My old school, like so many other schools, whether public, private, or state, forced pupils to take part in team sports. This was, and is, a mistake.
Now, let me be honest. I hated team sports. I am clunky, as much a sportsman as an eagle is a vegetarian. Insiting I play team sports is much like insisting a fish climbs a tree. This means I was in a great place to spot what’s wrong with obligatory team sports. Of course, exercise is essential for children, but my problem is with team sports, not exercise.
I have never understood the point of team sports. They do nothing to improve the players that can’t be achieved by plain exercise, and, unlike most of education, they do nothing else to improve the pupil, let alone improve the human condition, to advance civilisation. Worst of all, they have no utlility. There’s one exception, team sports can encourage the development of leadership skills in one or two of the players, but if that’s the purpose of team sports, then, in my experience, they relegate other pupils to little more than toys for those proto–leaders to manipulate. I find that unacceptable.
I suggest there are no team sports that have a positive impact on children, beyond that of exercise, but there are various forms of exercise that most certainly do. An obvious one is swimming: learn to swim well and you learn how to save your own life, and, with more advanced teaching, other peoples’ lives. Obviously, a swimmming pool is required, but most communities have swimming pools.
Cycling gives students a livelong means of commuting, useful on the pocket in those unfortunate places where local public transport isn’t free (unlike where I live). It can be used to teach pupils more essential things, such as the rules of the road. However, cycling really requires investment by a school, in a velodrome, a set of fake roads, bikes for the kids, and maintenance. Obviously, cycling can also be conducted on real roads, but there is a balance there between benefit and risk to be understood.
Running and walking are two useful forms of exercise. Both encourage movement. Knowing how to run can help a pupil avoiding missing a bus or train. Organised walking can easily become a form of practical biology, geology, economics, etc., and organised hikes … admittedly something that can’t be done every day, are even better. They can teach children camping skills, giving them a lifelong skill insurance should they have financial problems while living somewhere uncivilised.
But team sports? For me, what was the benefit of being forced to stick my head between other boys’ bottoms three times a week? How did that advance civilisation? How did that better the human condition? How did that improve anything at all? Did I gain great knowledge and skill from my unwanted familiarity with other boys’ farts? No, I did not, of course I did not. I instinctively saw through the grand con of team sports, and I strongly disliked being forced to submit to the con.
Clearly, fitness is necesary for various jobs and careers, including the military. But the effort to enforce fitness should be aimed at the needs of those jobs and careers. I’m not aware, for example, of any serious job that requires a deep familiarity with other peoples’ farts. Team sports are a con.
Another argument that I’ve heard for schools engaging in team sports is to help pupils understand team working. This would make some sense if the emphasis was on team, not on sport. There’s also the problem that — and this is anecdotal — that every team sport teacher I encountered as a pupil was basically useless. I strongly remember one teacher saying “you all must give 110%”, as if pupils had studied neither math (100% is the maximum) nor English (the 110% nonsense is a dismal cliché), both obligatory subjects. How could a teacher expect to inspire pupils when he himself was so ignorant of the basics? Now, not all sports teachers are that bad, of course, or at least I hope so, having never encountered one whom I remember being any good. I’d have been deeply impressed had the teacher adopted & adapted, not some moronic cliché, but inspiring classic literature. Shakespeare, for example, is great source of such stuff. But, no, faced with educated pupils, that teacher was nothing more than a self–propelled cliché.
Team working should be taught in coursework, not abused in team sports. Teachers can group together pupils in teams for certain coursework. They should be able to mix and match pupils to give them experience of teamwork, in all its forms. If this happens, and it does, then there is no possible reason for imposing team sports. Team sports are a con.
Team sports, some people claim, are a form of mass entertainment. I don’t doubt this. But that’s not relevant in this discussion about children and fitness: a pupil doesn’t stay fit by sitting in a stand watching teams play a game.
The real solution is for schools to switch from team sports to forms of exercise that benefit pupils.