And if you did what class grade/year would it had happened? What decade (if your comfortable sharing)?

I am wondering how many people actually did this and from what locations/ages/years it would have happened. For my education (American elementary-college years 2000’s-2010’s) I never had to do that. I feel like I had to be common enough that it is referenced in movies and tv shows.

  • The Doctor ( drwho@beehaw.org ) 
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    3 years ago

    Yep. USian public school, middle school in the early 90’s. I think I was… 12 or 13. Never managed it because I had zero upper arm strength so I couldn’t even get my feet onto the knot on the bottom.

  • dax ( dax@beehaw.org ) 
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    3 years ago

    Sure did, I think it was part of a bunch of tests we had to do for the… Presidential Fitness Award or something?

    It was done in Elementary school, so Fall 87->Spring 93? I have no idea if they’re still doing any of that crap now though.

    I do remember it being the neatest dang thing because our school had like this entire wall of collapsible gym equipment that folded out like a playground with like 2 or 3 story monkeybars and gigantic poofy mats at the bottom, and you better believe some kids fell off.

    The more I think about it, the more I suspect they don’t let them do that anymore

    • That’s wild to imagine! Any recollection of how high up those ceilings might have been? The gyms I remember in the US had ceilings that were something like 2 or 3 stories high, if I had to guess. That strikes me as quite the height to jump for a fitness test. Just for the height factor alone I can’t picture myself having the guts back then to do it. Dunno if I’d even have 'em now 😨.

  • Flyinx ( Flyinx@beehaw.org ) 
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    3 years ago

    Western US here. We had a rope climb twice a year from 4th to 9th grade. I tried the first time and then refused every time after that.

    Never did get any flak for it. Can only assume they knew it was dangerous and were happy to have kids skip it.

  • janus2 ( janus2@lemmy.sdf.org ) 
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    3 years ago

    I did in US middle school (8th grade, 2008 or 2009) but it was a knotted rope, so the knots acted as footholds, making it much easier. Also there was a marker 10’ or so up and we weren’t supposed to pass it to avoid fall injuries. Very nerfed from the archetypical gym class rope climb. As a severely out of shape nerd I still struggled with it :']

  • Yes, for U.S. elementary schools in the late 80’s it seemed common I thought (?)

    Also I sucked at that, I only ever made it a few feet up before giving up LOL. In my school it was always more of a race to test who can do it the quickest, not actually spend an entire week learning how to do it properly.

  • hoyland ( hoyland@beehaw.org ) 
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    3 years ago

    Yes–elementary school (K-3) in Illinois, early 1990s. I was crap at it. We also had gymnastics rings.

    I’m pretty sure none of the other schools I went to had ropes or rings in the gym, used or not.

  • Yes, we did this in late elementary school (I want to say 5th grade, or 10-11ish years old?), but did not do it beyond that. There were two ropes–one standard rope and one with evenly spaced knots that you could use to climb with hand and footholds. This was in the '90s.