Grand Avenue by Mike Thompson for November 14, 2019

It’s easy. You just need to learn when to talk and when to shut up.

The kid makes sense.

She’s not wrong.

Unfortunately, (6th grade) our teach was ex- Marine, and was Quite capable.

And when, pray tell, will you ever, in your adult life navigating through American employment and/or the popular culture, ever be required to climb ropes? I can’t remember one meeting or cocktail party where that was a necessity. . .I always thought walking or yoga or stretching exercises/routines would have been much more useful to know.

Had a Social Studies (is that taught today?) teacher. Built like a tank, he was a former Marine and claimed to have been stationed in Alaska. In the winter (Ohio) he insisted on having the window up a good 12" — to toughen us up. Apparently, it didn’t matter to him how much heat was being wasted.

Gym was a prep course for military fitness training. The kids that couldn’t climb became lawyers and sued the schools and made them take down the climbing ropes. They are all gone except for the cleats in the ceiling.

I think the kid is right

The gym teacher should be working out with every class until he can show her how.

Hey Kid: Which one of us is wearing the whistle?

Good point that you probably shouldn’t have made. I know you did it for our benefit.

Do schools still fail kids in gym class if they’re not athletic enough? I can’t fathom that, even as a kid (many years ago) in my school the only way to fail gym class was to refuse to participate.