Barry;
I've worked a fair amount with teams, athletic and otherwise. I'd say that
I agree with you, and that I think it has a lot to do with the fact that
most sports teams "are not a democracy" as many school teachers and
"coaches" are fond of saying. Few teams seem to be self-referential when
it comes to issues of power and authority. Perhaps that means their
learnings about functioning is NOT really about team [a larger whole with
internal collaboration toward a shared goal] in a substantive way, but
just another version of responding to authority. In my view, authorization
is the heart of the matter regarding teams and any other form of
distributive decision making and collaborative functioning.
So, maybe students ARE transferring their learnings from athletics to the
classroom and life. Perhaps this is overstating it, but the learnings deep
down go something like these [which get played out in classrooms and then
the workplace]: *dominate or be dominated* or *do whatever your higher-up
says and hope they know what they're doing*. Notice, for example, that
players on sports teams don't decide on the cut or even who starts or who
plays what position, not to mention calling the plays.
I have some hope about the surge in soccer participation, as it is an
inherently a flowing, chaotic game. This makes it harder for the
coach/authority to manage.
Charles Parry
INTERNET:74150.236@compuserve.com
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The collaboration of sports teams, I would suggest, is different than
anything we currently bring to most non-athletic endeavors. However, I
wouldn't mind us continuing this thread. You've gone ahead and provoked
it, Jack! In my opinion, there remains a substantial disconnect between
the learning of teams (what relatively few there are) in school
classrooms, and cohesion/successes of athletic teaming.
Anyone?
--Charles Parry <74150.236@CompuServe.COM>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>