Charlie Munger's solution for gym class: stopping the thing doing the most harm to girls' fitness

From at least the time of Aristotle, music and gymnastics were education’s foundation. Those charged with providing for children’s education sought to develop their pupils’ minds and bodies. A recent LinkedIn piece illustrates how far removed we are from that ideal. 

There’s plenty of discussion these days about the common core and what it means for our children. By comparison, there’s very little talk about how we’re providing for the common core of our children’s physical well being. 

Nick Morrison in a recent Forbes piece published to LinkedIn examines why school-age children—especially girls—aren’t participating in sport in greater numbers. He cites the United Kingdom’s Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation findings that show that girls start doing significantly less physical activity than boys by the age of nine.

Alarmingly, at age fifteen, only 15% of girls are physically active for one hour per day; boys aren’t great, either, but at thirty-two percent, they’re more than twice as likely to get the sixty minutes of daily exercise. Perhaps illustrating one cause for the dearth of conversation about physical activity in schools, the U.K. Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation found that one in five girls does no physical activity in any given week—despite it being ‘mandatory’ in school.

Why? Gymtimidation?

Morrison cites several reasons, including social pressures and the standard of changing rooms. The changing room phenomenon is significant, and was lampooned for an ad campaign to good effect:

In gym class, where there's this...

 

There's also this. "I hate gyms."

It turns out there may be another cause as well: many girls just don’t find the activities on offer appealing. And I wonder if that holds true for boys as well. In gearing so many physical education programs toward ‘traditional’ competitive sports, I wonder if we’re offering activities geared to those young people most likely to participate in—and failing to attract those least likely to engage in—physical activity. 

My boss is a great example. He’s tall and strong, physically fit and active, he nevertheless tells a hilarious story of not wanting to play baseball in his high school gym class. The class was divided into several teams who would compete against each other. One team would sit on the bench waiting for their turn at bat while the other played in the field. In between innings, the teams would switch sides. At the conclusion of each half-inning, my boss said he’d get up from the bench walk around shaking hands and congratulating his ‘team’ walk up the line a bit…and then turn around and head back to the bench, where he’d sit with the other team. 

No one ever caught on all year he never played the field or came to bat. Each team—and the instructor—just assumed he was always with the proper team. He got an ‘A’ in the class. And the extent of his exertion was limited to high-fives and handshakes. 

Troublingly, I suspect that the boys who took to baseball the most would have had ample opportunities to participate in athletic endeavors they liked elsewhere, but those who weren’t so inclined—like my boss—were probably less likely to find activities that engaged them elsewhere. 

Eliminate the thing doing the most harm.

Charlie Munger loves to apply the principle of inversion in tackling difficult, complex problems. 

Thinking that many conundrums that involve human behavior are so complicated that it’s practically impossible to fully understand all of the variables involved, Munger proposes to simplify the course to action by simply tackling first the single thing causing the most harm. Stop that, and you’re on your way to helping the situation. 

Interestingly, CrossFit may offer solutions, but more on that another day. 

One attempt to correct: ask them.

In the case of girls and participation in physical activity, several such obstacles have been proposed. Jennie Price, the head of Sport England, argues that girls should be given enough time to dry their hair and put themselves together after taking part in physical activities at school; Helen Fraser, chief executive of the Girls’ Day School Trust, advocates letting girls do stuff they like—such as Zumba classes—to get them  interested in sport and fitness.

So, what might be done to increase participation among young people—especially girls?

Civic republican thinkers, in the tradition of Aristotle, from at least the time of Machiavelli have argued that the people know what the best forms of government are for themselves. They’ve argued on the basis that no one knows quite how his shoe pinches his foot better than himself.

A recent pilot program in the U.K. used such an understanding to tailor offerings to suit the girls it aimed at reaching. It had some positive effects. 

Schools participating in the program recruited a small group of young leaders, and charged them with finding out what would motivate girls to get involved in sporting activity. The schools then developed plans  based on the reports of the leaders’ findings.

And it worked. At the end of the pilot program, the girls from the schools involved were surveyed. Those who reported looking forward to physical education in school rose from 38% to 71%. The proportion who said they liked the way they felt after exercise went from 41% to 73%.

The positive outlook extended beyond the gymnasium. Girls reported to feeling positive about school generally rose from 24% to 78%! So, doing what girls liked in gym class meant fewer than one-in-four feeling good about school to more than three-in-four feeling good.

‘Competitive Greatness’: a case of preferring poetry to pushpin?

Jeremy Bentham postulated a utilitarian theory that sought to improve society by providing the most happiness to the greatest number of people. According to his rigorous calculus, this kind of program would be an unmitigated triumph. John Stuart Mill—his partner James Mill’s son—kept his teacher’s utilitarian ideas mostly in tact, but couldn’t help think that some pursuits were inherently better than others. He was famous for arguing that—no matter the pleasure people might report—the human species does better when engaged in lofty pursuits such as poetry than base pursuits such as playing pushpin or checkers. 

Where Bentham would look at girls engaging in physical activity in high numbers and see nothing but positives, might a curmudgeonly old guard look at the same legion of Zumba classes and wonder if something important has been lost? Might a physical education teacher, following in the ideological footstep of both J.S. Mill and John Wooden, and think, “Zumba? Let’s shoot instead for something higher?”

John Wooden pyramid of success.

Wooden was famous for proposing a pyramid of success. At the top was competitive greatness (well, competitive greatness, patience, and faith).  Human excellence was something to be worked for and achieved. His teams won a lot. His players frequently accomplished individual and collective greatness in their sport and in their lives. 

They did it by following the lead of their coach and teacher—often in contradiction of their own personal interests and desires. In short, they often found themselves doing stuff they didn’t like to achieve something even more significant than what their personal predilections would have earned them.

The stuff Wooden sought--and CrossFit seeks--can be summed up in Wooden's quote, "Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable."

Girls as they are, gym class as it might be.

As impressive as Wooden achievements were, they were achieved in a very different setting than is to be found in any high school gym class. Wooden got to recruit his athletes (or had to—recruiting was reportedly his least favorite part of coaching and was likely the single biggest factor leading to his retirement).  

Instead of aiming for competitive greatness for all students—I’d argue for greater accommodation to what the students will take to for compulsory activity in class. Those who are interested in competition—or greatness of any kind—will be free to work to accomplishing it no matter the curricular focus. But letting people have a say in the manner of physical activity they’re asked to participate in will be more likely to get those who might not otherwise engage in physical activity at all the best chance to be active. Those who are interested in achieving competitive greatness will likely find avenues to do so no matter what gym class looks like. 

I agree with Alison Oliver, managing director of the Youth Sport Trust, who argues, “If we are to get girls more active…then we must work with them to understand what appeals to them,” she said. And I agree with Nick Morrison that “if getting girls to take part in sport involves giving them a say in what they do, then that seems a price worth paying”.