Self-Organizing Games
By Michael Hebron
In a New York Times article by Bill Pennington “The Picture of Fair Play” (January 3, 2004),
Peter Roby, director of Northeastern University Center for the Study of Sports and Society was
quoted, “There is a trend in athletics; one that continued to gain steam in 200; one that has
more and more children deserting traditional sports. Young people are now being drawn to the
so called extreme sports of skate-boarding, in line skating, BMX biking, snow boarding and the
X Games.” Roby went on to say, “the organized pressures of other sports, and time spent
away from over zealous adults (coaches and parents), is why kids are drawn to these
environments.” Does anyone reading this believe that the skills used and performed at the X
Games were not self-organized and self-developed in a learning-developing environment away
from teaching- fixing to get-it-right approaches to learning that had a perceived expert offering
of how-to directions and technical details.
Studies by Michigan State’s Institute for Youth Sports stated that an astonishing 74% of kids
quit sport participation by the age of 13 losing their enthusiasm in correction based learning
environments. Also, their research shows that early intensive training of both adults and
children may actually diminish the long-term retention of skills.
Copyright Michael Hebron, 2009, All rights reserved, Learning Golf, Inc.
By Michael Hebron
In a New York Times article by Bill Pennington “The Picture of Fair Play” (January 3, 2004),
Peter Roby, director of Northeastern University Center for the Study of Sports and Society was
quoted, “There is a trend in athletics; one that continued to gain steam in 200; one that has
more and more children deserting traditional sports. Young people are now being drawn to the
so called extreme sports of skate-boarding, in line skating, BMX biking, snow boarding and the
X Games.” Roby went on to say, “the organized pressures of other sports, and time spent
away from over zealous adults (coaches and parents), is why kids are drawn to these
environments.” Does anyone reading this believe that the skills used and performed at the X
Games were not self-organized and self-developed in a learning-developing environment away
from teaching- fixing to get-it-right approaches to learning that had a perceived expert offering
of how-to directions and technical details.
Studies by Michigan State’s Institute for Youth Sports stated that an astonishing 74% of kids
quit sport participation by the age of 13 losing their enthusiasm in correction based learning
environments. Also, their research shows that early intensive training of both adults and
children may actually diminish the long-term retention of skills.
Copyright Michael Hebron, 2009, All rights reserved, Learning Golf, Inc.
