To Teach or To Play

This comment comes from Brian McCormmick and a post of his on the debate between which comes first: teaching the skill or playing the game.  The gist of the argument is that only recently and only in sports do we teach the skill first before the play.  Growing up, we just played.  We would play countless basketball games at the park and at recess before we ever played in our first league.  We learned the game by playing.

Today, we teach and give skills before we let the kids play.  We teach and rep skills and techniques, then we have them practice the skills in controlled, game-like situations.  As Brian states in his comment, we don't learn by teaching the technique first in any non-adult led activity.  We didn't learn how to crawl, walk or run by receiving explicit instructions - we learn by doing.  Once we learn, we refine our technique to improve our performance.  

Two questions that he asked below was, "Is throwing a ball a fundamental skill like running or jumping or is it a sport-specific that must be trained differently? Do we suffer so many arm injuries because we treat it as a special skill and not a fundamental skill?"

His full comments are after the jump and you can read the original article here.

In my debates, I feel that the major impediment is (1) tradition or (2) the belief that technique precedes skill, and one cannot learn a skill with the prior knowledge and mastery of the technique.

Now, that is not how we learn any non-adult led activity. We do not receive explicit instructions and isolated drills to teach crawling, walking, and running. Once we have learned to run, we may do drills to refine our running technique or to train certain elements of running, especially if we participate in track and field or suffer an injury, but most children to learn by chasing something or by being chased – that fits with a constraints-led approach.

Sports skills, however, seem to be viewed as something else, as a special class of motor skills that require copious amounts of specific practice and intervention. They are not viewed in the same way that we view walking or running. Maybe those distinctions are accurate or warranted. Maybe not. Is throwing a ball a fundamental skill like running or jumping or is it a sport-specific that must be trained differently? Do we suffer so many arm injuries because we treat it as a special skill and not a fundamental skill?

I think we have developed this idea that you have to master a technique before you can play a game that incorporates that technique. When I was young, we played first and refined second. Now, we refine first and play second. I think it makes more sense to play first, and when one finds something that he or she wishes to improve, then the person can practice to refine that skill; again, even K. Anders Ericsson would agree with that idea: passion for the activity precedes deliberate practice because you have to have the interest to devote the time, energy, and concentration to the task.

I think it also happens because we underestimate children’s ability to learn.