Today we’re going to discuss what is most likely the most polarizing topic in phys ed today… Assessing! To really understand why this is, we’ll need to look at some history.
This is a murky path let me tell you, but things sort of started taking shape in the early 1900s when researchers McCurdy and McKenzie studied blood pressure fatigue. At the same time Dudley Sargent, the creator of the vertical jump test, emerged.
Fast forward to the 1950s and Kenneth Cooper takes center stage, the inventor of the 12-minute run or Coopers test! Also creating waves was the father of exercise cardiology, Robert Bruce. Let’s not forget Kraus and Weber who put testing on the map in the 1940s by exposing that North American children had a 56% failure rate compared to European children at 8% of 6 simple strength tests.
Nothing much happened until the 1980’s when Jens Bangsbo released the Yo-yo test and Carmelo Bosco started to intensely look at lower body strength and power through multiple versions of jump testing. Last to the party was Francesco Conconi, who shed light on energy systems by introducing the beep test concept.
All of these incredibly bright individuals were pioneers in health and fitness but it was Kraus and Weber’s work that influenced education the most. Since their work was on children and the cold war had recently started it became important to understand our youths’ health markers. If there is ever a time when you need to ensure the health of our youth it is during pandemics and wars because both are life and death situations.
Countries around the world have implemented their own versions of assessments in PHE, all with the intention to ensure the health and safety of their people, so what happened? Why does this rip apart our phys ed system today? My opinion is the lack of evolution!
Remember this started as a standardized methodology by “testing”, which by nature creates division and feelings of failure due to its relation to “test”. When we take a test, we automatically associate pass and fail. Let’s give some credit to the space as “fitness testing” was replaced with “assessing” in order to align youth with a perspective of evaluation. This is a step in the right direction but where we must push to is Self Assessment. Providing the environment for students to self-evaluate sets them up with the mental ability to have self-awareness, this is a massive life skill! Not to mention it gets the student invested in the process or work between self-assessments because they are now interested in the effect.
Evolving the language is only half of the answer, the other half is the actual drills themselves. Again, using history, all of these tests were created in the context of athletics or military performance. This begs the question, why have we not modified them? The only reason to assess is to reassess and if we are choosing activities that are intimidating, not inclusive or not even appropriate for students then save yourself the hassle and don’t even assess. I will be frank with you, though. If you aren’t assessing them, don’t expect them to learn anything or take any responsibility for their health.
Assessing needs to be non-invasive, fully inclusive and most importantly repeatable. It needs to make sense in the context and be empowering. As health influencers, we provide the framework by setting the expectation that this week everyone has to complete their body weight self-assessment. We empower the students to get it done when they feel comfortable and ready to do so. Kids need structure, but they also need to be responsible for themselves.
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