Tuesday, June 26, 2012

What if they deliberately inflated grades in gym class?

Every once in a while, people talk about making gym class mandatory throughout high school to improve the population's fitness. As I've blogged about previously, before we even get into the instrinic humiliation gym class, making it mandatory every year would be rather harmful academically.

First of all, having another required course to take every year eliminates the option of taking some other course that might be academically useful. Imagine if you're trying to get into some demanding university program, and you don't have room for Biology AND Chemistry AND Physics AND Calculus AND Computer Science because you have to take gym.

Secondly, making the class mandatory brings down the average of students who aren't particularly good at athletics (who should be the target audience of any such initiative, as those who are good at athletics are much more likely to already be involved in athletics). This would be harmful to non-athletic students' university and scholarship applications. For example, I did my very best in gym class every day, and all I got to show for it was a begrudging C. (And I suspect the teacher was only passing me at all because I was doing my best). In comparison, simply showing up in calculus or physics class and not putting in any effort would earn me a B, and simply showing up in French or German class and not putting in any effort would earn me a low A (and doing my best would get me a high A in all these classes). So, if the class were mandatory, it would lower my average, make me less attractive to universities and reduce my scholarships, all in service of a subject that's not only irrelevant to my future academic and professional career, but actually prevents me from taking another course that is relevant to my future academic and professional career. That's downright punitive!

But what if, instead of making gym class mandatory, they made it an easy A? Suppose showing up and doing the sport of the day was enough to earn you a low A-. Students are graded on a curve relative to each other within the A range of percentages, but the lowest mark you can possibly get for showing up and participating is a low A-.

This would give all students who can't normally earn an A effortlessly incentive to take gym every single year, to bring their average up for university. Students would still retain their positions relative to each other because the better performers would get high As and the worse performers would get low As, but gym class would have a positive effect on many people's averages, and no particular detrimental effect on anyone's average.

Inflating the grades may also be useful from a public health perspective (which is relevant since the whole idea of making gym class mandatory comes from a public health perspective). Because my very best efforts got me only a begrudging C, I reasonably conclude that my objective skill in sports is mediocre. If someone asked me to be part of their sports team, I'd be reluctant to do so (again, putting aside personal inclination) because I'd assume I'd be a liability for the team. However, if my best efforts had gotten a respectable B, I'd assume I'm more or less average and therefore no more of a liability than anyone else. You can see how this might affect a person's inclination to play sports later in life.

In all of this, there's still the question of Kinesiology class. I don't know how it works now, but when I was in high school, the OAC (Grade 13) gym class was called Kinesiology, had a stronger classroom component than the gym classes in the lower grades, and was preparation if not prerequisite for studying Kinesiology in university. I googled a few university Kinesiology programs, and they had multiple academic prerequisites (none of which were a high school gym or Kinesiology course), which suggests that, if high school Kinesiology still exists, the classroom component is academically relevant and would suffer from being inflated. Therefore, I propose that, if there is academically relevant material, only the in-gym component should be subject to grade inflation. That way, the students' relative marks will reflect their grasp on the academic material.

Understand, I'm not actually objectively advocating for inflating people's grades in gym class. However, from time to time, people advocate for using gym class as a public health tool, most often by suggesting that it should be made mandatory every year throughout high school. If they're going to insist upon manipulating the curriculum to achieve public health goals, I think grade inflation would be more effective and more just.

9 comments:

CQ said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
CQ said...

I was the opposite, lol. Earned a spot on the Senior Football team (upto 19 year-olds and grade 13) at just age 14 - couldn't get a B+ in Gym. Really? Ask why photos were being staged when there's no yearbook anymore? Not answered. And all of my grades slid in unison within a 6-7% range for each year. Gym, Science, Geography; it was always all the same.
By grade 12 (Ontario system) I received a 52(!) in Adv. Stream (potential Cdn. University admittance required) English.
Final semester I intercepted a mail-out fail warning notice in a sideline course. Took it into class, asked for my current test grades (hovering at 80 - a grade level I never rec'd as final incl. middle school). Then I publicly stated I would sign a blank exam paper, walk out, AND receive (per my instructions) another 52. A percent higher or lower - and I would return to the d*mn increasingly upper middle class Toronto-region public high school. I enjoyed the last time that I ever walked away from place.

Sarah said...

I've long thought that gym classes were overdue for a dose of curriculum reform and if there is a movement to make them mandatory those changes need to happen first.

If the goal of suggested mandatory phys ed is to encourage people to make physical activity and fitness a part of their lives then that's what the class needs to be about: how to make exercise and movement a part of your day.

So, instead of just dividing everyone into teams and playing sports all year, the course of study would include individual activities such as weight training and cycling and running. Students would have the chance to do a trip to a local gym (public/private partnership) and get a tour of the place.

Instead of being graded on inherent abilities and judged against a fitness standard, students would set their own fitness goals and be graded on achieving them. That's how exercise is encouraged in the real world. That way they would also learn their way around SMART goal setting.

Finally, they would actually be taught the skills required to play sports or do weight training rather than just thrown the appropriate ball and told to go play - or was I the only one who had the experience of watching Bend it Like Beckham and thinking that I might have actually liked soccer if someone had taught me how to play the game and shown me practice drills so I could get better at it.

impudent strumpet said...

My health classes in grades 7-9 actually taught quite a bit of the theory of physical fitness. We learned about target heart rates for cardio work and sets and reps for resistance training, as well as how these things affect the body and what they achieve fitness-wise. I properly understood the benefits of exercise and had a fair enough idea of how to at least start a training regime by the age of 13. I just found it too humiliating to actually do it in front of my classmates. I do wonder if they could do more good by making sure everyone absorbs the theory without worrying too much about whether they put it into practice. High school is only four years out of a person's life. If people decide to put off this public undignified activity for a few years until they're in a safer place, does that really do any harm?

I totally agree with you on actually teaching people HOW to play the sports. The first time we did soccer in gym class (in grade 1 or 2) I didn't actually know which net I was supposed to score into. They never explicitly told us stuff like that, just left us to figure it out ourselves from being yelled at by our classmates after we scored an own goal. I can only remember being corrected on form or technique once in all my years of gym class, when I was deviating from correct form to protect an old injury. Surely if I was only earning a C, my teacher could have come up with a productive tip or two to help me?

laura k said...

Wait... gym class is not mandatory for all grades in Ontario? Wow. That would have been so nice in New York State.

laura k said...

"Instead of being graded on inherent abilities and judged against a fitness standard, students would set their own fitness goals and be graded on achieving them."

I once interviewed PE teachers who dealt with kids with disabilities, and this is exactly what they did. Talking to them, it was so clear to me that their methods should be applied to all PE, for all people - and if it had been, it might have completely transformed my gym class experience AND my athletic abilities.

impudent strumpet said...

gym class is not mandatory for all grades in Ontario?

Unless things have changed very recently, it's mandatory up to and including Grade 9. This is relevant because we don't have a test like the SAT for university admission, instead it goes primarily by your average in your Grade 12 courses. So requiring it through Grade 12 would have a direct impact on whether you get into university.

impudent strumpet said...

Also, the best thing for my personal fitness level in high school was living within walking distance of the school. Because I had no friends the first couple of years, I went home at lunch. I lived about a 15 minute walk away from the school, which was fine because my lunch period was 75 minutes. I went home to decompress, avoid the fishbowl of the cafeteria, eat whatever I wanted, and watch the British Whose Line is it Anyway?, but a side effect was I spent a cumulative total of an hour a day on brisk walking.

laura k said...

I never lived within walking distance of any of my schools, because in my era there was mandated school racial integration - known as "busing". I would have loved to walk to and from school, and go home for lunch, especially during those dreadful junior high years. And it would have kept me more active, as it did for you.

Gym not being mandatory during high school sounds like a dream to me. It was so awful and so utterly useless.