Sports

We define education as ‘the knowledge or skill obtained or developed by a learning process’. Obviously, education cannot be confined to a classroom once this definition is accepted.

As the popular Indian saying goes ‘ Sar salamat toh pagadi pachaas’ (Only if your head is in good condition, you can try out fifty different hats) we know the importance of having a sound mind in a sound body. But our idea of teaching sports goes far beyond that.

As parents and guardians, we know that having sharp academic skills is really important to succeed in the real world. But, all those skills are useless if one does not know how to handle himself, present himself and deal with peers. In the real world, we do not function as solo individuals; we are usually part of a team. We follow sometimes, lead at others and work with a group for a certain end goal the rest of the times. The task could be as involving as putting a man on the moon or as simple as getting a presentation ready – we still work as a team. So, we need to teach our children how to be a part of a team.

When you want to make a child understand teamwork, leadership, strategy, the ideas of winning and losing, what better way to do it than do it through sports? The sports ground becomes the classroom for all these real life skills. Children are taught the basic skills in a sport. Then they are told the rules. They know what is allowed and what is not. Then, they get to play a game. They have to use the skills they have learnt, co-ordinate with their team, communicate quickly, understand body language, control their emotions and try to win. If they do not win, they have to learn to accept defeat, figure out what went wrong and sharpen their skills. Then, they try to win the next time.

Isn’t that exactly what we do in real life? With sports teaching children so much and building character, it is really hard to imagine an academic program without sports in it. Every school must teach children sports. By sports we mean proper sports, not just a PT class or allowing children to run around randomly.

So, learning sports helps our children build character. This is the real personality development. You cannot develop a child’s personality by attending a 21 day crash course by some fancy socialite. This is the grooming that the child receives to make him or her ready for the real world.

And that is not all. The child actually learns to play so many different games from class 1 to 10. Even after the child leaves school, as a young adult, he or she can continue playing the game as a hobby. This maintains good health and is a great way to relive stress, make friends and have a good time. It keeps the child busy and away from bad influences. It is a known fact that people who are into sports as a serious hobby are less likely to indulge in alcohol, tobacco, drugs and other bad habits in later life.

The next big advantage is that as all these sports are compulsory, each and every child has to play. Normally, the parent has to take initiative to take the child for a sports class. What are the criteria that help you choose a class? You may ask questions like – is it close by? What is the timing? Are there kids my child’s age in the class? Is it affordable? If most of these questions have favourable answers, you go ahead and join.

Your own inclination also has a major role in choosing the activity for the child. So, if you were the table tennis champion in college, your child joins a table tennis class. Well, there is nothing wrong with that. But those are not the right reasons to join a sports class either. And in an environment like this, many children end up not learning anything at all.

If the school integrates sports in its program, no child is left out. When the children of a class learn together, the competition is excellent – they are all roughly the same age and evenly matched. They understand each other better and get to see each other in a whole new atmosphere. Kids discover new talents within themselves too. A child who is not doing so well in the class may receive great praise from a sports coach. This gives a child a good feeling and the urge to try better in other areas too. When all children getting instruction are the same age, the program can be properly designed too. They all start at the same time – so the lessons are structured properly, they build on top of each other and children get fairly evaluated from time to time.

This simply cannot happen in a setting other than a school. In an outside sports class, different children join at different times, their ages are different and they are all at different levels too. Training just cannot be as effective. Sometimes the space and equipment are not adequate either. This problem won’t occur in a school.

Over the years we have seen that children who are really good in one sport are also good at many others. We could find this out because we give children exposure to so many different kinds of sports. If the child had joined a hobby class outside of school, parents would not have experimented with so many different activities. Imagine how much the child would have missed out!

Many people may now pose a question – because we want to give the children exposure to so many activities, the child is not getting enough training in one sport to be competitive. Not true! Remember – we are two bodies grooming the child : home and school. At school the child learns about new things. If the school finds a certain child exceptionally gifted at basketball, the school talks to the parents. We then advise you on how the child can continue training, what level we think the child can reach, what outside competitions we think the child should participate in etc.

And in whatever way we can, we also try to accommodate the child for special training. So you can take the child for coaching after school to hone those skills. The best part is you know exactly what to do and how to do it now. There is no vague effort that wastes the time and energy of both parents and children. For the other children who are not state and national level sports material, there is no loss either. The children attain a reasonable proficiency in many different activities that enables them to enjoy many games later on. You know that you enjoy watching a tennis match more if you have actually played tennis. So our children are better spectators too!

With sports teaching a child so much, and having so many positive points, can you think of even a single reason why a school shouldn’t teach children sports?