Education and Sport
The world of sport has been through many changes over the past centuries. Like life itself, sport continues to change. However, we have grown accustomed to taking the changes in sport as they come to us, for better or worse, hoping that the good outweighs the bad.
Knowing the history of sport is as important as knowing that of mankind.
Sport is a social institution and is responsive to changes in beliefs, values and norms in every society.
It is unfortunate that in many of our Caribbean societies we have retained a rather backward stance in respect of somehow adopting a stance that sport is the purview of those who appear not to be academically successful. All too often, proficiency in sport has been and continues to be linked to lesser intellect, amongst dominant performers.
History
Much is made of the frequent references to the ancient Olympics and the variety of issues that have been linked to them. As a social institution, sport in ancient Greece reflected the realities of the culture of the society.
A society steeped in Greek mythology, it was expected that sport, an integral part of Greek culture, would have been infused with the nation’s mythologies and the belief and value systems that held sway in the socialisation of successive generations. Through the ages of the ancient Olympics, successful athletes were treated almost as the chosen ones of the heroes in Greek mythology.
Some scholars have, however, argued that the ancient Olympics reflected the prejudices of the social milieu in which they took place. Intellectuals were supposed to have been more highly regarded as members of Greek society and, not surprisingly, were revered. It is the reason that in ancient Olympics the academicians were the ones expected to grace the sports arena, showing that success there was consistent with their superior intellects.
Evidence suggests that in many societies in the middle ages, intellect was associated with wealth, a sort of justification for their social status. Not surprisingly, for example, research on societies around the world at the time of discussions on the establishment of the modern Olympics, reveal sport to have been the purview of the wealthy and academically inclined. The lower classes were not encouraged to compete against the people of the higher social statuses.
The concept of amateurism was, therefore, consistent with the broader cultural beliefs and practices of the articular historical period. Sport was perceived as recreation for the wealthy and intellectual categories of people in the different societies. To have the lower classes compete against the ‘intellectuals’ and wealthy was anathema.
Sport, although highly competitive was, for the most part, seen as recreation for the people of high status in the respective societies of the day.
In a similar vein, the societies colonised by the different European powers of the day adopted the same attitudes towards sport. Across the English-speaking Caribbean, for example, the coloniser’s love for the sport of cricket led to it being introduced in the colonies. The slaves were brought to the sport so that they could do the fielding. They were not expected to be allowed to practice the sport to the point of attain any significant level of competence, let alone, proficiency. The belief was, anyway, that the slaves and more generally, blacks, were lacking in the grey matter that constituted intelligence and therefore could not learn the artistry required to advance to any level of sporting prowess.
CLR James, spent his time writing numerous articles criticising the refusal of the authorities in West Indies cricket to acknowledge the leadership qualities and quiet proficiency of Frank Worrell, enough to hand him the captaincy of the regional team, before eventually, the sheer pressure of public opinion and Worrell’s own dominance, forced their hands.
Beckles et al, in their historical writings on cricket in the Caribbean, refer to it as a means of liberation because the slaves and their successors gradually came to master the craft of playing the sport to a level of global acknowledgement of their proficiency, precisely what the colonisers never wanted to witness in their lifetime.
In the USA, sociologists have written extensively on the extent to which the colonial experience was systematically designed to deny the enslaved and successive generations of descendants any recognition of intelligence and capacity, to say nothing of competency. Research revealed what appeared to have been a deliberate attempt at locating blacks in music and sport, in an attempt to convince them that they were not designed for academia.
In sport, it was a long-held view that in American Football, black athletes were not intelligent enough to perform the role of quarterbacks. It was promoted that they would have been unable to understand and remember the complex game plans enunciated by the team coaches during games.
Today’s reality
History is therefore replete with examples of the behaviour of the upper classes of societies towards people they perceived as being of lesser intelligence to do well in sport. It is therefore not in any way surprising that even today, where the education system is dominated by the generations of former slaves, that leading educators have been plying the nonsense of physical education and sport consuming too much of time of students, taking away from their academic development.
The fundamental truth is that the requirements for a child’s education begins with the formation of the brain as the foetus develops in the womb of the mother and continues most rapidly in the first three to five years of an individual’s life.
Education is an ongoing process. It does not stop until death.
We can hardly be successful at anything in life without engaging brain. We learn as much as is possible once we are prepared to engage in education activity – reading, speaking, listening, practising, writing and discussing.
The process of socialisation exposes to the agents that impact our learning. Proficiency in physical activity and sport requires of a child the same attention to educative process as one’s pursuit of success in science or language.
The proficiency of Pele in football did not come by magic. It came from the learning process in the requirements of the game. As with all forms of learning, he added to his storehouse of knowledge during his growing years and brought innovation to his skill competencies. In his autobiography, Pele recounts his first match in the World Cup. He explained how, on one occasion, one of his teammates was in possession of the ball and that everything he was doing was an indication he would be passing the ball to him. Pele wrote that from his interpretation of his colleagues movements with the ball, he (Pele) ran into position to get the pass. That is an example of the importance of education to a great footballer.
The application of one’s intellect is revealed well beyond the results of a written examination at the university. It is possible everywhere in any field of endeavour, if one allows oneself to become a good student in that chosen field.
Bernard Coard, whilst a university student in the United Kingdom, took the only holiday job available to him, teaching mathematics at a borstal (a centre for young offenders). He was considered the only person stupid enough to take on the challenge. His first question of the ‘delinquents’ was what they love doing and the vocal response was playing football. So having gathered the ball, off they went to the football field. Coard pretended complete ignorance of the game and persuaded the youngsters to teach it to him, beginning with their explanation of the markings on the field. When the offenders succeeded at mathematics, the question was asked of Coard, what did you do. His response was how much mathematical features are present on a football field. He had taught them that football was best played with an understanding of mathematics. Coaches today always encourage their players on the importance of triangulation. When one player of the team is in possession of the ball, he must always have two of his teammates as available options to whom he can pass the ball. The same can be said for so many of the sports practised around the world today.
Success in sport requires knowledge and learning. The athlete must think through his/her every move relative to the desired outcome. This is the application of one’s intellect.
Dick Fosbury, while learning to be a high jumper, developed his own understanding of the dynamics of the event and created ‘the Fosbury Flop’, a style that his coach forbade him using. However, when competing at the finals of the event at the Summer Olympics in Mexico City in 1968, he turned to it to distance himself from his fellow competitors to win the gold medal and establish a new world record. Today it is the most used style in the high jump everywhere in the world of athletics.
Conclusion
Here in St Vincent and the Grenadines every effort must be made to resist the temptation to tell a child that to practise sport takes away from his/her education. Instead, in our collective best interest as a nation, we ought to insist on the cultivation of a learning process that allows for every child to be exposed to as many facets of life as possible, seeing every experience as an opportunity to be educated and to apply what is learnt to life.
Not every child will become a doctor or engineer or lawyer, or footballer. In our society, we fail to expose our children to the society in which we live. Parents strive to expose their children to what they consider important for the child’s development, hardly ever giving the child the opportunity to learn what they can be, should they wish to make those choices. What is important is for them to have options and to understand that their intelligence is critical to making those choices, engaging in appropriate educational pursuits, committed to the attainment of success.
Sport is a viable career option. It does not have any lesser value for the individual, if one adopts an approach designed to benefit from the educational journey it requires.
The practice of sport does not necessarily equate loss of instructional time and our parents and teachers must every temptation to instil this fallacy in their children.
The time has come for us to locate sport as a reasonable career path that requires of us the same level of education and continuing commitment as any other life choice.
