Competitve Sports in Schools. Second Reaction Paper

Here is the revised version of my second reaction paper along with my wikipedia screen shot.

-Aaron

While competitive sports at the elementary and middle school level may have a positive affect on the physical health of our increasingly unfit society, it is important to consider the negative psychological consequences that result from requiring everyone to partake in such activities. By mandating that all students participate in activities such as dodge ball, flag football, soccer, and other highly competitive sports, there is an increased exposure to unfair scrutiny and bullying. For this reason, it would be in the best interest of childhood growth and development to eliminate competitive sports from the curricula of elementary and middle school physical education programs across the United States. According to many physical health, as well as psychological health experts, there are non-competitive physical activities that would allow for everyone to receive the health benefits of a structured gym class without the damaging social implications that competitive sports have on children before they have reached social maturity.
After researching the topic, I found that there are many people who hold the belief that an elementary or middle school is an inappropriate place for a highly competitive structure. Dr. Daniel Frankl, a professor of kinesiology at UCLA stated, “Leading physical education scholars hold the view that the "Competitive Achievement Model" should be kept out of the physical education curriculum, especially at the elementary school level” (Frankl 2003). He further explained that most children do not reach the level of maturity that is required to successfully participate in competitive sports until the age of twelve. Similar to the argument that Dr. Frankl presents, Thomas E. Shaffer, a former Director of Medical Services for the State of Ohio Juvenile Diagnostic Center, stated that, “interscholastic athletics is likely to become a high-pressure, demanding activity that is not suitable for younger children” (Shaffer 1964). The fact that this was written over four decades ago emphasizes that this has been a problem in the minds of scholars and experts for quite some time.
Robert Lipsyte, of The New York Times, illustrates a prominent example of the link between gym class competition and bullying. Lipsyte, in a 2002 article, discusses the psychological damage that the game of dodge ball has on young children. These aspects of the game that Lipsyte discusses remind me of playing dodge ball in fourth grade gym class and being purposely pelted in the face with a ball just to have everyone laugh at me. Lipsyte refers to the game as being wrought with elements of bullying, blame shifting, targeting, and embarrassing others, aspects that I fully recognize and agree with.
All of these sources serve to further emphasize my point that competitive sports should not be included in the curricula of elementary school and middle school physical education classes. While there are many sources that support the points that I make, not all of them are credible. What makes these sources credible is the databases host them. By being hosted on databases such as Academic Search Premier and Lexus Nexus, these sources have been verified by scholars and professionals in the specialized fields. While finding the information for this reaction paper, I came across many websites with seemingly useful information, however they were unreliable. The first “source” that I came across was Wikipedia. My initial reaction to this information was that it was credible. It seemed well written and well composed, but since it is an open source website where anyone is capable of changing or adding information, I knew that basing an argument off of the information on the website would inevitably ruin my argument.
To further experiment with Wikipedia, I edited the page about physical education by adding the text, “Requiring individuals to participate in physical education activities, such as dodgeball, flag football, and other competitive sports remains a controversial subject because of the social implications that these games have on young children.” The fact that I was so easily able to add this information and therefore affect the way other people think about the mandates of competitive sports in gym classes is both scary and empowering. While I feel strongly about the subject, and from my research I know that there are at least a handful of scholars and experts that feel the same way, it was not until I wrote about it on the website that some people may have started to consider the topic. Because of this experience, I am now more hesitant to use Wikipedia even for basic knowledge and definitions. If I can edit the information, obviously anyone can, and there are many self-proclaimed experts that would be detrimental to my understanding and dangerous to my research process had I not been aware of the risks.