Introduction
The language and framework that investigates the priorities to consider theoretical perspectives, address epistemologies and methodologies to highlight critical perspectives behind the ability to measure physical education outcomes. The literature starts focusing on the behavior analysis that not only values the student from a traditional perspective, but also recognizes and questions his or her potential in an inclusive society.
The paper enquires about those ways that are adopted by most of the sport teachers and serve as a consequence to misjudge students’ behavior. As a result, we complain and blame the physical education for not contributing towards building moral in our students. This literature identifies the weaknesses behind acknowledging sports education to develop character and self-esteem in children. It acknowledges and points to the loopholes through evidence to support the notion that why contemporary physical education and educators remain unable to develop self-esteem and self-image relationships in students.
The effects of a student’s participation in school athletic programs not only build a strong physical foundation in which sports is utilised as building character and developing a work ethic, but also sports involvement in one’s life encourages and motivates the student to perform better, academically. Despite understanding all these spectrum of sport development, why is it so that SE lacks the central contribution that must be determined and polished by the sport teachers.
This research focus on the spectrum that evaluate the connection between sports and lack of understanding to develop certain valued outcomes such as the connection getting vulnerable between competition in sports and self-esteem, factors that despite making efforts remain unable to develop intrinsic motivation in the children.
Difference between SE content and development
Unfortunately, sport education (SE) learners and educators feel variance between the development of SE and the manner in which SE has been developed. One example of such model is Hastie and Buchanen’s (2001) ‘Empowering Sport’ that combines features of Hellison’s (1995) ‘teaching of personal and social responsibility’ (TPSR) programme with the SE model, to develop a focus on the notion of empowerment in learning and amongst learners (Penney, 2005, p. 11).
Hastie and Buchanen elucidated that TPSR was designed to provide ‘a series of learning experiences in which the challenge is to move through a series of goal-levels. This model was built to assess the strengths and weaknesses of personal behavior in which it was revealed as a contrast to the contemporary SE. Furthermore it was identified that TSPR does not have the same formal structure in terms of the games that are included within a lesson, and in relation to the seasonal format of SE.
Though the model witnessed fairness and appropriate competition when combined with TPSR’s focus on self-control and respect, but it lacked the formal behavior that ought to be in a sport class. As a result it ended up in producing barriers of instances that only encouraged antisocial behaviour and promoted pro-social behaviour, associated with competitive sport.
Any pedagogical mode is not solely dependent upon the content-only curriculum. Particularly if we talk about teaching sports, it is expected and required that teachers not only teach them the curriculum but also socialize as they skill them. If contemporary coaches follow the instructions and embed teaching with socialization, why SE has remained unable to capture the top-notch students with an increase in ‘dropout’ and ‘at-risk’ students? This is because most of them feel free to exercise freedom in teaching and do not contemplate upon changing trends that require students’ assessment and observation.
Bernstein (1996) in this case suggested how such sensitive relationship goes between education and socialization and how it is simultaneously embedded in the act of teaching (Mawer & Hardy, 1999, p. 10). He suggests that pedagogic discourse serves as a regulation which embeds two units of discourse, discourse of skills which he refers to as ‘instructional discourse’ (ID), and a discourse of social order, which he calls ‘regulative discourse’ (RD) (ibid). I believe both discourses dominate each other, and it is due to such domination that sport teachers remain unable to deliver their best to students. The same variance is observed between sport content and development which serves as ‘boring’ to many of the ‘at-risk’ students.
The conflicting paradigm between SE and knowledge
Gage (1989) after conducting a plethora of reasoning in research paradigms concluded that the sport field is diversified due to positivist, interpretative and critical differences between the transition that incurs from adolescence to adulthood (Kirk et al, 2006, p. 38). Critically speaking the other name given to the ‘variance’ is ‘diversification’. This diversification has escorted Kirk et al (2006, p. 39) to the opinion that may serve as one of the reasons in the failure to built self-esteem in children. He develops a unique and conflicting paradigm between ontology and epistemology of knowledge on the basis of the notion that defines the two.
Ontology on one hand falls on a realist-relativist perspective that suggests the world to be naturally in a determined position. While epistemology refers to the nature of knowledge skills essential to communicate in a social world. Social theories hold no room for sport education, however it signifies value based power analysis of curriculum. A student by no means is a born athlete, he is a child born in a society, so he is taught to communicate on the basis of knowledge epistemology.
It would not be wrong to say that he is not oriented towards being natural and physical. He is not ontological, therefore, he is limited to learn to dominate, which according to Habermas is a knowledge constitutive interest (Kirk et al, 2006, p. 40). He adapts the daily concerns of participating and sharing systems of social practices. He is not taught metaphysical language structure of physical education classes due to which he is not exposed towards the intrinsic values that could lead him to participate in physical education.
That clearly indicates a student is not subjected to share and experience the values of SE. As a result the child is least expressive in adulthood to demonstrate his or her abilities and interest in sports, and as he is less addictive to physical activities and more oriented towards holding a traditional perspective, he finds it difficult to acquire SE. This is the reason why most of the sport teachers find it difficult to embed student’s knowledge into SE.
They are also aware of the cumulative effect of exposing student to sports that brings along with joy the repeated stress and anxiety, which is mostly caused by active participation in indoor as well as outdoor games and may hold an emotional impact on the development of the child. The mistake on part of the teachers refers to ignoring the impact that may be positive or negative depending upon the environment the child is subjected to. Their behavior is not assessed as a response to that environment which could be an answer why research to this date has failed to provide any empirical statistics to establish the number of young athletes who are the regularly suffering from sports related anxiety.
Of course, some onus of failing to introduce SE to children lies on parents, but we cannot the confidence cycle of students that may increase or decrease as a result to positive and negative attributions. I am not talking about all the sport teachers, but most of the coaches I have come across, it seems what matters is the pessimistic effect of the result of success or failure on the children’s behavior.
They consider such behavior not only affects their performance levels to the extent where performance starts varying in a considerable manner, but also competition impacts upon the participation level which make children anxious while making them dependent upon their ability to cope with the threat and uncertainty posed by particular situations within sport. Unfortunately, despite conducting numerous attempts by coaches, teachers and researchers to elucidate logical reasoning for youth differences in its cause and effect, the emotional factor among children have remained misunderstood.
Instead of developing a key to confidence that should be based on the stability and controllability of the ’emotional factor’, coaches are more influenced by a negative confidence attribute after failure that they feel as less controllable (Hardy & Mawer, 1999, p. 106) and more considerable than the positive confidence cycle after success. This experience though usual among children has never been dealt with serious strategies and has been related to and often associated with poor performance levels.
Though Hardy & Mawer (1999, p. 109) mentions Weiner’s model of attributions and emotions that support controllability of attribution as responsible to the generation of social emotions, coaches ignore it. For instance a coach when finds one of his students missing after-school training to see her boyfriend, he will demonstrate anger. This cause is controllable by the student. Similarly the coaches lacks the ability to analyze achievement goals that are studies as ‘task’ and ‘ego’ goals.
Such goals are considered in a pessimistic manner by most of the sport teachers, which also builds among students non-intrinsic motivated behavior. However, the reiterating effect of such behavior and anxiety among youth sports has been taken negatively even by parents and coaches, who after expressing their deepest concern that such emotions may have a negative impact upon the emotional development and well-being of the personality of the child.
Thus the obstruction in getting proper SE to children does not lie with the parents alone. Contemporary coaches finds it difficult to cope up and assess children’s capabilities to analyze the extent to which they are able to be involved in organised training and competition at all. Even when they feel the children are not capable of handling the anxieties generated by the sports environment, instead of devising proper strategies to cope up with the effects of sports related anxiety, they question about those potential sources of stress that have not been identified by sports psychologists as a healthy symbol (Lee, 1993, p. 135).
Non-intrinsic motivated behavior relates to dropout
Beaudoin (2006) suggests that sport motivation is closely related to two areas achievement and competition and research reveals two basic achievement or competitive orientations are available to enhance motivation among sport students, a mastery or task-orientation and an outcome-orientation (Beaudoin, 2006). Beaudoin (2006) mentions the mastery or task orientation to be usually associated with intrinsic motivation and encourages participation and achievement whereas the outcome-orientation is usually associated with being extrinsically motivated. Here what is important is the end result of a competition.
The dilemma with today’s SE is that contemporary coaches are more concerned about the mastery or task-orientation and to what we call winning or losing. It would not be wrong to say that to many coaches, sport activities or matches serve as one of the purpose to be in competition. This might be true to some extent, but to me competence among children must remain in limits and the purpose to be in competition must not be other than to analyze the factor of motivation and self-concept behind competence. On one hand competence among children is a dubious issue while on the other hand, research approves motivation and self-concept the factors behind competence.
Hence children’s self-evaluations can be related to the varying degrees in which their performance fluctuates. The self-esteem among children is contrasted by self-acceptance, which is considered to be devoid of competence. This shows a greater subjugation towards self-concept with lesser susceptibility to the inevitable fluctuations of sports performance (Waite et al., 1990). Thus, it is important for sports teachers to encourage children to reshape their potential but what is most important is to accept themselves as they are rather than as they would like to be.
The psychology of sports participation for children helps the coaches and school teachers to paint a true picture of the ways in which children actually experience taking part. They are more concerned with the motives which children hold for taking part with perceptions of the processes of success and failure which help them analyse causes and manifestations of setting goals for themselves.
Sports motivational phenomenon is highly dependent upon coaches, but the influence of parents and peers on the satisfaction level and motivational orientations cannot be ignored. Research suggests that non-intrinsic motivation mostly on behalf of the coaches is responsible for the dropout or at-risk of dropping out. Therefore, it is necessary to explore different motivational profiles that exist in the sport context so that self-determination motivation on persistence and dropout could be analyzed (Hagger & Chatzisarantis, 2007, p. 238). Studies indicates that low perceived ability, or the way in which self-esteem is built, is a major contributor to the non-participation and is perceived by the judgments of coaches as indicator for children showing no interest to drop out.
Critical paradigm indicates that coaches are no longer concerned with ‘at-risk’ dropouts for the reason that they do not perceive power as a symbol within society and take no measures to improve the lot of oppressed individuals and groups by facilitating their emancipation and enabling them to take charge of their own lives. This reason for the dropout bothers sport critical researchers to document privilege, repression, and the dominance of one group over others. In addition, instead of teachers, researchers try to focus on the big picture of high dropouts which leads to greater social justice.
Critics also blame sports development policies which focus on three areas of activity. The first area focuses on physical education and sport within schools and particularly after-school sport. The second area establishes sustainable links between sport played in school and sport played outside of school in the community, particularly through school-club links and by giving the community access to sporting facilities within schools.
While the third area refers to those developing means that ensure all participants with talent to progress whether through an appropriate club setting, coaching or competition. Though these three areas of physical activity are interrelated, but it does not indicate what most of the sport teachers believe that achieving success in one will almost certainly have benefits for the others (Kremer et al, 1997, p. 211).
Boring and Irrelevant content
Normal average students do participate in sport activities, but what about those below average? I have seen in many cases where the playing of sport is only limited to the acknowledgement of good or average sport students. Student interactions that replicate the inter-community or inter-scholastic participation settings often neglects to embrace the components of institutionalized sport that indeed make those experiences authentic. Criticisms of sport units have also been complained by students who claim that most of their experiences are with boring and repetitive content.
There is a need to recognise and understand the child’s circumstances in various social settings like at home, in school, with friends and the ways the child perceives life and deals with these circumstances (Griffin, 1998, pp. 19-20). Unfortunately coaches consider the sport environment for granted and only considers what he sees. Thus, a coach relies solely on his own observation and concludes results that are based on his own judgement.
That obviously does not include what critics suggest, that sports goes well as long as parental involvement is concerned, but as soon as it requires material efforts such as paying registration fees, purchasing equipment, providing transportation, and attending games and practices, things become complicated for poor ones or those in minorities (Kanters & Casper, 2008). An illustration is that of extra curricular sport activities in which aerobics, dance, swimming and running is considered. Even, as a head of PE, there is strictness to follow the formal PE Kit consisting of huge list of items like sweatshirts, tracksuits, shorts and t-shirts.
As long as the parents afford these items, well and good. But what about those minorities who are unable to afford such kits and are interested in taking part in regular sports activities in school? Critics often claim that schools limit sports to kits and formal requirements, however, what matters most is the children participation and practice in sports.
One of the major problems that coaches confront is the vague goals of the children they coach which may not be immediately evident, as their goals differs from children. Extensive study over the achievement of success in sport when conducted in Britain, revealed the main types of goals children usually set for themselves. These goals are usually responsible for motivating children in sports as they provide them with adequate reasons for participating or stopping.
Research generally shows that sports allure children to participate in order to have fun, improve skills, belong to a group, be successful and gain recognition among their family members and friends. Similarly, reasons that escort to boredom or leaving sports include lack of success, too much pressure from family or peers, loss of interest, and problems with facilities or support. Unfortunately, such factors are not considered by the sport teachers.
Experiencing anxiety on school experience
One of the reasons for why SE remain unable to develop self-esteem in students is the experiencing anxiety that affects a student personally. A student’s anxiety possess the capability to be communicated through classroom directly or indirectly and is identified through its negative effects on teaching performance. This includes reducing flexibility, resourcefulness, impairs decision-making ability resulting in confused thinking and actions, hesitant, tentative or hurried instructions.
Most often it is the result of ineffective use of teaching and management strategies. This on one hand not only reduces the ability to meet the demands of the teaching situation, but also acts as a catalyst in reducing the self-esteem of the student. Unfortunately, supervisors and co-operating teachers do not easily recognize and take seriously students’ anxiety and concerns about school experience.
Coaches must ensure that students should be prepared beforehand for the anxiety and concerns they experience on school experience. I personally prepare my students particularly when I feel they are under the potentially damaging effects of anxiety and stress which may result from the anxiety and concern to both themselves and to pupils being taught. However, coaches who adopt this methodology prefer to concern over a short term and avoid over a longer period of time.
I have felt that time spent helping students to recognize anxiety, the causes of anxiety, how it affects them and various coping methods which can be used, is time well spent. Unlike other teachers who believe that this time could be better spent on specific aspects of teaching or classroom management and might therefore need to be persuaded of the importance of incorporating anxiety management into the initial teacher education course, I believe helping students morally is the best time spent.
Techniques that I usually deploy in order to persist students’ interest in sport classes include the measures to reduce the anxiety and concern generated about specific aspects of teaching. This include developing routines to reduce the number of aspects of a lesson which have to be thought about each time. I have seen my fellow coaches planning a lesson extra thoroughly to reduce the likelihood of confusion or practising giving instructions and visualizing teaching particularly difficult parts of the lesson.
These techniques work but I prefer talking to other students about teaching or developing a support group to discuss aspects of teaching found to produce anxiety, such as planning lessons in aspects of the subject which are less familiar or dealing with disruptive pupils. I have noticed that lack of verbal interaction process in individual and facilitated learning situations or lack of manipulation in establishing progressions while applying and assessing the content development result in students’ frustration. Boggess, McBride and Griffey (1985) suggested that if anxieties and concerns at the end of school experience are not addressed, it may lead to students questioning teaching as a career (Mawer, 1996, p. 51).
Critics suggest that anxiety and concern caused are not been observed, evaluated and assessed due to which students who are at-risk do not bother to perform well. Student observation, nonetheless, is based upon unawareness on behalf of the coaches who believe that school experience is limited to gymnasium. This concept is wrong as coaches must be aware of the impact of their presence in the classroom, gymnasium or playing field on students’ anxiety and, possibly, on their teaching performance.
Social Class and Identity Formation
There is no doubt in the notion that contemporary self-esteem is dependent upon those theoretical considerations that illustrates how the pedagogies of SE enables the teachers to regulate relations within and between social groups. However, what the coaches fail to visualize is the impact of the pedagogic awareness of pupils towards the regulation and to the extent they are implicated in social and cultural reproduction and the distribution of power and principles of control.
The dilemma is that SE in educational institutes possess a unique system of implication in processes of selection which differentiates and varies with the social class and cultural hierarchies and their formation of identities. Critics claim that the efforts that have been put to practice over the last thirty years have resulted in teaching to become the business of a vibrant community which is now producing sociological analyses of curriculum and teaching in physical education and sport pedagogy internationally. How in such a business minded community settings one can expect to contribute honestly towards the moral development of our future generation?
Flintoff and Scraton (2001) study revealed that age, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, ability, and social class are the issues behind demoralizing students. Particularly girls in SE continue to be viewed as a problem for not engaging positively in sport classes and the reasons cited by the girls include the wearing of PE uniform; the no-jewellery rules; compulsory showers; and having to play games outside in the cold (Flintoff and Scraton, 2001, p. 5).
Research conducted by Flintoff and Scraton pointed to the notion that revealed physical education failing to provide young women with either the experiences or resources to help them develop physical identities as other than the antithesis of men less able, less strong and less competitive. Bramham (2003) suggested the ways in which expressions of gendered identities in physical education are grounded in shared ethnicity and the dominant masculinity is embedded with racism and sexism (Penney et al, 2005, p. 44). Such issues in contemporary sport environment are not placed as priority to recognise gender relations and identities are negotiated and not universally determined by class and race identities.
Thus, class, race, and social identities have emerged as one of the catalysts in provoking the demoralization of students towards SE. They have been among one of the outstanding challenges that physical education and physical education teachers witness. It is then important to question whether we are ready to view SE as a pedagogical development to enhance self-esteem among students and to equip them with the potential to provide what has so often been seen to be lacking in physical education.
Or to view SE as a profitable business limited for a particular class. In both cases I feel there is a need to identify loopholes that persist the students, those girls and boys who are not amongst the potential elite performers, and for those who see little appeal or cultural relevance in physical activity or the sports that dominate provision and publicity?
Cessation to Innovation in Sports
Another reason for why the development in self-esteem among sport students has been halted is the cessation of innovative practices. No doubt innovation has never been put under the heading of SE, but it is recognised and already acknowledged that most of the principles and characteristics of SE are central to the developments and that the learning opportunities created can justifiably be associated with the model.
Despite the association between innovation and sport activities, it is evident that the learning standards that have been established along with the strength of the cross-curricular dimension does not indicate a room for innovative practices. SE on one hand endeavours to promote a full understanding of what is involved in the improvement of performance and extend skills, knowledge and understanding relating to the development of fitness and evaluation for performance. On the other hand it lacks the innovative process required for the betterment of sport curriculum and activity.
There has been no particular positioning of schools as hubs that belong to a new local network hoped to support and spread innovation in curriculum development and provision for young people that is orientated towards learning as a lifelong activity. In fact, what we see today is that innovation has been confined to school boundaries or school years. Pedagogical innovation is limited to the school or university settings where the current educational and social climate and social identities are been placed of greater importance than the ethical issues pertaining to sport.
Furthermore, coaches feel the administrative burden of gaining agreement from parents or carers. Informing parents regarding the research based curriculum development on one hand elucidates the nature of projects and their children’s involvement in them, but on the other hand many sport teachers have felt the domination of parents. Though without skilful, committed teachers SE is meaningless as a curriculum and pedagogical innovation and it is in our own interests to bring changes to the school curriculum, but the curriculum as experienced and preferred by students should be chosen.
Thus, pedagogy ought to be the priority with a believe that teacher education has a key role to play in supporting pedagogical innovation and advancement in physical education. This does not indicate that training institutions should be regarded as the sole sources of innovative thinking about the curriculum, teaching and learning in physical education. In this case a strong opinion must be made for training to be a catalyst for curriculum and pedagogical innovation in schools and for training institutions to act as providers of ongoing support for that innovation.
Evidence marked throughout European countries demonstrate a strong connection between sport development and higher education qualifications, higher socio-economic status, male hegemony and participation in sport.
Therefore, in broader terms SE is not only a matter of self-esteem but is also perceived as an icon that appears to reflect and perhaps even exaggerate disparities within societies rather than being in itself an effective means of reducing such disparities. It is one spectrum to promote the overall economic and personal health benefits under the umbrella of participation in sport, but an entirely different matter to make claims for sport’s ability to reduce socio-economic inequalities across cultures.
References
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