unpretty:

ceiphiedknight:

unpretty:

unpretty:

the older i get the weirder it is that not a single p.e. teacher in my entire school career was able to recognize the difference between “a child who doesn’t get enough exercise” and “a child with serious health problems impeding their ability to exercise in this particular way”

you know what else is weird? we had to do that fitness test every year but like… we never actually… learned how to do the things they tested us on…

like, now that i am an adult i have learned how to build up my strength so i can do pushups, but that seems like something they could have taught us? in school? in the class where they tested our ability to pushups? they never taught us how to work our way up to actually doing a chin-up, or whatever. even if i had just been “out-of-shape” (as a CHILD), nothing they did would have solved that problem. i did not learn how to exercise in a functional way until i was out of school and teaching myself, so i’m not sure what those p.e. classes were even intended to accomplish, really.

I have asthma, but I wasn’t diagnosed until I was like 30. Back in school, when I couldn’t run the mile because I couldn’t breathe, they just said I wasn’t trying hard enough, and that they were disappointed that I wasn’t taking it seriously.

In retrospect, how hard would it have been for a professional gym teacher to be like, “Hmmm you are not even remotely overweight, in fact you look strong and like you are in good shape, and yet you have to walk the mile because after about 10 steps you’re gasping. WHAT COULD THIS POSSIBLY MEAN?!”

They failed me. I was actually trying, but they weren’t.

i’ve had some people get mad at me for expecting too much of p.e. teachers or whatever, but if your job is to watch children run—like, you regularly spend your entire workday watching hundreds of children run—how do you pay so little attention that you don’t know what a child who can’t breathe looks like? how do you, over the course of your career, watch thousands of children run past you and not recognize a child who deviates dangerously from the norm? they can send kids to the principal’s office but not the nurse? they can send a kid home with a note about bad behavior but not with a note about possible health concerns? i have had complete strangers at the gym ask if i’m okay because my face is so red and my wheezing is so loud and there is so very obviously something wrong, but not a single p.e. teacher in my whole life expressed any concern about it. i don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that’s fucking weird.