Fight Club + the Importance of Competition

Fight Club was the last club we designed. We looked at the available clubs and tried to think who would be in each, who would enjoy what each provided and who may have been missed. We noticed that we needed a high activity, high energy club. Originally, we were thinking sports club, but we had so many ideas for other cool things we wanted to do, we wanted to do them all. Then we noticed they all had something in common: competition. Fight Club is really just a cool name for Competition Club. We wanted to play sports and have debates and challenge the other clubs at whatever it was they were doing.

Competition is a bit of a hot topic at the moment. More and more, winning and losing is being taken out of things like children’s organized sports, childcare settings, and schools. The logic behind why makes sense on the surface; the stress and anxiety of having to do well, the sadness of losing and the debates caused by these is all eliminated. However, research is showing that the benefits of competition outweigh the potential limitations. Children learn social skills and develop their abilities during games. They learn what their interests are and what they are good at and competitive games create situations in which they need to learn and practice emotional coping skills, develop strategies for dealing with loss and create relationships with peers. At GASC, we believe in promoting competition in a safe environment so that children can experience all of this with support and care. Fight Club is a perfect example of this. Besides competition , Fight Club emphasizes respect for self and others, sportsmanship, friendship, leadership, and most of all fun!

Over the course of the summer we have learned different kinds of wrestling, had a debate about whether a hotdog was a sandwich or not (it’s not because the meat it tube shaped), challenged the baking club to an apple pie bake off (we lost), a dance contest where one child emerged as a leader, dodgeball, nerf gun wars with sharpshooter contest and a crossover with Board Game club.