Letting off steam!

I have to vent.

I love sports. I love the competition and the thrill of victory. I love watching a group of individuals come together to work hard and to achieve a greater goal. Nothing else teaches life lessons and brings us together like sports and extracurricular activities.

At high school graduation time, though, I don’t want to hear about sports. I don’t want to hear about the athletic football or field hockey star. I don’t want to hear about what a great athlete a particular student has been, how much time they put in the weight room or how much they will be missed by their coach.

I don’t want to hear about any of that.

Success in the classroom

Instead, I want to hear about academics and how kids of all shapes and sizes have succeeded. I want to hear about the kid who worked hard and graduated top of the class. I want to hear about the kid who got a merit scholarship and will be pursuing his dream of becoming a doctor. I want to hear about the kid who overcame a reading disability, put in extra work in-and-out-of-class and will be going to a college or trade school. I want to hear about the kid who might not have gotten the best grades, but still pushed through and is graduating. They may have all participated in sports, or none of them. I still want to hear about their academic successes.

And, yes, sports has a role, but the focus this time of year should be on academics.

The heart of the issue

I’m writing, because my local high school seems to promote its athletics every chance it gets. Every time I look up on social media or in the community, I see parents and boosters promote football or soccer sign-ups or how a particular team is improving. In some ways, I get it, boosters are trying to bring some pride to the school. Students have a lot going on in their lives. It can be challenging to break through that wall. I get it too that sports participation keeps kids in school and helps bring up the overall grade point average.

Sports certainly helped me. Baseball, basketball and football kept my interest when I was young and then later cross country and track and field taught me the value of discipline and hard work. Sports kept me interested in school when I wanted nothing to do with homework or classes. It kept me interested until my brain started to catch up and I pushed my way into the top tenth of my class.

However, in my my mind, the focus this time of year should be on academics. As graduation arrived last week, there was a general lack attention on academics. I kept waiting to see something from the administration praising classroom excellence and the students, but nothing came.

In addition, the high school has long had a policy where it awards academic scholarships and honors at an invitation-only event. The general idea is to keep the event invitation-only so that nobody gets demoralized or hurt. I would argue that it’s important for everyone to see that hard work in the classroom pays off. Yes, some feelings might get hurt, but the kids are going to be in the real world soon enough. They need to understand that life isn’t always fair, but the best tool they have in their toolbox is education.

Hard work wins

I don’t have a dog in this fight, my kids are all grown, but mixed with heavy promotion of sports, it just feels wrong. Few of the graduates who picked up their diplomas will ever play organized sports again in their lives. Not everyone can be another Lebron James or Christano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi but they all will become members of our society.

Let’s celebrate their hard work in the classroom. Thanks for letting me vent!

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“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” —Nelson Mandela

“Education is the foundation of all we do in life. It shapes who we are and what we aspire to be.” —Julie Payette

“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. … Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.” —Martin Luther King Jr.

“The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.” —B.B. King