Many people hated physical education class (and still do)

This doesn’t come as a surprise to those of us (including this blogger) who were usually the last ones picked to play on teams during Phys Ed class. It doesn’t sound as though much has changed in the teaching of Phys Ed since George Leonard’s article Why Johnny Can’t Run ( a chapter adapted from his book The Ultimate Athlete) appeared in the August 1975 issue of The Atlantic Monthly (pp. 55-60). I quit taking Phys Ed after Grade 10 in the first half of 1976, but my last Phys Ed teacher, Rick Capyk, was the best I had in that subject, because he had some sympathy for the non-jocks among us. He came up with the idea of intramural leagues in various sports where we could pick our own teams, with one level of play for the jocks, and another level for the rest of us (my junior high math teacher, Mr. Farrelly, had done a similar thing for some of us a couple of years earlier). I started a flag football team, and we had a lot of fun. I have no idea if such intramural leagues still exist, but the idea is still worth trying.

Gym class makes grown-ups shun sports

Bad memories of phys-ed linked to inactive lifestyles

By Elise Stolte, edmontonjournal.com
January 7, 2010

EDMONTON — The reason many adults don't play sports may be related to the humiliation they faced as kids in gym class, when they couldn't climb a rope with everyone watching.

That might seem obvious, but University of Alberta researcher Billy Strean said he was shocked by the painful, visceral reactions he got when he interviewed people about their gym teachers even 40 years later.

When a man's brain is turned on, so is another part of him

Why is it that the social scientists who are researching other people’s sexuality don’t seem to have any themselves?

Sexual response in women more subtle than men: Study
By Linda Nguyen, Canwest News Service
January 5, 2010

The old joke goes that a man's brain is located in his pants, and according to an international study published this week, the adage may in fact be partly true.

The study, which appeared in the Archives of Sexual Behavior journal, examined more than 40 years of international sex research and found that in many cases, when a man's mind was sexually aroused, it was likely his genitals were too. But in women, sexual responses were much more complicated.

For the original article in academicese as opposed to English, go here.