I am appalled at the comments by the Olympic chief, John Coates, blaming “disappointing London results” on the Govenment’s failure to introduce compulsory school sport.
We can’t win all the time and there are many lessons to learn from failure! E.g. pick yourself up, analyse failures, try harder, train more, reward talent, breakthrough personal barriers etc etc.
Sport is important but let’s not get carried away and despondent-it is still sport and as such is about personal best, cooperation, being a good sport etc. Unfortunately there have been too many instances of bad sportsmanship in these games and this is a more worrying concern than losing gold! Young Aussies deserve better than this. They want to see their sporting heroes be brave when they fail. They want to know it is all about trying your hardest-not about winning.
Perhaps John Coates might like to contemplate the fact that 48% of Aussies cannot read and write to a competent level. Clearly, that is the area where extra funds should go! Quality teacher training and materials and programs that benefit ALL children must be funded from the federal government-not more funds for sports!
We have had so many teachers come through our JOLLY LEARNING courses to learn about effective ways to ensure all children reach full literacy. Sadly many of these teachers have to buy their own books and materials because money is not available through their schools. This is despite the fact that a recent study in South Australia has demonstrated that children using JOLLY LEARNING are usually 17 months ahead with speliing and 14 months ahead with reading!
Healthy physical activity is important and there is a huge amount to be gained by learning all the ethics involved with sports.
Sadly children have very little to learn by failing school because they are denied access to effective literacy programs that give them the basic phonics, comprehension, spelling and grammar skills they need to become fully literate!
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