End of the Year: Fitness Testing

     It's that time of year again! As the school year begins to wind down and SOL testing commences (at least for those of us in Virginia), the PE departments at schools across the state begin the monotonous task of end of year (EOY) fitness testing. All too often, I see teachers simply moving through the motions without emphasizing why these tests are important or how they benefit students present level of physical fitness. This is the largest disservice we can give to our students and here's why...

1. Privacy in fitness testing. Too often we see the "old PE" style of fitness testing, where scores are compared to other students. This is no longer accepted practice and should be banished from all PE programs. Fitness testing and the associated scores should be for the eyes and ears of the individual student only. If they choose to share their scores, that is their choice, but it is not our responsibility to blast their scores to the world. Instead, we need to keep scores private and utilize them for goal setting.

2. Fitness testing is for everyone, not just for athletes. We all know our students. We know who the athletic students are and we know which students may fit into various other categories. We also need to know (and understand) that fitness testing needs to be done in a way that allows all students to succeed and feel comfortable. Personal goal setting allows us to personalize fitness testing to individual students, which in turn allows the to focus on their own goals as opposed to what other people in the class are doing. This also changes the dialogue among our students from "what score did you get" to "did you meet your goal." We would be naive to think they don't talk about their scores, so let's foster a positive framework for the discussion so students are proud to talk about meeting their goals instead of comparing scores to others.

3. Fitness testing is a great indicator for baseline and present level physical fitness. Fitness testing is an excellent tool to show students their own growth and improvements! Yes, it is certainly not our only form of feedback, as we should be providing formative and summative assessments throughout each skill we teach, but it is a useful tool for showing students how far they've come. We are also providing realistic feedback on how they can improve further to improve their overall health and wellness.

4. Goal Setting Using EOY Fitness Scores. We should ensure to keep track of students physical fitness score data throughout the year, but especially the baseline testing at the beginning of the year and the EOY scores we record around this time. I find it easiest to do this with traditional pen and paper before importing scores into a Microsoft Excel or Google Slides worksheet. I then take the pre and post test scores and write them on a piece of paper provided to the student. We take a health day to set comprehensive goals for each test area, as well as three sub-goals for each, in order to improve present levels of physical fitness. This emphasizes the important of our testing and how it can benefit students in and out of our classrooms. If you are looking for a resource to help facilitate this goal setting process, you can check out my Fitness Goal Setting Lesson here.

     Ultimately, we are responsible for how our students respond to fitness testing. We control the environment and it is our responsibility to make sure students feel safe, physically, mentally, and socially. We can perform fitness testing without catering to athletes and ensuring students of all abilities feel welcome and supported.

Good luck as we enter the home stretch to the end of the year!

An Open Letter to Tessa Embry

A recent post about an eighth grade girls response to a health quiz question about BMI has gone viral. Buzzfeed picked up the story and posted their own article and there are some things I'd like to say as a physical educator.

Dear Tessa,

     I'm so sorry your physical educators failed to fully explain the purpose and flaws behind BMI when teaching you. It hurts me deeply to know the environment you are in is making you feel uncomfortable or judged. I am a physical educator who teaches middle school students like yourself in Virginia and I, like your PE teacher, teach my students about BMI. I encourage you, and anyone else reading, to hang with me through this letter... I have a lot to say.

     When I teach my students about BMI, we talk about how it takes your weight to height ratio, places it on a correlated chart, and then slaps a category title on you. We talk about how BMI works for many individuals when it comes to accuracy, but we also go over that it is not the best, nor most accurate indicator for all individuals and body types. We teach BMI in health because it is easy to use and does apply to many people. It is also free, requires no equipment, and people from all walks of life have access to it. The key point I always articulate to my students is that individuals who have larger muscle mass are going to be labeled inaccurately. We talk about how a pound of muscle takes up 75% less space than a pound of fat in the body, we discuss how that variable is not included in the calculation, and we emphasize that BMI does not in fact define them.

     Now, in middle school (which I've already told you I teach), none of my students are muscularly developed professional athletes. Most are experiencing puberty and are just beginning to show muscular growth, but not to the dramatic extent of a fully mature adult, like a professional football player or marathon runner. Because of this, BMI is typically accurate for middle school students (there are ALWAYS exceptions to this rule and I make sure to explain that as I mentioned above). It is important to recognize when the scale is inaccurate for you, but that doesn't mean the entire topic isn't worth teaching or learning about. 

     In fact, in addition to BMI, I also educate my students about skin calibrators, bod pods, digital hand calibrators, and other forms of measurement that more accurately measure body fat percentage than BMI. Sadly, most school districts don't have funding to acquire most of these devices in public schools. It is critically important for us as health and physical educators to ensure we pass on skills to our students that allow them to be happy and healthy. We discuss nutrition, various body systems, health and skill related fitness, among many other important topics that include BMI.

     It truly saddens me to see how "old PE" still impacts the lives of students. There is a revolution in our industry, "new PE," that recognizes these bad influences and makes every effort to educate efficiently to build healthy children and adults, both mentally and physically. I sincerely hope that one negative experience will not impact you and your opinion on health and sport for the remainder of your life. 

Sincerely,

The Sassy PE Teacher

The Balancing Act

It sure has been a while since my last post! Life has become so busy that blogging has been put on the back burner for quite some time. I had hoped spring break would allow me to become more active again, but sadly I was just as busy catching up on things that had fallen by the wayside during school.

Which leads me to a puzzling questions, how do all the other bloggers balance their lives? I'm young, with no kids or husband, and I barely find time to breathe, let alone blog! I would love to contribute more to the community, but I find it so stressful. I've thought of creating a day each week dedicated to maintaining my blog, but even that seems impossible some weeks.

To give some background, I teach middle school health and physical education, I coach the girls soccer team for my school, and I've started my summer job early as the program director for a YMCA camp! Teaching is obviously my priority, coaching adds another 7-9 hours a week, and then my camp job fills up another 8 hours! I feel like I'm about to pull my hair out and it's only the first day back in school!

Despite all this, a wise man once told me to always come with a solution so here it is. I will dedicate time to blog on Monday's. My week will just be starting, all of my lessons will be planned, and I'll have the weekend to determine a topic. I really want to be successful at this blogging thing!

Until next week,
xoxo The Sassy PE Teacher