Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

Every year at Academy Park Elementary, we had an event called Field Day. For weeks before, we would practice activities like running fast, pull ups, chin ups, sit ups and a bunch of other ups. Unfortunately, Utah schools are so jam packed with kids that I would only get one turn for each activity every fifteen minutes, so an hour long physical education stint was about ten minutes of exercise and fifty minutes of waiting in line.

Field Day was a culmination of all that “training” and I dreaded it. I remember practicing my sit ups because I was the weakest in that area. I remember running against my friend, Sceverenia, but she always beat me. I had no one to tell me how to get faster or stronger. Field Day was about humiliation, not accomplishment.

When I saw these photos in the Library of Congress’ Flickr feed, the words, Field Day, brought back all those memories.

The waiting in line, the uniform nature of it all. We didn’t have matching outfits or multi-school competitions, but these photos from over fifty years before I was born brought all those memories to mind.

I have no idea what physical education is like in today’s grade schools. What it SHOULD be like is measuring each child and giving awards to children who improve their speed or strength. If little Laura only did ten sit ups last time and she is now able to do twenty, she should get an award. Not the biggest award, mind you, but something.

In REAL life with grownups and business suits, how many sit ups I can do in one minute is NEVER an issue. Whether I continue working to improve myself IS. Why don’t we judge children the way we judge adults, especially since it’s more lenient? Field Day should have been a chance for me to better myself, not a yearly exercise in humiliation.