The Athlete’s View - Spring 1997

Joel Kirsch, Ph.D.
American Sports Institute

From the president of the United States to the parents of disadvantaged, inner-city kids, Americans everywhere are saying that something has to be done about the disturbing conditions in our nation’s schools.

At the same time, a culture’s most pressing crisis can also be its best opportunity. Our educational problems have forced us to explore many options in an effort to solve these problems. As a result, education’s new game is reform.

There are many variations of the reform game. Some focus on standards, others on instruction and curriculum, still others on vouchers and charter schools. Although well-intentioned, many of the calls are for increased emphasis on the same old stuff—more math, more science, more language arts, more technology—even though the status quo isn’t getting the job done. This approach validates the premise put forth by social theorist George Leonard that whenever we’re not getting something right, we try more advanced versions of the same thing.

Many people believe that participating in sports takes away from academic achievement. Because of this, they call for a decrease in the emphasis on sports in our schools and cut funding for sports and physical education programs. However, if we examine the appropriate, positive aspects of sport culture, we discover that sport can play a significant role in effective educational reform, contributing to a whole new game.

There are many characteristics of sport culture that can contribute to effective and lasting educational reform. Here are a few:

1. Self-paced learning. Athletes develop skills at their own pace, no matter their age, gender, ethnicity, or how hard they work. If a coach rushes an athlete to play at a level that exceeds his or her skills, that athlete is primed for injury or failure. At the same time, holding back an accomplished athlete will dampen enthusiasm and effort.

Students also develop knowledge and skills at their own pace. However, in school, to the misfortune of many, students are evaluated against one another, no matter what their rate or style of learning. The teacher sets the pace, not the learner.

As in sports, students should be encouraged to give their best effort and allowed to learn at their own rate. Some will need more drill, more practice, more repetition, and more review to master the material. Rather than age or the abstract notion of being a sophomore or junior determining the caliber of work, the specific background, history, and skill level of the student should determine the depth and scope of study.

2. Mastery-based learning. In sports, you work on a skill continuously. In basketball, you don’t practice shooting free throws during the first week of training, take a test, and then go on to other aspects of the game, only to forget how to shoot free throws because you won’t be tested on them again. You practice shooting free throws every day until you do it well, and then you continue this practice every day after that.

In our schools, students move on to the next assignment, the next subject area, and the next grade level even if they haven’t mastered the subject matter. Students should not be allowed to go on to the next lesson, subject area, or grade level until they have mastered the current one, no matter how many times they have to work and rework an assignment. If students are allowed to get by with C’s, D’s and F’s (on a bell curve, this means 70% of all students), then mediocrity is the norm, not mastery. This perspective goes hand-in-hand with self-paced learning.

Mastery-based learning means that fewer subjects will be covered but they will be covered in-depth. Here, quality is valued over quantity.

3. Relevance. In sports, athletes are motivated to spend countless hours on the basics because they are relevant. In track, for example, runners understand why they go through drills related to speed, power, and endurance. This is why they work so hard, even at the end of the school day.

In our schools, kids are told they must learn something whether they see the relevance of it or not. While the students may need to learn something, if they do not see the relevance of it, they will resist and perform below their potential. Students with high self-esteem balk at seemingly meaningless or irrelevant work. Too often, teachers don’t relate the subject matter to relevant issues in the students’ lives.

Students must first see a need to learn something before they will embrace it. There must be a context for the learning. Going to college or getting a job is a reach for a 12-year-old middle school student. As John Dewey once wrote, "Education is a process of living, not a preparation for the future."

4. Engagement. Athletes know they must be actively engaged in the learning process or they simply will not improve their skill level. A coach does not enhance her athletes’ skills by having them read a book, take a test, and then go on to the next chapter. The athlete learns by doing, by being fully engaged in the learning process.

In most classrooms, students spend their time passively listening to lectures, reading, answering questions, and taking tests. There is little, if any, real-life connection to the subject.

Students need to be engaged in the learning process. The more active they are, the more active the learning. Students must not be subjected to mere abstract thought, theories, and information, but must be a part of the subject.

5. Learning through coaching. A coach demonstrates how to do something, explains why it should be done a certain way, and then has the athlete do it over and over—with the coach stepping in when necessary to correct—until the athlete can perform at a high standard.

For example, by demonstrating how to shoot a free throw, explaining why free throws are shot that way, and then having the athlete practice shooting free throws under the coach’s watchful eye, real, practical learning takes place. There is constant practice by the athlete and ongoing feedback from the coach.

In our schools, teachers usually demonstrate once, explain once, and the students then work on the assignment. Feedback comes in the way of grades on papers rather than through constant feedback from the teacher until the work has been mastered.

For our schools to be effective, teachers must act more like coaches who give constant feedback to their students until the required skill level is reached. Ongoing feedback from the teacher-as-coach is necessary to guarantee high-level performance.

6. Demonstration learning. In sports, you show, perform, or compete in front of others to demonstrate your skill level. Athletes not only have to be good at what they do, they must also do it in front of others. Family, friends, and community members attend the events in which the athletes are evaluated. Being subjected to the scrutiny of others adds to the positive tension and motivation for wanting to do well.

In schools, in many instances, a student’s academic performance is scrutinized by one person—the teacher. Often, this comprises very little social incentive to perform well. Students aren’t always motivated to do their best because they aren’t subjected to the watchful eye of a larger audience.

Students should have to demonstrate their knowledge and skill by showing, performing, or competing in front of many members of the community. In this way, the importance of learning becomes very real and valued by the students.

7. Team-oriented learning. Coaches know that teams are made up of individuals. In order that the individuals see themselves as part of a larger cause, something that goes beyond themselves, they must experience a sense of place and belonging.

When participating in team sports, students learn that their effort and their growth and development is important to the success of the team. If one person doesn’t do his or her job on a particular play, the whole team suffers. And if everyone does their job, the entire team benefits. From this perspective, students quickly learn that, "You count!!! You matter to all of us!!! And so does everyone else." As the Jewish teacher Hillel once wrote, "If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I?"

In our schools, students get their own grades for their own benefit. There is little, if any, sense of belonging to something bigger, to contributing to the growth and development of others.

Students need to be responsible for the scholastic performance of their peers as well as for themselves. Every student should know how everyone else is doing academically. They should have time to help one another to ensure everyone’s success. When one student does well, we all do well. When one student does poorly, we all do poorly. Whether as a nation or a school, united we stand, divided we fall—or fail. As with sports teams, students must feel a sense of place and belonging, a sense of importance to the success of everyone.

8. Character development. Coaches know that the quality and success of a team is directly related to the character of its players. Character keeps athletes vigilant in victory and strong in defeat. Character enables athletes to deal with adversity. The attitude of one athlete can lift or destroy an entire team. Coaches often say they would rather have a good player with a great attitude than a great player with a bad attitude. This is why good coaches are constantly working with their athletes on character issues.

In our schools, the usual focus is on subject matter—math, language arts, science, technology—in other words, knowledge, rather than the subjects that really matter and the reason schools are there in the first place—the students.

Mohandas Gandhi spoke of knowledge without character as one of the Seven Deadly Sins. And it was the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. who wrote, "The function of education… is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society… The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals."

Character development needs to be a major focus in our schools. Learning patience, perseverance, how to stay positive when everything is caving in around you, self-control, tolerance, compassion, humility, and self-assertiveness should be emphasized in our schools as much as subject-matter knowledge. If this were done, less time would have to be spent on problems with misbehavior in classrooms and society.

Sport culture is by no means perfect. However, as millions of coaches and athletes have learned and effectively demonstrated, there are many aspects of sport culture that are positive and that promote growth and development.

At a time when what is going on inside America’s classrooms is being seriously questioned, it may be wise to look at what goes on outside the classroom—at what takes place on the athletic fields and courts of America—and bring the positive aspects of sport culture indoors. It was the Canadian educator Marshall McLuham who once said, "I don't know who discovered water, but I know it wasn’t the fish."

Education is a very important game, and there are all sorts of players vying for a position on the reform team. By bringing the positive aspects of sport culture into the classroom, we can use the tried and true methods of learning through sport to create a whole new game that promotes academic achievement and character in all of America’s children.