The Place of Cross Country in the Curriculum

It's cold, wet and the playing fields are muddy.  The wind whistles across direct from the Russian Steppes, and teachers assemble their biggest collection of coats, hats and gloves. 

Adults who exercise regularly take refuge in the gym, and runners find machines in warm rooms, with the diversion of TV in front of them. 

It's that time of year. It must be time to inculcate a love of running in children of all ages.  Given that a small minority of teenage children would confess to loving running, clearly there is a task of engagement lying ahead of schools and teachers.  No one would dispute that schools would seek to encourage children to find the same love of steady state running that many adults do, nor that this would be a challenging task.  It would be reasonable to assume that teachers would spend time, energy and expertise working out the best way of positioning this activity to win engagement, and to stimulate positive attitudes, amongst pupils of all ages and abilities.  

So, what is the best way of presenting this activity?  Lining up all pupils in the class in a single mixed ability line, prescribing a number of laps of the playing field, saying "Go" and putting the kettle on?  This is the mechanism by which generations of children have come to experience running.  And that is why very few of them learned to love it.

Partly because running is always positioned as a maximal activity.  Yet that's not what adults do.  Most adults who are regular runners operate in steady state.  Yet few schools teach the concept of operating within VO2 max, or even the understanding of what it means.

The benefit of running is little understood by pupils because it is little taught, and few corridors are adorned with posters explaining why sub maximal exercise exerts an unparalleled range of positive benefits, both physical and intellectual.  Rarely are heart rate monitors used to show that the fastest runners are not necessarily those who have applied themselves most.  Neither is any attempt made to use this activity to learn delayed gratification and determination.  Angela Lee Duckworth has proven that the qualities she describes as "Grit" correlate positively with many life achievements, from graduation at West Point Military Academy to a range of other achievements.  Surely, running is a way of learning these important qualities, if it is positioned to inspire pupils to apply themselves, and to learn the satisfaction of application.

If the aim was to teach an understanding of the importance of aerobic exercise, to encourage children to love the sense of aspiration and achievement which can accompany it, and to stimulate a lifelong love of steady state endeavour, it is unlikely that running would be presented in its current form.  As a mass activity across wind and rain swept playing fields, dressed in inappropriate kit.  Nor would it be called "Cross Country" - an expression which generations of children have learned to hate.  

There is little value in presenting running as a one size fits all activity, in which pupils of all abilities and fitness levels run the same distances.  Neither is it logical to present it as a maximal activity in which finishing times are listed in rank order.  And to create uninspiring routes round playing fields in the worst weather of the year, while children in flimsy clothing and footwear struggle around, simultaneously learning to hate exercise, running and the outdoors.

There must be a reason why adults see a value in running, and children infrequently do.  Maybe it is the way in which it is presented to them