Newcomer Wisdom
November 20, 2012
A group I work with in my spare time, the Refugee Development Center, sponsored a team in a local youth soccer league. Appropriately, the team’s nickname is “Newcomers.”
It took the team most of the season to score a goal; and it was in its final game of the season that the team earned its first victory.
After one game, I was enlisted to transport three players to their residences. All three were Napali. I used this time to ask their opinions about the education they were receiving in the local public school.
They had no objection to the content of the courses, but criticized the conduct of their classmates. They cited a lack of respect for teachers, and a lack of discipline. They had experienced the discipline of the stick in their homeland, and believed it would be helpful to classrooms in the US.
These young newcomers also noted that their instructional day in Nepal was almost two hours longer, plus they were in school a half-day on Saturdays.
From this conversation I was once again impressed that much of what has been done in attempts to improve public education has overlooked the obvious: stronger discipline and longer days. Most of what we do in US public education is the envy of the world. What people from other countries wonder about is the lack of discipline and time on task.
Empowering and supporting teachers’ discipline and increasing the length of the school day and year are not sexy solutions to what ails public education. They are just simpler answers mostly overlooked.
Sweating the Small Stuff - #1
May 29, 2018
I would prefer that the 51 organizations which make up the membership of the National Federation of State High School Associations would not waste another breath talking about the NFHS conducting national athletic events. But just about as frequently as U.S. presidential elections, the topic returns to NFHS meeting agendas.
About a third of NFHS member associations are somewhat in favor of national events, another third are strongly opposed, and a final third won’t offer an opinion until they are provided more details of what a national event would look like.
Most of this undecided group will reject anything that is in the nature of a national high school championship ... anything that would follow or extend seasons and diminish their own state high school championships. Most of this undecided group will reject anything involving team sports.
That has led to talk of a summertime track & field invitational event. Like dozens of other such events available to individual students without any time or expense for their schools.
Even then, there would be hours of debate about who would be invited and how, what specific track & field events would be contested, as well as when and where the event would be held. And who would pay. And what would be the fate of state associations’ existing policies which limit when, where and how much their member schools’ students may compete.
Even if the planners choose a path of least resistance for a national event, the devil will be found in the details.
While many will be busy sweating the small stuff, this association will focus on a more fundamental question: “How could the NFHS ever presume to conduct events that would cause some of its member high school associations’ schools and students and coaches to violate existing rules of their state associations?”