Shrout 101

Short blonde hair stuck in position with hairspray. A tight fitting shirt that shows off every curve of her mature body. Fair skin, lightly browned from being in the hot sun all day. The swoosh of her pink windbreaker pants as she flies through the gym. Endless wrinkles on her face that give her the look of sternness, yet elegance. The protruding bulge below her belt line which could only be her lower abdominals. She runs her gym class like Joseph Stalin in the Cold War. Her name is Mrs. Shrout and she’ll give you a 0 out of 10 for the day in a heartbeat unless you know how to outsmart her. Follow these simple steps and you will survive Mrs. Shrout’s class.
Step one: start off on her good side. To do this, one first has to be a good suck up. If you get her to like you early in the year then you do not have to try as hard as the year progresses. Try and dress in your uniform every day for the first couple gym classes. This will put you on her good student list, which will in turn mean she won’t watch you as closely during class. If you do not dress for the first couple gym classes, she will start to get a very short temper with you, and that short temper will carry on throughout the year, so make sure you make an effort to do this.
Step two: Shrout takes stretching very seriously, so even though it is just stretching make it look like you are taking it seriously too. She will fly through countless stretches every day at the start of gym so make sure you have your game face on for her. The trick to her stretches is to sit in the positions while doing the littlest amount of actual stretching possible. This part is key. While stretching, she tends to asks the class random questions such as, “What is the abdominal muscle on the side of your body?”, but you will be fine as long as you always respond with a confident “glutiousmaximus!”
Step three: How to survive actual Mrs. Shrout-made-games played in gym class. These games are different than games played in other gym classes; they are made by Shrout and controlled by Shrout. She tends to make up games that are pretty ridiculous so make sure you are on your toes. A good example of one of her games is “speed away.” It involves kicking/throwing the ball towards the goal/end zone, and that’s about all anyone will ever know about it. After that you basically just run around after the ball and if Mrs. Shrout doesn’t approve of something she will blow the whistle and give the ball to the other team. You can expect this all year while playing games so just go with the flow of Shrout’s whistle and gym class will be a breeze.
Step four: The fitness center. This is by far the roughest part of the year. She expects her students to lift weights, run on treadmills, keep a log of everything they do while in the fitness center, follow an even more vigorous stretching regimen, and the worst of all, take a 20 point test on the muscles of the human body. This may seem way too ridiculous for just a high school gym class, and believe me it is, but I have come up with a couple rules of thumb to make sure even the most un-athletic student can tame the wild beast that is Shrout. First is the stretching. The only thing you need to know is that if she is not looking, she can not see you, so take advantage of that. Next is completing the actual workout logs, which should not take more than three minutes. As soon as you get in the fitness center, go and sit on one of the workout bikes. Once you have gotten a bike, fill in random weights and sets on the chart next to all the different machines. In doing this, once you fill out your cardio part of the chart, you guarantee yourself an A for the day within the first five minutes of class. For the rest of the period now you can devote to floating from station to station pretending to workout and talking to your friends about what you’re doing that night. The final tip for the fitness center has to do with the muscles test Shrout makes her kids take. Whatever you do, do not study for this test! That’s what she wants you to do, but there is no way anyone should ever take/study for a test in gym class. The only thing you can do for this test is sit next to a smart kid and cheat.
Taking Mrs. Shrout’s gym class may seem like too much hassle for you, and you may be discouraged when you get your schedule in the summer and her name next to gym. But it is not as bad as it seems. The worst that can happen to you is having her use you in one of her examples in a new unit, or maybe getting splashed by the spit of her flailing tongue as she demonstrating the proper way to rebound. As long as you follow the steps above exactly as they are written, Shrout’s class will be as easy as a study hall. And just think, when your kids are going through school and complain about their gym teachers, you can sit them down and tell them the story about how you survived The Shrout.