A recent study[1]
reports that participating on a sports team can help children, kindergarten to
grade 4, to develop healthy dispositions that generalize beyond sports in
positive ways, such as by better engaging in classroom activities. The gist of this is
that sports involvement, in some way, helps children to develop self-regulation
skills, which, in turn, fosters healthy student dispositions. This, along with
many other studies over the years, supports the notion that sports have the
power to teach kids more than the Xs and Os of a particular game. Unfortunately,
such studies are not particularly helpful in providing guidance about the processes
within sports that have such an important impact.
In actuality this is another instance of what may be labeled “the
mere participation hypothesis”. “The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing
fields of Eton”, or “The way to the boardroom leads through the locker room”
are other adages that are representative of the general belief that sports
teaches unique lessons to kids that transfer beyond the immediate sports
context, and have high value in other contexts such as school or employment.
However, for those of us who work with youth in sports, and really wish to
maximize the impact that sports have on kid’s lives, we really need to know
more about what can be taught and learned in our activities and transferred to
other contexts. Mere participation is probably not enough.
A number of years ago sport psychologist Terry Orlick argued that
while sport provides a wonderful environment for learning many important life
lessons, it also has the potential to be destructive, as he conveyed:
For every positive psychological or
social outcome in sports, there are possible negative outcomes. For example,
sports can offer a child group membership or group exclusion, acceptance or
rejection, positive feedback or negative feedback, a sense of accomplishment or
a sense of failure, evidence of self-worth or a lack of evidence of self-worth.
Likewise, sports can develop cooperation and a concern for others, but they can
also develop intense rivalry and a complete lack of concern for others.
In essence, Orlick is telling us that
like most activities in which youth engage, positive or negative outcomes can
result. It all depends on what children experience. As with any educational
endeavor, positive effects are more likely to ensue in a positive and enriched
environment that is overseen by a leader who focuses on and promotes a
positive, process-oriented curriculum. But, research has also shown that
engaging on teams overseen by irresponsible persons can actually promote moral
decay, academic failure and depressed life quality.
In an attempt to provide specifics
about the positive attributes that can be taught to youth in sports, and the
best strategies for doing so, the Collaborative for Academics, Social, and
Emotional Learning (CASEL)[2]
provides some excellent guidance. Aggregating the findings from 317 studies
involving 324,303 children on the impact of social and emotional learning (SEL)
programs, CASEL concluded that programs can and should teach the following:
· Self-awareness: accurately assessing one’s
feelings, interests, values, and strengths; maintaining a well-grounded sense
of self-confidence;
· Self-management: regulating one’s emotions to
handle stress, controlling impulses, and persevering in addressing challenges;
expressing emotions appropriately; and setting and monitoring progress toward
personal and academic goals;
· Social awareness: being able to take the
perspective of and empathize with others; recognizing and appreciating
individual and group similarities and differences; and recognizing and making
best use of family, school, and community resources;
· Relationship skills: establishing and maintaining
healthy and rewarding relation- ships based on cooperation; resisting
inappropriate social pressure; preventing, managing, and resolving
interpersonal conflict; and seeking help when needed; and
·
Responsible decision making: making decisions based on
consideration of ethical standards, safety concerns, appropriate social norms,
respect for others, and likely consequences of various actions;
As the report conveys:
Students who appraise
themselves and their abilities realistically (self-awareness), regulate their
feelings and behaviors appropriately (self-management), interpret social cues
accurately (social awareness), resolve interpersonal conflicts effectively
(relationship skills), and make good decisions about daily challenges
(responsible decision making) are headed on a pathway toward success in school
and later life.
Furthermore, CASEL concluded that the
most effective youth SEL programs developed these assets when they followed a SAFE pedagogy. That is, they had a
curriculum that was:
· Sequenced: Does the program apply a
planned set of activities to develop skills sequentially in a step-by-step
fashion?
· Active: Does the program use active
forms of learning such as role-plays and behavioral rehearsal with feedback?
· Focused: Does the program devote
sufficient time exclusively to developing social and emotional skills?
·
Explicit: Does the program target specific social and emotional skills?
What we learn from the CASEL Report is that rather than simply
rolling the dice and hoping that something good will come out of kids
participating on a sports team, program designers and coaches need to be
deliberate about what they wish to teach their players. If they intend to go
beyond the Xs and Os and develop their players’ self-awareness,
self-management, social-awareness, relationship skills, or capacity to make
responsible decisions, then they need to identify and deploy activities that help kids acquire requisite
knowledge and develop associated skills. As well, just as coaches teach progressions in
technical and tactical skills, they need to be planful about how to teach SEL
attributes. For example, if they intend to teach self-management or
relationship skills, then they need to be focused and explicit about doing so,
and craft progressions that make sense. Surely, the emotional highs and lows
occurring within sports are fertile ground for teaching youth techniques to
manage emotions better. As well, teaching kids how to be supportive and
effective team members, and how to interact in a civil manner with adversaries
provide many opportunities for teaching relationship skills. With so many
situations and interactions that occur during sports, one would think that it
has the power to provide a plethora of teachable moments during which lessons
can be repetitively reinforced in meaningful ways. However, as CASEL suggests,
there needs to be a degree of explicitness and deliberateness to such teaching
if SEL is to occur.
In summary, this is what sport based
youth development is all about. Identifying a set of SEL attributes and
teaching them in a coherent fashion within the context of sports. As well, if
we expect such learning to generalize beyond sports, we need to be explicit
about how this can be done.
A wonderful example of this was revealed a few weeks ago by one of
our Project Coach 3rd graders who had been having problems fighting
with teammates and classmates in school. He was proud to tell our Project Coach
director that his teacher had just named him student of the week, as he had
been able to stay out of trouble and also get A’s in all of his work. When
asked how this came to be he said that his coach had taught players that when
they became upset about something, they should take a few deep breaths and then
count to 100 to calm themselves. He said that he started to do this in school,
and it helped to keep him out of trouble when he became agitated about
something. It also helped him to refocus and concentrate on his work. These are
the sorts of connections that make sports into something more than recreation
or just learning about the Xs and Os. This is sport based youth development at
its best.
[1]
Piché, G, Fitzpatrick,
C, and Pagani, L. (2015, Sep-Oct). Associations Between Extracurricular Activity and Self- Regulation: A Longitudinal Study From 5 to 10 Years of Age. American Journal Of Health Promotion Vol. 30 (1), pp. e32-40.
[2]
The positive impact of social and emotional learning for kindergarten to
eight-grade students: Findings from three scientific reviews, Technical Report,
2008; http://www.casel.org/library/2013/11/1/the-positive-impact-of-social-and-emotional-learning-for-kindergarten-to-eighth-grade-students
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