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Angela DiGioia's picture

Return to Learning Outside of the Classroom

I couldn't agree more with FinnWing here.  As I mentioned in class, I've played soccer since I've been two or three and some of the most valuable lessons that I've never learned, and, also the ones that are more difficult to teach in a classroom, have been learned by playing sports. Teamwork, sharing, communication skills, losing, and competition are just a few that I can think of where I actually learned how to exhibit them by practicing them on a field.  Going back to our conversation in class, where the topic was brought up that when you repeat something over and over again, you get better at it, it struck me how important playing sports (or any team activity) is to a child's development.  When the unconscious learns at a young age how to share or communicate with other people on a field or in a band/choir/art studio, etc, it learns to do it better over time; the unconscious has developed that skill and has an accumulation of data points for which the conscious storyteller can develop a story for how the brain has learned the skill over time.  I couldn't agree more with FinnWing about how important playing sports/or any group activity has been to my personal development, and to children's in general.  One other interesting thought...can we extend this thought to having siblings and how siblings interact from a young age?  Are only children's development of interpersonal skills and how to deal with things like competition, sharing, etc, more delayed because they don't have any siblings to interact with at home (brains interacting)?

 

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