Some people think that training children to know how to cooperate with other individuals can be achieved optimally through team sports at school. Personally I partly agree with this suggestion due to some reasons that are explained in this essay.
In team sports, it requires players learn how to work in a team to reach a mutual goal, which is winning. Children can immediately witness the consequences of a selfish behaviour or reward for good teamwork. For example, in football, it often demands a large number of players to understand each other’s role, put aside their differences and work in harmony to win. So far, team sports are considered as entertainment forms. Children prefer teamwork in sports rather than work together in uninspiring project. As a result, teamwork in sports will be easily applied than teamwork in academics projects and others dull activities.
In the actual world, cooperation also demands people to have the ability to negotiate under pressure, which means that they have to know how to balance between their own benefits and other’s rights. Particularly, children need to learn ability to work with others in school in many fields, developing their social skills, which supports them to adopt many real situations in their future careers. Furthemrmore, written communication also plays a vital role in collaboration, especially in formal projects that required a lot of commitment through legal contracts. For instance, many companies requires their employees to commit a workload or a specific KPI when they work in a team. Therefore, students should learn how to equally divide work in a team and deal for their rewards.
In conclusion, although there are mixed opinions on whether sports are the most effective way to practice teamwork, I partly agree that sports enormously bring benefits for students in practicing cooperation. Nevertheless, in real situations, it is not only need collaboration skills from sports but also skills from others academics projects such as written communications and negotiating.