Pitch Perfect
August 5, 2016
The national rules of high school baseball for the 2017 season will require for the first time that state high school associations adopt policies and procedures that limit the number of pitches that an individual player may make over a specified number of days.
Presently, Michigan High School Athletic Association rules state that a student may not pitch more than three consecutive days regardless of the outs pitched, and shall not pitch for two calendar days following that in which the player pitched his 30th out.
In the past, there has not been consensus among Michigan high school baseball coaches or support by the MHSAA Baseball/Softball Committee to impose a specific pitch count; and the new national rule does not prescribe what the maximum count should be or how it should be applied.
The MHSAA will convene a group of coaches and administrators this month to discuss the many questions created by the nebulous national mandate. The group’s challenge is to craft a rule that will not result in students pitching more than they do under the current rule, especially at earlier grade levels, and a rule that is as simple to monitor and manage as the current rule.
The proposal of this study group will be reviewed by baseball coaches and school administrators throughout Michigan before submission for action by the Representative Council in December.
Michigan’s climate and culture within high school baseball probably makes a change in the MHSAA pitching rule unnecessary for the high school season. And sadly, any change made for high school play is likely to have little or no effect on the summer and fall ball that may be much more damaging to young arms than the high school season which often is much more restrained in the number of games per day and per season than non-school baseball.
We can hope, of course, that the additional focus on pitching risks at the high school level will be seen and taken seriously outside the high school season.
Integrated Learning
July 1, 2016
One of the positive aspects of life that school sports and other after-school activities do better than most everything else is to build a sense of community. Another is to teach teamwork. And both are mostly missing in the world of individualized, online learning.
It sounds good to advocate for personalized, learn-at-your-own-pace “curriculum” (one can hardly call it “instruction”), but that model misses so much of what education is supposed to help a civilized society accomplish.
Benjamin Riley, founder and executive director of Deans for Impact (deansforimpact.org), makes this point in his May 18, 2016, Opinion on EdSurge (edsurge.com), “Bursting the ‘Personalization’ Bubble: An Alternative Vision for Our Public Schools.” Mr. Riley advances four principles:
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Teachers – not technology – should be the primary designers of students’ learning experiences.
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The experiences that teachers design should emphasize the social aspect of learning.
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The experiences that teachers design should be informed by learning science.
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Teachers should primarily use technology to identify social learning opportunities.
Mr. Riley concedes that these four principles are just a sketch – an outline for a different conversation than that which currently dominates education reform. “But there is one point on which I’m unyielding,” Riley writes: “We begin to forge the character of our country in our public schools. At a time when I feel our nation pulling further apart, I hope we start thinking and talking more about how we might move closer together, and promote the integration – rather than the personalization – of our learning experiences in public education.”
It is not Mr. Riley’s point, but it is mine, that school sports – including the requirement that participants be full-time students in the schools they represent on interscholastic sports teams – promotes the integration of the learning experience which is critical to shaping the character of our country.
The integration we speak of is developing the whole child through direct interaction daily with a diverse student body and a wide variety of curricular and extracurricular activities. This builds students, schools and society.