Hit Again
April 1, 2013
Education reform needs a Mulligan. A do-over. The opportunity to go back to “Go” and start over. For example . . .
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Back to a time before the attack on neighborhood schools closed those schools and contributed to neighborhood collapse and community disconnect.
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Before suburban schools were allowed to prey on and profit from an urban school’s misfortunes.
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Before large buses lumbered down narrow residential lanes to transport our littlest learners from the shadow of their local school to another across town, where all the other littlest students were gathered for more “cost-effective” education.
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Before schools shuffled off low-achieving students to alternative schools in order to elevate their ranking on standardized test scores.
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Before teachers based their lessons more on test preparation than learning.
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Before education re-segregated through specialized charter schools with non-inclusive curricula.
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Before public schools were barred from beginning their instructional days before Labor Day, or whenever their community thought it best for the education of its students.
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Back to a time when pedagogy more than politics planned and delivered education.
Let’s tee it up and hit again.
Late to the Game
November 8, 2016
The Michigan High School Athletic Association’s Task Force on Multi-Sport Participation has learned that school sports are in competition versus non-school youth sports, not only programmatically but also and more fundamentally, philosophically. School sports sees child development quite differently and has as its mission developing the whole child.
Non-school youth sports business interests have convinced consumers (that’s parents) that early and intense specialization with private lessons and personal trainers, and lots of travel and tournaments is necessary for a child’s athletic interests and ultimate happiness. That is sometimes true ... once in a very great while.
What is much more often true is that specialization in a sport that is too early and too intense stunts a young person’s physical literacy, which often leads to less well-rounded athletic ability, a more sedentary lifestyle and poorer health in later life.
The theme of the Task Force recommendations to the MHSAA so far is that we have to reach youth and their parents earlier in life if we hope to compete for their hearts and minds.
When 80 percent of youth drop out of organized sports by the age of 13 – usually because they have been left out or become burned out – we’ve missed the kickoff if we start talking to them in 9th grade about the benefits of multi-sport participation and the school sport experience. In fact, the game is more than half over by then and our messages fall on deaf ears. We are absolutely correct with our message but appear out of step and out of touch to those who have only heard the sports specialization speech from youth coaches and their commercial interests.