The other day, as a P.E. requirement for the charter school that he is enrolled in, KK (my 13yo) had to participate in a physical fitness test.
Now, you’ve got to understand, as an unschooling family, we don’t do P.E. class.
We also don’t do tests.
For exercise, KK takes walks and plays handball and rollerblades and jumps on the trampoline and a host of other activities, but he has never had to do a push-up or curl-up. He has never had to run a timed mile. Those are not generally skills that children spontaneously do. Those are not ways that children naturally let out energy and move their bodies. No, those are physical activities that adults train children to do so that their “fitness” can be assessed.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
KK wasn’t super excited about the PFT but knew it had to be done. I had prepped him enough so that he was familiar with the different activities, but beyond that I didn’t know how things would go. I encouraged him to “try his best.”
Instead, he decided to NOT GIVE A FLYING F*CK.
He did 3 pushups, barely. For the mile, he ambled along at a leisurely pace the entire 8 laps, clocking in at over 17 minutes.
Meanwhile, I was noticing anxiety rise up within me as I had flashbacks of my childhood and stressful P.E. tests where my body was subjected to observation, assessment, and judgment without my consent. I wanted KK to do well, but really, I wanted him to avoid the shame and embarrassment that I had felt in similar situations.
Unlike me, however, KK felt none of that. He knew that it really didn’t matter how well he did on this test. He didn’t care. It almost became comical as I watched other kids lap him and other adults clapping and cheering from the sidelines yelling, “You’ve got this!” and “C’mon, finish strong!” while KK moseyed along, completely unbothered.
He even had the audacity to have fun and play, jumping on the rocks and logs along the path and balancing on them, time be damned. Having lost count of how many laps he did, he went another round… just to be safe.
When he finished, he unabashedly helped himself to an orange Otter Pop and a participation certificate which granted him a free kids’ meal at Islands restaurant.
Score.
On our way out, a teacher told to KK, “Great attitude today, buddy!”
I thought she was joking but she said, “No, he was smiling and enjoying himself the whole time!”
Wow.
For the rest of the day, I was processing the whole event, thinking about my own reactions, fears, and anxieties about KK “failing” at this test, even though I intellectually knew it was meaningless.
Could it be that when we don’t care about mindlessly meeting other people’s expectations, we actually experience less stress, anxiety, and shame and more joy, ease, and freedom?
The more I thought about it, the more it reinforced my beliefs about the harm in forced testing.
Most school-related tests are dehumanizing in that they are extrinsic, evaluative, standardizing, and non-consensual in nature. Physical fitness tests in particular can also encourage ableism and fat-phobia. Not all bodies are designed to look or move the same way. To put children on display in a public setting and ask them to perform in front of their peers and adults can be anxiety-inducing, especially for highly sensitive children.
It’s one thing to time yourself on a jog — an activity that is self-chosen and feedback and accountability that is intrinsically motivated. It’s an entirely different matter to be forced to run several times a week, in a group setting that encourages comparison, and be evaluated on something you care nothing about! My junior high P.E. teacher called these “fun runs” but I had found absolutely nothing fun about them.
If we are part of systems that require testing, whether it’s a physical fitness test or any other kind of mandatory testing in schools, we have a choice. We may not have a choice of whether or not to participate, but we can always choose HOW we participate.
We can bend over backwards and contort ourselves (literally and figuratively) to fit these arbitrary schoolish standards.
Or we can learn the art of not giving a f*ck.
We can practice autonomy, joy, playfulness, and ease as we resist the puppeteer’s strings and refuse to be manipulated. We can rest in our inherent worthiness apart from that grade, award, or measurement.
When we do, the systems and authorities begin to lose their power over us. We become more free. We let go of people-pleasing and mindless submission and grow in our self-trust and inner knowing…
just like a certain 13 year old I know.
What experiences have you had with standardized school testing? Share in the comments below!
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Love this story! Thanks for sharing.
What a sage KK is! What an incredible role model for all of us in this new paradigm of living from our own authenticity and creativity! Bravo, Iris, for raising him to be his own authority!
Clicking on the link and seeing his (anti-)victorious picture was the bomb 😀
This isn’t KK’s picture, but it’s a pretty good embodiment of his attitude!
You rock KK!
I am in LOVE with this! A person not participating in the states or societies arbitrary tests and ranking systems is an activist and someone who will disrupt the systems we live under, and that is what we need.
I also have very bad memories of forced activity (until I learned I could fill in my PE limitations AFTER my mom signed the form ;-)) and it still impacts my relationship with activity.
Thank you for sharing!
XOXO