Continuing Education
February 17, 2012
Eight MHSAA staff devoted an entire Friday late last month to discussions with a visitor from another statewide high school association. The focus was on what that association was doing, how and why in the areas of electronic media, marketing, merchandising and branding and the dozens of sub-topics these categories spawned.
Two weeks earlier, five MHSAA staff joined staff of ten other similar associations for two days of meetings in Chicago. There was sharing on topics ranging from student leadership programs to information technology.
A few days before that, I joined my counterparts from 45 other states for discussions of a variety of topics important to school sports in general or the administration of our serving organizations. I amassed 13 pages of notes from comments made by speakers and colleagues over three days.
Meanwhile, the MHSAA office hosted 12 MHSAA committee meetings during January. Each committee focused on a particular sport, or on a specific topic that affects all sports. Their recommendations will be vetted this spring and considered by the Representative Council by May.
Ideally, every month presents opportunities for us to learn, but last month provided a particularly broad and deep curriculum.
Tools of Thought
July 13, 2018
(This blog first appeared on MHSAA.com on May 11, 2012.)
I am famous at home and office for my lack of keyboarding skills. The only “C” grade I received in high school was a summer school course in what was then called “typing.” At Dartmouth I paid a woman who worked at the dining hall to type my college papers. In an early job at the University of Wisconsin I typed the play-by-play of Badger football and basketball games with a clumsy “hunt-and-peck” approach.
Today, with the same lack of style, I pound out dozens of emails daily, hammering the keys like my first manual typewriter required four decades ago.
But for any document of great length or importance, I do as I’ve always done: take up pencil (my software) and legal pad (my hardware). There is no question that, for me, the nature of the equipment I’m using for writing affects the nature of the thinking.
With his eyesight failing late in his life, Freidrich Nietzsche bought his first typewriter, changing from pen and paper to the new technology of the 1800s. According to a 2008 article in Atlantic Monthly by Nichols Carr, a friend wrote to Nietzsche in a letter that, since adapting to the telegraphic style, Nietzsche’s terse prose had become even tighter. To which Nietzsche replied: “You are right, our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.”
Which makes one wonder where all today’s tweeting and texting may take us.