Cultivating Competition, the BISC-LP Way

As you can imagine, the energy levels in the Athletics Department hover at a high level throughout the year. However, there are two occasions when the energy reaches new levels. Sports Day is of course one of them. The other occurs in early spring when the BISC-LP Bulldogs compete in the CAMS Basketball League – six weeks of home and away games against other Chicago schools in, what will be for many, their first time in a high-stakes, competitive environment.

It is an intense and busy time for those children. They have their regular school days to consider and then an extra two hours at school, several times a week. This, added to the tension and pressure associated with competitive sports, can leave some a bit overwhelmed. And this brings me on to the crux of this blog; how should we manage competition and what does ‘healthy’ competition look like?

At BISC-LP, we believe that competition is an important aspect of life, whether it’s competing in sports, competing to win an award, competing with siblings, or competing in our careers. As hard as some may try, competition, to some extent, is unavoidable. It is important, therefore, to expose and guide children through a wide range of competitive situations.

In the Athletics Department, we recognize different levels of competition: low, medium, and high. A typical low-stakes competition might be a warm-up relay race to start a lesson or a challenge to see who can bounce a ball on a racket ten times in a row without dropping it. In these activities, it really doesn’t matter who wins. The element of competition is mainly to provide additional challenge, inform teacher assessment, and often to add extra fun. The emphasis is on engagement and trying your best. At a medium level, we increase the challenge and raise the stakes. This may take the form of an end-of-unit assessment such as a 3v3 mini-basketball game, an intra-squad practice game, or aiming for a gold on the high jump at Sports Day. These types of activity increase in frequency as the children get older. The emphasis is placed more heavily on achieving particular goals and on taking responsibility for personal performances. Finally, there are opportunities for high-stakes challenges in the form of inter-school competitions, of which the CAMS Basketball League is our main event. In these, while winning does matter, it is important to stress that it is not the main priority, but more on that in a bit. They are reserved for our older children, who at this stage in their development are better able to cope with the pressure, and they provide a foundation for the demands of sport at middle and high school.

So, if winning is not the priority, what is?

Well, don’t get me wrong, we would love the Bulldogs to win every game. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t start practices as early as September, we wouldn’t have such high expectations for the children’s engagement, and we wouldn’t invest in coaching, for not only the Bulldogs, but the younger children aspiring to be on the squad in the future. We may look calm on the outside, but Mr. Webb and I are internally willing the children to make every basket.

But… we recognize that competition needs to be healthy. For us, that means setting particular standards and sharing key messages with the students:

1. Put in 100%. While winning is the ideal, it is much more important you put in the effort. If you lose a game but can honestly say you did your best, that is of far more value to your character development than if you won but didn’t try. Recognizing what effort looks like and how to apply it will serve you better when you are faced with challenge.
2. Be a team player. At a young age, it can be difficult to think of others in pressured situations, but children need to remember that their teammates all want the same, all want to feel part of the team, and all want to win. How you treat each other will be reflected in how you play together. So, if a teammate makes a mistake, tell them not to worry, encourage them, and help them get better.
3. Win and lose with grace. There is nothing worse than having opponents rub their victory into your face. It shows a lack of respect to the other team and diminishes the effort they have put in. Cheer your successes and congratulate each other by all means, but don’t go overboard. Similarly, when facing a loss, don’t sulk, say the other team cheated, or that the game was somehow unfair. It’s poor sportsmanship and abdicates the responsibility you and your teammates share in that loss.
4. It is not the NBA Finals! However much children want to emulate their heroes, they are not Steph Curry or LeBron James…yet. While a game may be the most significant thing in their lives at that moment, it is important to remind them that it’s not the be-all and end-all. You win some, you lose some. You don’t have control over what has happened, but you do have control over what may happen next. What can you learn from the previous game? What can you do to improve? What practice do you need to put in? What advice can you get from your coach?

There are many other ways that competition can be taught in a healthy way, but these are the key messages we at BISC-LP share with the children, whether in a P.E. lesson, on the playground, or in a game. Competition is a valuable learning experience for children and should be something they enjoy doing, regardless of whether they win or lose.

Caroline Gordon

Physical Education Teacher and Primary Curriculum Director

Further reading:

• Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Learn (2013), by John C. Maxwell – originally written for adults, there are now separate versions for both kids and teens.
• The Competing Views on Competition – New York Times article about competition in children -https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/11/garden/the-role-of-competitiveness-in-raising-healthy-children.html
• If Winning Isn’t Everything, Why Do I Hate To Lose (2015), by Bryan Smith – picture book for 5-11 year-olds about a 4^th grader who hates to lose.
• Positive Coaching Alliance - https://positivecoach.org/the-power-of-positive/ - an organization dedicated to promoting positive coaching experiences and healthy competition.