Picked last

[j4]

Wandering around articles on sports in schools as a result of nja's latest post, I came across yet another article that made me annoyed.

From that article:

"More than half of all teenagers agreed that young people are fat, lazy and addicted to computer games, but blame school and councils for failing to give them opportunities to exercise. [...] 'I don't think it's an issue of kids being lazier than children before us,' said Alexandra, 16, at a north London Youth Debate panel. 'Sport isn't accessible enough. There aren't enough proper facilities for us.'"

No, Alexandra, I think you are being lazy. I think you want these "opportunities" and "facilities" handed to you on a plate, delivered to your door. Then, when you don't get them, you can blame somebody else for the fact that you won't get off your lazy arse and do something.

As a teenager, I was fat, lazy and addicted to computer games. So whose fault was that? The school's? Hardly, with two or three compulsory games lessons a week and plenty of sports societies at lunchtimes and after school which I could have attended if I'd cared. The council's? Well, there was a public swimming pool, there was a playing field in the village (where people often organised football games), there was (I believe) a village cricket team, and there were tennis courts (though you had to get the key from somebody so it never seemed worth it when you could just have a knockabout against a wall or on the playing-field). There were several parks where I could have jogged if the urge had ever so taken me. (I've really no idea what other public sports facilities there were; I never made an effort to find out.) Sometimes, in rare energetic moments, I could be persuaded to cycle around the playing fields, or rollerskate on the carpark, or play with a frisbee.

Now, yes, I know, not all councils and not all schools make such good provision for sports. It's possible that Alexandra's school has no games lessons, no field of any kind, rules against kicking a ball around at lunchtime, or even running, and that there are no public sports facilities or even public parks in the North London area.

It's possible.

But how much more likely is it that it's just so much easier to blame your school, blame the council, the government, anything, anything except your own sweet self?

Of course, in standard journalistic rants it's considered the done thing to stop there, with the question. Having sneered and raised people's awareness and hackles, one has discharged one's moral duty. But this isn't a newspaper. I'm still here when the article's finished. So what's the answer? How can we change people, change the prevalent attitudes of our times, change the world?

Perhaps the facilities for changing the world just aren't accessible enough. Nobody's providing me with a means to change the world. Nobody's providing me with the answers. I'm not lazy; the system is to blame. It's not my fault, not my fault, not my fault.

Comments

[teleute.livejournal.com]

Do you think this attitude ties in with the supposed increase in depression (which I've been putting down to over/increased diagnosis)? If there really are more depressed teens than there used to be, then it stands to reason that they are more likely to be apathetic and not want to change the world. Or could it in fact be the other way around - their apatheticism is making doctors diagnose them with depression?

[juliet]

Or that they feel, or have been told, that they *can't* change things. That can certainly lead to depression. "Whatever I do, it doesn't make any difference: so why bother?"

(which is, I think, subtly different from apathy, which implies a lack of *wish* to change things)

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Factlet: physical exercise reduces the incidence of depression.

Speculation: team sports, as a social activity, foster social skills and a sense of community (in some, but not all) which is probably a Very Good Thing in terms of teenagers' mental health. As is anything which imparts a sense of achievement, approval, and self-esteem.

[teleute.livejournal.com]

perhaps this is why American students are all so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Mind you, they're all on more pills than an English pharmacy too, so who knows. But they are encouraged (socially required) to represent their school at some activity.

[j4.livejournal.com]

physical exercise reduces the incidence of depression

So I believe, though I suspect the physical benefits of the exercise may sometimes be outweighed by the psychological damage when your "physical exercise" involves the teacher encouraging everybody else to laugh at you for being overweight and no good at sports.

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've seen that. Revolting, isn't it?

And I've seen what happens in a school with a serious bullying problem, where the less able (or just less willing) enforced participants in games become the butt of a new set of humiliations, and outright acts of violence from their fellow-inmates. Watching this behaviour led by a teacher, and hearing the sheer number of people who have seen it in other schools, reinforces my prejudice that a working majority of PE teachers aren't just failures at a 'proper degree': they've been waved through a failure in teacher training, too - they clearly cannot teach and should not be allowed to do so. Or were bullies at school and have found their vocation in life, but lack the guts to apply their revolting character defects to the aggressive mismanagement of adults in the real world.