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TEACHING
SPORTSMANSHIP
Written
by: Tom
Winiecki, Mott Road Elementary School,
Fayetteville, NY
As educators, we are always looking
for lessons to teach and reinforce different
skills. We attend conferences, read
journals, visit web sites like this
one, and pick other teachers’
brains. All in an effort to find something
new and effective.
We may come across a great lesson that
reinforces controlling a ball. It may
fit right into what you are teaching
at the time. Eureka! (Does anyone really
say “eureka” anymore?) This
fits perfectly. Well, guess what? If
you can’t figure out a way to
re-hit this concept of control throughout
the year, your students will soon lose
anything they learned with your great
find of a lesson. If your kids think
“control” only looks like
dribbling a basketball, then they didn’t
learn the encompassing concept of “control.”
If they learn that “control”
means keeping something close while
moving, they have grasped a more meaningful
concept; their learning has more meaning.
Now they understand what you expect
when they learn to control a basketball,
hockey stick, soccer ball, paddle, or
maybe even a lacrosse stick (yes, I
am from Central New York).
You see, by re-hitting this concept
throughout the school year, your students
see all the ways that it can be applied,
and how important it is for them to
learn it. The same goes for things like
sportsmanship. Concepts like sportsmanship
cannot be taught in one lesson. It can’t
be taught by addressing it a few times
throughout the school year. It is one
of those things that has to be constantly
taught and expected of all students
all the time.
“Project
Adventure” activities, for
example, are designed in part to build
and reinforce sportsmanship, teamwork,
and the like. There are other things
involved as well with these activities.
I just wanted to focus on the sportsmanship
aspect. We all have so much to cover
in our comprehensive curriculums. Activities
like “Project Adventure”
are terrific, but they can’t cover
everything. There are so many more physical
“skills” for you to teach
in a year.
There is one “skill” (if
you can call it that) that you can teach
all year. That skill is “sportsmanship.”
The good thing about this is that it
can constantly be going in the background
of everything else you do. Teaching
our students to be good sports and good
teammates can be done at any level in
the elementary school. Just make it
an expectation within everything your
kids do. Just as you taught your kids
what “control” looks like
in the beginning of the article, you
can also tell and show them what sportsmanship
looks like.
For example, when you cover low organized
games with your primary grades, you
can easily set the stage by asking your
students a question like: “What
kind of person would your mom like you
to invite over to your house to play?”
You can get into all kinds of discussions
about kids that “play fair,”
or are “nice.” Just take
it a step further. Have them tell you
what “play fair” or “is
nice” looks like. Lead them through
a discussion about how adults like it
when children take turns, share, say
“please” and “thank
you,” and help someone who gets
hurt. Now, you have given your students
a mental picture of what “play
fair,” or “is nice”
looks like. You have also snuck in your
expectations of their behavior, regardless
of what activity you happen to be using
at the time.
Now, during breaks in your class, it
becomes easy to highlight different
students that demonstrate good sportsmanship.
You may end up saying something like,
“I just saw something good. I
just saw someone fall down. That wasn’t
the good part; I never want to see someone
get hurt. The good part was that I also
saw someone else come up to that person
and ask if he was okay. The helpful
student even tried to help him back
up! It must be great to have people
here that want to help others!”
When you resume the activity, just
watch what happens the next time someone
goes down. You may end up having more
than one “little helper.”
You may think that the kids only do
this because they think you want them
to. Just be sure to always make a point
of it in the context of “being
a good helper,” or “it must
be fun to play with kids that want to
help.” Now you have moved the
emphasis away from doing it because
you say to, toward doing it because
other kids will appreciate it. You’ve
shown them what “good sportsmanship”
looks like!
In essence, you are not teaching them
the game, rather you are teaching them
how to act when playing a game. The
number of “points” scored
is no longer the emphasis. The emphasis
now is more on learning how to enjoy
the activity for activity’s sake.
“Winning” is now defined
as being a good teammate or a good friend
and all that it encompasses (and looks
like). It is not defined as who has
the most points at the end. The good
part is that you don’t have to
wait to be in “low organized games”
to apply this idea. It can be used in
any teaching arena. There are so many
“teachable moments” out
there.
For example, I just finished teaching
a tumbling unit to our K-4 kids. I would
often need to have a student demonstrate
a new skill. To do that, I told the
kids that I needed to find someone who
was “ready.” I told them
that “ready” looked like
two kids working hard on their skills,
and then quickly sitting at the home
end of their mat as soon as I say, “Go
Home!” The first time I get a
mat that is ready quickly; I tell the
classes that I was able to pick this
mat because they were working hard on
their skills and sat down as soon as
I said, “Go home. They didn’t
stop after just a few tries. They kept
working until they heard the signal.
Nice job kids!” You know that
they all want to be a demonstrator.
Just put them in a position to act positively,
so they are able to fill this role.
It doesn’t always have to be
finding positive behavior. You can call
out poor behavior as well. In the same
tumbling unit, I would get a mat that
was ready right away to demonstrate.
In their initial effort, the students
may make honest mistakes and someone
else would laugh at them. Again, another
teachable moment. I let them know right
away that it is not acceptable, but
not just because I said so. I will say
something like, “I don’t
know about you, but I would be upset
if someone laughed at my best effort.”
Then I leave it at that. By saying it
this way, I call out the poor behavior
(laughing at a fellow student) while
simultaneously acknowledging the demonstrator’s
good initial effort. I give my demonstrator
another chance; this time the tone is
set. Mistakes do happen. They are nothing
to be laughed at, because they can be
fixed with perseverance.
It doesn’t have to be limited
to tumbling. Mistakes happen every day
in our classes. Our job is to get our
kids to embrace their mistakes; try
to help them understand that they can
learn from them, and encourage them
not to run from them. Again, we can
ask our students, “Would you like
to play with someone at your house that
laughs at your mistakes, or who helps
you fix them?” You’re not
asking them to do something because
it pleases you. Rather you are leading
them toward behaving in a way that benefits
themselves and others. It may start
out as good sportsmanship, but it will
evolve to good citizenship.
Every once in a while, you will hear
someone comment about the “rat
race” that is so easy to fall
into as adults. We are reminded that
we “can’t take it with us,”
or “you don’t win by having
the most stuff at the end.” You
are just teaching this same lesson to
your students. We want them to enjoy
the process (being active), not being
overly concerned about the product (“winning
the game”).
Teaching sportsmanship doesn’t
have to be limited to the athletic arena.
We can teach it every day in our physical
education classes. It’s the “unit”
that you teach all year long!
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