Why The Game Might Not Be The Best Teacher
"If you let players just play, some may get it and some may not. But if you give players frameworks to understand, they can adapt and apply them, and become better problem solvers.”
There is a saying: The game is the best teacher.
The idea is that by playing the game at increasingly competitive levels a player will develop and learn. You learn by doing, not by watching, reading, or listening. And the game will filter those that cannot learn.
There’s no denying players learn from playing but is it the best teacher?
Daniel Coyle, author of The Culture Code, was a consultant to the Cleveland Indians focusing on the team’s talent-development innovation. He invited Doug Lemov, one of smartest individuals on the science of teaching, to speak to the organization’s coaches. Coyle, who wrote about the session in the foreword to Lemov’s The Coach’s Guide To Teaching, said that those within baseball’s player development ranks had relied too much on an outmoded mindset of teaching. Mainly, the notion that the game teaches the game.
This had been the accepted development path. Players would enter the system and play as many games as possible. There would be spring training games, regular season games, fall league, and winter league. The more a prospect would play, the quicker he would develop.
Outside of the professional ranks, this is also true; it’s one reason why there is year-round competition at young ages and summers filled with high-cost tournaments that guarantee six games every weekend. Players, it is thought, will improve their game simply by playing.
But Lemov’s studies have shown otherwise.
He told the Cleveland coaches about a workshop he had with US Soccer coaches. The soccer coaches discussed a common situation where a player runs off the ball and makes themselves open to receive a pass. There are multiple ways to accomplish this yet no one bothered to name these different types of runs. How is improvement expected if you don’t instruct the proper runs let alone name them, Lemov asked.
In his blog, Teach Like A Champion, he cites a similar example:
I’ve been thinking about this a lot because one of my daughter’s recent coaches was a big “the game is the best teacher” proponent and the result was pretty clearly destructive for her and her teammates. When I asked if it bothered him that the girls were only able to string together two or sometimes three passes in sequence in the course of an entire game, he told me that it didn’t really matter because the girls were learning to make decisions. “See,” he said pointing to the field, “they’re making decisions all the time.”
The problem was a) that most of the decisions the girls were making were wrong b) they had no criteria to know whether they’d made correct or poor decisions and so they never learned from their mistakes and c) their wrong decisions had a huge tax on the group’s overall development.
By letting the girls feel out the game themselves, there were consequences to the development of others. If the players aren’t instructed the proper run, then the player looking to pass the ball might not learn the right spot to thread it, Lemov points out. Although players do learn by playing the game, learning could be accelerated if someone would teach them the right methods to first. Then, equipped with the proper techniques, they can work on decision-making during in-game activities.
Back in the room with the Cleveland coaches, Lemov had the group list examples similar to soccer’s run scenario that might not necessarily be labeled and taught. The coaches spit out a list: how a catcher blocks, how a runner rounds first base and so on.
It was a revelation. The coaches suddenly recognized how many different aspects of the game go untaught during the development process. Teaching them the best practices and then allowing them to focus on decision-making during game play appeared to be a superior proposition.
Consider how the Minnesota Twins’ organization handles the development of their infielders.
The Twins’ infield instructors say they are equipping players with the tools to allow them the creative freedom to decide which is needed in the circumstance. The team’s minor leaguers are instructed how to field ground balls (backhand, forehand, etc), their step patterns after fielding (2-, 3- or 4-step patterns), and arm slots for the throw (on the run, in the hole, etc). They utilize a machine that can spit out ground balls at the speed, spot and hop pattern so players can practice those techniques over and over again. However, in games, it is up to the players to use those tools and implement them as they see fit.
The alternative would be giving infielders a ton of fungo ground balls and an equal number of in-game reps hoping experience helps them grow. Some will naturally rise above the rest. However, by equipping them with the proper techniques in advance, players have more at their disposal to make the right decisions during competition play. From a player development standpoint, this should accelerate the process and be more fruitful versus waiting for those who survive and thrive learning from the game.
“So maybe the game isn’t the best teacher,” Lemov told the Cleveland crowd. “It’s an unequal teacher. If you let players just play, some may get it and some may not. But if you give players frameworks to understand, they can adapt and apply them, and become better problem solvers.”
The game is a really good teacher. It’s just not the best teacher.
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