You can be sure for every child who likes school, there will always be another who hates it. Sometimes that will sadly be due to bullying, however, it can also be due to the fact that the interests of an individual lie elsewhere. You also have the fact that some people are academically minded whilst others are not and would likely flourish better outside of a traditional educational setting.
With that said, sport can be used as a great educational tool, and we don’t just mean in terms of the Physical Education (PE) it is introduced into school schedules for. No, sport can actually teach us so much more and sometimes we don’t even realise it. So here are five different subjects that you will find taught in most education settings that sport surprisingly helps with.
5 educational subjects developed by sports
Geography
I was never great at Geography at school, in fact I much preferred history so didn’t pay much attention at all. However, I have been fortunate that I’ve always been good in terms of knowing countries and capital cities and navigating my way around a globe. But I was never sure quite how I managed to remember so much stuff about so many countries. And that’s when I realised during a pub quiz just how some of this knowledge had become stuck in my brain.
I’d somehow managed to educate myself through sport. Through watching the Olympics learning of all the countries during the opening ceremony, to watching Champions League and Europa League football for as long as I can remember. All this time sport was an educational tool that was helping me learn all about different places around the world, their cultures and more.
Mathematics
I was always quite fortunate when it came to maths, it was a subject I liked and happened to pick up quite easily. However, occasionally I’d have trouble with converting fractions into decimals and all that sort of stuff. Sports can help here too for those that struggle in traditional educational settings.
Some people learn in different ways, and being able to associate numbers to scores, use percentages for possession stats among many other areas, can really help them to understand maths a little easier. In fact, it wasn’t really until I turned 18 and started sports betting that I really managed to get my head fully around fractions and decimals.
History
I may have already mentioned I preferred history, but what I didn’t mention was I was very interested in the two world wars. In fact, interested in an understatement I was absolutely fascinated, and my favourite story of what happened during WWI is part of the reason why. Five months after the first world war had started, troops called a truce on Christmas day and the tales of soldiers from both sides playing football in the middle of no man’s land. All differences put aside for a single day, and a quick kick around with a football. Imagine what would’ve happened if all those soldiers just refused to fight that day and lay down their arms for good?
It was also through sport that I learned about the genocide in Rwanda in the 1990s. I started watching a documentary on Amazon called This Is Football and learned how the power of sport pulled people back together despite such horrific events. But again, without sport, my education on this topic would’ve been none-existent and I would never have known about the atrocities committed back then.
Religion
Religious Education (RE) can be a tough subject for many, especially when you are prevented from learning about other faiths and only ever talked at about how yours is the right one. However, through sport you meet all sorts of athletes from all over the world, many of whom practice different religions. Take Mo Salah for example, dubbed the Egyptian King and a star player at Liverpool FC, he is a practising Muslim. Through following him as a football fan he has educated many people on Islam and brought to attention religious events such as Ramadan.
Science
And finally, sports can also impact education when it comes to science as well. Through sport we learn about muscles and the biology of the human body. We can learn about balanced diets and calories, and how to live a healthy lifestyle. We can even learn about physics through tracking the speed of players over set distances or how fast a car races around a track. There are so many different sports that can teach us about science in different ways there are almost too many to mention.
Closing thoughts
And there you have it, five different subjects that sport can have an impact on helping to educate people on them, whether intentionally done or not. Has sport ever helped you learn something that you always struggled with? If it has helped you in one way or another, let us know in the comments below. We’d love to hear your stories.
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