The class 1500m “race”. It has probably happened in most year groups, in most schools, at some time over the last ten weeks. Often on the day when the weather is too inclement to safely attempt field events. To what purpose?
Running nearly four times round an undulating grass track is an unlikely stimulant for a “Road to Damascus” moment to inspire a lifelong love of running. Far more probable is the reinforced conviction that running is a pointlessly painful pursuit – guaranteed to bring humiliation to those at the back.
Most schools have a significant number of teenage pupils who cannot run a mile without stopping. Having failed to achieve this the previous summer, and taken no aerobic exercise of any significance in the 12 months between, this is unlikely to have changed. Neither is it likely to be fondly recalled, nor are motivation levels likely to have increased.
There are few schools in which many pupils will welcome the announcement of the impending 1500m. Fewer still in which the event is presented as a potentially positive experience with a valued outcome. The class is lined up, and set off. Maybe told to “Keep going”, or even to “Finish strongly”. Is this the best we can do to inspire kids to value aerobic exercise, and see the health benefits of regular activity? As a mechanism to disengage teenagers from running, it is genuinely brilliant.
To time the half-hearted efforts of the unathletic to two decimal places is pointless in the extreme. The rank order is evident enough without further emphasis on the clip board or notice board. The able and compliant have finished inside 6 minutes, the stragglers in more than double that time. Is anything positive achieved by this downbeat annual ritual? The idea that a majority of participants is motivated by the time achieved is delusional.
The great majority of adults who run regularly do not approach this as a maximal activity. Anaerobic exhaustion is painful and distressing, and appeals only to a small minority. Most find achievement and satisfaction in the more tolerable and benefit-led discomfort of steady state exercise. And yet, almost every time running is put in front of children, it is presented an a flat out, finish in discomfort, experience. And the potentially powerful influence of example is tellingly absent, when the teacher steadfastly limits her specialist role to manipulating the stop watch.
There is an urgent need for new, creative and more engaging ways of teaching running, than introducing a distance and timing performance. When schools have innovative approaches, pupils respond with engagement and motivation. The problem is not with running – the issue is how it is presented.
A love of running, an understanding of steady state and an awareness of implications of regular exercise are legitimate and important objectives of a programme of athletics. The combined brains of a graduate profession should be able to find more creative and effective ways of achieving this than the annual 1500m, appearing, as it does, on a random damp day every summer term
