Raising the Bar
30th October 2009

Tom is six and struggling to master high jump. The run up’s going well, pattering across the grass, his little legs pumping. The problems start when he arrives at the bar. There are of course the technical challenges of a successful scissors kick, but the real obstacle is in his mind.

When Tom approaches the bar he does not see, as you and I do, a thin, red-and-black carbon fibre rod. Tom sees a very large, very high, and potentially very painful obstacle. He sees a brick wall, topped with razor wire and broken glass, probably with a large slavering dog on the other side. Time and again he shies away and trudges to the back of the dwindling line of non-jumpers.

While National Standards have been this week’s big story in education, most teachers at this time of year are raising the bar for children in more literal ways. It’s athletics season and all around the country little Toms, Dicks and Harrys are facing up to the real hurdles.

My heart goes out to Tom. Wind the clock back and Tom was me. Generally I rode through the school year ticking the boxes and enjoying the warm feeling of success. But every November I faced, literally, the hurdle of athletics day – my day of shame.

The worst thing about athletics day was the small cardboard tag that was pinned to my t-shirt with a small safety pin on the morning of sports day. On the card was printed a list of the events and three columns for scoring. At each event you could score a 1, 2 or 3 depending on your prowess. My only consolation was that the score card had no column for scoring zero. As the day progressed the score card became the natural focus for attention and, in my case, misery.

I was bad at all athletics events but useless at high jump. Like Tom, the idea of throwing myself at a bar (they were steel then) defied every bone in my body. Even if I managed to clear it I then faced the prospect of landing in a hard, uninviting sawdust pit (no large blue spongy landing mats). The sawdust pit at our school had not seen sawdust since the last war. Any sawdust that remained was purely conjectural, a thin layer smeared across brick-hard dirt and the preferred dunny of every cat in the neighbourhood.

My problems were partly technical. I marvelled at the children who seemed instinctively to know which leg to take off from and how to arrive at the bar prepared to use that leg. More than once I found myself faced down on the bar, having leapt from the wrong leg.

At least I did not suffer the indignities of my friend Wayne who, having perfected the take off and got his leading leg over the bar, seemed incapable of lifting his trailing leg and always – always - ended up straddling the bar, to his disgrace and the delighted howls of the other boys. On one dreadful occasion Wayne landed on the bar so hard he had to be carried, howling, to the sick bay and the bar sent off to the caretaker to be straightened out.

I invariably arrived at the end of athletics day sunburned and demoralised. Slinking from the field I would tear off my score card and shred it.

Now, as a teacher, I enjoy athletics day. I warm to the sight of hundreds of children in earnest endeavour scattered across a green paddock under a bright spring sky, of picnicking parents and affectionate nanas. In these days of National Standards athletics training is a relief. And as I watch Tom’s struggles to get off the ground I am quietly grateful we do not yet have national standards in high jump.