Was this the norm in your school?

[Sleepingmediocre]

Our school had a 7-hour day and a 30-minute lunch break, and high-school students had the option to either make room in their schedule for a lunch period or skip it in favor of taking a heavier class load and eating a bag lunch during 3rd or 4th period.  The "30 minutes" you supposedly got was pretty much a joke, though--the school building was very old and had gone through several renovations to accommodate a growing number of students, including building annex buildings across the street.  One year when I had gym right before lunch, in that 30 minutes I had to change my clothes, cross the street (including waiting for the traffic light and/or the crossing guard), walk a block or more to reach the cafeteria, wait in line (which by that point would be practically out into the hallway), and finally receive my food--usually just in time to hear the bell ring for my next class.  I wasn't the only student with a problem like this, either, which is why many students opted to take extra classes and skip their lunch breaks.  If their 3rd or 4th period class was an hour long, they actually had MORE time to eat!

[Venus193]

All class periods were 45 minutes in my high school, which meant 45 minutes for lunch.  Lunch periods were from period 4 at 10:30 ("The Breakfast Club) to period 8 at 1:30 ("The Starvation Army").  Homeroom was a 5-minute attendance-taking thing between periods 2 and 3.  During my sophomore year this was changed to 50 minutes to compensate for missed days during a blizzard.  To have shorter periods for lunch would have disrupted the entire day.

In NYC most high schools have one building.

Losing one day to a science lab usually meant going without lunch altogether.  Especially not cool if gym class was in the afternoon.

[Athos_000]

I am totally shocked by this, and by the fact that it has apparently been going on for so many years! My school had scheduled lunches, they were about 50 mins long I think. All labs were done in class and you were never allowed to eat in the classrooms after the school was remodeled. They started serving breakfast at the schools not long after I graduated as well. For some kids free school lunch was the only meal they'd get in a day. I can't imagine if they cancelled lunch, those poor kids wouldn't get any food at all.

edited to add: for me gym was a total waste of time as well. I learned nothing besides the fact that I bruise very easily and volleyball was an exercise in handling pain.

[Lexophile]

I would scream at someone if the school tried to do this to my kid. Teenagers are still growing and need that nutrition regularly throughout the day; especially those involved in sports. Their health is way more important than a science lab. I was on the swim team at my high school and I ate VORACIOUSLY at lunchtime. If they can;t make time for a science lab during the regularly scheduled school day, they should re-examine the curriculum - not set the kids up for malnutrition and failure. WHat kind of habits does THAT teach?

[Sophia]

Gym is useless?  Why would you say that?

I think gym should encourage a life-long love of exercise and help provide you with the appropriate skills.  My experience with it was the complete opposite of that.  There's the humiliation and abuse heaped upon the non-sporty *and* almost none of the curriculum was useful in everyday life. 

I totally agree!   It actually turned me off from exercise.  I am 36 and I am still working at turning that around.  My problem was with the teachers though.  I remember everyone changing at the ends of the bays in the locker room, because the teachers would openly watch us, make comments and well, enjoy it.  I remember telling my teacher it hurt to run.  (Turns out I had an undiagnosed problem with my feet and each and every step hurt).  My teacher said, "No pain, no gain" and told me to get out there and run.  The teachers then proceeded to heckle me and make fun of the way I ran in a voice that could be heard across the field.  No peer had ever made fun of my running.  In my mind, runners and self-mutulators are in the same nutso category.  The only disadvantage to eliminating gym would be that there would be less people signing up for band.  I had several friends who signed up just to get away from gym. 

[Gyro Widget]

Kids are being loaded down with way too much work in their already tight schedules - I did not even HAVE science labs in high school and I am completing a mechanical engineering degree just fine! 

Kids now are bringing home math work that they shouldn't see until pre-calculus in university, they are reading more books for class than the average university English literature student.  Then people wonder why 13 year olds are having to go to physiotherapy for back problems due to over-loaded backpacks...?

THEN to expect a child to go hungry just to slave away at this schoolwork is abuse IMHO.  Adults would refuse employment if they were not permitted lunch breaks, so why on earth are children being subjected to this? 

[MelJill]

Gym is useless?  Why would you say that?

I think gym should encourage a life-long love of exercise and help provide you with the appropriate skills.  My experience with it was the complete opposite of that.  There's the humiliation and abuse heaped upon the non-sporty *and* almost none of the curriculum was useful in everyday life. 

Sadly, I think your experience w/ gym class is nigh unto universal.  Which makes gym actually worse than useless--it's detrimental to the fitness of many, many people who flee physical activity for years afterward.

Of course, if you hunt down that 'bad teachers' thread, check out my post about the PE teacher who nearly killed me (and I'm not really exaggerating much, there).

[freakyfemme]

All class periods were 45 minutes in my high school, which meant 45 minutes for lunch.  Lunch periods were from period 4 at 10:30 ("The Breakfast Club) to period 8 at 1:30 ("The Starvation Army").  Homeroom was a 5-minute attendance-taking thing between periods 2 and 3.  During my sophomore year this was changed to 50 minutes to compensate for missed days during a blizzard.  To have shorter periods for lunch would have disrupted the entire day.

In NYC most high schools have one building.

Losing one day to a science lab usually meant going without lunch altogether.  Especially not cool if gym class was in the afternoon.

Yeah, my high school worked pretty much the same way, with a few key exceptions--all periods were 75 minutes long (it worked on a semestered system, so you might have, say, Math, English, Art, and French one semester, and Science, Gym, Music, and Drama the next), and lunch was 75 minutes as well.  For the first three years I think it was, there were two different lunch periods, either third period from 10:43-11:57, or fourth, from noon until 1:12 (we had three minutes travel time between each class, except for people going to or coming from lunch).  It was an open campus, so people were free to leave during lunch or free periods (known as "spares," and usually, only people in grade 12 and OAC had spares, because unless you had 24 or more credits, you had to take eight classes per year, any more than that, you could take just six and have a spare per semester), and all science lab work was done during class.  So, nobody starved, everyone learned science, and oh yeah, my gym teacher in grade nine was actually nice.  I didn't continue taking gym, because I was clumsy and unathletic and self-conscious, and much preferred music, but for the one year I had to take it, it wasn't so bad.

[RandomAngel]

My goodness.  We had 47 minutes for lunch in high school.

In middle school, it was more like 30, and people got so upset about barely having time to eat after waiting on the long hot lunch line that the whole school all staged a sit-in one day.

What entitled little brats we were! 

But while I do understand the importance of passing the Regents, my high school had a 99% college matriculation rate--and, you know, 47 minutes for lunch.

[Niphil]

Oh, that high school is nearby where I live, and I graduated from another NYC two years ago, so I remember well.
While there may be a push for wellness, there's an even bigger push for better learning. I went to a specialized high school, and the push to take advanced classes was HUGE. I knew a bunch of people who didn't have lunches because their majors (our high school had majors) were too packed to allow for it.
I also knew other people who only took 5 classes a day, because they were in different majors and had finished taking all the basic requirements for a regular diploma. Several of my friends could have graduated a year and a half early from high school, but the school wouldn't allow for it at all.

[shadowfox79]

Sadly, I think your experience w/ gym class is nigh unto universal.  Which makes gym actually worse than useless--it's detrimental to the fitness of many, many people who flee physical activity for years afterward.

I agree. I hated P.E. - I was always picked last for every team game and spent most of my time hiding from the ball because I knew I would drop it if it was thrown at me. Playing rounders I would always play deep field on second base because no-one ever hit it there.

[MommaBear]

Ours was not like this. We had about a 30-35 minute lunch and if we had any labs to do, the teachers would schedule them during the class time on certain days. Usually we would cover a topic and soon do a lab. Kids need to eat in order to concentrate.... Who can concentrate and work with burners when your tummy is growling?

[Sirius]

I'm about as athletic as a statue, and having to take gym always ruined my 4.0 average.  When I got to high school I was in marching band, and we'd do an hour of street marching and an hour of field marching every day the weather was decent.  Since the hour of street marching was considered "P.E.", I finally started getting a 4.0.  I walked 1.5 miles to school in the morning (no, not in eight feet of snow and it wasn't uphill both ways), march on the street for an hour, do field marching in a different style for an hour, then walk 1.5 miles home, and I was in pretty good physical condition at that point in my life.

[Chivewarrior]

I get an hour for lunch. In fact, the entire school gets lunch at the same time. Members of certain committees are permitted to cut the lunch line on certain days because the committees meet during lunch and it's important to be there for the meetings. The line is usually gone about half an hour into lunch. We also have two soups a day and a salad/sandwich bar where you can grill your own sandwich. And it's open campus except on special occasions. (People with cars bop out for a hot dog at the ice-cream place.) And sometimes our science teachers have to set up their experiments during lunch, but they're not allowed to keep us late. I once walked into "Intro To Physics" about fifteen minutes early and found my physics teacher setting up the machines we were using for the lab. But I'm not in public school...

Back in middle school, which was public, if charter, we had a brief period where our half-hour of lunch was divided into 15 lunch, 15 recess, which provoked parental outcry. When we moved to the new building and had a playground that didn't involve crossing the street, we were allowed to stay inside for however long we wanted as long as we were in the designated "in" room. (We only had four classrooms and teachers- excluding specials- for the combined 7th and 8th grades.)

Gym in middle school was nonexistant, just a game of capture the flag or some such without even a real gym teacher. (Each of the four regular teachers took a gym period.) They just got a gym teacher this year, and my sister tells me that he is evil incarnate.

At my high school, we don't have gym as such. We have several things you can get athletic credits for, and you need three to pass. You can get them from the fall and spring drama productions, as long as you do fifteen hours of Saturday workdays. (Which are loads of fun- I always get to help the carpenter, who has a great sense of humor.) You get all three for doing an "interscholastic sport", or take various shorter things. I'm doing yoga at the moment. Last year it was aikido.

[emeraldsage85]

State standards did mandate that we take PE every day, for a full 40 minutes, for all 4 years, unless you were in a sport on season.  That contributed to our scheduling woes, although I'm glad we were forced to be active.

PE in my school was only mandatory in grade 10. Afterwards you had a choice. I was glad to give it up because the PE teacher was incredibly mean and would make fun of me in front of other students.