humiliation?

As pp said. You don’t build people up by making them feel crap. If that were true, being bullied at work would be a positive life experience, instead of something that leads to people going off work with stress and leaving jobs, with their confidence in tatters. People are built up and gain resilience by doing stuff well and being recognized for it.

As your post illustrates. You could brush off being picked last as your resilience was built by other stuff you excelled at. Lots of kids don’t have that though.

I can honestly say I have not one single memory of kids doing this at school.

@Towerofsong I was exactly the same! In fact I used to love being picked last for teams as not only was I useless anyway I utterly hated PE and usually got to sit on the sidelines for the full lesson as there were too many of us for just two teams

Doing well at something and being recognised by others for that, being valued and liked by others. Positive experiences.

It’s actually having positive experiences of acheiving and being valued and accepted in a group that builds the internal resources that gives people resilience to cope with adversity.

Positive experiences don’t built resilience. If that were the case todays kids would be incredibly resilient - they are not.

Not in front of the entire class with everyone watching and the teacher encouraging it, no.

They absolutely do.its incredible you don’t recognize this. Acheiving builds resilience. Recognition builds resilience.

Regularly build belittled and told you are the shittest, does not build resilience. It destroys self belief.

This is why staff who are bullied lose confidence and staff who are recognized and praised for what they do build the confidence to cope if a project does not go so well. They have that store of achievement and recognition to fall back on.

I’m not convinced you’re asking this in good faith, but whenever I’ve done teacher training on building resilience, encouraging peers to publicly rank one another - whether on ability or popularity - is never recommended, oddly enough.

I was shit at PE at school. I also wasn't an especially popular kid with my peers. I was always one of the last to be picked when it came to team games in PE or even classroom activities. Has it left me scarred for life? Nope. If anything it made me more resilient.

They still did this in late 80’s when I was at school. For some children it was horrendous and soul destroying, other kids who just weren’t good at sport perhaps weren’t so bothered but I think it depends why you were left till last. I was left till last because no one wanted me on their team, I was bullied by so many people at school and they were horrible the kids who tried to help were then targeted so I was left alone. So standing there on my own whilst the person who had no choice said my name in a horrible way and the rest of the team groaned didn’t do much for my already battered self esteem and confidence. This is all whilst the bloody pe teacher stands there and watches and does and says nothing.

I was the kid who wasn’t good at anything, i didn’t have theatre or dance to fall back on, it’s great for those that say it didn’t affect them, great for you honestly but some empathy for those of us who it did upset and affect I just remember the comments when I joined my ‘team’ or being left to stand there on my own as the rest of the class sniggered at me not being chosen again. And this was every week in pe. It’s also nothing to do with resilience I was a little girl, a tiny little thing who had very sticky out teeth (goofy - one of many names I was called) and dyslexia so I struggled at school. People who say people are snowflakes have no idea what some people have been through and lucky them I guess!!!

I attended school decades ago, and this was always the way it was done.

We all survived.🙄

I agree you OP. It’s outdated and cruel.

I grew up in the 70s and 80s and was always one of the last to be picked. I was reasonable at netball and hockey but that didn’t matter. It was just another excuse for the mean kids to be mean.

My son isn’t sporty and this definitely still went on at primary 8-10 years ago. Luckily he was quite popular with some of the kids so got a mixed response depending on who was picking.

@DecayedStrumpet I was either last to be picked and sat on the sidelines or I had a fake note to get out of PE. I can (and do) now run faster and further aged 39 than I did at 15!

I also had a massive clash of personality with my PE teacher to the point where she told me I didn’t belong in that school (but in an even worse one if that was possible) - getting the best exam results in my year was then a massive up yours 🤣