“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
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
WHAT IS PLUS? The Other Classroom
PLUS is a global campaign to raise awareness of the potential of sports as a natural, accessible, and inexpensive way to reach and teach our children. PLUS partners with local communities, schools and organizations to train leaders how to better use sports to teach 21st Century survival skills including leadership and literacy. The new PLUS Global Virtual Library will allow community leaders around the world to gain access to free curriculum and leadership training.
WHAT IS THE PLUS 2020 PLAN?
Over the past decade, there has been a proliferation of organizations such as PLUS, The Right to Play and The Magic Bus, that use sports to teach academic subjects (reading, writing, and math) and to develop social and psychological skills (teamwork, respect and leadership). According to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon “Sport is increasingly recognized as an important tool in helping the United Nations achieve its objectives, in particular the Millennium Development Goals.” Leadership is an important survival skill, and yet, most schools and youth programs do not intentionally teach children how to lead. We carefully plan the sequence of teaching algebra I-and-II and how each one developmentally leads to the next and prepares students for geometry. We can do the same for leadership. This missing link in leadership development is intentionality.
PLUS is seeking support to partner with local communities to train community leaders on how to include leadership within their sport programs. As youth leaders from around the world have requested more educational materials from PLUS, I realize there is a better way to deliver educational tools and training to communities—especially under-served communities. Organizations such as Kahn Academy and the Flat Classroom are reaching students around the work through online learning. The combination of the community workshops and online opportunities offers our best hope to make a difference.
WHAT IS SPORT-BASED EDUCATION?
In town of Gal kayo, Somalia, PLUS director Jeffrey Asoro, uses football to teach courtesy to boys who have witnessed decades of violence and bloodshed in their communities. Nolwazi Makhuluphala, a counselor for Waves of Change, discovered surfing as a way to deter young boys from entering violent gangs in South Africa. On the island of Cyprus, the Olympic Doves Movement employs the neutral force of sports to bring the next generation of Cypriots together to heal the divide and conflict experienced by their parents over the past four decades. At St. Christopher School for the Deaf in Jamaica, 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 growing innovative programs that employ sports as the other classroom to teach children important life skills.
Over the past decade, there has been a proliferation of organizations such as PLUS, The Right to Play and The Magic Bus, that use sports to teach academic subjects (reading, writing, and math) and to develop social and psychological skills (teamwork, respect and leadership). According to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon “Sport is increasingly recognized as an important tool in helping the United Nations achieve its objectives, in particular the Millennium Development Goals.” Leadership is an important survival skill, and yet, most schools and youth programs do not intentionally teach children how to lead. We carefully plan the sequence of teaching algebra I-and-II and how each one developmentally leads to the next and prepares students for geometry. We can do the same for leadership. This missing link in leadership development is intentionality.
PLUS is seeking support to partner with local communities to train community leaders on how to include leadership within their sport programs. As youth leaders from around the world have requested more educational materials from PLUS, I realize there is a better way to deliver educational tools and training to communities—especially under-served communities. Organizations such as Kahn Academy and the Flat Classroom are reaching students around the work through online learning. The combination of the community workshops and online opportunities offers our best hope to make a difference.
WHAT IS SPORT-BASED EDUCATION?
In town of Gal kayo, Somalia, PLUS director Jeffrey Asoro, uses football to teach courtesy to boys who have witnessed decades of violence and bloodshed in their communities. Nolwazi Makhuluphala, a counselor for Waves of Change, discovered surfing as a way to deter young boys from entering violent gangs in South Africa. On the island of Cyprus, the Olympic Doves Movement employs the neutral force of sports to bring the next generation of Cypriots together to heal the divide and conflict experienced by their parents over the past four decades. At St. Christopher School for the Deaf in Jamaica, 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 growing innovative programs that employ sports as the other classroom to teach children important life skills.
