Abstract
In the post-war period (1950-1966), physical education in
France went through a strong movement of methodological
rationalization. Driven by a search for social acceptance and a
desire to be recognized as a fundamental school subject,
physical education sought to produce a form of efficiency
combined with a procedure for the control of learning. The goal
was to measure the effects of teaching, that is, the “progress”
made. Yet during this period evaluation tools were neither
effective nor unified or generalized. The innovative process
begins with an estimation of the physical capacities of the
pupils so as to define comparable level groups. Childcentredness
becomes the most efficient method. Gradually, the tools allowing
us to estimate this level become more impressive; the
development of the classification table of Jean Letessier can be
seen as the height of this innovation. This new methodology
presents important theoretical and practical modes of
rationality. However, controlling “progress” will turn out to be
challenging. Clearly, the school conditions of teaching make it
difficult to prove that the pupils have really progressed in
their physical education classes. Many tensions remain.
