James Howell’s adage quote ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’ can not ring truer when it comes to extracurricular activities which, by definition, refer to any activities that are outside the regular course subjects for students. Such activities can either be sponsored by the school or can be private interests students do in their social communities. So let’s know Is It Advisable For Students To Participate In Extracurricular Activities?
Yes! Students should partake in extracurricular activities and this article will highlight the immense positive impact directly on students’ academic performance and personal growth as compared to the shorter flip-side of negative impacts.
How Extracurricular Activities Positively Impact Students
1. Improved Academic Performance
Apart from offering a big break from the high tension classroom atmosphere and refreshing the mind from trying to take in a high volume of academic work, and also bearing in mind that too much or too little of anything is bad, proper management between extracurricular and school activities:
- extracurricular activities training and increase mental capacity, improve concentration towards completion of tasks, and result in better time allocation to sub-tasks in pursuit of goals. For instance, virtual gaming communities, where participants compete in multi-user, cross-platform gaming modes which require quick wits to win, ‘play’ but grasp and improve certain concepts of mental alertness and resilience through the gaming process.
- extracurricular activities have less pressure on the results since they are deemed as play and as such students can try and re-try until they perfect the skills to succeed with fewer chances of giving up or getting embarrassed at the thought of failure. Ultimately the same concept will be adopted subconsciously towards studies and perfecting the practice. For instance, the attitude to work on maths problems until one grasps the concept.
2. Increased Self-worth and Skills Set
Extracurricular activities in more ways than one, include the aspect of exploration, whereby students come out of their comfort zones through the influence of colleagues to try out new activities outside of their normal spaces. In doing so:
- Students will discover new interests and activities in which they will excel, developing new skills and ultimately boosting their self-confidence. For instance, a student may learn the art of group work, allocation of responsibilities as well as leadership skills through being part of a soccer team, or even become a professional soccer player.
- In the essence of a student turning an extracurricular activity into a profession, is it, therefore, correct to say such activities teach life skills that can be adopted as a career choice thereby extracurricular activities offer students broader career choices. It is also imperative to point out how extracurricular activities allow for networking between peers and increase social opportunities whereby students will end up learning more than one activity, thereby becoming multi-skilled.
How Extracurricular Activities Negatively Impact Students
1. Increased Workload
As much as extracurricular activities have a positive impact on students, the flip side is also realized when students face a backdrop on their curriculum when:
- instead of getting a breath of fresh air out of the classroom, extracurricular activities will wear them out and cause fatigue which will ultimately harm their concentration in the classroom.
- Students fail to manage time between extracurricular activities and their curriculum thereby adding to the burden of their academic workload.
2. Increased Social Pressure
Extracurricular activities can also have the undesired effect of propounding students’ classroom shortcomings, for instance:
- students may fail to compete or master their chosen extracurricular activities and this will demotivate them, both in and out of the classroom as they may consider themselves failures.
- Some of the extracurricular activities have connotations of social class in terms of affordability or due to stereotypes and instead of aiding in growing networks and sharing of skills, this will cement discriminations and divisions, affecting aspects like leadership and group work.
Conclusion
Conclusively, extracurricular activities should be encouraged among students because even with the possibility of realizing the opposite intended effect, extracurricular activities complement the students’ curricula and mold individual students into competent professionals. Mental and physical exercises outside of the classroom arm students with life skills, solid networking with their peers and provide alternative future professions.
However, failure to manage the balance between curriculum and extracurricular activities also has the negative impact of widening social divisions within the learning environment, increasing social and academic pressures to excel, and also weakens other institutions of learning, for instance when students dedicate more time to extracurricular activities at the expense of family time or other social learning institutions.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Why do students desist from taking part in extracurricular activities?
In most cases, students are already overburdened with their curriculum so finding and managing the time for extra activities will seem too tiresome and impractical.
- How can increased student participation in extracurricular activities be achieved?
To motivate students’ involvement in non-interference by the institution, in these extracurricular activities so students can feel free to pursue new interests without any authoritarian body measuring performance.