“Working carefully and conscientiously over 30 years, bringing the best research has to bare, Beedy has produced Positive Learning Using Sports. This no nonsense, level headed approach to the integration of academics, ethics and engagement for youth needs to be part of every school’s agenda.”
Robert L. Selman, Ph.D Harvard University
Robert L. Selman, Ph.D Harvard University
MISSION
PLUS is a global campaign to raise awareness of the potential of sports as a natural, accessible, and inexpensive platform to reach and teach children. PLUS partners with local communities, schools and organizations to train leaders how to better use sports to teach self-advocacy, leadership, literacy, and health.
VISION
Envision a world where all sport-based organizations teach what children need.
PLUS is a global campaign to raise awareness of the potential of sports as a natural, accessible, and inexpensive platform to reach and teach children. PLUS partners with local communities, schools and organizations to train leaders how to better use sports to teach self-advocacy, leadership, literacy, and health.
VISION
Envision a world where all sport-based organizations teach what children need.
The New Science of Sports-based Education Available on Amazon.com
The idea behind Positive Learning Using Sports
We learn in many ways--a truism, of course, and yet many of us, alas, forget the ironic confines of our educational background: the way we were persuaded that the acquisition of knowledge began and ended in the classroom, or on occasion, the reading room of a library. All the time, however, we are potential teachers of one another, and for our children especially, an athletic game can be an occasion for many lessons indeed--emotional and moral, and too, cognitive of factual.
Pulitzer Prize Winner Dr. Robert Coles writes about PLUS
Women Win, a global sport-based organization for women’s rights, educates adolescent girls on sexual and reproductive health and gender and economic balance through sports. In the northern Marsabit County in Kenya Fatuma Abdulkadir, Director of Horn Of Africa Development Initiative uses local children’s passion for street football to spark awareness of violence to women. In the rolling fields of New Jersey, Positive Learning Using Sports (PLUS) uses life sports such as golf, fly fishing, tennis, and skiing to empower girls to be leaders by teaching elementary girls. In the town of Galkayo, Somalia, Jeffrey Asoro, uses soccer as way to teach courtesy to children who witnessed decades of violence and bloodshed in their communities. Nolwazi Makhuluphala, a counselor for Waves of Change, turned to surfing as a way to deter boys from entering violent gangs in South Africa. On the island of Cyprus, the Olympic Doves Movement employs the neutral medium of sports to bring the Cypriots children together to heal the divide and conflict experienced by their parents over the past four decades. At St. Christopher School for the Deaf in Jamacia, Nick Roquemore empowers deaf students to experience the world and to develop life skills they never dreamed possible through sports. These are just a few of the many stories from around the world using sports for the betterment of children.
The new educational platform
Leaders from around the globe are looking for meaningful platforms to connect to children around issues of self-respect, violence, community, health, leadership, and literacy. Many are turning to sports. School is not the only place children learn. In fact, the argument can be made that school is not the best platform to teach 21st century goals such as collaboration and the ability to work successfully in a team-based setting.
Intentional outcome goals
Children learn best when they passionate, engaged, and having fun. This is not a new idea. What is new is that these initiatives are intentional in design. These innovative sport-based programs are designed with a specific goal of teaching children something they need in their life. No different than teaching math to third graders or geometry to high school students. The idea behind sport-based education is that leaders are now using sports as platform to teach targeted skills such as collaboration. These new programs are not leaving the outcome goal to chance. Sport-based programs have a philosophy, pedagogy, and curriculum that are aligned with relevant research on child development.
The key is intentionality
The children’s passion for sports is the draw. Sports are the platform. The goals may vary from country to country but the idea of using sports as a platform for education is the common thread. Coaches are trained teachers and counselors. The design is intentional. Simply rolling out the ball and expecting something magical will occur and children will learn how to collaborate, persist in the face of difficulties or become a self-advocate is wishful thinking. Up to now the common saying has been “Sports build character.” This popular et flawed comment fuels many a debate with one side stating that sports are bad and teach violence and cheating and the other side saying that sports are good and teach important skills such as loyalty and teamwork. The PLUS Project positions sports as a natural and potentially powerful platform to reach and teach children around the world. The key is positive intentionality.
PLUS Principles
Educational platform Sports possess the unique social and educational components to promote social and psychological development in children. Children learn best when they are engaged in activities they enjoy.
Transferability Lessons learned about critical thinking and problem solving from sports are transferable to other areas of a child’s life including home and school.
Strengthen local self-reliance The goal of PLUS is to be regionally inspired, locally supported, and with sustainability and replication as the long-term goals. PLUS seeks to strengthen the capacities of local organizations and promote community self-reliance through sustainable strategies.
Inclusion PLUS includes children who may be marginalized for reasons of gender, religion, ability, ethnicity, disability or social background.
Integration PLUS seeks to connect and utilize all aspects of community including classrooms, sports, boarding in the educational process.
Research and practice PLUS connects outcome goals such as teamwork and innovation to relevant research in 21st Century teaching and learning. Programs can conduct pre- and-post tests to determine growth in outcome goals.
Sustainability PLUS builds the community’s capacity to take full ownership of the program following the active project implementation. The ultimate goal is to hand over the program to the community.
Replication An important goal of PLUS is for schools around the world to replicate the principles of the program in their respective schools.
Skills Training PLUS will 21st Century leadership skills training to community organizations through online education and train-the-trainers workshops in community settings.
