Cross-country running is abuse

[Banquo's Ghost]

I know I shall sound like a Grumpy Old Colonel reading the Daily Mail over his kedgeree, but this is barking mad.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Cross-country 'is physical abuse'

Cross-country running at school could be a form of physical abuse, a textbook for teenagers suggests.

A chapter of the book, distributed by Co-ordination Group Publications, says children have the right to protection from physical and emotional abuse.

It lists bullying and cross-country runs as possible examples.

Margaret Talbot, chief executive of the Association for Physical Education, said this "trivialised" abuse and was based on an "outdated notion" of PE.

'Just sloppy'

More than 30,000 copies of the book, designed for 14 to 16-year-olds studying citizenship, have been distributed to schools.

The chapter which mentions cross-country running is called "Your legal rights".

Prof Talbot said: "I think what is in the book is just sloppy. They haven't researched it properly.

"It gives ammunition to backroom lawyers. This is counter-productive, as so many PE teachers try so hard.

"Cross-country is not the blunt instrument that everyone remembers when they think of school sport. It's not a case of the whole school doing it anymore just because the playing fields are out of use."

Rates of child obesity have tripled during the last 20 years.

If current trends continue, half of all under-18s in England could be obese by 2020, according to government figures.

Prof Talbot said cross-country running could help overcome this, adding: "It is becoming very popular in primary schools and for pupils who don't like sports where they compete directly with others, like football.

"Top athletes such as Paula Radcliffe use it as part of their training regime."

"What we must not try to do is put children off sport. The book is using an outdated notion of what cross-country running is all about."

But a Co-ordination Group Publications spokeswoman said the guide was "light-hearted" and intended to make citizenship subjects "accessible" to teenagers.

She said: "It is used as an aid for starting discussions. It seems the part about cross-country has been taken as a serious suggestion, but it is simply a way of getting students involved."

A Department for Education and Skills spokesman added: "It is not official guidance. We encourage all children to do at least two hours of high-quality PE a week."

I can't say I was overly enamoured of those long stumbles through rain-soaked fields (except for the convent school on the way where one could stare longingly whilst racking up good material for confession) but it never did me any harm. Harrumph.

[InsaneApache]

"It gives ammunition to backroom lawyers.

So that's Pindar and EA sorted out then.

I wish I was at school these days. Aye when I were a lad we has to do X-country every bloody Monday afternoon if it was raining. I agree it is abuse of the worse kind.

[matteus the inbred]

When I was at boarding school it WAS a form of punishment...minor offences in the boarding house were often punished by a number of laps around the infirmary...a lap was about half a mile. My friend once picked up 14 in one week...
I enjoyed cross-country running though, despite the mud, brambles and occasional snow. Young people these days, wimps. Baaaaaah...

[Duke John]

Giving kids food full with fat and sugar is abuse. Cross-country running being tough for some children is a consequence and not the problem that needs to be dealt with.

[Avicenna]

I don't see how living in a completely protected environment helps the kids at all. If anything, that renders them utterly useless for adult life.

[Justiciar]

Aye when I were a lad we has to do X-country every bloody Monday afternoon if it was raining. I agree it is abuse of the worse kind.

That's nothing. When I were a lad we had to run from the Isle of Wight to the Orkneys, naked, while our teaches flayed the skin from our backs with cat-o'-nines.

[matteus the inbred]

Naked? You were lucky. WE had to do it covered in chili powder and sulphuric acid while our teachers strewed thumbtacks on t'road etc. etc.

[InsaneApache]

Sulphuric acid? Luxury. We had to run upside down on our knuckles chewing depleted uranium, and wearing underpants made from razor wire. We had to circumnavigate the Earth in an afternoon, Monday afternoon anyroad. Then when you tell the softie kids of today.......

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Well don't worry it's still tough here. We have to do it only in the worst weather while dodging rabid wolves and cruise missiles (and people wonder why the US military budget is so high...) as well as having all of the indignities mentioned earlier visited upon us, and that's only when they're feeling charitable!

Still it's definately not abuse in any way shape or form.

[Ice]

Cross country is brutal. I did it from age 14-17 and it was quite terrible. Nothing like running a 10 miles after a hard day of school in 95 degree heat or hellish thunderstorms.

[Pannonian]

Naked? You were lucky. WE had to do it covered in chili powder and sulphuric acid while our teachers strewed thumbtacks on t'road etc. etc.

I've noticed that it's customary to adopt a Yorkie accent when relating tales like these.

[Navaros]

I agree with the article.

When I was a kid I had asthma that prevented me from running for any semi-long period of time. After a couple of rounds around the track I had to start walking. The only other kid in my gym class who was walking at the point was the really super obese guy. In any case both of us were ostracized on that basis by the other kids, and had our marks go to crap for it. The ironic thing was that the gym teacher had a mammoth beer/"I never ever exercise" belly yet even so he would still contribute to the ostracization.

Not everyone is cut out for being told told to jump like monkies through long-lasting physical hoops as part of a standard curriculum.

They should expand the definition of physical abuse to making kids run around the track for over 10 minutes in a row and make that a universal human right.

[Joeokar]

That's nothing. When I were a lad we had to run from the Isle of Wight to the Orkneys, naked, while our teaches flayed the skin from our backs with cat-o'-nines.

Cant stop laughing at this

[Blodrast]

While I agree that PE shouldn't be the same for everybody (I also had/have (?) asthma), my feeling is too that the today's general trend is towards excessive PC (as in all fields), which simply leads to pampering of the kids.

"Ooooh, you can't make my kid run!" "Ooooh, my kid can't make 25 push-ups, this is inhuman!" "Oooooh, I don't want my kid to come up last in <insert physical test here>, it will ruin his self-esteem and ...."

blech.
Where the hell DOES all this PC come from ??

[Kanamori]

Running for me has always just been concentrated spacing out, then again I am ADHD. You're tired and hot? I'm thinking about the best way to fix my airsoft gun and I'm not even paying attention to where I am. An hour in, and my body's flooding endorphins into me. Win-win economics.

[InsaneApache]

I've noticed that it's customary to adopt a Yorkie accent when relating tales like these.

Tha's nowt loike parklin grumpit....

[drone]

Well at this rate, 15 years from now Social Services will be able to take away your kid if you make him stop playing video games and go clean his room. There are things in life that you might not want to do, but you have to do it anyway. What better stage in life to teach that lesson? Reading centuries-old English literature was painful sometimes, and I would consider it abusive, are they going to stop teaching that?

I guess the whole "Just do it, it builds character" isn't a good enough reason these days, and we will just have to live with a generation with no character.

[Duke of Gloucester]

Don't get too excited. Firstly it's a revision guide, not a text book proper. The publishers have a house style which is jokey and light heartedly subversive, so, whilst I haven't read this particular guide, I suspect that when a representative of the publisher says:

"It is used as an aid for starting discussions. It seems the part about cross-country has been taken as a serious suggestion, but it is simply a way of getting students involved."

she is almost certainly correct in claiming that the inclusion of cross-country was not intended to be serious. (Not nearly so good as a story though)

[Blodrast]

I hear you, Duke of Gloucester, and you may well be right, and this is nothing more than a light-hearted thingie. However, others may see it differently, and may interpret it differently - in a more imperative manner.
The problem is that this impetus to make our kids do less for fear of hurting their fragile egos or what not already exists, and things like this, as light-hearted as they may be, find too much resonance in the hearts/minds of the proponents of such movements.

[drone]

Hell in a handbasket, I tells ya, hell in a handbasket!

[Silver Rusher]

I've noticed that it's customary to adopt a Yorkie accent when relating tales like these.

An important step in your education, my friend:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo

We used to dream of wire-frame pants! We used to 'av to run from t'sun to uranus carrying 15 tonnes of 50,000 degree elephant dung, while being shot at by Martian space ships. And that were every 5 minutes where I went ta school.

[InsaneApache]

Important:

When attempting a 'Tyke' accent you must never under any circumstances pronounce the 't'. IE: I'm goin' pub...not I'm goin' t'pub.

Wearing of flat caps and clogs is optional, but the whippet on a string is mandatory.

A little look at Yorkshire!

[Al Khalifah]

As is the ownership of a Kestrel.

[matteus the inbred]

The Yorkshire accent is due to a famous sketch by Monty Python's Flying Circus, called The Four Yorkshiremen, based on the premise of four now-affluent Yorkshiremen telling tall tales about how poor and deprived they were before they made a fortune through hard work...
...transcript here.
http://www.phespirit.info/montypytho...rkshiremen.htm

Some kind of physical exercise, or encouragement to take part in it, ought to exist, but a return to the 1950s 'PT and verbal abuse' regimen in schools is probably not a good thing.

Mind you, it was instrumental in inspiring Sir Edmund Hillary to achieve all that he did...