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Learning from Experience

November 5, 2013

Readers who frequent this space might assume (correctly) that I enjoy travel, especially so to places where I don’t speak the language, don’t know what’s in the food and can’t drink the water.

Back in the days when it was possible to travel in Europe on $5 a day, my wife and I honeymooned across that continent for a summer on slightly more than $6 daily, combined. Today we spend more than that for our morning coffee; but we enjoy the adventures no less or no more.

I suppose on some level we have been making up for the lack of diversity of our childhood homes in the Midwest and our nose-to-the-grindstone approach to high school. Neither one of us ever thought of study abroad, or had time for it, as we pursued good grades and gratified ourselves and others in school-related activities.

This is in sharp contrast to the foreign exchange student from Germany who spoke last month at the annual meeting of the Council on Standards for International Educational Travel. His family has hosted two students from China and he is now being hosted by a family in the USA. The point he made was this:  He prefers to learn about life from experiences, not stereotypes.

And so do I. I just got to this realization later than this fine young man from a small town in Germany.

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.