The boys were all just milling about in our end of the gym, just inside the doors. They weren’t lined up in any way – they were just standing there, talking with each other. Two boys were actually sitting down on the gym floor, as if they were too tired to even stand up. Normally, I’d try to get them all lined up in some organized fashion, but today I didn’t need to. We’d have plenty of opportunities to instill some order into these boys today. As John and I walked toward them, most of them at least stopped talking and carrying on with each other. That was a hopeful sign. Once in position in front of the boys, I blew the whistle that was hanging around my neck.

“Let me have your attention, boys,” I said in a loud voice. Everyone, except for two boys to my far left, stopped talking. “I said I need your attention, right now, that means you stop talking immediately,” I said in an even louder voice. At last the two boys stopped talking. I looked out upon the group of senior boys and saw that I now finally had their attention. Every young face was looking directly at me. It was a conscious decision on my part to always refer to them as boys, rather than men, or gentlemen. The boys before me were all seniors, they were almost fully-developed, adult men. But I refused to acknowledge that in front of them. If they were in my physical education class, they would have to earn my respect by their mature behavior. And that typically never occurred, certainly not in a single semester class like this.

“Boys, this is fifth period physical education. If you’re in the wrong place, this is your opportunity to leave,” I told the crowd of boys. I waited a few seconds to give them a chance to respond. I don’t think I’ve ever had a boy make that mistake, at least not one of these senior boys. With a normal class of freshmen, I’ll usually get one or two boys in the wrong class.

“As I call your name, step forward and I’ll hand you your locker assignment,” I said as I held up the stack of cards. “Once you receive your assignment, you are to proceed immediately to the boy’s locker room and locate your locker.” I pointed in the direction of the locker room door, which was just past our office. “Once your find your locker, sit quietly in front of it. We’ve go over class expectations and give you further instructions once we’re all in the locker room. Understand?” I saw heads nodding in the affirmative in front of me.

“Jake Adams,” I called the first name. As a tall, lanky boy walked forward, I checked him off of my attendance sheet, and simultaneously handed him the card that I had prepared with his name and locker number.

“Michael Brenner”. Another boy came forward.

“Mark Brown”. And another.

“Sam Byron”.

Now that I was making progress with attendance and locker assignments, my assistant John walked toward the boy’s locker room. His job was now to monitor and assist them in finding their lockers if necessary.

After just a few short minutes, I called the last boy’s name and watched as he followed the others into the locker room. I double-checked my class roster and verified that all 17 boys assigned to the class were here today. Great, I thought to myself, I can cover all of the class rules at one time today, and won’t have to worry about reviewing things later due to an absent student. I looked at my watch again and saw that we were right on schedule. I’d have just enough time to go over the rules with the boys and get them ready before Nurse Draper arrived. I decided to give the boys one additional minute to get situated before I entered the locker room to begin their orientation.

I walked through the narrow door marked Boy’s Locker Room and into what is normally the exclusive domain of males. As I entered the room, I heard the loud talking, laughing and excitement of the boys. For many of these non-athletic boys, this may have been their very first time in a school locker room. Just being here was a brand new experience for them, but I knew that there would be many such firsts that they would experience in the next two hours.

The locker room itself wasn’t anything special. As the school was fairly old, so was the locker room and shower facilities. The room itself was situated directly under a set of heavy concrete bleachers that covered one of the long sides of the gym. There were three long rows in the room, with each row being almost the entire length of the gym. Each row had a fairly wide aisle with lockers on either side of the aisle. The concrete base that the lockers were mounted on jutted out a couple of feet into the aisle, so it served as the bench that the boys could sit on when changing. The shower facilities were located here at the near end of the room, just past the entrance, and were directly in line with the middle aisle. At the far end of the locker room, we had a small open area that trainers used for their teams, and we used in P.E. to address any injuries.

I walked toward the middle aisle, which is where I had assigned all of these boys. I usually try to keep the boys in each class located close to each other, rather than spreading them throughout the locker room. I think being closer to each other forces them to quickly get over any modesty issues they might have. This class was no different. As I turned into the middle aisle, I saw the group of boys in front of their respective lockers, located about half-way down the aisle. About half of them were standing and half were sitting in front of them on the concrete bench. My assistant John was standing at the far end of the aisle, just past where the boys were. The good news is that there didn’t appear to be any stragglers wandering around the locker room. They all appeared to be right where I wanted them, in front of their lockers.

“Listen up boys,” I said as I approached them, “everyone take a seat in front of your own locker.” I watched as the boys who were still standing up walked to their locker and sat down. As they settled down, the noise level in the locker room immediately diminished. I assigned lockers so that the 17 boys were equally divided on both sides of the aisle, eight on one side and nine on the other. I always felt this was better than putting them in one long row, since it allowed them to more easily talk and interact with each other. More importantly, being across from each other forced them to actually see each other, as well as be seen, while they were changing. I didn’t want my boys changing in some far-off, isolated corner of the locker room just so they wouldn’t be seen. If there’s one thing that I don’t tolerate, it’s false modesty. Before the end of the day, these boys would understand that.

“Boys, my name is Margaret Evans, but you will always address me as Miss Evans,” I began. “Welcome to fifth period physical education. I am your instructor. And this is John Moore, he will be assisting me. You will always address him as Mr. Moore. Understood?”

As I pointed in the direction of John, the boys all silently nodded in agreement.

“I didn’t hear you boys, do you understand?” “Yes, Miss Evans,” the crowd said loudly.

“Much better. Whenever Mr. Moore or I give you an order, we expect a verbal response. Nodding your head is probably OK for your mother, but I’m not your mother and neither is Mr. Moore.” I looked out at the boys and saw that a few of them were snickering at my comment. I made a mental note of those that thought my comment was funny.

“We have a lot to cover today, boys, so I’m going to get right to the class rules. Please pay attention, as I don’t want to waste any time repeating myself. ” I looked out at the group of boys before me and saw that, at least for the moment, I had their undivided attention. That’s probably because they had spent the last three and a half years hearing just how bad P.E. was from their friends. Now it was finally their turn and the scared shitless look on their faces said it all. They were all hoping that the rumors that they heard weren’t true, but they were beginning to suspect that they were.

“The rules are fairly simple,” I began. “When you arrive for class, you will immediately come into this locker room, get changed for class, and then head out into the gym for attendance. Mr. Moore will discuss the P.E. uniform that you will wear in a few minutes. By the end of the day today, all of you will know what squad you’re assigned to and exactly where you will line up for attendance. Once the fifth period bell rings, signaling the start of the class period, you will have an additional three minutes to be in the gym and ready for class.”

“Three lousy minutes?” I heard one of the boys mumble to himself.

“Jim is it?” I said to him as I looked down at my class roster.

“Yes, Miss Evans, Jim Johnson,” the boy replied. “Well, Jim, I would appreciate if you would hold your questions and comments until I ask for them. I will give you all a chance to ask any questions after I finish with the rules. But to answer your question, yes, over the years I’ve found that three minutes is plenty of time to get ready. Provided you don’t piddle around with your friends and waste time in the locker room. As long as you get to class promptly and go about your business of changing for class, you will all be fine with three minutes. Understood?” I looked directly at this Jim Johnson character as I spoke.

“Yes, Miss Evans.”

“Now, I don’t want to see any books or supplies from your other classes brought into the gym or the locker room. We just don’t have room for them here, and dealing with them will only slow you down when you’re supposed to be changing. Make sure you drop them off in your hall locker before arriving at the gym. And you also need to take care of any business in the restroom before you line up in the gym. That means use a regular school restroom on the way to class, or the one here in the locker room. The one in here has a large group urinal, so it can accommodate most of you at once, if necessary. But once class begins, no one will be allowed to use the restroom. No exceptions. Is that understood?” I again looked out into the group of boys to see if I still had their attention.

“Once Mr. Moore or I take attendance, we will go over the activities for the day. Obviously the activities will vary from day to day. But generally, you can expect that we will start off each day with some basic warm-up and stretching exercises, followed by a much more vigorous set of calisthenics. We will play a few games such as basketball and volleyball but generally playing games isn’t our focus. The purpose of High school physical education is to toughen you boys up and get you ready to serve your country in the military. We don’t have time for fun and games.” I paused briefly to make sure the boys were still with me.

“Of course, each of you will be required to take the President’s Physical Fitness Test. The actual test will take place toward the end of the semester, but we’ll start to practice those activities almost immediately. And running, you will do a lot of running in this class. Part of each and every class period will be devoted to running, either laps here inside the gym, or outside on the school track once the weather permits. The most important rule is that you must participate in the day’s activity, whatever it happens to be, in order to pass this class. And that goes for all of you, even those among you that don’t consider yourself athletic. Any questions so far, boys?” I saw one brave boy raise his hand with a question.

“Yes, Mark is it?” I said consulting my class roster.

“Yes, Miss Evans, I’m Mark Brown. Since this is a double period class, won’t we have more time than usual for games?”

“No, Mark, but you do bring up an important point I wanted to mention,” I answered. “Boys, this is a double period class, it’s the only one like it that we offer all year, so it is a little different.” As I was speaking, I looked up at Mr. Moore and saw that he was smiling back at me. He knew exactly what I was about to tell these boys. “But that doesn’t mean that we change our focus. It’s still called Physical Education and we will do the very same activities. We will still do our share of calisthenics, running and fitness testing. It just means that we have twice as much time each and every day to do them. For example, instead of 15 continuous minutes of calisthenics, you boys might do 30 minutes. Instead of a 20 minute run, you boys might go for 40 minutes or even a full hour!” I looked out at my audience and saw that this particular bit of news was not well received. But I really didn’t care.

“Just remember boys that it was your choice to wait until now to take Physical Education. You all had plenty of opportunities to take it earlier, when it was a single period class. But now that you’re here, I can assure you that Mr. Moore and I will work you much harder than if you had attended one of my regular P.E. classes! If you’re not exhausted and dripping with sweat at the end of each and every class, we haven’t done our job.”

As expected, there was silence among the boys. Many of them might have thought that with the extra period, there would be more time for fun and games and generally fooling around. Now they knew the truth.

“Alright, let me finish up with the basic rules,” I said to the boys, “and then I’ll let Mr. Moore tell you about your P.E. uniform. Toward the end of every class, Mr. Moore or I will dismiss you from the gym. At that time, you will all jog back into this locker room in an orderly fashion. You will then get yourselves cleaned up, and redress in your normal street clothes. We will always give you at least six minutes at the end of the class period to get cleaned up and dressed – sometimes more, depending on the day’s activities. That should be plenty of time as long as you stay focused and don’t fool around. Once you are dressed, you will quietly wait at your locker until the bell signals the end of the sixth period. At that time you will be permitted to leave. Any questions before I turn you over to Mr. Moore?”

I paused for a brief moment to see if there were any questions. Looking at the boys, I knew they had questions that they were reluctant to ask. At this stage in the presentation, the boys were always concerned about what they would be required to wear. And as far as getting cleaned up after class, most of them already suspected that meant taking a shower, but they were probably puzzled why I never mentioned that. But having done this for almost ten years, I knew that I would cover all of that after Mr. Moore’s presentation.