Old D.P.S. Policy?

[tarkus]

During Thanksgiving day my Uncles were discussing that when they went to Southeastern, swim classes had the boys swimming in the nude but not the girls. Was this just a perverted gym teacher or was this policy and if so why? Other elders in the family said they also had to swim naked at different DPS schools.

[gazhekwe]

The boys swam naked at Sault High in the UP, too. The little cotton knit suits we girls had weren't much coverage either.

[Pcm]

What?! This is the strangest thing I've ever heard!

[Ray1936]

That's how it was at Mackenzie, c. 1951. I've always thought that all P.E. teachers were warped. Every one that I ever had had the personality of a wounded bull.

[zitro]

I'll bet it was hard to recruit anyone on the diving team

[9936Sussex]

It was the policy at Mackenzie in 1969. It was the policy in the 1930's when my dad went to Northwestern/Cooley [[he went to both). I always thought it was weird too.

[gnome]

same way in Lansing, and yes it was weird.

[gnome]

can't you stay on topic at least once? The world doesn't revolve around you and your non-insights into things you know nothing about.

[Patrick]

My dad went to Denby and said the same thing. His gym teacher had a stutter and used to have to "check" all the guys before they got into the pool.

[DetroitDad]

That is strange. I like to go into the old museum at Cedar Point, and they have tons of pictures of what people wore on outings to the beach back then. It really didn't look much different normal clothes, in that you covered a lot and wore a lot.

I'm thinking most of the oil based synthetic fibers we use today might not have been as widely available or as cheap back then?

Not trying to go off topic, I'm just wondering about the reason.

[DetroitTeacher]

My dad went to both Cass and Redford. Swim class was nude for him but not my mom, who attended Redford. This was in the late 50s and early 60s.

[agirlintheD]

Oh gosh, I laughed so hard when I read this!!! My ex-brother in law used to talk about "naked" swimming when he went to Cody and that was in the 70's!!! The visual alone is enough for therapy!!!

[Jimaz]

I think this topic came up on the old board quite some time ago. I'm not going to search for it though.

This never happened to me but it doesn't seem too odd since everyone had to shower together in the nude anyway.

I do recall phys-ed teachers having to check for any open sores before students entered the pool. It was supposedly a public health issue, perhaps a law. I don't remember the details well.

[larrym]

Southwestern in 63 we swam naked.

[ptero]

We swam in the buff at Cass Tech around '70. They would rub your ankle checking for dirt on the way in. "Go back and take another shower."

[EMG]

My dad went to Denby and said the same thing. His gym teacher had a stutter and used to have to "check" all the guys before they got into the pool.

I REALLY wondered about this statement [[what's for a teacher to legitimately check on somebody who's naked?!) until I saw Jimaz's statement about "open sores" further on down in the thread.

As for my own experiences, I attended University Liggett School, which did not have a pool, but we did have use of the pool at Brownell Middle School in the Grosse Pointe Public School System, but we wore suits.

[detroitbred]

I am a girl who attended Redford in the late 60's...don't think the boys swam naked [[ though I never had occasion to look ). Those cotton suimsuits were awful, as soon as they got wet, they stretched out and what started out just below your neck was now below your boobs. And every gym teacher iIcan rememeber having WAS a bit odd...music teachers too, but that's a different topic!

[Maxine1958]

I went to Osborn, graduated '76, and we had those same, awful cotton swimsuits. Yeesh, they were horrible. We used to tie the straps together behind our necks to keep them from sagging too much. My senior year, they got some nylon suits, but not enough for everyone. So we would race to the counter to be the first ones to get the 'better' suits.

The boys did not swim naked. We had two pools and the boys and girls would switch between them, so we often had to walk past the small pool while the boys where in there. Talk about needing therapy. That was humiliating and degrading on so many levels.

[jgavrile]

Same thing at Highland Park schools in the 50's and 60's. Also at the YMCA in Highland Park. Never have gotten a clear answer as to why boys swam naked and girls did not?? Almost seems that the health issue would have been more reversed for girls than boys??
The girls use to look through the keyhole in the door when we were swimming. Bunch of bull if you ask me Made no sense what so ever.
Sounds like it was Statewide from the reply's above??
When and why did it change??

[barnesfoto]

This policy was gone by the time that I got to RHS, but one motive is simple: to de-sensitize shy kids who were nervous about being naked in a locker room with others. There may also be some public health thing to it as well. [[As Jimaz noted).

[firstandten]

Durfee Jr High in the early 60's yes we had to swim nekkid. The pool was divided by a wall. We fellows tried real hard to see the girls but I never had any success. The reason was always presented to us as a public health issue.

[13074Glenfield]

Denby 1968. The coach with the stutter was Coach Rice. We made terrible fun of him behind his back. I feel bad about it because he really was a nice guy. I don't remember him checking anybody out in any kind of an odd way. We swam nude in Jr. High and had all been taking showers together since 7th grade so it didn't seem all that odd at the time. I recall that there was a big moveable steel wall that divided the pool at Denby and the boys swam on one half while the girls swam on the other. We would peek through the cracks and try to see the girls in those cotton swimsuits. Not sure if they peeked through at the boys.

[k8vf]

At Jackson Intermediate[[then Middle, then some different name) we swam naked as boys.
Girls used suits.

All were checked for "'dirt" and sores. They'd rub your shoulder, and ankles, and you had to bend over to verify you were clean"back there".

We didnt like it, but "rules was rules"

In later years, I believe the boys in segregated swimming got to use suits.

One MAIN reason to go naked, was that it kept the soap out of the pool from the suits. With hundreds of swimmers daily, soap would cloud the water horribly if it was not fully rinsed off.

Pool treatment was always a tough job and not appreciated by many.

I worked as a school Bldg Engineer for years. We maintained the pools and it could be very tough to keep up depending on cooperation from teachers, and students.
[[showering with suit on was bad for us, as was not rinsing after showering)

[sknight]

Although it didn't apply to me personally, I found an interesting news article about nude swimming by female students in Highland Park. For those of us who wonder why the double standard, this article puts the former values of the era into perspective. According to this article, girls requested that they be allowed to swim nude in school, as the boys had been doing, so that they could have more time to spend in the pool. But unlike the boys, the mothers didn't approve of their daughters swimming nude, and petitioned the school superintendent, who yielded to their protests ending the nude swimming only after six weeks in one of the schools. The article mentions that girls swam nude in three schools. I suppose that it wasn't long before the other two also halted nude swimming among the girls as well.

My guess is that had the Michigan schools had their way, all students would swim nude, and I that the only reason that boys swam nude whereas girls did not was due to the intolerance expressed by the students' parents. It seems that parents are more to blame for the double standard than the schools themselves.

The articles are from 1947. I've included the two articles below and also provided links to the original pdf scans too for those who are skeptical.

Rules Girls Must Wear Swim Suits
School Board at Detroit Acts After Mothers Protest
DETROIT [[AP) — Young girls of the Liberty school in Highland Park were directed today to don their swim suits before they go near the waters of the swimming pool.
Superintendent of Schools H. L. Shibler said the mandate was In deference to a group of mothers who protested to the board of education Tuesday night that their daughters were bathing nude in the school pool.
The 150 girls at the school range in age from nine to 13.
Doctor Shibler said nude bathing will continue among approximately 200 other girls in two other elementary schools.
Boys In the schools have not worn suits for years. Doctor Shibler said, adding, however, that the girls were segregated during gym classes and are directed by women instructors. He said there was no encroachment on their privacy.
Mrs Leo Wessinger, mother of a 13-year-oid daughter, told the board: "Personally I see no reason for girls at these schools going swimming In the nude. It is just going In lower their moral standard and get them off on the wrong foot."
Mrs Ann Brenner told the board members:"We are all alarmed about this freedom the girls have been given. There is no telling what It could lead to and we want it stopped at once."
Doctor Shibler said the wearing of suits was made optional at the request of girls in the three schools six weeks ago to give them more time in the pools during their twice-weekly physical education classes.
"In deference to the mothers, we are directing the girls at Liberty school to wear suits," Doctor Shibler said. "There is no moral issue involved here whatsoever. I don't care either way, myself. The more the finger of shame is pointed the worse It is for these girls, they become more conscious of themselves."
While the males on the board of education maintained a discreet silence, Mrs. Helen Fields, only woman member, agreed with Doctor Schibler that "no moral issue is involved. This type of discussion I think is not going to lead to anything constructive to discuss," she added.


Order Little Girls To Don Swim Suits
DETROIT. Jan. 17 — [[AP) — Young girls of the Liberty School in Highland Park were directed today to don their swim suits before they go near the waters of the swimming pool.
Superintendent of Schools H. L. Shibler said the mandate was in deference to a group of mothers who protested to the board of education Tuesday night that their daughters were bathing nude in the school pool.
The 150 girls at the school range in age from nine to thirteen.
Dr. Shibler said nude bathing will continue among approximately 200 other girls in two other elementary schools.
Boys in the schools have not worn suits for years, Dr. Shibler said, adding, however, that the girls were segregated during gym classes and are directed by women instructors. He said there was no encroachment on their privacy.
Mrs Leo Wessinger, mother of a 13-year-old daughter, told the board:
"Personally I see no reason for girls at these schools going swimming in the nude. It is just going to lower their moral standard and get them off on the wrong foot."
Added Mrs. Alma Vickers:
"This whole idea is ridiculous.I've forbidden my daughter to go in the pool without a suit. There should be a dividing line somewhere and if there isn't I suggest we all stop wearing clothes and join a nudist colony,"
Mrs. Ann Brenner told the board members:
We are all alarmed about this freedom the girls have been given. There is no telling what it could lead to and we want it stopped at once."
Dr. Shribler said the wearing of suits was made optional at the request of girls in the three schools six weeks ago to give them more time in the pools during their twice-weekly physical education classes.
"In deference to the mothers, we are directing the girls at Liberty School to wear suits," Dr. Shibler said. "There is no moral issue involved here whatsoever. I don't care either way, myself.

original PDFs
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=76LXY6NY

[jaglor]

Yeah....I was there at Denby in 1965-68. I lived at 12001 Wilshire..... I remember coach Rice too. I forgot about his stutter though...I remember bending over so he could check for dingleberries, I remember looking through that ceiling high wall to see the girls in swimsuits while we wore our bday suits. We didnt think anything of it, in those days. I told my young gf about it the other day and she thought I was dillusional.