Silence is Golden
July 2, 2013
During the summer weeks, "From the Director" will bring to you some of our favorite entries from previous years. Today's blog first appeared Oct. 22, 2010.
A minor repair to a vocal cord forced me into 48 hours of silence recently. I rather enjoyed it and, frankly, was a little sorry to see it end.
You see, when you can’t talk, you’re forced to listen; and when you can’t talk, you’re more inclined to think. Not “think before you speak,” just think.
I’ll spare you the time spent counting my many blessings, as well as the time worrying about a few family matters. But I’ll share with you some thoughts I had about our common ground, that is, school-sponsored sports in Michigan.
I believe the future of school sports hangs in the balance of how we respond to the financial pressures local programs now experience. It worries me that too many responses are putting local programs on a course that will fundamentally and forever knock school sports off the course of educational athletics.
- We are mistaken if we believe a $225 participation fee to play JV tennis doesn’t change the nature of JV tennis.
- We are mistaken if we believe that a competitive athletic program, with high emotion and risk of injury, can be administered by inexperienced or part-time athletic administrators without clerical and event supervision assistance.
- We are mistaken if we believe that we can operate educational athletics without our coaches involved in ongoing education regarding the best practices of working with adolescents.
It isn’t educational athletics if the program does not promote broad and deep participation and does not have expert leadership and coaching.
That is what I thought about. And what I intend to speak about.
Hit Again
April 1, 2013
Education reform needs a Mulligan. A do-over. The opportunity to go back to “Go” and start over. For example . . .
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Back to a time before the attack on neighborhood schools closed those schools and contributed to neighborhood collapse and community disconnect.
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Before suburban schools were allowed to prey on and profit from an urban school’s misfortunes.
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Before large buses lumbered down narrow residential lanes to transport our littlest learners from the shadow of their local school to another across town, where all the other littlest students were gathered for more “cost-effective” education.
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Before schools shuffled off low-achieving students to alternative schools in order to elevate their ranking on standardized test scores.
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Before teachers based their lessons more on test preparation than learning.
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Before education re-segregated through specialized charter schools with non-inclusive curricula.
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Before public schools were barred from beginning their instructional days before Labor Day, or whenever their community thought it best for the education of its students.
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Back to a time when pedagogy more than politics planned and delivered education.
Let’s tee it up and hit again.