Dear gym teachers,

How are you all doing? Back to full swing at work after corona? Have you jumped off all those kilos? I want to ask you something. Here it is. I saw a little boy in the woods the other day. The magnet that lives inside the earth was pulling at his shoulders. He kicked at a few stones. Aimlessly. I asked what was wrong. He answered with a ‘meh’ and a ‘ugh’ and his shoulders lifted a little for a moment. ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘There's a bench. Sit down for a bit.’ We looked straight ahead and then he started. About gym class. He was chosen last. Twice. And no, he wasn't bullied or anything, it wasn't that bad, but he was always chosen last in gym. Because he didn't excel in sports and because he didn't have a best buddy. Because when choosing in gym, everyone picks their best buddy. And if you don't belong to that chain of friends, then you are the last bead. And that hurt.

I suddenly found myself back in Zeeland, somewhere in the mid-eighties. I was quite happy, but I can still feel that moment of being chosen in gym. Waiting for that enlightening moment to fall for you. A sort of Ranking the Stars avant la lettre.

I glanced to the right at the little boy and kicked at a stone too. Could I tell him that I find it a medieval system to let a child choose the rest during gym class? It's ‘eat or be eaten’ there between the basketball nets and the uneven bridge. In a time when we give everyone who needs a little push an extra nudge forward and upward, we push those slightly less armed further into the swamp in the gym.

So dear gym teachers, unless you also take into account the slightly less resilient (let them choose instead of being chosen), I would say: please form those groups. Really, it saves a lot of sore spots on bruised souls.