Counting On It

 I am the Physical Fitness Testing coordinator at my school site. This means I get to stand around with a clipboard for the next couple of weeks and count things like pushups and Pacer laps. I will be writing them down on a scoresheet and eventually sending them along to the district Physical Fitness Test coordinator. This has been my job for many years now. 

But something is different. 

It all started back during the year we were doing distance learning because of COVID. Giving students any sort of standardized test was essentially impossible, or at least too difficult to plan for while we were all merely talking heads on Zoom. Talking heads were excused from taking Physical Fitness tests. 

The next year, when we returned from isolation, the powers that be decided to go ahead and administer standardized tests with the asterisk associated with "we have not been in school together for a year." That meant that I was told to count the attempts our fifth grade students made at proving their fitness, physically, but the numbers were not consequential. Participation was the focus. All of them were required to participate, but the number of pushups, curl-ups and so forth were written down only for show.

How well each student performed was eventually just a matter of pride. 

Not that they were made aware of this. 

The very tenuous grip we have on this exchange is based almost completely on the idea that the effort each of our little data points are putting in has some real-life measure. The suggestion that all these kids are competing for what amounts to a participant's ribbon would take the quite limited energy that is currently being used to create a checkmark next to their names and that would be that. 

Check.

But somewhere in the back of my mind I harbor memories of The Presidential Physical Fitness Challenge. I was never able to achieve the goal of receiving the Award, but I certainly had a dream or two associated with it. Little did I know that program stayed in place until 2018, when it was replaced by the Fitnessgram assessment program that I currently find myself administering. No prizes. No plaques. No ribbons. Just a solid reminder that you are being watched. And accounted for. 

For showing up.