Grading gym for effort; grading algebra for results

Great Debates
41

I’m not so sure. I sucked at baseball, but I played recreationally because I loved the game. I wasn’t much better at basketball. But whether or not I played it recreationally has little to do on whether I was graded based on ability or effort. If anything, marking me down a grade for striking out would have made me less likely to enjoy recreational baseball.

My future wasn’t determined by whether I sank those long baskets (I preceded the 3 point era), but I definitely couldn’t have gotten into engineering without being able to solve quadratic equations. For most people, results in gym class don’t matter, but results in academics does.

42

Oh sheesh—
change the end of the post to “results in academics do”

43

CrazyCatLady, I do feel that I understand the point you and jayjay are trying to make, but I don’t think you’ve actually carried out the hypothetical example rigorously. Now, I do not know how all high schools across America handle their class schedules, but we only were required to have two semesters of gym in two different grades: mandatory for one semester in 9th grade, then again in 10th grade. From then on you could take them again, but your grade for it was no longer a part of your overall GPA.

Because of this, I am also particularly skeptical of how much of an impact you think gym has on a GPA. As GPA was handled at my school, two semesters of a class barely dented someone’s GPA. Given the lack of importance that colleges assign to GPAs in general (both in the comparison between a 3.9 and a 3.8 and as treating it as a good indicator of expected performance a la andymurph’s post), I am simply not all that moved at the exposition.

I am willing to listen to a better one, however; or, I am also willing to hear how others’ gym classes were handled with respect to cumulative grading, and so on. I am not asking for a highly mathematical demonstration (that seems excessive), just a more complete one.

Thanks.

44

I agree with Lamia and MSU 1978 type positions.

But I also want to point out that teachers do grade students down for not making the effort in academic classes. It happened to me all the time in grade school: highest grade on the test but get a ‘B’ since I should have done better. I acted “dumb” in high school and avoided it but it happened again in grad school.

45

Very interesting thread. The wider the range of ability, the more difficult it is to grade on results. So, here’s a relevant question for the group. Students vary in athletic ability just as they vary in academic ability. Which type of ability has a wider variance? Or, do they both vary about the same amount?

My impression is that athletic ability is varies more. At least there were fellow students who could do physical activities that I found inconceivable.

46

My high school had two different types of gym classes; if you were on any sports team, you had to attend the ‘advanced’ gym class. That didn’t fix everything, of course-it was quite entertaining to look at me & the other cross-country beanpoles doing weight-training with the discus throwers and the offensive linemen. :smiley: But it helped, I think, that everybody in the class was good at some sort of athletic activity.

My senior year, I decided not to go out for track in the spring, and I was allowed back into the ‘regular’ gym class. The difference was astonishing. Anyone who had any kind of talent, competitive instinct, and/or interest in physical activity went out for some sort of sport, so there was really very little pressure in those classes.

In the ‘advanced’ class, there was very little mockery, because everyone had respect for the talents the others did have. Those football players weren’t making fun of my 90-lb bench press, because they’d seen me run a mile in six minutes and hardly break a sweat, while they just about died running it in twelve. And in the ‘regular’ class, well, most everybody made a fool of himself in something or other fairly regularly, so nobody really made an issue of it …

december, I think it’s very hard to compare the ranges of athletic and academic ability. The reason you don’t often see the extremes in the academic subjects is that in school, the curriculum is aimed at the average student, so you only see that the ‘smartest’ students succeed easily. It’s as if you had that mile run in gym class, and the target was 12 minutes for an ‘A’, and nobody was allowed to do it faster. You would see that some students have no problem getting an ‘A’, but there’d be no way to tell whether that student’s best mile time was around ten minutes, around five minutes (like mine), or around four minutes (like our top runner’s). When you get into serious intellectual competitions, you’ll see people do things as amazing to the average person as my friend’s four-minute mile …

47

December,

Until you’ve taught, you have NO clue :wink: about just how incapable many students are. The range of ability between people is astounding and took me completely by surprise.

{warning, more personal anecdotes ahead}

I had a woman take College Algebra and Business Calculus from me. As a side note, she used to be Mr. Burghoff’s wife (Radar from MASH and she had a daughter who’s father was ‘Radar’s’ as well. Very obvious too since she looked like him, in a cute way, but never tell her that or she’ll slice you apart. She hated her father since he wasn’t into being her father or paying child support. But I digress…)

She kept insisting that I was ‘coddling’ her and she didn’t deserve the A’s she was getting. I kept insisting she was in the top 10%. She refused to believe this and, after time, was becoming angry with me. One time, she stormed in my office and demanded I lower her grade for Business Calc. Breaking some rules, I showed her the grade distribution of the class and allowed her to look through the final exams of the rest of the class. The expression was priceless. After many “Oh my God’s” and “I can’t believe this’s”, she apologised and never complained about her grades again. She also seemed to get much confidence in semesters after that.

I also had a heartbreaking student named Carl. Carl was the only child of a long line of Engineers. Carl wanted to be an engineer more than anything and there was great family pressure on him. Carl was a real nice guy. The problem was that Carl was dumb as a post. Not retarted, just not very bright. He gravitated to my classes and, after 3 tries managed to pass Calc I. He then took Calc II four times and finally passed. He went into CalcIII and I didn’t teach it that semester. He still sought me out for help.

We were working a word problem. It involved a rising balloon over perfectly flat land and dealt with the area of the surface visible to the person on the balloon. I went though it and he struggled as always. What I still remember vividly is him asking “How did you know that?” What? "How did you know that the area visible is a circle?

???. I spent no less than 15 minutes trying to explain this extremely obvious fact from many different angles. No luck. Poor guy.

I can easily see the range of academic ability equal to or greater than athletic ability.

48

Wait a minute here.

What is the purpose of education? Is school supposed to be about academics or athletics? What is the pupose of athletics in public schools?

I think Bricker may have a different idea of the role of athletics in junior and high school are than, say, jayjay.

My opinion (and that’s all we are all flinging about here) is that a who student excels in sports should get a better grade than a student who can’t run a single lap around the gym. The student who doesn’t even try to run that lap should fail, the student who does not have the physical ability but tries should not fail.

So-- effort counts, ability should be rewarded.

49

The point here, though, isn’t how effective your gym class was, or how much you loathed it. The point is, should you be graded for sinking the basket or for throwing the basketball? As gym is taught by the vast majority of American high schools, is there such a thing as a fair results-based assesment?

When I was in high school, we had to take one year of gym. So of course the class was full of freshmen and seniors, for the obvious reasons. There’s an obvious developmental problem there in grading for results. In addition, while state law mandates four years of English and one could take AP English, college prep English, tech prep English, English as a foreign language, or the English classes I suppose must have been offered as part of the all-day special ed classes out on the science wing, although I don’t know much about their curriculum requirements and they were at least not required to take gym with us, although there may have been some activity requirement. We had one gym class. It seems most of the posters so far had the same, although somebody did mention the presence of an advanced gym class required for those on sports teams. So keep in mind, I was in an AP English class with other students who excelled in English. I, who am sports-impaired, was in a gym class with Corey Jenkins. He’s one of the stars of the University of South Carolina football team now, but he excelled in all sports at the time. Think on that for a minute.

We did have a lot of basic skills work. (I may remain to this day the only person in the history of my high school to flunk the volleyball skills serving test by somehow sending it behind me into the gym teacher’s face.) We did have an “academic” component of testing on sports rules and such before we played each sport. We were pretty much graded on those tests and if we dressed out and got on the stupid court.

Results? Those of us who were athletically uninclined remained so. Those who liked sports continued to do so.

Possibly more important results? Despite the basic skills work, despite the general benign nature of dear Coach Inabinet (sorry about that volleyball, man), despite the inclusion of sports like street hockey and badminton that most of us gym losers enjoyed more than the other sports we were forced to play, I would rather eat a live centipede than play a competitive team sport. Is that because of my gym experiences? Well, I’m not crazy about activities that make other people get really competitive, but I do enjoy competitive games like Trivial Pursuit and the occaisional game of Halo that I don’t completely and utterly suck ass at. Being forced to do all this taught me mostly resentment and loathing at the entire concept, though.

Did it do anything for my lifetime fitness? No. I started going to the gym and doing yoga last year, years and years after gym (although my college is one of the last few with a gym requirement), because I was thinking about my long term health. Did gym teach me lifelong health skills and knowledge? Um, dosen’t everybody know physical activity is good for you? And, er, say no to drugs, man. And use a condom. (They ought to result-grade the sex ed component, I think.) :slight_smile:

So, I recieved no benefit from the class except a cute volleyball story. I did learn, through years of this (I only put it in the high school context because that’s what everybody else was talking about, and because I admit I appreciate the basic skills content of that class; I was otherwise forced to play eight years of baseball never really understanding what the hell I was supposed to be doing. Didn’t matter, from where they put me in the outfield) to resent sports, particularly team competition. I got a daily helping of shame, humiliation, embarassment, and ridicule. I never once, not once in my life, have served the volleyball over the net.

Instead of instilling a lifelong habit of activity and teamwork, it taught me a deep suspicion of it. Now, I realize that this thread is not about whether required gym is a positive thing or not, but understand that I’d have flunked it if I wasn’t just graded on dressing out. I was the one the teacher had to stay after class and into lunch for so I could finish that damned mile run. (Could we not just save me the humiliation? Could we not just put down “hopeless” and let me stop? Obviously if anybody needs to go eat their lunch and grow big and strong it was scrawny little me!)

Now, imagine if gym classes were tracked like math and English. If I had been placed in the special ed gym class, where I belonged, would it be fair to grade me on results? If I were in a class with all the other hopeless runty kids, and the class were geared to my level of ineptitude, would a grade like those in other classes with a percentage of “class participation” and “student improvement” and a percentage of, say, “basic skills test results” and some weight given to “on-paper test results” be fair? I think it would, if the class were designed appropriately. I think it would be wrong of me to complain about a poor grade recieved for not doing what I ought to be able to do (assuming that they’re right about what I ought to be able to do.)

But is that the purpose of gym class? What is school for, anyway? To educate? To produce an informed electorate? To produce well-rounded citizens? In that case, gym and art and band do have a place in the curriculum. But are we really trying to turn out sports stars? We have extracurricular activities for those who really enjoy athletics. Gym classes are, I assume, trying to teach the rest of us some basic health knowledge and encourage physical activity. Didn’t seem to really encourage most of us here, but I’m not arguing about the effectiveness, only the purpose. If that’s the purpose, then all you should have to do is show up and hit that volleyball. If gym is about results, then it should be tracked as other classes are to ability level. I don’t expect everybody to excel in the same English and math classes I took, but I do think that anybody in regular, non-remedial, non-special-ed classes should be able to do well in a basic reading or daily math skills class. Therefore, it is fair to grade me on my results in my classes and somebody with less natural academic ability on their results in appropriate classes. It is not fair or appropriate to grade me on the same scale in the same gym class as future professional athletes.

50

I agree that progression should be a big part of evaluating student performance. There can be some problems with this. Some students may not perform up to their full potential on the initial test. I think this happens rarely. Some students are more interested in the grade and could care less about the learning experience.

Any results-based assesment would be criticized. I taught at a high school that used skills test to determine part of the students grade. There was a huge controversy over a couple of points. I understand both sides of the issue. Maybe students that perform poorly on skills test could be given some other opportunity to earn points.

I think the most fundamental part of the assessment should be based on progression in stamina, strength, and flexibility. Some students that are very fit to begin with would not show a huge gain. In these cases, participation and maintaining a standard level of fitness should be graded.

51

My, what hoity-toity P.E. classes you all have.

Back in the day, my school was very open about P.E. being nothing more than getting a break from sitting in a classroom so that you’d be less antsy for the remaining classes. Grades were pass/fail. You passed if you showed up, participated, and weren’t disruptive. P.E was an alternative for Ritalin, so to speak.

52

Bricker, I’m all for a holistic educational approach that incorporates the physical as well as the mental. However, my gym classes were far from that. They were entirely based around competitive sports. Which sucked for the short, scrawny, and uncoordinated among us. I loathed gym class, and it really turned me off physical activity. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I discovered exercise I like–hiking, dancing, and weight-training, all non-competitive activities that got no attention in gym classes.

If schools are using an approach like the one Deadly Accurate suggested, an approach that focuses on cardio and weight training rather than competitive sports, then it would be appropriate to grade on results or improvement. As it is, most gym classes tend to be brief units on different sports. If I’m bad at basketball, a three week unit on it in gym class is not going to improve my skills measurably. There’s not going to be any improvement to grade me on.

53

Just as, I’m sure, pre-algebra sucks for people who aren’t good at math. You want to make that optional, too? Or adjust the grading system there for effort, not acheivement?

54

The difference between sucking in math and sucking in PE is that your fellow math students don’t usually yell and jeer at you and throw balls at you if you mess up.

Math isn’t very competetive. At least not in the same context as PE. I hated Math, because I often had bad teachers and I was foisted into classs that were too advanced for me. (I probably was “slightly above average” in math, and they kept on putting me in “advanced” class—often with older kids—and I sucked.) In PE, I was woefully uncoordinated, and it was miserable because the other kids could get so viscious when I screwed up. Because it was all about “winning”, see? Couple that with the fact that I “blossomed” early, causing much hostility (and jealousy, I guess) amongst some of the other girls.

The size of my boobs was of no relevance in math class. (Well, at least no kid poked by breasts and yelled at me, “You stuff your bra!” in math class.) No one else felt that their “team” was losing if I messed up in math class. No one would throw a ball at me if I messed up in math class.

55

i am a senior in high school and i can attest that gym classes exist at my school only because they are required for state diplomas. if you play on a team, take dance lessons, or can convince the gym teacher that your excuse is valid, you do not have to go. the grades are on a pass/fail basis and are not incorporated into our averages. if you show up to gym or you have a good reason not to go, you pass. if you cut, you get detention and you fail. the gym program at my school does not make an iota of difference in the fitness of any students at my school, since only about 25% of the students actually attend the classes, and they just do whatever they want and toss around a softball, play some knockout, or hit volleyballs back and forth. the real exercise everyone in my school gets is from the six flights of stairs we climb every day (it’s a small school in NYC with 3 or 4 classrooms on each floor).

now that i am done with my anectode…

we must decide what the point of gym class is and if it is different than academic classes like math and history. since academic courses are generally split into levels (ap, honors, regular, fundamentals, etc.) based on previous performance and natural ability, students should be graded on performance. they are placed into classes that will curtail to their abilities.

a gym class is generally not split into levels of ability except in the one previous case mentioned, i forget by whom. therefore, students should be graded on performance given natural talent. there is always room for improvement. so a superjock should get a good grade if he or she works hard in gym class to get better at sports and to become more physically fit. someone with no genetic predisposition in sports should get a good grade for working hard to to get better at sports and to become more phsyically fit.

natural ability is taken into account in the placement of students into academic courses, and therefore in that person’s grades. i had already learned algebra and so skipped straight into sophomore honors math my freshman year. i was in a math class with others on my level. had there been no placement test, i would have taken algebra again my freshman year and gotten 100s on every test. it would have been unfair to everyone, including me. likewise, if a gym class has placement tests, students should be graded on results within the context of the class.

but if the future nba all-stars are in the same class as the future nasa physicists, results should not be the basis of grading. it would be like putting me, the very mathematically inclined, in the same math class as a freshman who struggles through algebra and grading based on test performance.

56

Well, yosemitebabe, this never happened in my HS gym classes, so I don’t know. On the other hand, my math pre-calc and calc classes were very competitive in HS. God knows why.

57

Count me as one who thinks that Gym should be graded.

Public school is supposed to give you the basic skills for a functioning adult member of our society, and to help you develop as a human being. That means being coordinated, being fit enough to do physical labor or recreation, be exposed to enough sports to help you find forms of physical recreation, and instill lifelong habits of physical exercise.

Academic classes teach you mental skills, discipline, and teach you the facts you need to know.

We grade people in school A) to motivate them to work harder and do better, B) act as a filter and yardstick for higher education, and C) give people a true assessment of their strengths and weaknesses so they can make better, more informed life choices.

It seems to me that grades serve exactly the same purpose in physical education. It’s not a matter of which one is more important, but whether grades are a tool that gets us the result we want.

58

If PE is to be graded in the way you’d prefer, it damned well better be taught better. Throwing a bunch of kids in together, teaching them almost nothing (at least that’s how it was with many of our PE experiences) and then let the strong prey on the weak while the teachers do nothing—well, how would you grade that? Most other classes in school, (whether I liked them or not) had some sort of goal or impact on me. I could see their point, at least somewhat. But most of the time, PE was just torture. Poorly supervised torture which encouraged bullies and a pecking order. Torture where the weak and uncoordinated are not encouraged to improve, but are treated with impatience or just simply ignored. Why should a weak or uncoordinated student get a poor grade because their teacher isn’t doing their job?

I got a taste a few times of what PE should have been like. I had a quarter of “weight training”, which involved exercising and weights and stuff like that. We had to keep a chart of our weight and measurements. No pressure, no derision, no cruelty, no jeering, no balls being thrown at me. And guess what? I got more fit and lost weight. I didn’t dread class—I participated in the way I was intended to participate. The class did what I assume PE is supposed to do. And it was pretty much the ONLY time in all my years of PE where that happened.

59

Man, you guys must have had some crappy PE classes. We learned the rules of all the various sports, we did wrestling and gymnastics and olympic games. In the winter we did modules on skating and other winter sports. In the spring we had swimming classes, tennis, soccer, football, etc.

About the only sports we didn’t learn were the ones that required expensive equipment. Hockey, skiing, etc. When we worked in the gymn we did rope climbs, rings, pommel horse, etc. And of course the various games like dodgeball.

We were graded for effort AND achievement, with the two scores averaged. Seemed fair enough. If you had no skill, to get a good mark required that you work hard. To get the best marks, you had to have skill and work hard.