Indian school kids have that mandatory PT Period once or maybe twice during their school week. However, sport is definitely secondary to academics in the scheme of things. If school schedules make little time for sport, this is only in keeping with parental expectations. The singular goal for a child seems to be swotting, getting high marks, a good college and a lucrative career ahead. Where do sport and god forbid (!) fun, fit in with all this? It is all frivolity, isn't it? It is not. There are so many reasons sport is an important facet of education:
There are of course several health benefits of playing sports regularly. It keeps one fit and helps maintain a healthy weight. With so many kids leading sedentary lives, living in flats with little or no play areas and eating unhealthy diets, this is more important than ever today. Physical activity improves bone density and reduces the risk of disease later in life.
With so much time consumed by gadgets, sports are very important. A sport skill is useful for a child to develop early in life. The time spent playing active games is that much less screen time. Now with so much of education moving online, kids have become habituated to using phones and computers for study as well as leisure. This makes it even more important for more time to be assigned to sports as part of education.
Physical wellbeing is tied to mental wellbeing. Kids who play sport may even perform better in academics and may have better cognitive abilities. Playing sport helps kids with their emotional wellbeing, enhances self-esteem and helps create more confident, well adjusted and socially adept young people.
Kids form valuable social bonds when they play sports. They interact with and learn to get along with children from diverse backgrounds, which is a valuable part of their education. They make friends that help fulfil their emotional needs and wellbeing. They become a part of teams and social groups, and this offers a sense of belonging and fraternity. Team sports help foster the spirit of cooperation and a sense of working towards a common purpose. Sports help make kids more disciplined and teach them how to operate as part of a unit. Kids learn about taking responsibility and understand that actions have consequences.
For parents who worry about what their kids will do in life, many career options open out of sports. It is true that there will be few kids so talented and physically blessed that they would be able to make sport a career. However one can be a sports coach, sports journalist, commentator, sports photographer, physiotherapist, personal trainer, exercise psychologist, sports administrator and more.
I know, we Indian parents don’t set much store by kids having fun, but this is vitally important for everyone including kids. Kids will never be kids again – let them enjoy their childhood. Don’t feed them the myth of ‘work hard in school, then you can relax’. That is a con. After school comes studying for college, after which is the responsibility of being an independent adult and then a spouse, parent with a family to support. You can never relax later in life.
So let kids play and simply enjoy being with other kids. Let them discover how to get along with others without parental crutches. Let them take tumbles, get dirty in the mud. Let them waste some time too – later their life will be ‘so full of care’ that they will have no time to ‘stand and stare’ to paraphrase W H Davies. And let them solve their own playground problems to the extent they can. It is all a part of growing up. It is all a part of making precious childhood memories – sports should be a big part of those memories and of education.
Do you have something interesting you would like to share? Write to us at [email protected]
