Students at Howe Sound Secondary got a taste of police life in their physical education classes last Thursday morning.
Const. Martin Mindel, the RCMP school liaison, was on hand to help run teacher Dan Fay’s students through what’s called the police ability requirement evaluation (PARE).
In Fay’s view, the exercise can help give those students who might be thinking of going into human kinetics in post-secondary education a leg up. It also gives the class a unique look at applications for the activities they do inside the gymnasium.
“We’re trying to make a connection between what we learn in class and how it connects to real life,” he said.
Running this course can be an ordeal; the class kept a large, plastic waste bucket on hand, just in case any students could not keep their breakfast down. The exercise was optional for students because of its physical demands.
“This is a little obstacle course we have to run when we do our training,” Mindel said. “It’s important to be in good physical shape.”
Participants’ heart rates can go up to 190 beats per minute or higher as they complete their laps, he said.
PARE requires participants to run through a course with stairs and pylons, make controlled falls on mats, and jump over hurdles and other obstacles. They do this six times before climbing up stairs to the stage inside the gymnasium where they have to push and pull weights back and forth, as well as practise falls forwards and backwards. The point of these actions is to simulate a foot chase of a suspect, and it’s clear that PARE provides a real test.
Members are supposed to be able to run the course in four minutes, although applicants are granted another 45 seconds. For the teenagers, the course might be difficult but manageable, or it might break them.
The thought of running this gauntlet is obviously daunting. Despite all the typical teenage chat in the gym before the exercise, everyone suddenly turns shy when it’s time to step up. Finally, Mindel has to draw numbers to figure out who is going to run the PARE course first.
The first student finishes with a tight 3:16 – faster than any in the previous class – while the next completes it gasping for air after taking more than a minute longer. It’s obvious that having to take down a suspect under these conditions is no easy task, and Mindel has to remind the students to pace themselves early and breathe while in mid-run.
Mindel emphasizes that last week’s PARE exercise was not part of his official job capacity, but he sees it as a good opportunity to give youth an idea of what is required of RCMP members in real life, as well as underscore the need for them to think about how they will fit into the community when they get out of school.
“It’s important to bond with kids and give them leaderships skills,” he said. “It starts here in school. This is their job for now.”
