La Sierra High School Physical Education - Concepts, Philosophy
| Author | La Sierra High School Physical Education Department, San Juan Unified School District |
|---|---|
| Published | January 1966 |
| Format | Reference |
TL;DR — A 1966 handbook from La Sierra High School in Carmichael, California, laying out the philosophy, colour-ranking system and fitness tests of its demanding PE programme.
A short typewritten handbook (cover: “concepts / philosophy”, revised 1/66) from the physical education department of La Sierra High School, San Juan Unified School District, Carmichael, California. It opens with California’s daily physical-education requirement, dating from 1917, and the case that modern life had cut the physical activity in most Americans’ lives.
The sections set out what the programme is meant to produce: physical fitness for every pupil rather than only the varsity athletes, “psychological fitness” through going “all out” in hard routines, motivation and team membership, standards of conduct, and efficient teaching methods. The core is the colour system, which grouped pupils by ability, with their rank shown by the colour of their gym trunks and ambitious tiers named in the contents (including a “Grand Slam” and a Navy Blue programme). It also covers three batteries of physical fitness tests, a student-instructor programme and the grading philosophy.
The La Sierra programme was later celebrated in popular histories as one of the toughest high-school PE programmes in the United States.
What it is: a primary document: a school’s own internal handbook for students, a scanned mimeograph. Useful as a record of how the programme described itself, not as research on its results.
Where this came from
- A copy saved in October 2026.
15 pages. A PDF copy is held in Kyle’s private archive; it is not linked or shared here.