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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:

  1. Teachers – not technology – should be the primary designers of students’ learning experiences.

  2. The experiences that teachers design should emphasize the social aspect of learning.

  3. The experiences that teachers design should be informed by learning science.

  4. 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.

Student-Centered Coaching

August 1, 2017

The November 1929 Bulletin of the Michigan High School Athletic Association includes this editorial reprinted from the Oct. 7, 1929 Grand Rapids Herald which invites discussion about what more we might do to promote leadership and sportsmanship in school-sponsored sports today.

“Football teams of Greenville and Ionia high schools Saturday introduced an innovation the nature of which challenges consideration of other Michigan schools. From the time the first whistle blew for Saturday’s game until its close the professional coaches employed by the two schools had no contact with players. Between the halves the usual harangue by the coach was dispensed with in favor of a review of play by players. * * * The result of such a policy is unsullied amateurism along the lines we often have urged. The players are on their own. They do their own thinking as well as playing. Under the system as usually followed the coach sits on the sidelines. If he sees an opportunity for a plan of play differing from that being followed he sends in a substitute who carries instructions: ‘Stick to forward passes. Bang away at their left end,’ etc. Between the halves the coach points out faults and emphasizes opportunities for the final half. In net effect the coach directs the play. The initiative of captain or quarterback is permitted only so long as the coach approves. Under the Greenville system the captain is the only recognized leader of the team. He directs substitutions, orders plays, advises players, etc. At Greenville school boys played against school boys. On other western Michigan gridirons a coach is the 12th member of every team. * * * The plan adopted at Greenville was suggested by President Angell of Yale in his annual report for 1927-28. He urged that, ‘There is a wide and well-grounded sentiment that the control of our games should be put back more fully into the hands of the players.’ Yale has not heeded Prexy Angell’s advice, but the New York State Public High School Athletic Association has adopted it as also have some Detroit high schools. It takes the sting of professionalism out of the scholastic game. The able coach still has ample opportunity to prove his worth in teaching the fundamentals of the game and in developing ‘football brains’; but when the whistle blows it is high school team against high school team. What’s the matter with trying that in Grand Rapids? What, if any, are the arguments against it?”