Sixth-Graders Worry About More Than the Three Rs : Fears: Kids say that washing up after junior high P.E. class can be as horrifying as the ‘Psycho’ shower scene.

Junior high school can be pretty scary stuff for incoming sixth-graders.

Older kids might pick on you. You can get lost in the new building, moving from class to class. And the tough, no-nonsense teachers might just make you wish you were lost or being beaten up by a burly eighth-grader.

But these fears are nothing compared to the greatest threat of all.

The showers.

“They’re scared,” said Dan Witt, director of physical education at Northridge Junior High School. “You can see it in their eyes.”

State law requires students to take P.E. every day through the 10th grade. In elementary school, teachers escort students to the playground for a recreation period; in junior high and high school, P.E. means strenuous exercises and games--and showers. And fear. Physical education administrators and instructors in the San Fernando Valley say 1989 is no different than any other year; incoming students once again fear dressing and undressing before their peers.

Some won’t shower after P.E., and most schools won’t press the issue. “If the kid is going to be emotionally upset for the whole day because of being forced to take a shower, I don’t think that’s fair to the kids,” Witt said.

Some will shower only if they’re allowed to wear their underwear, and most schools accept that compromise. “A very small percentage will go in completely naked,” Witt said.

It doesn’t take a psychologist to understand why so many sixth-graders are reluctant to take public showers. This is a new experience for them, showing off their bodies to people they hardly know. Plus, as puberty creeps in, their bodies may be changing so quickly they have no time to adjust.

“One 12-year-old girl can look like she’s 7,” said Stephanie Bowen, head of physical education at Mulholland Junior High in Van Nuys, “and another like she is 30. The girls are very conscious of that. They are worried that their bodies are not as developed as they should be.

“We even have girls who will go into a bathroom stall rather than change in front of everyone. We try to tell them that other kids don’t have the time to look at them, that they are too busy getting ready for the next class. But they still are afraid.”

At Northridge Junior High, students wear towels as they walk about 20 feet from their lockers to the showers. Witt said as many as 50 out of about 900 boys refuse to take showers. Parents have written letters to the school, he said, excusing their children from showers.

Bob Coburn, chief guidance counselor at Northridge Junior High, regularly visits elementary schools to brief them about what they can expect at junior high. Invariably, the shower question comes up.

“Believe it or not,” Coburn said, “some kids believe that we all dress together, boys and girls. Their concept of junior high is so warped. And just talking to them does alleviate some of their concerns. I tell them it’s more like a public pool situation.”

At Northridge this year, Coburn said, physical education classes were divided by grade level. In previous years, P.E. classes were a mix of sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders. Sixth-graders, Coburn said, have been a part of junior high in most Valley schools since 1980.

“This way, they’re not mixed with the seventh- and eighth-graders who have already gotten over the fear of showers,” Coburn said.

John--not his real name--is one Northridge sixth-grader who hasn’t overcome the fear. Standing by his locker after physical education class, he watched as dozens of students ran into the showers.

“I’m just afraid,” he said, staring at the ground. “I don’t like them. And I don’t have to go in.”

Witt said each week, a few more sixth-graders conquer their fears and take showers.

“But I really don’t expect things to change,” Witt said. “It’s been that way for years, and it will always be that way.”