Gym Class Nightmares

How my Physical Education experiences in K-12 school destroyed me

Most of you probably have horror stories about your middle school and high school Physical Education (P.E.) classes. How many of your experiences still cause you mental anguish, to this day?

Teachers who yelled or stared at kids’ bodies too much?

Generic sports activities that ignored your handicaps or insecurities?

“Alpha” mentalities from classmates who acted as though “winning” a stupid game of volleyball was a life-or-death proposition?

My own gym class stressors may have been unusual. When I was born, the umbilical cord was wrapped tightly around my neck. To this day, my mom theorizes that if our doctor hadn’t uncoiled it from my airway as quickly as he did, I might have suffered severe brain damage.

Whether that was or wasn’t a factor: I dealt with a unique set of “gym class nightmares” that may not be as unique as I assume they are.

Early Signs Foreshadowing (Anti-)Athletic Trauma

In Kindergarten, my P.E. experience started out pretty good. Mrs. Swenson led us in fun-yet-energetic activities that emphasized movement and vivacious play. But as the school year wore on, some of our drills became more competitive. This was when many of my classmates, who would go on to display their athletic gifts in the coming years, started to get big heads.

I’ll never forget, in the First Grade, when we had a substitute Phy Ed teacher who was giving us a taste of rudimentary gymnastics. I was one of the few students in our class who didn’t know how to do a somersault.

So he guided me through the process of doing a somersault, with all of my peers gathered around, watching. By “guided,” I mean he literally held onto and maneuvered my body through the mechanics that someone who could do a somersault on their own would experience.

I felt absolute terror, as the sky basically tumbled down underneath me. Plus, my pants slipped halfway down my butt.

I was absolutely humiliated.

Systemic Ableism Comes For Me!

What I didn’t realize, at the time, was how much of my modesty and self-consciousness was due to my undiagnosed autism. Very few other people seemed to pick up on it, either. This was obviously worsened by the lack of resources and research available for students with disabilities — and our parents or teachers — during the late-1980s.

One person who did seem to detect it was Mrs. Swenson. I distinctly remember one time, in the Third Grade, when we were running laps. Each time I passed by her, I asked her if we were done yet.

Obviously, from my point-of-view, I was tired and sweaty and just wanted class to be over. And I had no filter, so it probably came out of my mouth rather obnoxiously.

From Mrs. Swenson’s point-of-view, I’d imagine she was worried that I wouldn’t survive future P.E. classes. She may have been concerned that something as simple as running laps was taking its toll on me.

She assumed it was physiological, rather than psychological.

At some point, Mrs. Swenson privately told my parents that I would fail gym classes throughout my entire life if I didn’t go into an Adaptive Physical Education program. Essentially, “Special Ed for uncoordinated kids” — of which I was apparently one of their earliest guinea pigs.

I was placed under the one-on-one guardianship of an adaptive Phy Ed instructor who asked us to call her “Miss Denise.” She had a smarmy Brooklyn accent combined with a minor speech impediment presumably based near her tongue.

She was also really touchy-feely. Since most of her students had severe cognitive disabilities (“non-mainstreamed”), Miss Denise had this exasperating habit of talking down to all students as though we were preschoolers.

I never felt safe working with her. Call it paranoia, call it instinct. It was what it was.

But in the coming years, Miss Denise’s words and actions would drive my increasing aversion to physical activity, exercise, or any form of athletic leisure whatsoever.

Even more regrettably, I developed prejudices against the non-mainstreamed cognitively-impaired kids. This was because I would so often get grouped in with them for “special” field trips or activities. These excursions isolated me from the rest of my classmates, against my will.

They reminded me how I was different.

And, even worse…they clued my peers into the reality that I was different.

Add a Dash of Puberty to That Ableism

Throughout the Fourth and Fifth Grades, I continued to attend my weekly private sessions with Miss Denise where she coached me in athletic skills. Then, she would also be present once per week, in one of our regular Phy Ed classes.

The only reason she was there was to “help” me.

Her idea of “helping” was pretty much just cheering me on from the sidelines and loudly shouting words of encouragement at me. This drew even more attention to me — and to the fact that I was part of the lower tier of my classmates who had the poorest athletic abilities.

Except that I was getting “special” attention. The kids who were just clumsy, awkward, or bad at sports were able to blend in, to a greater degree than I could.

Combine this with the fact that I, as an autistic child, had severe difficulties making friends. Miss Denise was aware of this; but as far as the school board was concerned, her job was to improve my athletic skill.

Even if that meant putting her hands all over me, and making “innocent” comments about my body. As far as I knew, I had no power in this situation. I was completely at her mercy — and my only option was to go along with it.

Inching closer to puberty, the adults around me foresaw two imminent threats to my future functionality in Phy Ed classes.

First, my parents (especially my dad) were harping on me about learning how to take my first shower. I understand that they were doing this because they knew showers were required after middle school and high school Phy Ed classes, and they were trying to prepare me for it. They even nudged Miss Denise to talk with me about it, which disturbed me even more.

If I’d had older brothers in my life, they probably would have been able to teach me those habits, casually and organically. But I was the oldest child, and my only other sibling was my younger sister.

This meant that, as I turned nine and ten and eleven, I began to sweat more and more and more. In our grade school P.E., showers weren’t even available within the building.

As Sixth Grade drew closer, the onslaught of fear over learning how to shower became increasingly tenser within my brain and blood vessels.

But the second factor was this: I had always been averse to learning how to swim. My fear was due to a combination of being afraid of drowning plus feeling embarrassed about the idea of appearing in public wearing only swim trunks.

This meant that, every time our class went to the indoor pool throughout Fourth and Fifth Grades, I would be one of the kids sitting out and watching from the sidelines. But my parents and Miss Denise worried about me failing Phy Ed once swimming was a required unit throughout middle school and high school.

What Was at the Root of My Fears?

Let me just be clear about one thing: my problem was NOT with the act of showering naked in front of other boys. I am gay, and always have been. Even while closeted.

I would never have behaved in a sexually-aggressive manner toward my male classmates.

Rather, my actual fear was that I would get physically assaulted while in the showers. But I was too bashful to admit this aloud to anyone.

So the fact that my authoritarian, Traditionalist father kept bringing it up like a broken record only intensified my shame and anxiety.

Now, when it came to why I was terrified of swimming during class: it was a combination of my modesty in front of girls coupled with my fear of drowning coupled with how utterly humiliating it would have been for Miss Denise to have been there “cheering me on” in front of my classmates while we swam.

As a Sixth Grader, it was completely ridiculous that she had to be accompanying me in the gymnasium during Phy Ed every Thursday afternoon.

I ultimately acted like a “drama queen” with my guidance counselor, Mrs. Ferstenou, as this all came to a head; someone at the school (probably Mrs. Swenson) got me removed from Miss Denise’s custody for the rest of the year.

My “program” with her was over.

The compromise was that Mrs. Swenson would supervise me with private swimming lessons after school; when my class was swimming during Phy Ed, I’d temporarily join the other class with their activities in the weight room.

At the end of my Eighth Grade year, Miss Denise was quietly terminated by the school district under “mysterious” circumstances. Keep in mind: I hadn’t worked with her for two whole years, at this point.

I suspect our school board realized they potentially had a female pedophile under their employment, and they wanted to get out ahead of the problem before it could snowball (because women who abuse children are apparently **SO RARE**).

So they probably fired her under hush/hush circumstances, to prevent any public controversy or gossip from leaking throughout our small community of 3,600 people.

There is no doubt in my mind that Miss Denise was a covert sexual predator. Her habit of constantly putting her hands on my body, her verbally-suggestive comments to me, her repeated insistence on needing to see me wearing only swim trunks, and the fact that most of her students didn’t have the cognitive ability to resist potential abuse…

The confluence of these factors was too big of a coincidence.

My Skin, Pores, and Hair Follicles Rebel Against Me

Seventh Grade Phy Ed was still horrible. There were a ton of bullies in my class, both male and female, who never let me forget how freakish my lack of athletic ability made me. Also, by the Fourth Quarter of our Sixth Grade year, our entire school district had phased out showers for all students after gym class, probably because they were skittish about the early-1990s trend of ACLU lawyers coming after school districts that tried to enforce mandatory showers.

But at least I didn’t have Miss Denise barking in my ear once a week.

In the Eighth Grade, I joined Band. I played the French horn. Without telling anyone my reasoning, I made this decision because the band kids all had Phy Ed together. I was able to avoid a majority of bullies and lowlifes, that way.

Mrs. Mack, our Eighth Grade gym teacher, had privately remarked how much more relaxed she observed me as being. She even told Mrs. Ferstenou how glad she was that I’d joined Band, since she’d noticed it had created a friendlier social environment for me.

However, Mrs. Mack herself was tone-deaf in that she frequently forced us to find our own partners for gym activities. Since I had very few friends — and no one ever wanted to be partnered with the unathletic and effeminate boy — I always seemed to end up as the leftover kid with no partner in an odd-numbered class.

Mrs. Mack repeatedly insinuated that it was my own fault for not being able to find a partner. Not coincidentally, my quarterly grades in Eighth Grade Phy Ed slipped from an A to an A- to a B+ to a B by the end of the year.

On top of all of this, my severe cystic acne, which had sprouted midway through my Sixth Grade year — I suspect at least partially due to the trauma Miss Denise had created for me — made me jealous and resentful. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t have a relatively unblemished back and chest, even if my body couldn’t be as slender or athletic as those of other boys.

“It Gets Better”…But Not Fast Enough

In my freshman year of high school, I had Phy Ed during our Second Semester. It was still stressful and degrading. I still struggled due to my lack of athleticism. I was once again bullied by multiple classmates who loved reminding me of how much I sucked at everything.

At one point, that spring, one of my classmates sexually assaulted me right out in the open. Multiple times.

That’s a story for another day.

First Semester of my sophomore year, our Phy Ed teacher, Mr. Brandt, became the worst gym teacher I’d ever had (with the exception of Miss Denise). His personality was what you’d get if you merged Phil Robertson with a Democrat. He shamed me and other kids for being unable to do things such as pull-ups, lower-back flexibility, running-while-jump-roping, and swimming in deep water.

Our junior year gym teacher, Mr. Hornby (who’d also been my Seventh Grade gym teacher), on the other hand, was relaxed and congenial. However, that was partially due to the fact that each junior class got to vote on which Physical Education units they wanted to have during their upcoming academic year.

In college, my only kinesiology course was a weight-training class. Our instructor, Michael Collins, was friendly and personable. He graded us solely on attendance, participation, and effort.

Looking back on it, I wish I’d taken racquetball as a college P.E. course. It might have encouraged me to get more diverse — and more frequent — exercise. Plus, the men’s locker room at the McPhee Center had a plentiful and spacious communal shower room for students and community members to use after intensive recreational activities and for those who were on the university’s sports teams.

Making Exercise and Movement Enjoyable

Recently, Medium’s Antonia Malchik authored an excellent piece on where modern-day P.E. classes so often go wrong. When collaborating with educator Sherri Spelic, they’ve identified several flaws driven or enabled by gym teachers.

Among them, too much emphasis is placed on skill and performance over the act of motivating young people to value recreation and physical movement.

Furthermore, many gym class activities are outdated, microaggressive, and outright dangerous.

So what would my ideal gym class have looked like, during my K-12 education?

Well, off the top of my head:

• Teachers fostering healthy competition with negative consequences for bullying or bad sportsmanship
• Body-positivity: a curriculum where students would be taught that not all of their classmates can be an Adonis or a Persephone
• No grading based on skill or success; Mrs. Mack’s philosophy of grading mostly on effort should be the gold standard for gym teachers
• But don’t force students to pick their own partners, which is where Mrs. Mack failed miserably; the “find a partner” gaslighting does a number on the mindsets of us social outcasts
• Much better awareness of autism or other disabilities that can affect a kid’s coordination, agility, or speed (Miss Denise had absolutely no business working in that profession!)
• Diverse offerings and alternative/substitute activities: whether it’s swimming, rope-climbing, jump-roping, or leaping over hurdles — consider what deficiencies some students could have that cause them humiliation
• Better supervision in the showers; I actually don’t have any problem with showers being mandatory after gym class — but schools should staff more than one authority figure of the same sex to patrol the locker room and make sure nobody gets injured

That’s what I would go back and change, if I had the magical ability to do so.

What do you wish your gym teachers had done differently, when you were in school?

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