When MPs don't engage their brains
Iain Dale is reporting that Sandra Gidley has called for competitive sports to be banned from schools. Apparently on the basis that someone must lose.
This is absolute nonsense. We all engage in many things which we could lose at, we need to learn this and how to cope with losing (and winning).
Rather than banning competitive sport, why not encourage children to do their best, praise them for that and encourage all children to find what they are good at. Some will be better at sport than others, that is natural. Others are more academic, others best with art or crafts or mechanical things. This is natural and healthy.
To isolate children from competition risks damaging the very foundations of a liberal society, the recognition of the differences between people and the enourmous value of those differences. Also the function of competition in driving progress. Without competition we would be static at the very least.
If this stems from hating sport at school, well I hated it. Not because I was poor at sports, which for the most part I was, but because of the crass nature of some of the teachers, who were little more than bullies (I'm thinking of a certain ex-England cricketer in particular). The better teachers did not get annoyed with you for failure, they got annoyed with you for not trying. I also didn't like the cold in winter, or to be honest, exerting myself. This has nothing to do with competition, the competitive aspects were often the best. They bound us together in houses, teams or as a school and helped foster a sense of community.
This sort of utterance from an MP is the equivalent of Tory MPs muttering on about Europe or sexual morality or religion, they reinforce stereotypes about the party, which are simply not true for most of the party. They are singularly unhelpful. This will get us classed as the loony-left (the stereotype of the sort of teacher who would call for this has to be the lefty, feminist, misandronist, NUT member, primary school teacher, not the image we want for our party).
This is absolute nonsense. We all engage in many things which we could lose at, we need to learn this and how to cope with losing (and winning).
Rather than banning competitive sport, why not encourage children to do their best, praise them for that and encourage all children to find what they are good at. Some will be better at sport than others, that is natural. Others are more academic, others best with art or crafts or mechanical things. This is natural and healthy.
To isolate children from competition risks damaging the very foundations of a liberal society, the recognition of the differences between people and the enourmous value of those differences. Also the function of competition in driving progress. Without competition we would be static at the very least.
If this stems from hating sport at school, well I hated it. Not because I was poor at sports, which for the most part I was, but because of the crass nature of some of the teachers, who were little more than bullies (I'm thinking of a certain ex-England cricketer in particular). The better teachers did not get annoyed with you for failure, they got annoyed with you for not trying. I also didn't like the cold in winter, or to be honest, exerting myself. This has nothing to do with competition, the competitive aspects were often the best. They bound us together in houses, teams or as a school and helped foster a sense of community.
This sort of utterance from an MP is the equivalent of Tory MPs muttering on about Europe or sexual morality or religion, they reinforce stereotypes about the party, which are simply not true for most of the party. They are singularly unhelpful. This will get us classed as the loony-left (the stereotype of the sort of teacher who would call for this has to be the lefty, feminist, misandronist, NUT member, primary school teacher, not the image we want for our party).
Labels: competition, idiots, libdems, liberalism, MPs, sport
