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The Fun Factor

November 14, 2014

My experience with school-age young people is that what they seek most from sports participation is fun and friends. More sophisticated research from many sources consistently has affirmed my less formal findings.

The Journal of Physical Activity & Health added a July study to the body of research. This work was conducted by George Washington University in Washington, DC, and focused on organized soccer.

What was so surprising about this study is not that winning was not at the top of the list of what makes sports enjoyable for youth, but that winning ranked 48th of 81 factors measured. Winning didn’t even make it in the top half!

The lead author of the study, Associate Professor of Sports Psychology Amanda Visek, was quoted by the Chicago Tribune to say “the fun experience is not determined by the result of a game but rather by the process of physically engaging in the game.”

Tribune writer Danielle Braff quotes this research and other expert commentary that coalesces around the consensus that it is parents, not athletes or coaches, who are most hung up on the outcome of the game, as well as the issues that create the pressure on young people that ruins the pleasure of play: position, playing time and prospects of making an elite team or earning a college scholarship.

That’s the stuff parents worry about much more than their kids. And, according to a growing body of research, some of which we've cited in this space before, that’s the stuff that causes many kids to quit organized sports. It’s not fun anymore.

Newcomer Wisdom

November 20, 2012

A group I work with in my spare time, the Refugee Development Center, sponsored a team in a local youth soccer league.  Appropriately, the team’s nickname is “Newcomers.”

It took the team most of the season to score a goal; and it was in its final game of the season that the team earned its first victory.

After one game, I was enlisted to transport three players to their residences.  All three were Napali.  I used this time to ask their opinions about the education they were receiving in the local public school.

They had no objection to the content of the courses, but criticized the conduct of their classmates.  They cited a lack of respect for teachers, and a lack of discipline.  They had experienced the discipline of the stick in their homeland, and believed it would be helpful to classrooms in the US.

These young newcomers also noted that their instructional day in Nepal was almost two hours longer, plus they were in school a half-day on Saturdays.

From this conversation I was once again impressed that much of what has been done in attempts to improve public education has overlooked the obvious:  stronger discipline and longer days.  Most of what we do in US public education is the envy of the world.  What people from other countries wonder about is the lack of discipline and time on task. 

Empowering and supporting teachers’ discipline and increasing the length of the school day and year are not sexy solutions to what ails public education.  They are just simpler answers mostly overlooked.