Challenging Change
January 2, 2014
Everywhere we turn, we hear or read that things ought to change because, well . . . “The times are changing.”
How we raise children, how we educate students, how we work and worship . . . everything is subject to change, we’re told, because “times change.”
I suppose if we had evidence that the changes made in previous decades, because “It’s the 80s” or “It’s the New Millennium,” had really improved our world, I might be more taken with change for change’s sake today. But I see little evidence of stronger families, better schools, more fulfilling work or more faithful congregations today than in previous decades. Rather, I see a world in worse shape in many ways, even in the only part of that world where I have any expertise: sports.
One of the problems of youth sports today is the over-programming of our kids. A superficial comparison with youth sports of 2014 vs. 1964 reveals that today we have many more well-organized leagues in many more sports for many more kids than 50 years ago. They have better facilities, equipment and uniforms. They have coaches and officials and even boards of directors to hear the complaints and protests.
By contrast, in the 1960s there were just a few organized leagues in a few sports for a few kids; but even those kids spent most of their playing time in pickup games where they chose up sides, set the ground rules, and made the calls themselves. They settled arguments on the spot. They had to bring their own equipment, and take care of it. And if the ball went out of play, they had to hunt for it until they found it; because a lost ball meant not only that the game was over, it might also have meant the entire season was over.
When did kids learn more from youth sports: in the 1960s world of pickup games they managed for themselves, or in the more recent world of adult-directed travel teams and tournaments and trophies? Just because “times are changing,” should we program out all that was good about youth sports 50 years ago?
Of course not. Which is why those in our schools who want more and more contests for younger and younger grade levels must be cautious. It is possible to get too much of a good thing, and to get a good thing too soon.
Newcomer Wisdom
November 20, 2012
A group I work with in my spare time, the Refugee Development Center, sponsored a team in a local youth soccer league. Appropriately, the team’s nickname is “Newcomers.”
It took the team most of the season to score a goal; and it was in its final game of the season that the team earned its first victory.
After one game, I was enlisted to transport three players to their residences. All three were Napali. I used this time to ask their opinions about the education they were receiving in the local public school.
They had no objection to the content of the courses, but criticized the conduct of their classmates. They cited a lack of respect for teachers, and a lack of discipline. They had experienced the discipline of the stick in their homeland, and believed it would be helpful to classrooms in the US.
These young newcomers also noted that their instructional day in Nepal was almost two hours longer, plus they were in school a half-day on Saturdays.
From this conversation I was once again impressed that much of what has been done in attempts to improve public education has overlooked the obvious: stronger discipline and longer days. Most of what we do in US public education is the envy of the world. What people from other countries wonder about is the lack of discipline and time on task.
Empowering and supporting teachers’ discipline and increasing the length of the school day and year are not sexy solutions to what ails public education. They are just simpler answers mostly overlooked.