Remember when school sports days were being cancelled in an effort to wrap British children up in the cotton wool of "political correctness gone mad"?
Remember when school sports days were being cancelled in an effort to wrap British children up in cotton wool due to “political correctness gone mad“?
As we all know, under Labour competition was driven out of our schools by cultural Marxists in an attempt to ensure nobody suffered hurt feelings and low self-esteem due to heavy losses on the games field.
Of course, like so many stories of seemingly out of control political correctness this was for the most part complete nonsense. In fact, the real problem with school sports is quite different, and has more in common with another ideology than it does with the “political correctness” of right-wing fantasy.
As the Daily Telegraph reports today, two-thirds of pupils admit that “‘the ‘win at all costs’ culture is encouraging them to use unsportsmanlike tactics in PE lessons and inter-school matches”.
Or in other words, to cheat.
The study by the Chance to Shine cricket charity and Marylebone Cricket Club found that 90 per cent of children admitted that their teammates felt under pressure to win whilst playing sport at school. Three-quarters (75 per cent) of the 1,002 children aged eight-16 surveyed also believed their teammates would cheat if they could get away with it.
37 per cent believed their teammates don’t care if they win by cheating and five per cent said they were happy or proud if they had. Only 16 per cent of those surveyed said that their teammates felt guilty after cheating to win.
It’s all the fault of footballers though, according to the Mail.
5 Responses to “School sports: ruined by ‘political correctness gone mad’ or by something else?”
Duncan Stone
Rational recreation for the 21st century. Good grief.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/22127576
Malcolm
I was a teacher in the 70s and 80s and I remember very clearly the main cause of the decline in schools’ sports: it was the withdrawal of teachers’ labour as a consequence of government policies over pay and conditions. Before that time in many schools teachers of all disciplines were expected to take some part in organising school teams. Teachers’ pay, because of the impact such a large tranche of public money has on the budget, has always been a primary target. Well you get what you pay for was an attitude we understood.
Bobdog
Agree with Malcolm below. As a teacher in the 80s I willingly gave a couple of evenings of my time, and the odd Saturday morning, to help coach rugby/cricket teams, referee/umpire games, ferry kids in the school minibus to away matches etc. There were a good handful of us who supported our specialist PE teacher colleagues in this way. Then the lovely Mr Baker started stipulating minimum hours (despite the fact we were working longer hours than that anyway), insisting we attended pointless meetings, and took away 5 days of our holiday for ‘staff development’. Well there were only so many hours in a week, and I also had my own family commitments; so fine, I attended meetings, and stopped coaching etc. Nothing was gained as far as I could see, and it was the kids who suffered the loss.
Sparky
James Bloodworth, you should visit the site for the Campaign Against Political Correctness. It quotes many, many examples of what you claim is fiction. And these aren’t from the ‘right wing press’ -these are from local newspapers all over the country, reporting the facts of what is happening in their local schools. You are completely wrong to claim it is fiction. It isn’t. It happened under Labour, under hand-wringing socialist school administrators. It is another reason why the evil of socialism must be eradicated. It holds talented people back. It reduces the best to the level of the worst, it treats people as a homogenous unit and seeks to control their lives through misguided sanctimonious and paternalistic policy. It is the complete opposite of human nature.
HopeNotHateBNP
Agree with this, which is why I left my former socialist past behind.