Predicting Success
March 1, 2016
Participation in high school sports, music and drama – the educational buffet provided by comprehensive, full-service high schools – did more to shape my character and chart my life journey than any factor other than my parents.
It is no wonder that this is so, for it is well-established that ...
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Participation in school activities is a better predictor of success in later life than either standardized test scores or grade point average.
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Participants in school activities have higher GPAs, lower dropout rates, better daily attendance and fewer discipline problems than non-participating students.
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Participants in school athletics have higher GPAs and lower use of tobacco, alcohol and other drugs during their seasons of competition than out of season.
We don’t know for sure if all this is cause and effect; but we do know there is a strong statistical correlation, and most parents prefer to have their children hanging out with these motivated, high-achieving young people.
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.