The Long View
May 8, 2012
“. . . when you start fretting the day-to-day, you lose track of the long view,” says the protagonist in Charles Frazier’s latest novel Nightwoods.
It’s easy to do. Easy to get tied up in daily concerns and controversies that cloud our ability to concentrate on long-term goals and objectives and the big themes that should be apparent in our daily activities.
Day-to-day fretting causes heartburn for investors who ignore their long-term investment strategies and goals. It sidetracks businesses which lose track of long-term goals for the sake of boosting a quarterly earnings report. It affects politicians who, while keeping an eye on polls, take their eye off their principles. It’s probably taking a toll on school administrators who feel compelled to improve students’ test scores more than to infuse students with a passion to be lifelong learners.
I’m aware of some in our work who are able to refocus on the long view by getting away from the daily grind; but I know others who find the best way to refocus on the meaning and purpose of our work is to go to an event. Just be a spectator where you’re not on duty, not responsible for anything. To observe the action and emotion and school/community spirit. To see a coach counsel a dejected player. To watch an official make a tough call with perfect mechanics and people skills.
The day-to-day fretting may not disappear, but it gets placed in a much better perspective. The long view.
Preserving A Place
July 27, 2013
During the summer weeks, "From the Director" will bring to you some of our favorite entries from previous years. Today's blog first appeared Sept. 18, 2012.
Nearly 20 years ago I spoke with a parents group at an elementary school. Most in attendance were parents of elementary students. Most were moms.
During our discussion, the mothers pleaded with me – that’s not too strong a word – to help develop policies that would preserve a place on high school teams for their children. “Just a jersey,” one mom said. “Just a spot on the team.”
These parents were almost sick with worry that if their sons and daughters did not play one sport year-round, starting now, they wouldn’t make the team in high school. And they believed that not making the team would doom their children to absenteeism, drug use, pregnancy, and every evil known to youth.
They saw the high school program becoming a program for only elite athletes, only the specialists, with no room for their kids who would meet the standards of eligibility but lack the necessary athletic experience to make the team because they didn’t belong to a private club, go to all the right camps, or make a certain travel team in the third grade.
Did these parents overstate the problem? Yes. But there’s some validity in their worries.
>Those moms gave me a goal, and later my own sons personalized that goal: to work for that generation of high school students and the next to preserve a place in our programs for all students, regardless of athletic ability, who meet all the essential standards of eligibility, want to participate in more than one school sport and activity and embody the spirit of being a student first in educational athletics.