Ideas, Not Events
November 17, 2015
U.S. Navy Admiral Hyman Rickover is credited with the statement, “Average minds discuss events, while great minds discuss ideas.” Perhaps that’s so.
In any event, what I would like to see from MHSAA sport committees is less talk about events of the past and more time discussing ideas for the future. Less time on MHSAA tournament details and more time on the sport itself, and particularly on ideas that will make the sport not just safer, but also healthier for participants with respect to its demands in-season and out.
Less focus on results, and more attention to process. Day in and day out, how does the sport help and how might it hurt the student in a holistic sense, seeing the child not just as an athlete but also as a student and a person with activity interests beyond sports?
What are the ideas we need to develop and advance that will more assuredly cause student-athletes to develop habits for a healthier life precisely because they participated in school sports?
The Western Way
September 29, 2015
When he was in elementary school, my younger son Luke often traveled with me on MHSAA business. Today, Luke is living in Shanghai, China, where he is the principal of an elementary school for Chinese children.
The parents of these Chinese children want their youngster (it’s usually an only child) educated in the western way so the child can get into a western high school and college.
Those parents want their children speaking English. But much more than that, they want their children thinking critically and creatively. And they want their children engaging in extracurricular programs that teach teamwork and leadership.
Those parents want the kind of schools we operate in Michigan. They want the kind of programs we offer here.
We educate the whole child; and the whole world wants what we do.
Not only that – unlike most of the rest of the world, we not only educate the whole child, we educate every child. Most other countries don’t even try.