Sports Day

When I was a kid, we had "field day" every spring on the dusty playfield behind my public elementary school in Littleton, Colorado. We ran races and did the tug-of-war and softball throw, etc., with a strong emphasis on individual performance, with ribbons awarded even in the youngest grades. Does that still happen in American public schools?

In Japan, schools have "Sports Day," and what we've seen so far is a very different, team-oriented approach to sports - for young children anyway.

Arno's preschool had its sports day on a baseball field near Willowbrook 10 days ago.


Arno and his mates in Umi class, all dressed in red, did the "origami relay" (grabbing origami off a clothesline), the sack race, and the egg/spoon relay (Arno clamped his hand over the plastic egg on the spoon as he ran). Also, the three-legged run, done with his Aussie friend Ceinwyn...


...the throw-crumpled-paper-in-baskets game...


...and the parachute game.


Lucinda's school held its sports day at a (very empty) former Olympic stadium about a half-hour drive from Nishimachi.



The children in grades K-9 were tasked to the blue or white team (the school colors), and each team's points were tallied throughout the day. Lucinda was on the blue team.

The first event was the tug-of-war, grade by grade, which meant 30 kindergarteners lined up on each side of this big rope.



Lucinda and her friends pulled and pulled (and even got small rope burns)...


... and L was thrilled when her blue team won. (She tends to avoid games involving winning and losing - but the truth is, she does like to win.) Celebration ensued.


Next, the kindergarteners ran the 50-meter sprint in groups of about 10. At the end of each heat, the fastest handful of kids received a snip of colored ribbon, and the overall results were tallied for the blue or white team. Lucinda was baffled and a bit upset that she didn't get to hold a ribbon. (I'm sure she was thinking: It's not fair! Why doesn't everyone get the same thing!) But she was mollified when no one kept the ribbons, which were passed on to the next grade of competitors.

Then the kindergarteners had a series of relay races in 4 teams (2 blue, 2 white) of 15 children. Each child did the skill - running forward, jogging backwards, sack jumping, walking with ping-pong ball in spoon, etc. - and returned to sit down in incredibly tidy lines.



I could see that different children excelled at different skills, and I liked the team, rather than the individual, focus. Lucinda told me today that the Blue team - her team - won the day.