For centuries (well 2 maybe) there has been the debate between College Athletics and College Academics.
There is debate about the place of athletics in places of education, ranging from little league to Harvard.
My take on this is to ask "Why?"
"Why do athletics thrive and academics languish?" Some say its the money, but this was going on long before "professional sports" were even an idea.
I've done some reading, checked out some of the experts, and have come to one conclusion.
Sports gives you a coach. Academics gives you a teacher. Coaches demand life style changes that show you how to live, what to do, how to think. Teachers last just one part of a semester, and they are only concerned with their subject.
Oh, there are exceptional teachers who influence, for a while, the lives of some of their students. They will mentor a couple. Coaches mentor teams of people every year. They bond together far more than a chemistry class will bond together.
But mostly it is the coach who becomes a father figure, a mentor, a man (usually) who screams and yells and encourages the players not only during practice, but during the biggest events of their game playing lives.
Imagine how much better you would do on your SAT's if you had a coach there, encouraging you, pushing you, yelling at you to study, to learn, to know, and to mark those silly little ovals correctly.
Imagine if they gave the ACT test a halftime where your academic coach could give you a pep-talk, or complain "Fundementals. You need to go back to the fundamentals. I before E except after C...."
Instead of educators complaining about the athletics, perhaps they should study them and learn from them something about dedication, focus, motivation, and commitiment.
Posted by T. Analog Kid (Member # 381) on :
thoughtful post, Dan... not that it's unsual for you to do so... I just like this one a lot...
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
"Here at <insert college> we like to think we have a University our football team can be proud of"--college coach in the 80's
"The thing about coaching HS football is, you need to be smart enough to win, but not smart enough to become bored by it."--HS football caoch.
Posted by eslaine (Member # 5433) on :
Intriguing idea. Perhaps more academic competitions. Give the community something more to celebrate, an activity, entertainment. A national spelling bee, with reality show ideals. People could call in the word that they wanted spelled.
How about a live-in version of Jeopardy? "Man if I have to go on one more minute sharing a bathroom with that Alex...! Can't he give someone else a chance?"
Schedule it right before Survivor.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
"a live-in version of Jeopardy?" Bwhahaha that would be great. Can you imagine staggering bleary-eyed to the table for breakfast and have Alex quiz you before coffee?
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
It is not the competition that is as important as the coaching, the mentor, the person to make your learning a dedicated, focused, way of life.
A college level football player does not practice an hour or three a day and moves on to something else. They live FOOTBALL. As an olympic figure skater lives Skating, but not as a English major lives Shakespeare.
If they did, we would see about locking them away, not giving them a new car and a scholarship.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
At my High-School, there was a lot of academic competitions, and a few people went all out in supporting them. Knowledge Bowl was coached by a women who had to drive 30 minutes just to get into our school district; and after she was diagnosed with cancer (with a poor chance of living out the year ) she's still coaching. We all tried pretty hard, and people got involved, but no one not directly involved cared. There was multiple rallys for sports events, pep assemblys before football games, and no one knew when we came in first in the state because the school just plain didn't care. I don't think teachers can do it by themselves, the administration has to step in and show students that there are things in life that are exciting and not sports.
Not to say that getting that type of involvment isn't a good thing, but I don't think that would put academics on the same level as sports. Besides which, most of my teachers were trying their best, working pretty long hours (there from 6:45 to 5 or 6 and then a lot of time at home) and not getting paid for any of it. I think that the first step needs to be pouring money into the education system so we can get some decent materials and lower class sizes so that the teacher really can do that. Imagine having a coach in sports than was trying to motivate 140 kids every day? Sometimes there's just too much to do.
Hobbes Posted by jehovoid (Member # 2014) on :
This reminds me of an old SNL sketch with the people playing chess and John Belushi (I think)is the coach. Really funny.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
You'll never get the same atmosphere in academics as in sports, because a big adrenaline rush isn’t going to bump your ACT scores up, or make you remember who the captain of the guard was in the battle of Lexington. I agree that the encouragement that players receive on a sports team is lacking in the class room, but I don’t really think it’s fair to put the burden on the teacher until the teacher gets some help carrying their already overloaded responsibility.
Hobbes Posted by littlemissattitude (Member # 4514) on :
I think the encouragement factor is very important in this. But I don't think it is so much the in-school staff that is key.
My experience is an example. When I was in elementary school, I loved school and I loved learning. I was always reading something. And what sort of encouragement did I get for this? None, outside of my parents, who did encourage my love of learning. From all the other adults in my life I got comments like, "You like school? But school is so boring." Like, "How come you read so much? You'll ruin your eyes." Like, "Why don't you quit reading and go do something?" These kinds of attitudes are not going to encourage anyone to puruse and enjoy academics.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Hobbes makes some very good points. All students pass through classrooms, while not all of them pass through teams. Coaches don't typically interact with anywhere near the number of individuals that teachers do. His point about sports being more exciting because of adrenaline rushes is also a good one.
Also, I don't know that the "successes" of athletics in this country are anything to be emulated. It seems kind of like you switched points in your post, from how much attention we pay to athletics versus academics, to an unspoken assumption that athletics are therefore more successful. When we look at athletics at every level, in addition to the wonderful stories of building character, we see many more examples of people who were taught that they didn't have to behave like human beings because of their physical gifts. We see university backers breaking ethical codes to give young men bribes. We see athletes who shoplift. Drug abuse is rampant. Rape is common. We also see a system that uses up and throws away many people, because what is important to the system is not what kind of young men and women these people become, but what kind of honors (and indirectly, money) they can bring to the organization, be it professional or not. At the younger levels, we see "soccer parents" who behave in very inappropriate ways toward their children and toward the coaches, because their only concern is the glory that their children receive. We see universities themselves bend, break, and discard rules for the students who bring them so much glory (and money).
I don't think this is a system that we want to be emulating.
Also, I don't think that the apparent greater interest in sports than in academics is due to coaching. After all, swimming, track and field, cross country, volleyball, water polo, soccer, bowling, . . . . all have coaches, and the same interest isn't there.
Another interesting comparison is that college and football coaches make twenty to thirty times what a university professor makes, and even more when compared to a high school teacher or lower.
Honestly, I don't see the situations as being all that analogous. I'm all for better teaching and better motivation, and I don't doubt that we can learn some lessons from athletics, but I don't see athletics on the whole as being a better paradigm for education.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Another consideration is that through sports we live vicariously. The excitement comes from the fact that we [non-athletes] treat the sucesses or failures of these individuals we do not know as thought they were our own. Again, I don't see how this can be applied to education.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
Personally, I think the root of the problem is parental involvment, not teachers. Most parents seem to be incredibly excited about sports victories, but school is just something you shouldn't fail out of. If your a kid trying to please your parents and your Dad ignores your straight As but gets over-joyedd with you joining the football team (or whatever) what's important and what's not becomes pretty clear.
Hobbes Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
Woa. I have the highest possible respect for teachers and the nearly impossible job that they do dailly.
What I am suggesting is not "Hey lets cry because our teachers are not Educational coaches."
Its, Hey, maybe breaking out of the mold of teachers and schools should be considered. Something radically different and strange, where the same students have one motivational person who's main job is to promote, envigorate, encourage and mentor students, whether they are figure skating hopefuls, football hopefulls, or would be astronomers, with the same fervor and drive that a colligiant coach has.
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
) she's still coaching. We all tried pretty hard, and people got involved, but no one not directly involved cared. There was multiple rallys for sports events, pep assemblys before football games, and no one knew when we came in first in the state because the school just plain didn't care. I don't think teachers can do it by themselves, the administration has to step in and show students that there are things in life that are exciting and not sports.![[Smile]](smile.gif)