Winning, Losing and Loving It: have we taught sportsmanship?

So, I hear you ask, what have you been doing with the first weekend of your weeklong mini vacation/break thingy??

I've been waking up early, to get to school an hour before the normal school day starts, to load 13 teenagers and myself into a pilchard tin bus a bit like this one...

...so that we could drive for forty minutes to take part in a three day, all day, chess tournament. Yay!

This entailed watching seven rounds of two hour long games, keeping score, trying to keep up with strategies and points tables and hovering around to defend my players when opposing players or managers become...over-zealous. It happens, people. Chess can bring out the killer instinct!

But aside from the obvious downsides, the tournament has been a great experience. Granted I have a headache, and bitten nails from a (nearly) photo finish in our group. Granted my holiday is now 6 days instead of 9. Granted my ears are still ringing a bit from the bus trip home. But I find it impossible to spend a significant amount of time with a group of teenagers and not start loving them, at least a little. And this particular group has been working towards this particular tournament so faithfully that by now my husband and I have spent a great deal of time with them. So I have started loving them.

Not in a creepy way. Not in a parental way. In a teacher way. I enjoy spending time with them. I find them funny. I care about what happens to them. I am interested in the next episodes of their love interests. I want them to win, because they will be sad if they lose. But I want them to win well, and to behave perfectly, and show the world what amazing kids they really are, beneath the hysterical love interests, and phone obsessions, and weird hairstyles... *sniff*

This particular tournament had a good outcome for us. It was the provincial playoffs for the whole of the Western Cape, and our u15 mixed team won bronze against some unbelievably talented opponents. Our u15 girls team won gold in their section and will be going to nationals in December.

They were happy with their results. I was happy with the results too. I was also happy with the way they acted around their success, and around the teams who did not succeed. But it could easily have gone very differently - as I said, it came down to a very tight points difference in the final round. And I can't help wondering how different their behaviour would have been if things hadn't gone our way.

I hope it would have been the same. The amount of effort and skill they put in would have been the same, and would have deserved a similar amount of celebration. Being defeated by chance or a stronger team is nothing to be depressed or miserable or grumpy about. We always try very hard to prepare the teams for good losing behaviour as well as good winning behaviour. But the proof, as always, is in the pudding. Today we didn't get to taste the pudding. Maybe next time we will.

The mark of a great sportsperson is not how he wins. It is how he loses.

But I must say, I still prefer to win. Not even the prospect of doing it all again at the beginning of the December holidays can dampen my spirits. I am sure my ears will stop ringing soon...





Yours triumphantly
jjr

Contingency in Hockey

It seems that a lot of sports are actually exercises in contingency. Today, for example, I had a long conversation on the topic of contingency with the poor harried coach of the U14 hockey team that I manage (those of you who are paying attention will observe that I seem to manage only U14s. this is in fact the case. I think its the penalty of being new.)

Back to the point. The coach has desperately been trying to teach the girls the art of "two vee one" (and I quote). The idea behind "two vee one" is simple: try to take the ball to a part of the field where your players temporarily outnumber the other team's players.

Though it makes perfect sense in theory, in practice "two vee one" requires some very advanced contingency thinking under pressure. For example

IF she gets the ball AND I am behind her AND there are three opposition players coming from the left AND there is one opposition player coming from the right AND our strongest striker is running towards us from the centre THEN...

All of this in the split second it takes to run down the line on the right hand side of the field before the aforementioned three players reach you.

I am filled with admiration for those who manage to achieve this even once in a lifetime.

Something to Cheer Me Up

Cricket related blues aren't fun...but here is something which never fails to cheer me up.

The Art of Losing Gracefully

On Friday the U14 waterpolo team I manage played against the top waterpolo school in South Africa. The score was [this information has been withheld for the protection of the parties concerned]. Carnage!

Being my normal competitive self, this was hardly the start to the weekend that I would have chosen. But talking to the girls afterwards I found myself in the middle of an action packed tutorial (in which I was both the teacher and a student) on losing gracefully.Some of the modules follow:

Rule Number One: believe in your team till the bitter end
Rule Number Two: encourage each other, even when things are going badly
Rule Number Three: still believe in your team after the bitter end
Rule Number Four: give respect and honour to the opponents
Rule Number Five: don't blame the ref!

I could go on. But the tutorial isn't over yet (though I hope that next week's match provides a chance to learn the art of winning gracefully).


You may want to know what this post has to do with daydreaming in maths. The truth is that a similar state of mind is attached to losing in all spheres of life. And from my experience in the classroom, a lot of people feel like they're losing badly to Mathematics, one of the toughest opponents of their school career.

If you are one of those people: it isn't over until its over - you can still conquer Maths!

And once it's over, even if you lost - believe in yourself!

You aren't a failure because you lost. Take it from someone who knows.