School: Do (or did) Physical Education grades ever dependon raw physical ability?

Factual Questions
1

I remember wondering about this years ago, but am not certain that I received a straight answer. I didn’t have the greatest physical fitness level, but managed to do decently enough to get through grade school, middle school, high school and college.

Do (or did) grades (e.g. letter grades) in Physical Education classes ever depend on raw physical ability or performance, such as strength, endurance, flexibility, or dexterity? E.g. can you actually fail P.E. or get a low grade because you aren’t strong enough, or because you have a disability?

E.g.:

Dad: “How was school, son?”
Kid: “Terrible.”
Dad: “Why?”
Kid: “We’re doing the Mile Run in P.E. The rules are 7 minutes or less = A, 7-8 minutes = B, 8-9 minutes = C, 9-10 = D, and anything below that is an F. I was clocked at 9.43 minutes.”
Dad: “Be thankful that at least you can run. Back in '95 when your Aunt Sally was in high school she was hit by a car when crossing the street and was in a wheelchair for a year. When the class did the Mile Run they just threw her face-down on the track and told her ‘Do, or do not, there is no try.’ and gave her a big fat F. She’s still bitter.”

2

If you have a disability, there would be some sort of a waiver in place, or accommodation for the disability.

From what I saw in school, those that tried got decent grades. Those that did not, didn’t. Of course, it’s easier to be seen trying if you’re naturally athletic, than if you’re not.

Of course, that doesn’t take into account personal biases on the part of the PE teacher. I certainly noticed that those on the teams coached by the teacher “seemed” to have an easier time in the class than those who either didn’t play a sport, or were not involved in the particular sport coached by the teacher.

IMO, I think it should be a simple pass/fail grading. Either you put in enough effort, or you did not. And a fail should be hard to get. More than once, I had to figure out an alternate PE plan due to scheduling conflicts with classes that actually taught something useful.

3

That’s pretty much how I remember it in middle school (late 90s). Of course, there was also an effort grade. So if you took 14 minutes to do the mile, but you tried your hardest, you would probably end up with a C. That’s how I ended up passing PE. Of course, if you have a disability, you were excused (or took a different gym class). But really, that was just during the “physical fitness” testing part, which only happened once or twice a year. The rest of the time it was more playing sports, so your grade was mostly based on knowing the rules and your conduct.

4

How long have you actually got grades in PE in the states? The idea is pretty weird to me as a Brit.

5

Its been that way for decades. PE goes all the way through high school in many places although students may be able to swap other classes that involve physical activity or a sport with general PE classes.

6

Never heard of this. As far as I remember, from my own schooling and my kids, you are supposed to be learning about physical fitness and health and that is the way your grade is determined. I was one of the fit people and I sure don’t remember getting a good grade for that. It would have been sweet if I could have gotten an easy A for running a mile in under 7 minutes.

On the other hand, my English teachers never gave any breaks for effort. You spell a word incorrectly or happen to not write in the style they like - too bad for you.

7

I’ve never seen anyone get anything less than an A in PE, unless they blew off class or something.

8

I don’t remember ever hearing any explanation of how P.E. grades were determined. If I was ever given a syllabus or grading formula or anything like that, I don’t remember it. For all I know, it was up to the individual P.E. teacher to assign grades via whatever method he thought appropriate. Though, now that I think about it, it seems hard to believe they wouldn’t have had some official policy they could point to if students (or their parents) challenged their grades.

9

I was graded for P.E. at least starting in middle school, but was never given a rubric as to what percentage of our grade came from what. I never got a terrible grade in it as far as I remember so it didn’t matter a whole lot.

I do remember that talks of grades based on performance were geared around physical fitness activities such as the Mile Run, not on how many hits you got in baseball (e.g. 0 = F, 1 = D…), or how many times you hit the ball out of bounds in volleyball (e.g. 0-2 times = A, 3-5 times = B, 6-10 times = C…)

Are there any physical education teachers here? How do you grade?

10

New York, late 1960s.
First, our PE grade didn’t count in our class average, so we didn’t care all that much what we got. I believe good athletes got an A, the rest of us (and we were geek-heavy) got a respectable 85 so long as we made an effort. We had very large PE classes - a couple of hundred kids in each - so the teachers would rather concentrate on the people who would get something out of it. For instance, there was some President’s fitness test that involved shooting baskets, climbing a rope, and assorted other nonsense. They had us shoot baskets first, and when we failed that test (which we could do with minimal shame) didn’t torture us with the other ones. They were happy if we ran around the track, and we were happy to do so.

Another plus - way too many students to make us take showers, so I never went through that little bit of high school torture.

So the answer is yes, to a limited extent.

11

In 9th grade, not only were we graded on performance of physical tasks (so, for instance, a kid who couldn’t bench press his own weight would get a poor grade), but the scores were combined in a way that made no mathematical sense (the average of five Cs would be an F).

In other news, my ninth-grade gym teacher was an idiot. In my experience, most are better. For example, in 8th grade, we got scored on various things, and then the teacher asked us what grade we were targeting. If it was more than the score we already had, the teacher told us to run some number of (untimed) laps around the gym to get up to that grade. So anyone could get a decent grade; it would just take a little bit longer for those who were out of shape.

12

In college, I had to take one semster of PE and we were most certainly graded on performance, with consideration given to age. I got off well, because it was the last undergrad class I took, so I was already in the 21-24 group. The only test I remember was running, because it was so hot outside that we ran laps around the mezzanine of the basketball arena. Those seats hurt like hell when you smacked your knee on them.

We got letter grades in PE in 1st through 8th grades, and we had class every day. In high school, it was pass/fail and you only had to take it every other day.

The only way to fail was to cut class or, as at least one strange friend did, refuse to participate. He’d change into his shorts and sneakers and then just stand on the sidelines, chatting with the kids who were smoking in the designated area, which was next to the sports field. Nobody in charge cared about his frequent cutting of important classes or his propensity for reading novels during lectures. He was a B student with the best SAT in his year, but damn did they ever go apeshit over gym. They kept adding more gym classes to his schedule to make up the credits. It was kafkaesque. By senior year, he was taking gym 3 times a day on odd days and twice a day on even. He moved away about 2 months before graduation and they just mailed him a diploma.

13

I was in high school in Los Angeles in the late 70s. At that time, PE was graded A-Pass-Fail. If you put in any reasonable effort you got a Pass. You only failed if you didn’t put in any effort. You got an A if your performance was very good. That is, if you were a fast runner, or a good tennis player, whatever the PE course was about.

It worked pretty well – people who were into sports were motivated to get an A, everybody else just wanted to pass.

14

I was an awkward klutz as a kid, and consistently got either C’s or D’s in phys ed, despite showing up, giving an honest effort and not being an ass to the teacher. Once as a freshman, I got an F because I failed President’s Council on Physical Fitness guidelines. My mother went in and raised holy hell. The next quarter I got a B, which put my average back on track, then I went back to my usual pattern.

We had disabled kids in school, and they were obviously exempted from some requirements. That was in the 1960s. I don’t know what they do now.

15

I always got Bs in PE. I was of average athletic ability, but I tried hard. I have no idea how they graded. I suspected at the time time that the PE teacher just looked at your GPA and gave you PE grade that corresponded with it. How else could all those geeky, non-athletic types keep their 4.0? No way were they better than me in PE.

My son is in 8th grade and at his school, the grades are all about improving yourself For example with running, the standard for running a mile is 10:30, but at the beginning of the year their times are recorded. If they put in effort and improve their time, they get a higher grade.

16

I was a klutz, never got an A. That President’s Council thing ONLY served to mortify those of us who just weren’t BUILT for PE.

When my daughter hit jr hi, she was me all over again. Her PE teacher was an airhead Barbie Doll, and for the kids who couldn’t run as fast as the others, she made them do extra laps. My daughter got so upset, she cut class. I went in to raise Hell. The Vice Principal didn’t have a clue.

My premise then, and still is, we have accelerated academic classes for the college bound kids. You don’t put someone who is struggling with fractions in a Calculus class. Not every kid has the same agility and physical strength, and to clump all into one PE class is downright cruel.

Trust me, I know. I was ALWAYS the last kid picked for any team sport. And the team captains made no secret over my non-ability. “You take her.” “No, I don’t want her, YOU take her.”

I TRIED to meet with the airhead teacher, and I even took time off from work. The appointment was for 3 PM, I showed up at 3 PM, and there was a note: “Dear Ms VOW, I waited and waited, and I had to leave. Your daughter just needs to cut a few more minutes off her lap time. Signed, Airhead.”

She even dotted the “i’s” in her note with circles. I’m surprised there weren’t smiley faces and daisies for punctuation.

One of the coaches for the boys’ PE saw my daughter struggling on the field, and he took it upon himself to transfer her into his class for asthmatic kids. There was no pressure on her then, she stopped having stomach aches in the morning, and she never cut a class ever again.
~VOW

17

Is this still true? I had to take PE in the 9th grade but that is all. I can’t imagine having to take it 4 years, to the exclusion of AP academic classes as a Jr / Sr.

In 1995 I had to take PE in high school. You had to participate somehow (walking laps is fine) unless you were sick/injured. If you didn’t cut class and you didn’t sit out you got an A.

18

When I was forced to take PE as a high school freshman (this would have been 1990), our physical tests were graded by performance, and in a very similar fashion as the example.

There were two components to our final exam for the class: a written test concerning health, nutrition and rules of various sports; and then a timed mile run. I received an A on the written portion of the exam and a D on the mile run. The run was graded solely on time and they set the bar pretty high. . . To get an A, you had to complete the run in less than 6 minutes. This would be kids around 14 years old, for those of you not familiar with the US school system.

I have asthma, so running the mile was always difficult for me even in the best of times. During the course of the year, I had had breathing difficulties several times during our weekly runs and ended up walking or, one time, sitting out entirely. I always got the impression that the teachers basically figured I was just lazy and trying to get out of running. During our ‘final exam’, I told the teacher I was having trouble breathing and she told me, “Well, just walk it so at least we have a time for you.”

So I walked for a while, but knowing that my grade depended on my time, I tried to jog as much as I could when my lungs loosened up a bit. I ended up finishing in 9 minutes and 28 seconds, I think. It was in that neighborhood anyway, close to 9.5 minutes. That was good enough for a D. After I finished (jogging slowly as I crossed the line), the teacher said, “See, I knew you could run.” Her facial expression was pure disdain too, and I guess she thought I was faking all along. I definitely wasn’t faking earlier, I just tried to push through in order to save my GPA. The top time was just over 5 minutes, by one of our track stars, and I actually think I worked a ton harder to get my lousy 9.5 minutes than he did.

In the PE classes I took in elementary school, they actually took into account your baseline fitness and grades were in turn based on effort and improvement. But in high school, it was all based on absolute performance. My high school was heavily biased in favor of sports though, so that may be part of the explanation.

19

Class of '63 here. Each semester was broken down into 6 weeks each of gym, swimming and hygiene class (things like body maintenance, sex ed., first aid, etc.). Hygiene class was graded like any other class. Gym was graded pretty much by attendance and attitude. And swimming was also graded by attendance, except that you had to at least get across the pool without drowning. Theoretically, you couldn’t graduate without knowing how to swim.

I think the three grades were averaged to get our overall grade in P.E. So very little had to do with physical ability.

20

To join the chorus, my high school phys-ed teachers basically graded us on attendance vs. the amount of effort we were putting into the sports being played, which – now that I think about it – is a pretty wildly arbitrary way of handling things. My grades usually ranged between a B and an A, though, so I guess I can’t complain too overly.

One of my good high school friends ended up failing phys-ed in his senior year, which might have prevented him from graduating if he hadn’t worked out a summer plan with the administrators. Since phys-ed wasn’t a “course” they offered, his responsibility to make up the time was to basically spend 4 weeks showing up at the school library and reading any book that caught his eye. Not running, not anything physical – reading. Which, truth be told, he might have been a better student if they school’s focus had been on reading the entire time.