Predictable Problems
April 9, 2012
A completely predictable theme of this year is that as schools continue to cut support for school sports, they bring more controversy to school sports.
It is impossible to avoid serious problems running a comprehensive interscholastic athletic program involving many participants, lots of spectators, great emotion and some risk of injury, without dedicating competent full-time staff to its supervision.
Two emerging trends since schools have trimmed support for interscholastic athletics are . . .
more mistakes are being made (not because of more deception but because of more distractions – too little time on task); and
more of the oversights are being discovered later in the season. So late, in fact, that MHSAA tournament brackets are left empty. We had a team claim a Boys District Basketball Tournament trophy one week without playing the District championship game. The next week another team received a Boys Regional Basketball Tournament trophy without playing the title game. In each case, the opposing team had advanced with an ineligible player, and had to withdraw.
If we reduce time on task, if we minimize training and support, we invite mistakes and oversights, which invites forfeits and injuries, which incites controversy in the school and community.
Model Education
December 13, 2013
The athletic classroom is at least as pregnant with teachable moments as any other classroom of our comprehensive secondary schools.
I believe this so strongly that there is a tendency to overstate this truth; but if we include non-athletic activities like speech, music, debate and drama, I am even more certain it is true.
It is true in large part because nowhere in education will one find it to the degree we do in school activities that teachers are teaching what they want to teach to students who are learning what they want to learn, and both teachers and learners are willing to work hour after hour on their own time, even after the so-called “school day,” to make sure that everything that can be taught is taught and everything that can be learned is learned.
This is not a distraction from the educational mission of schools. It is a model of what more of education should be. And we shouldn’t hesitate to say so. Nor should we hesitate any longer to provide these model programs for younger grade levels.