The teaching of sport to chidren and youth: considerations about a forgotten phase of motor development

Abstract

The teaching-learning process can be viewed as a system constituted by the interaction of three components - teacher, learner and subject matter - whose goal is to promote the effective changes in the learner´s behaviors, capacities and competences. In a systemic view of the teaching-learning process the role played by a given component always implies the establishment of relations between the two remaining components. Thus, the role of the teacher is to establish relations between learner and subject matter. The main question to the teacher is on what to rely upon to establish these relations. The present essay departs from the assumption that knowledge about motor development constitutes a fundamental element when sport is the subject matter. It discusses a phase of that process that has been systematically forgotten in the teaching of sports trying to identify possible causes and consequences, and presents some suggestions of procedures to work with that phase.