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Comment by fibonachos | Hacker News Reader

I gained a deep, searing hatred of team sports due to a combination of forced participation and being a physically awkward teen in the middle of an epic growth spurt. Being graded on ones ability to complete a mile within a certain time constraint, as opposed to being graded on effort, is utter madness. The whole thing put me off physical activity for most of my adult life. Only in the last couple of years have I started exercising again, but on my own terms and for my own reasons.

There is a huge difference between "because you have to" and "because I want to".

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> Being graded on ones ability to complete a mile within a certain time constraint, as opposed to being graded on effort, is utter madness

How is that different from being graded in other subjects in school? You don't get an A in calculus because you tried to answer the question, you get a grade based on how good you answer the question.

This concept also applies to most things in adult life living in modern society. Results matter. You don't get a Series-A-for-effort in business.

Yes, you do. Let me just say the word "Color". Well, except it's not effort, it's connections.

Ok, you got me on the connections part. Not sure what you mean by "Color" though, I must be out of the loop.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Labs

If you think about it - you had to do pretty well in social/communication “subject” to earn those connections. Just showing an effort to get connections without actually providing any value will lead you nowhere as well

You don't get picked on by your teammates for getting a B or a C in calculus, usually (there are contexts where it happens, but it's much much rarer).

You typically don't get full marks in calculus for a correct answer with no working shown, and an incorrect answer due to a minor mistake where the working/method is correct generally gets a substantial portion of the marks.

The equivalent would be grading the running technique, pacing etc.

There's the slight difference that calculus does not depend on your current hormonal situation, while sports does.

Growth spurts wreak havoc on coordination ability, and it's entirely beyond the person's control.

(We're not even talking about the fact that you don't get a grade based on how well you answer the question in calculus, either. You get graded on understanding, and steps involved, even if you get the wrong answer. Or at least you get graded that way in sane school systems)

> calculus does not depend on your current hormonal situation

What if your testosterone wants you to run, jump and play with your friends instead of sitting and reading calculus books?

This is a good part of the reason girls tend to do better in school than boys. I don't know if there's a great answer; if you don't find effective coping strategies then you will suffer.

Calculus isn't a required course and as such has less of a pressure to "pass everyone". You don't get an A in pre-algebra either just for trying, but since everyone has to take it if you're trying then you're unlikely to get held back on that class even if most of your answers are wrong.

I'm fine with coaches grading on performance. It's a proxy for effort + talent like a lot of things, and as non-geniuses know effort extends outside the classroom proportional to your talent. If you can't even get a 20 minute mile, you're going to have to put in more effort outside the classroom, which might involve refusing to eat 100% of mom's delicious huge dinner or doing "exercise studies" (i.e. working out outside of class).

Whether gym class should be required is another discussion. I don't think it should be (and that easily filters out most people complaining about being graded for performance anyway) and it's a pretty poor attempt at managing rising obesity rates.

I was giving calculus just as an example, I was referring to a general subject in school where you have to study and do your homework in order to get good grades. I am pretty sure most of those who got low grades in gym classes did not bother to do any "homework" to make themselves prepared to the next class (e.g. practice catching the ball, do pull ups etc). It's the same with kids who had bad grades at subjects that required thinking, they did not bother to do their homework and were not really interested in reading, studying etc...You should look at the issue from both perspectives

I would think that the ultimate objective with physical education is to engender in kids a lifelong fitness habit. Given that once you leave school there really isn't much nowadays forcing people to get regular exercise, the only thing that really matters is that it's fun and rewarding.

I don't know why you'd grade kids at all on anything but their participation. Punishing a kid for being weak or poorly coordinated serves only to make them resent getting exercise.

Because there are some factors that are simply out of ones control that affect athletic ability. Should students also be graded on how much weight they can lift? How flexible they are? How far they can hit a softball? Is it fair to let that affect their GPA in districts such as mine where three years of PE (or a team sport) were a graduation requirement?

Back to the time constraint. Some teachers would FAIL students who were consistently unable to complete a mile in under 10 minutes. Effort was irrelevant. I wasn't a heavy kid, but routinely crossed the finish line bright red, gasping for breath, and light headed.

So yes, putting your student's future academic and career prospects in danger due to lower than "average" athletic ability is utter madness.

Anecdotally, PE in US wasn't worse, compared to Japan. (Where I have been for first 6.75 of school.)

Grading in Japan was fairly black and white; whether you can do certain thing or not. It sucked even worse being thrown into some team sports with no briefing on rules.

At PE classes in US, where I spent most of middle and all the high school, I think the problem was more of how compatible I was with the teacher. Some graded very strictly on the outcome (which sucked), but some other graded on efforts (which was more reasonable) -- some had good balance while others were worse.

Problem of physical fitness is that there are quite a bit of genetic that plays huge role. You can only improve your athletic ability so much to meet some standard. Thus, unless you are training for the Olympics, it really should be graded based on how much you improve over time rather than whether you can reach certain goal that may be unrealistic to some.

>it really should be graded based on how much you improve over time

This is really just grading on how much courage you have to sandbag in the first lesson.

Maybe that's fine. Still better than forcing students to go for practically unattainable standard. But then, maybe it's just as good as grading them based on efforts...

> it really should be graded based on how much you improve over time rather than whether you can reach certain goal

Agreed. After my first year of regular P.E. I signed up for a class focused entirely on strength and fitness. No team sports. Two days on the track, three days in the weight room. Physically it was a far more demanding class, but it was taught by a far more reasonable teacher. Despite being among the slowest when it came to running the mile, I still received an A for showing effort and improvement.

It's been 25+ years since Ive been subjected to PE and I dont remember it being graded on ability, but more on participation and effort. It was really hard to not get an A. You basically had to refuse to even attempt the day's activity to fail.

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