What’s the point

In the seventies, for the new PE teacher, “Educational gymnastics” was a teaching requirement. It was a break from the formal “do a forward roll this way” and instead one had to ask the question “how can you get from here to there by curling your body up?”. Like me, I think most PE teachers thought it was a necessary evil in order to acquire qualified teacher status. However, in my first month of teaching, and because the plans had already been written, I decided to do some “Ed. Gym” with some first years (yr7). I did the old “point balances” lesson, as in, can you show me an imaginative four point balance. Dutifully, most of the children, after a bit of coaching, balanced on all fours. Can we do a three point balance I then asked. The more athletic type demonstrated fairly adequate head stands. Now, I asked, can you do a two point balance. All children, bar one, stood up and struck a different two point balanced position. The one boy, however, decided to stay where he was and raise one hand off the floor. Had I been paying more attention I would have been aware of this fact and acted accordingly. Instead, and somewhat enthusiastically, I asked, can you now do a one point balance. Seconds later, and amidst a concentrated silence, an increasingly number of voices shouted “Sir, sir, look, sir look” and pointed in the direction of the lone gymnast whose response to my one point balance request was to raise his remaining hand off the floor, and after balancing, momentarily, solely on his head he slowly began to topple whilst my Deputy Head teacher walked into the gym to observe my lesson and shouted “Timbeeeeer”. My lesson debrief wasn’t the best.