Proposal for marks for fitness in schools. Right or wrong?

There have long been campaigns for integrating sports and physical education into the educational curriculum of schools. There’s a suggestion that from the next 5 year planning period, schools will include the expenses made on sports activities with the educational budget, allowing them to spend more on improving the fitness of their students. That is some ways down the line, but right now there’s a more immediate and ambitious plan being implemented. ‘Marks for fitness’

Not to be confused with ‘Marks for Sports’, the initiative by NDTV. Marks for Fitness is more about measuring the fitness of a student rather than their proficiency across one sport. Sports minister Ajay Maken has said that the only quantifiable way to measure a student’s fitness is through this, since Marks for sports has a comparatively narrower focus. This initiative proposes to make physical fitness a criteria for which students will be judged and marked on.

In the words of Maken, “This is supposed to be motivational rather than coercive.” By all accounts this leans towards the former, the percentage of marks allocated for fitness is only a maximum of 3 %. Here’s how it works:

-The suggestion is that every January and June there will be exams testing the students on their fitness and they will be accorded marks. The idea is to apply this program for students of class five and above.

-The proposed draft suggests that the top 10 percentage of gender wise performers shall be given an additional 3% to the marks obtained by him/her in academic disciplines in a given academic year.

-Students will be judged on six basic components of physical fitness – cardio respiratory endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, explosive strength and body composition (percentage of body fat).

-Those between top 10 and 20 percentages will get an additional 2.5%, while performers between 20 to 30, 30 to 40 and 40 to 50 percentages will get an additional 2, 1.5 and 1% respectively.

Maken said, “The achievement of fitness by a child has to be rewarded in a manner similar to reward for academic achievement.”

The student’s performance would be graded and fed into the child’s ‘Assessment Card’ and the school’s ‘Fitness Assessment Forms’ as designed by the Lakshmibai National University for Physical Education (LNUPE), Gwalior.

Here’s the entire proposed draft: http://yas.nic.in/writereaddata/mainlinkFile/File921.pdf

Remember the quote from Rancho in the movie 3 Idiots? “Grades create divides. It’s like a caste system.”

The initiative to introduce marks for fitness is immensely commendable. I’m by no means casting doubt about it, just playing devil’s advocate and looking at the other side of the story. My suggestion being to not accord grades. But to come up with an alternative which does not create any differentiation. Even as I write this I realize what a fool’s argument I may be making out. I’m all for sports. I’m crazy passionate about basketball, I run marathons, and I credit a lot of positive things in my life to the influence sports and physical activities have on me. Lets just for argument’s sake look at the other side of this initiative.

“You know Mr. Perlman, I’d give my life to be able to play the violin like you did tonight,” said an awestruck listener.

The great violinist Perlman replied: “I did.”

There are a lot of great performers who peak early and then fizzle out. The issue with putting labels on kids through this is that they will start to identify with those labels and limit their perceived potential through it. This program will identify young and talented kids. And give them incentive to better improve their physique. But its going to create divides. Child prodigies have a innate talent which lets them stand out in certain physical contests. There’s a flipside to compare these prodigies with kids whose talent doesn’t match up to them.

Mozart was a child prodigy. But he wasn’t born with musical talent. He put in extensive practice from the age of five years old. There are a lot of late bloomers, who may never have bloomed if they were labeled and graded on their fitness at an early age.

It’s good to have a system to identify talent, but putting a label of good, fair and average on it can be similar to doing what is done for education. Creating divides. If a kid performs slow in a race, he will be graded as such. The coach may say that “You are slow”, instead of saying you were slower than others in this. The kid will then resign to being slower than others, or put in the effort to show everyone that he/she can be just as fast as others. It’s the former group of kids that worry me. One good part about sports is that they let you lose yourself in the game. There are no constraints and labels on the playground. Outside the classroom is where a lot of kids get to come into their own and discover themselves. Its not until they pick up a sport and apply themselves that they surprise themselves with what they are capable of. That’s because they were not clubbed as being good/average/fair at the game.

They started playing with the premise that they were at the same level as other kids. They judge themselves, they pull off a good move on the field and wonder to themselves “Did I just do that?” Did I dust dribble my way past four defenders and score that goal? I must have some talent in this regard.”

After this little self discovery they start to apply themselves to that sport, they practice and sweat in training to improve their game. And the results are immediately obvious to them. This teaches them the importance of hard work and shows that you only get out of something what you put in. They learn to apply the same attitude to their studies.

But if the process of self discovery is marked with an early label of good/average/fair, then it might narrow the self perception of kids. Sometimes kids just need to be kids and the sports field is the ideal place for that. Again this is just me playing devil’s advocate. The initiative is bold and laudable. There’s only a small worry on the other end of this argument that implementing a judgmental procedure might have a side effect which wasn’t deigned.

The proposed draft is open to the general public for discussion, criticism, and feedback. I’m emailing the link of this one back to them. Just to air out the small concern which they ought to bear in mind while finalizing the final draft of this policy. That grades create divides and may foster a self limiting belief on kids.