If gym teachers were real teachers

You’ve probably run across those peppy gym teachers with their kilowatt smiles and mile-a-minute instructions. They’re like if a cheerleader and a drill sergeant combined.

These amazingly energetic people reminiscent of 80’s television gym stars may have traded sweatbands and leg warmers for lululemon leggings and PiYo t-shirts, but that doesn’t mean they are any more qualified to order me around. And yet, I can’t help but respond to them.

Maybe it’s something about the kindly way they bark orders, or maybe it’s that they complete the actions along with the class. Maybe it’s the positive feedback and encouragement they give — even when they know for a fact you’re not holding a pose right. Maybe it’s the gentle, but firm way they push us to keep going. Or maybe it’s not them at all. Maybe it’s the peer pressure from going to the gym that keeps me going during a Kickboxing class that makes my arms want to fall off. Who knows?

Yet, we keep coming back for more classes, in the SRC, Rams Head, the Carrboro Y, etc. And while my gym back home is composed less of college teenagers and more of middle-aged moms fitter than me trading gossip like candy, I can’t help but wonder why exactly these classes are so engaging, and what it would be like if our schools were taught in the same way?

Picture this. 

At the front of your lecture hall, your professor stands with his back to the room. He clips a microphone to the side of his head, tosses a smile over his shoulder, before going to work on a complicated math problem he’s drawn up on the board. 

“Good job,” he calls back to you even though you know he can’t see your paper and you know you’re just writing numbers to see which ones fit. “Keep going!”

Or maybe in your Chemistry lab, your professor or TA performs the experiment with you. You copy her movements, her words, and maybe even her facial expressions. If she makes a mistake, you make a mistake, but if she gets it right, you get it right and for some reason you’re satisfied.

I don’t know what it is about club gym teachers that motivate me, but I think if all our teachers taught like they did, the world would be a better place. We’d certainly get more stuff done, even if we didn’t understand how and why we were doing it.  

My own problem would be the attire. I definitely wouldn’t want to see my professor in tight yoga pants with a spaghetti strap pattern sports bra, no matter how cute that bra may be.