A goal of present sport eduction is to train children to be good at the Olympic activities. I object to that goal.
Not in theory. If you ask school administrators or state education officials, they're more likely to tell you that it's about teaching kids discipline, teamwork, getting in shape and so on. In practice, kids' sports have become increasingly specialized and competitive, with parents investing huge amounts of time and money into their kids' training, and sports injuries, especially overuse injuries which were almost unheard of in child athletes a few decades ago, have shot up dramatically.
It's hard to restructure kids' sports programs to better address the purposes they're nominally geared towards though, because the sports activities are strongly driven by parents who want to see their kids compete.
Not in theory. If you ask school administrators or state education officials, they're more likely to tell you that it's about teaching kids discipline, teamwork, getting in shape and so on.
Getting kids to do broad jumps doesn't seem to me to maximize either discipline, teamwork or getting in shape. Schools should just cut out the whole track and field athletics business.
If you want kids to do basketball, I have no problem. Let them compete in basketball. The sport was created in the late 19th century by a physical education professor who thought a bit...
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