August 18th, 2016
Why Education Needs Sport
Throughout the history, athletics have always been an integral part of liberal education. However, all sorts of activities connecting education and sport in school have become deemed less important. Because of that, all kinds of physical activities get cut or completely eliminated from educational establishments, the education quality will 100% leave a lot to be desired.
There is a bunch of researches that reveal that students, who make sure to take part in athletics, fare remarkably better both during school years and in the later life. Boys and girls, who participate regularly in sports, like playing for school football team or cheerleading, are dealing with organizationally and cognitively demanding activities that help to develop both leadership and self-discipline skills. The activities turn to be especially useful for the students, who had particularly disadvantaged backgrounds.
To add more, some of the studies have also revealed that schools that provide a range of sports options also provide higher test scores and better graduations rates. In other words, there is no need to stick to the opinion that schools that educational establishments emphasizing sports prefer doing that causing damage to the other educational disciplines.
Having Doubts?
So, the question is what is the case against sports nowadays? Sometimes people tend to mention that some of the students athletes behave inappropriately. Moreover, they cite fictionalized accounts of the corrupt sports education, just like the one that can be seen in the film called ‘Varsity Blues.’ But the truth is that some anecdotes that appear here and there don’t constitute the generalizable audience.
Exceptions Around the World
The other people also provide the examples of the high-achieving places, such as Finland and South Korea, where they have no athletes at school. Of course, that may be true; however, one can name many low-achieving countries, where sports activities in schools are at zero level. It’s pretty pointless to argue that students in Finland or South Korea have an academic success that depends on the absence or presence of athletic programs at schools. Instead, there are some other factors that influence the issue in those countries.
Supporting Claims
Sports programs advocates tend to provide quiet solid reasons why education and sport greatly benefit from each other. First, it is important to mention that sport and physical activity can actually ‘feed’ your brain. This means it helps your gray matter grow, as well as operate more and more effectively. To say more, some researches have shown that regular sports activities push the long-lasting and profound changes in human brain wiring. This in turn has a positive effect on the intellectual work of brain.
When students are engaged in regular and intense physical activity, they get a chance to boost memory and learning skills. And the fact is that learners with an excellent memory and the ability to quickly absorb information have a great advantage that will influence nearly every side of their experiences in education and far beyond this sector.
And finally, just a few minutes of physical activity during the college years can lead to a better concentration abilities and strong attention to the tiniest details that directly affects how students learn and retain new materials.