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Risky Business

May 19, 2015

At a time when efforts to promote student-athlete health and safety are more obviously than ever at the top of our daily to-do list, it may seem ill-advised to suggest that kids need more danger in their lives. But they do! And that’s the point of 50 Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do) by Penguin Books.

From mastering the perfect somersault (#3) to melting glass (#47), and from climbing a tree (#28) to walking home from school (#18), authors Gever Tulley and Julie Spiegler demonstrate two obvious but often overlooked points: (1) that most of us learn by doing; and (2) that a sterile, bubble-wrapped world teaches us less than one in which we are allowed to play with fire (#45).

After-school sports and activities provide safe and supervised danger. A place to learn new skills, meet different people, perform under pressure and test one’s limits. A supervised place to engage in life before going out in the less supervised real world.

Hard Copy

January 31, 2017

It's probably a sign of my age and stage in life, but I cannot get in any habit of consuming information by podcasts. If I want to absorb facts, figures and ideas that I can retain for later use, I have to receive that information in writing and be free to highlight phrases and make notes in the margins of that document.

I'm so committed to or conditioned by this process that I even need to print online articles so I can take my pen to the text to help me embrace the author's message or mold it into mine. I remain an ardent advocate for the medium of printed words.

I'm apt to remember portions of long-form printed pieces much longer than texts and tweets; and if a printed piece is very good, or at least speaks to me, I develop a relationship with it through my underlining and notes, and it stays with me longer than audio and even video media.

My preferences are demonstrated in the continuing commitment the Michigan High School Athletic Association has made to providing printed souvenir programs at the finals for most of its postseason tournaments as well as to a glossy, issues-oriented magazine (benchmarks) and hard-copy printed curriculum for our in-person coaches education program (CAP) when many of its counterpart organizations across the US have moved to electronic alternatives for these services.

I'm all for reducing the use and waste of paper for environmental reasons; but for educational purposes, print on paper still has a place in the modern world of communications clutter. Perhaps a never more important place.