Reality Check
July 7, 2015
The organization I worked for immediately prior to this 29-year run with the MHSAA utilized “harnessed hero worship” as its principal strategy for evangelism. It was generally effective; but because of human frailties, some of the heroes would disappoint us and disrupt the important work.
This experience and others over the years have caused me to, at most, only feign excitement when someone suggests we get this or that “Big Name” to keynote a conference or endorse an initiative. I prefer substance over style, and staying power over shooting stars.
All of this likely made me susceptible to shouting “Right On” when I read the May 14, 2015 blog post of Matt Amaral, a teacher in California. The title: “Dear Steph Curry, Now That You Are MVP, Please Don’t Come Visit My High School.”
Regarding celebrity worship, Mr. Amaral writes that we need less of it.
“Coming to poor high schools like mine isn’t going to help any of these kids out; in fact, it might make things worse.”
Amaral explains that unlike Curry (who is an example and not a target), the students he teaches are not genetic giants and do not have the resources and support that separate the less than one percent from the rest of us. “What you won’t see,” Amaral writes in his “open letter” to Curry, “is the fact that most of these kids don’t have a back-up plan for their dream of being you.”
“They are already very good at dreaming about being rich and famous; what we need them to do is get a little more realistic about what is in their control. We need less of an emphasis on sports and celebrity in high school, because it is hurting these kids too much as it is.”
(You can find more of Mr. Amaral’s provocative thoughts at teach4real.com.)
Four Thrusts for Four Years
February 12, 2013
“Four thrusts for four years.” That’s the phrase we’re using to keep us focused and, we hope, effective in addressing some of the most pressing health and safety issues of school sports. The four emphases are:
- Require more initial and ongoing sports safety training for more coaches.
- Implement heat and humidity management policies at all schools for all sports.
- Revise practice policies generally, but especially for early in the fall season.
- Modify game rules to reduce the frequency of the most dangerous play situations, and to reduce head trauma.
Each of these thrusts will be briefly addressed in my next four postings, and we will use the breadth and depth of our constituency to search for best practices and earn their approval throughout our rank and file. There will be many requests for the MHSAA to do other health and safety related things; but we believe if we keep the focus on these four thrusts for four years, we can do the most good most quickly for the most students
.