EducationallyFit4Life: G5 Ethics in Sports through the Physical Education Learning Lens of Basketball

The G5 Basketball Unit will have a conceptual focus on Ethics in Sports, particularly Sportsmanship vs. Gamesmanship.

Taken from my conceptual map for Primary Physical Education

Burning Questions on Basketball

What do the students want to know about this sport?

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Using the questions above will help give direction/content when constructing the sequence of lessons within the unit.

But what do they understand by Ethics? Particularly the concepts of Sportsmanship vs. Gamesmanship...

I asked the following question:

What do you know and understand about Sportsmanship vs. Gamesmanship?

The student showed that the majority have an understanding of what is Sportsmanship/ Gamesmanship. Interestingly what the exercise did highlight was some common misconceptions between Sportsmanship, Gamesmanship and something else?

What are the G5s misconceptions about what is Sportsmanship/Gamesmanship?

1. Don't care if you win or lose

2. Not sharing the ball

3. Fun (Gamesmanship was deemed to be fun, and Sportsmanship wasn't)

4. Caring for the other team

5. Being competitive (if you show sportsmanship you are not being competitive?!)

6. Giving the other team a chance... (I guess I can see the logic in this one (e.g. not beating the other team 100,000 - 0))

7. It is when you are less competitive?!

8. Play as a team/Teamwork

9. Working together not playing to win (I guess there is a kinda logic there... The idea of playing for fun and not competitively)

Reexamining the others...

It is really important if the students are going to develop into a good sportsman/woman that they understand that if you follow the code of sportsmanship you do play competitively, have fun, strive for the best you can be (even if it's not winning), and you do care if you win or you lose, and if you lose, you do it graciously, but you learn from the experience and come back stronger next time and if you win you don't rub it in your opponents faces.

What the G5s did agree upon as examples of Sportsmanship and Gamesmanship