The old joke goes like this. A kid goes up to his old gym teacher and asks him a simple question. Who’s the smartest teacher in the school? Crafty old man that he is, the gym teacher flips the question on the student. Which teacher do you think is the smartest? The kid takes a moment to think and then says,
“The AP calculus teacher?”
“Nope.”
“The AP English Teacher?
“Nope.”
“How about the AP Biology Teacher?”
“Nope.”
“Then who is it?!?”
The ole gym teacher gives the kid a wink and says, “It’s me kid. I’m the smartest teacher in the school. Because I get paid exactly the same as all those other teachers you just said and I play dodgeball all day.”
It certainly gave me a chuckle the first time I heard it…so I’ll forgive you if you laugh, but after 7 years of fighting the good fight as a P.E. teacher you’ll have to forgive me if the joke rings a little hollow.
School Teacher Hierarchy
When it comes to the totem pole of importance in education, at the tippity top you have the English teacher. In education, your ability to read, write, speak, and persuade hold the highest levels of importance, and therefore the responsibilities of the English teacher reflect their importance. If your school has poor reading comprehension and writing scores, the principal’s head usually rolls.
After the English teacher, there’s a second way tie between the history teachers, the science teachers, and the math teachers. In these subjects students must execute their reading comprehension skills and logical reasoning in more precise areas of study. These teachers represent core areas of study and also must get their students to pass state tests.
As your gaze continues to drop down the totem pole you’ll begin to see the heads of elective teachers. Music, art, psychology, sociology, business, and a million different possible subjects that arise when a school has the budget to support them. Those teachers' importance comes down to how well they teach their programs, and how much buy-in they get from the student body.
Then there’s P.E…which every one knows as “gym.” It’s kinda like this yucky sweaty thing that people know is a requirement but they really wish it wasn’t. I think it’s safe to say the gym teacher’s head is on the bottom of the totem pole. I betcha you can’t even say the words gym teacher without performing a smidge of an eye-roll.
This perception is proved with every single professional development meeting my school requires me to attend. I’ve learned numerous discussion protocols, reading comprehension activities, different classroom grouping strategies, numerous ways to break down a reading chapter, perspective training on how to watch a youtube video, how to think, pair, and share, and a million other fairly useless strategies for a P.E. teacher to consider. During these times I usually fantasize about meeting my gym crush at the beach and she happens to really like ultimate frisbee. Definitely will happen one day. Definitely.
I’d argue general society places the P.E. teacher fairly low on the prestige totem pole as well. There’s a game I play at bars when I talk to girls. Whenever they find out that I teach, they always ask me what I teach, and I always have them guess. Almost every time the first response is history - apparently I give off history vibes. The second guess is almost always English or science. No idea why, but that’s usually what they guess. The third is usually given apologetically, “are you a gym teacher?”
Look, I’m a fairly well muscled 200 pound male who writes a blog about fitness and enjoys wearing black t-shirts that shrink wrap around my shoulders. It’s not a hard guess. I assume they don’t choose P.E. first because they don’t want to embarrass me.
Baby, stereotype me.
I’m a P.E. Teacher.
I’m proud of that fact.
The Totem Pole Got the Heads Mixed Up
Here’s the deal. I laugh at both the school hierarchy and society's views on physical education, and I do so with enthusiasm.
In my class, KIDS GET TO MOVE!
Kids go to school and sit in chairs behind desks and have to try to stuff as much information as they can into their heads. But for one blessed forty-five minute period of the day, students are expected to be on their feet, off their phones, and push themselves to become comfortably uncomfortable.
Besides my emotional attachment to the P.E. teacher gig,
Here’s a quote John J. Ratey from Spark, The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain,
“Exercise spawns neurons, and the stimulation of environmental enrichment helps those cells survive. It turns out that moving our muscles produces proteins that travel through the bloodstream and into the brain, where they play pivotal roles in the mechanisms of our highest thought processes.”
P.E. Teacher translation: in every class you attend you’re trying to get information and skills to stick inside your brain cells, in my class we make the brain cells.
Here’s another quote from from Peter Attia’s book, “Outlive”
“I now consider exercise to be the most potent longevity “drug” in our arsenal, in terms of lifespan and healthspan. The data are unambiguous: exercise not only delays actual death but also prevents both cognitive and physical decline, better than any other intervention.”
P.E. Teacher translation: sure, English class teaches you how to read, comprehend, and argue, but my class teaches you how to live longer and enjoy that life.
As far as I can tell, the reputation of the P.E. teacher is a strange thing. It’s the black sheep subject of any school, and yet in our nation 39.6% of adults are considered obese, and another 31.6 are considered overweight. In America you’re way more likely to die from overconsumption than starvation.
The problem is so pervasive the body positive movement wants the “obese” label to apply to a higher percentage of body fat. I’m sure that’ll solve the myriad of health problems our country falls victim to.
The narrative of the sweaty yucky class that everyone is forced to take is in desperate need of a perception change, and administrations need to help push that narrative along.
For once, maybe classroom teachers should receive a professional development meeting on how to get students to move more during class. Rotating desk activities, gallery walks, and standing desks should be regular occurrences in the classroom.
Here’s a quote from Kelly Starrett’s Deskbound,
“The typical seated office worker has more musculoskeletal injuries than any other industry sector worker, including construction, metal industry, and transportation workers.”
Inactivity is crippling us from a brain standpoint, a musculoskeletal standpoint, and a longevity standpoint…
And yet most people still seem to wince when they learn I’m a gym teacher.
Reading, writing, arithmetic, science. I get it. They’re important. But let's add movement to that list.
It's arguably the most important.
If you’ve been enjoying the Substack and you’d like to directly contribute click the link! https://paypal.me/FitToTeach?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US
Shout out to top supporters
Casey
Lurie
Annamaria
Corey.b.black