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Stop treating schoolers like pros
The case against the importation of youngsters into high school based on their sports ability
By Lascelve Graham (Part One)
Saturday, January 22, 2011
I hereby attempt to summarise the case against the importation of youngsters into high school for the purpose of influencing the outcome of sporting events. This practice is symptomatic of a larger problem which is rampant in the society — erosion, the attrition, the slow, silent, imperceptible but inexorable eating away of the integrity of our people and our systems.
1 The primary purpose of high school is to expand intellectual (academic) capacity, that is, to teach us to think critically, to teach us to analyse, to teach us to ask the right questions, to teach us to solve problems, even those that have not yet evolved. In a number of countries, this is all high schools do. Sports is taken care of elsewhere. High schools are specialised academic institutions. Hence, the admission criteria need to reflect this. Jamaican, like English high schools, believe that sports is one of the developmental tools (others include religion, music etc) that can help youngsters develop character, develop mental toughness.
Action from the Corporate Area Manning Cup football competition. (Photo: File)
Action from the Corporate Area Manning Cup football competition. (Photo: File)
#slideshowtoggler, #slideshowtoggler a, #slideshowtoggler img {filter:none !important;zoom:normal !important}
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We believe that sports can play a key role in helping to teach values, attitudes and life skills to the youngsters who have satisfied the academic admission criteria and who deserve as shown by their demonstrated academic potential, to be in the school. Sports should therefore, in principle, minister to these youngsters, the great majority of whom come from poor, deprived communities.
These youngsters have sacrificed, some of them at times going hungry, reading under street lights etc, and have made the effort to be where they are. Sports must, in principle, give those youngsters every opportunity to succeed, every opportunity for exposure, every opportunity to be more rounded individuals, if sports is going to satisfy its purpose in the educational programme. The youngsters have earned it. If we go outside to bring sporting expertise into a given school, with the intention of influencing sporting events, it is warping, subverting, undermining and corrupting the educational framework in which sports should be operating. Sports is not performing its function in the education system. It is defeating the purpose for which it is in schools.
Sports must work with the children it has up to the high school level. This is what happens even in the USA, a country which we seem to ape in all things. It is even stronger in England on which our system is modelled.
Sports in high school is a tool. It is like the anvil and hammer which are used to shape, forge and temper the steel that is to be made into a sword. It shapes what is put before it and does the best with what it has. Similarly, sports should be used to strengthen the mental toughness, the character of those who having satisfied the normal academic admission requirement are at the school and are intent on improving their academic standing.
2 High schools are specialised academic institutions. Their core function is expanding academic capacity. As such, they should be looking for academic talent, not sporting talent. They should be looking for children who show acumen (aptitude) in information technology, chemistry, physics or biology etc, but may not have appropriate laboratory facilities where they are. Let the high schools give those a second chance. Let them give the late academic bloomers a chance. In all of this we must not forget that there is only a limited number of spaces in our high schools.
We do not have unlimited resources. High schools should be looking to import youngsters like these, not "sports stars" to fill these places since the required facilities will only be found in these specialised academic institutions. Schools are incubators that are set up to nourish and nurture the intellectual development of our youngsters. Schools must discover, facilitate, encourage, motivate, protect and develop the full intellectual capacity of our youngsters. Our only hope out of poverty, our ticket out of neediness (hardship) as a nation, is through academic education.
3 Importing a "sports star" into the team denies a "home grown" talent a place on the team. It marginalises poor people's children who have laboured, strained to earn a place in the school. This means that one of our poor, deprived youngsters who has struggled, sacrificed, delayed gratification, played by the rules to get himself into the position where he could experience the exhilaration, the gratification, the joy, the glory of representing his/her school will be denied this opportunity. Making his team and having it on his resume could perhaps help him to get some financial aid which would allow him to further his studies — his ticket out of poverty.
It may help him to get the Rhodes Scholarship. Denied, because some coach or some school wanted to win at all cost, because some school or some coach wanted a quick fix, wanted gratification now and was not prepared to delay gratification, something which they demand of their charges. This is institutionalised injustice. It is unfair. It is repugnant. It is reprehensible. Maybe, if my school were a subscriber to this practice when I was in school, few if any would have known of my talent as a footballer, since as a short, small, bowlegged youngster, I looked the part more of a jockey than a footballer. In fact, initially, my Manning Cup coach was reluctant to play me, saying that if one of the "tree" boys from JC fell on me I would die and he did not know what he would tell my father. Perhaps if he could have brought in a readymade star from outside who better fitted the role, I would have been sidelined and never heard of again. There are several similar stories that could be told.
4 If a coach can bring in a "star" from outside, why bother to look internally to unearth new talent? Why bother to expend the energy or effort to encourage the shy youngster to turn out for practice? Just bring in a central defender from outside if you need one. Hence the reason that intramural sports has died in many schools. Consequently, many youngsters who were for one reason or another a little too shy to come out on their own, just never got the push that they needed from the coach or the administration. They have regrets for the rest of their lives because a part of them has been lost which they cannot now recover. Importation undermines the purpose of sports in schools. It blocks and frustrates the hopes and aspirations of other students already in the school.
5 The raiding of schools and the snatching of their brightest stars who are then taken to the raiding school in order to influence the outcome of sporting events is despicable and should be stopped. It weakens the raided school making it more difficult for that school to do well and for the youngsters, the community, that area of Jamaica to experience the benefits, the confidence and joy of success. Consider Usain Bolt and William Knibb High School or Samardo Samuels and Muchette High School.
A number of schools lament that having discovered, nurtured and developed a youngster over several years, he/she is swiped away by a richer school, where oftentimes the youngster never fits in and feels out of place. Many youngsters focus on sports to the detriment of their school work, waiting and hoping to be "bought" by another school. We need to stop treating our youngsters in high schools like professional sports people.
Editor's Note: Dr Lascelve 'Muggy' Graham is a former Jamaica, St George's College Manning Cup, All Schools, All Manning Cup football captain, as well as St George's College cricketer and track athlete, and also House Captain, Prefect, Headboy, Headmaster Medallist, Student Council President and Valedictorian at St George's College.
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/sport...#ixzz1BmEEQbvO
The case against the importation of youngsters into high school based on their sports ability
By Lascelve Graham (Part One)
Saturday, January 22, 2011
I hereby attempt to summarise the case against the importation of youngsters into high school for the purpose of influencing the outcome of sporting events. This practice is symptomatic of a larger problem which is rampant in the society — erosion, the attrition, the slow, silent, imperceptible but inexorable eating away of the integrity of our people and our systems.
1 The primary purpose of high school is to expand intellectual (academic) capacity, that is, to teach us to think critically, to teach us to analyse, to teach us to ask the right questions, to teach us to solve problems, even those that have not yet evolved. In a number of countries, this is all high schools do. Sports is taken care of elsewhere. High schools are specialised academic institutions. Hence, the admission criteria need to reflect this. Jamaican, like English high schools, believe that sports is one of the developmental tools (others include religion, music etc) that can help youngsters develop character, develop mental toughness.
Action from the Corporate Area Manning Cup football competition. (Photo: File)
Action from the Corporate Area Manning Cup football competition. (Photo: File)#slideshowtoggler, #slideshowtoggler a, #slideshowtoggler img {filter:none !important;zoom:normal !important}
1/1 These youngsters have sacrificed, some of them at times going hungry, reading under street lights etc, and have made the effort to be where they are. Sports must, in principle, give those youngsters every opportunity to succeed, every opportunity for exposure, every opportunity to be more rounded individuals, if sports is going to satisfy its purpose in the educational programme. The youngsters have earned it. If we go outside to bring sporting expertise into a given school, with the intention of influencing sporting events, it is warping, subverting, undermining and corrupting the educational framework in which sports should be operating. Sports is not performing its function in the education system. It is defeating the purpose for which it is in schools.
Sports must work with the children it has up to the high school level. This is what happens even in the USA, a country which we seem to ape in all things. It is even stronger in England on which our system is modelled.
Sports in high school is a tool. It is like the anvil and hammer which are used to shape, forge and temper the steel that is to be made into a sword. It shapes what is put before it and does the best with what it has. Similarly, sports should be used to strengthen the mental toughness, the character of those who having satisfied the normal academic admission requirement are at the school and are intent on improving their academic standing.
2 High schools are specialised academic institutions. Their core function is expanding academic capacity. As such, they should be looking for academic talent, not sporting talent. They should be looking for children who show acumen (aptitude) in information technology, chemistry, physics or biology etc, but may not have appropriate laboratory facilities where they are. Let the high schools give those a second chance. Let them give the late academic bloomers a chance. In all of this we must not forget that there is only a limited number of spaces in our high schools.
We do not have unlimited resources. High schools should be looking to import youngsters like these, not "sports stars" to fill these places since the required facilities will only be found in these specialised academic institutions. Schools are incubators that are set up to nourish and nurture the intellectual development of our youngsters. Schools must discover, facilitate, encourage, motivate, protect and develop the full intellectual capacity of our youngsters. Our only hope out of poverty, our ticket out of neediness (hardship) as a nation, is through academic education.
3 Importing a "sports star" into the team denies a "home grown" talent a place on the team. It marginalises poor people's children who have laboured, strained to earn a place in the school. This means that one of our poor, deprived youngsters who has struggled, sacrificed, delayed gratification, played by the rules to get himself into the position where he could experience the exhilaration, the gratification, the joy, the glory of representing his/her school will be denied this opportunity. Making his team and having it on his resume could perhaps help him to get some financial aid which would allow him to further his studies — his ticket out of poverty.
It may help him to get the Rhodes Scholarship. Denied, because some coach or some school wanted to win at all cost, because some school or some coach wanted a quick fix, wanted gratification now and was not prepared to delay gratification, something which they demand of their charges. This is institutionalised injustice. It is unfair. It is repugnant. It is reprehensible. Maybe, if my school were a subscriber to this practice when I was in school, few if any would have known of my talent as a footballer, since as a short, small, bowlegged youngster, I looked the part more of a jockey than a footballer. In fact, initially, my Manning Cup coach was reluctant to play me, saying that if one of the "tree" boys from JC fell on me I would die and he did not know what he would tell my father. Perhaps if he could have brought in a readymade star from outside who better fitted the role, I would have been sidelined and never heard of again. There are several similar stories that could be told.
4 If a coach can bring in a "star" from outside, why bother to look internally to unearth new talent? Why bother to expend the energy or effort to encourage the shy youngster to turn out for practice? Just bring in a central defender from outside if you need one. Hence the reason that intramural sports has died in many schools. Consequently, many youngsters who were for one reason or another a little too shy to come out on their own, just never got the push that they needed from the coach or the administration. They have regrets for the rest of their lives because a part of them has been lost which they cannot now recover. Importation undermines the purpose of sports in schools. It blocks and frustrates the hopes and aspirations of other students already in the school.
5 The raiding of schools and the snatching of their brightest stars who are then taken to the raiding school in order to influence the outcome of sporting events is despicable and should be stopped. It weakens the raided school making it more difficult for that school to do well and for the youngsters, the community, that area of Jamaica to experience the benefits, the confidence and joy of success. Consider Usain Bolt and William Knibb High School or Samardo Samuels and Muchette High School.
A number of schools lament that having discovered, nurtured and developed a youngster over several years, he/she is swiped away by a richer school, where oftentimes the youngster never fits in and feels out of place. Many youngsters focus on sports to the detriment of their school work, waiting and hoping to be "bought" by another school. We need to stop treating our youngsters in high schools like professional sports people.
Editor's Note: Dr Lascelve 'Muggy' Graham is a former Jamaica, St George's College Manning Cup, All Schools, All Manning Cup football captain, as well as St George's College cricketer and track athlete, and also House Captain, Prefect, Headboy, Headmaster Medallist, Student Council President and Valedictorian at St George's College.
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/sport...#ixzz1BmEEQbvO
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