My daughter, who is 8, is on a soccer team. She just started soccer this
year. Many of the other girls on her team have played for 2 or 3 years, and
they are very skilled and she isn't. But the team wins most of its games
and I think my daughter thinks she is pretty good. While she has never
gotten a goal (and acts like the ball might explode when she kicks it), she
has seemed blissfully happy just running around near it and she's never
made any comment on this. Until last week, when one of the girls on the
team, someone who has some kind of physical disability which I don't know
anything about, but whose difficulties with movement are obvious, made a
goal. The observing parents went wild, cheering and clapping (and getting
maybe a little self congratulatory about how "nice" we were). On the way
home my daughter asked me in an irritated way why can't she ever get a
goal? Then after my "experience and practice" lecture, she says
disgustedly, Why did everyone go so crazy when Janey got a goal? I tried
to explain that eveybody was happy because Janey has difficulties and that
maybe they were just surprised. Still unconvinced and disgruntled, she
said, "It's just a goal".
So we individualized the players, and created a different kind of
community. And the adults didn't at all know (or at least this adult
didn't) what the kids heard.
And maybe I still don't.
Kelleen Toohey, Associate Professor
Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6
ph. 604-291-4418 FAX 604-888-4623