Motivation Matters
November 6, 2012
I had the opportunity to compare notes with the leader of a high school in Boston which educates a high number of non-English-speaking students – more than any other public school in that diverse metropolitan area. My interest flows from my work with mid-Michigan’s Refugee Development Center, which provides English classes and other services for newcomers to our community.
We both have observed that, almost without exception, these students who are seeking to learn English are highly motivated – considerably more so than most other students we observe. They come early to class and stay after class; and if class is ever cancelled, they come anyway!
We agreed that those who are attempting to revolutionize education with one overhaul or innovation or another may be missing what’s really wrong. We don’t have a structural or systemic problem at school, we have a motivational problem at home.
It may be fashionable for the pundits and politicians to beat up public education in the U.S., but from all around the world people are beating a path to our schools for the quality of education they cannot find elsewhere. And displaced populations – most immigrants and refugees – arrive with motivation to learn and assimilate that puts U.S.-born students to shame.
Really, whose fault is this? It can’t be the schools. But schools must try to respond to the problem they are being presented.
And extracurricular activities and athletics are among the tried, tested and proven tools available to schools to help reach, motivate and educate our young people to stay in school, like school and do better in school than they otherwise would.
Shared Leadership
February 3, 2012
My introduction to high school athletic associations began when I was eight years old, when my father became the chief executive of the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association. I learned about the work around the dinner table, by tagging along to Dad’s office, and by attending tournaments or accompanying him to banquets where he spoke.
My understanding of high school athletic associations broadened and deepened during the nearly eight years I served on the staff of the National Federation of State High School Associations.
So, even before I began my tenure as the MHSAA’s executive director, the essence of the work was in my bones.
In my father’s time and during my early years here in Michigan, the leadership model of a high school athletic association office was top down. The chief executive generated or personally reviewed every piece of correspondence, and staff referred every important decision to the boss.
That leadership model is no longer practical, or even possible. Too much is happening on so many different fronts for the chief executive-oriented model to do anything other than slow progress and frustrate people (both within and outside the office).
For today and the foreseeable future, the leadership model must be flat and diversified. The chief executive must allow staff to gain expertise in a growing array of complicated topics and empower staff to execute freely. It is impossible for a single person to gain the knowledge or have the time to lead a progressive, service-oriented high school athletic association; and I’m blessed to have had an experienced and passionate MHSAA staff to share the leadership opportunities and responsibilities.