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Greg Spencer Profile picture
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28 Dec, 15 tweets, 11 min read
How do we connect sense-makers around:

1. A common respect for the voices of young people;

2. The diverse experiences of those who have spent their lives helping others find meaning in movement?

As @ImSporticus notes, this CSJ paper is not the answer!

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1343452…
Does school-based sport have a place? Of course! For some, school sport will be a way of becoming entangled in the lives of others in ways which will lead to a pastime becoming a valued, stabilising influence throughout life. That's awesome! #becausehuman
But as @ImSporticus notes, it's not "sport" that has the impact. That's down to "good people intentionally designing positive experiences through sport" - which is not the same thing!

Ideal: those involved co-creating the positive experiences! #ownership

Sports charity Made by Sports found that children and young
Talk of glue, shared interests & civic pride doesn't get us far. Public debate needs to start with a richer & more nuanced appreciation of aspiration & of wayfinding... & if we want "fewer stories like this" & "more stories like that" we need local sense-making & mapping 🗺️ People that volunteer are more likely to feel that they belo
Yes, established pathways to finding meaning in movement are a lot more accessible / inviting for some than for others... & that's a tough area... but we're already way, WAY beyond prescribing "a more robust framework of expectations for school sport" 👇
singleblade.co.uk/2020/09/12/tra…
Even those of us who love sport should recognise that "[...] if this trend towards the sportisation of physical education continues there is a danger that the unique identity & individuality of educational purpose for physical education may be affected" 👇
tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…
Schools figure in strategic level discussion NGBs... but that's overwhelmingly structured around either scope for increasing participation or feeds for talent pathway systems. Do we even get discussion of intra-NGB (cross-sport) collaboration around school/community priorties? 🤔 Meaningful Sport - @MeaningfulSport Explorations of meaning
We've got people in NGBs & other bodies (e.g. @Sport_England, @_UKCoaching) who are clued in... but they're mostly operating with school PE as a pretty marginal part of their brief... & hugely removed from the discussions taking place around @meaningfulPE, @MeaningfulSport, etc. LAMPE - @meaningfulPE Learning about meaningful experiences
Are PE-based social learning spaces really central to the working lives of those with relevant roles within NGBs & Sport? Or are key players more likely to be in educationally-peripheral intra-sport spaces or coaching-spaces? Where does the @afPE_PE fit in the wider landscape?
Great work IS being done in this space by the likes of @Greg_Dryer, @HamblinDec & @ImSporticus at @CPESA_Kingston (all strangely absent from the CSJ Paper) - but are WE ensuring they're on the radar in our NGBs & in the other places where we could really do with their input? 🤔 CPESA - @CPESA_Kingston The Centre for Physical Education, S
What might we do differently for 2021? Maybe building on the momentum of @tobyjlowe's @SystemsHuman work?

Might we "Help people discover & steer and own their own pathways for a change" with @BethWatts494, @CharlotWaite, @Jendaffin & @NewSystemAlly?

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1334928…
Practically, I'd like to pick up on two things for 2021 - the first being the strengthening of the informal networks in the space where this well-meaning CSJ paper falls so woefully short.

Recommended New Year's Resolution reading #1: this @snowded blog:

cognitive-edge.com/mycorrhiza-sca… I want to emphasise is that informal networks have zero ener
Secondly, if we have aspirations for "improved leadership" in this area, can we go into 2021 committed to a more meaningful discussion about what we might mean?

Recommended New Year's Resolution reading #2: this @snowded blog (& others since Nov 10th) 🤠

cognitive-edge.com/leadership-in-… "How do we change the environment of leadership develop
We're in a place which can witness the production (in all seriousness) of "A Level Playing Field: Equalising access to sport and exercise for young people after Covid-19"...

Like it or not, this is where debate is at. How do we move on from here? 🤔

Does school sport have a place? Yes. Is it "sport" that has the impact? No! Can we move beyond prescribing "a more robust framework of expectations for school sport"? Maybe - but not if we carry on as we are at present!

A few reflections for 2020 action!

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1343557…

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Greg Spencer Profile picture
18 Dec
OK - I don't doubt this is well-intentioned & in good faith... but fundamentally, it embeds talent-pathway / elite sport "exceptionalism" in ways which justify sustaining norms of elite-athlete-transfer & reliance on lots of "-ologies" (declarative professional knowledge).
Keith Davids is cited... but aside from a token reference to non-linearity, the report reads as if his lifetime's work (& the contributions of his colleagues around the world) has no relevance & poses no major challenges to a "business-as-usual" approach.
sportsmedicine-open.springeropen.com/articles/10.11…
Crucially, the "new" position statement doesn't even register challenges from the likes of @markstkhlm - who has called into question the ethics of sustaining established priorities & asks if we should even have a social license to continue with them...

footblogball.wordpress.com/2020/12/04/its…
Read 6 tweets
Greg Spencer Profile picture
6 Dec
"A proliferation of competing narratives is characteristic of the phase Thomas Kuhn calls ‘proto-science’ [...] This is where learning/training/education is today: proto-science. A mixed bag of popular stories about how people learn" - @shackletonjones 👀
aconventional.com/2020/05/just-s…
"I write this having recently read a number of comments/posts to the effect that learning ‘is just too complicated’ that there are always ‘many right answers’ or ‘everything depends on context’. This is the pre-evolutionary position: it’s all too complicated for a simple answer.
"One of the tell-tale signs is the sheer number of learning theories which are ‘creationist’ in nature – by which I mean that they are stories one can only tell about humans. Any time a learning theory can only meaningfully be applied to humans [...] we should take care" 👏
Read 5 tweets
Greg Spencer Profile picture
4 Dec
"Please, don't make systems work for people, because this is [...] everything that's wrong with the sector. Making stuff work for others. Help people discover & steer and own their own pathways for a change" 😍

Well said, @ChristianSeelos & @NewSystemAlly
What's brought me here? "the realisation that the disadvantage, the injustice, the unfairness we see around us is actually in part caused by the systems that we have seeking to address those issues" - @BethWatts494 - respecting that people sustain systems with good intentions!
"[..] the difficulty we face is the professionalisation of our sector [fueling] obsession with solutions rather than problems. And [...] the more we are driving on the solution side, the more pressure we relieve from the systems that give rise to the problems to change them" - CS
Read 34 tweets
Greg Spencer Profile picture
10 Nov
@snowded blog of the year & 3 keys 👇🏽

1. "any map needs to be subject to continuous feedback [...]

"imagine a sort of war room with attitudinal & constraint maps visible and shifting to allow complexity to be navigated rather than contained or avoided"

cognitive-edge.com/intire-of-it-s… We have to shift from the engineering-driven concept of defi
2. Key 2 may be familiar -

"Soil fertility is heavily impacted by a type of fungus known as mycorrhizae which has a symbiotic relationship with the plant [...]

"The equivalent in an organisation and the informal networks and associations that keep the formal systems working.
Likewise, key 3 - which links familiar themes of scaffolding
"organisation units, identities, and other objects and their points of coherence" to the design of interactions in situations where "you can’t fully know what you need to know until you need to know it" #BecauseHuman
Read 4 tweets
Greg Spencer Profile picture
1 Nov
Do our expectations of sport in schools reflect "folk wisdom" where we think "students will eventually engage with something they like, hopefully sufficiently to pursue it now or in their future"? 

If so, shouldn't we working to get sport OUT of schools?

thefabrochures.co.uk/19268_WOMENS_G… [...] to help girls [...] fall in love with our game at a yo[...] 90% of schools (primary/secondary) in England to be pa[...] 90% of schools (primary/secondary) in England to be pa
Backing up: some on the outside of schools & education might still anticipate finding engagement with a "Multi Activity Curriculum" that gives pupils a "bit-of-this" & a "bit-of-that"... perhaps because that's what so many of us genuinely experienced ourselves so very long ago! Multi-activity curriculum model (Image from Alexander, K. (2
Of course, if that had worked well back-in-the-day... we'd be a nation of sporting nuts, having each found our own way of making some sporting-pastime or another a major stabilising influence on our life - & the world would never have needed "Towards An Active Nation" & the rest. Sport England's 2016-2021 #ActiveNation strategy "in a
Read 12 tweets
Greg Spencer Profile picture
31 Oct
A series of related gems today - starting off with a truly outstanding scene-setter from @CarlWoods25, @JamesRRudd & @Robertson_SJ - asking (en-route) "what are the properties of specific affordances that invite their realisation by certain individuals?"
sportsmedicine-open.springeropen.com/articles/10.11…
Supporting wayfinding "is an embodied and embedded process, in which support practitioners work with [xxxx] to deepen his/her knowledge of the environment by guiding his/her attention toward its critical features used to inform intentions, perceptual exploration and action" [...] a musician exemplifies wayfinding by emotionally engagThe authors contend that supporting wayfinding "is an eIn sport, practitioners (e.g. trainers, teachers, coaches, s
Then a podcast which does an awesome job of showing what all of this can look like in a high-performance coaching context - with an exemplary, inspiring coach who is "really thankful" he "never had stable access to a coach" - c/o @MorrisCraig_ & @stu_arm spreaker.com/user/thetalent…
Read 11 tweets

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