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The Student Effect
January 7, 2014
The key to assuring an activity is educational is to consider the effect on the student of every decision made. For example, what is the effect on a student who ...
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gets cut from the team?
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never gets in a game?
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never experiences a win, or never a loss?
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frequently hears vulgarity or profanity?
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is taught how not to get caught breaking a rule?
If one student’s participation is at the expense of another student’s self-esteem, whether opponent or teammate, we can’t justify the program. It’s not consistent with the educational mission of schools.
If we ridicule those who fail, or if we lavish too much praise on those who achieve, we can’t justify the program. It’s not educational athletics.
If we direct or pressure students to specialize in only athletics or non-athletic activities, or in just one sport or activity, we can’t justify the program. It’s not educational.
If we miss or misuse the teachable moments of school sports – split seconds of time and circumstance in which to teach values like commitment, discipline, integrity, hard work and teamwork, we can’t justify the program. It’s not educational.
We assure the program is educational when we consider the effect on the student and when we seize the positive purposes of teachable moments that permeate the program.
None of this means we can’t have rules that, when violated, remove the privilege of participation. And none of this means we cannot have teams with both starters and substitutes, and contests that determine wins and losses. It means that there are objectives that go much deeper and outcomes that go much further.
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Sixth-Grade Status
August 12, 2016
Membership Resolutions for the Michigan High School Athletic Association for the 2016-17 school year are now due. This is an annual rite of summer for school boards and governing bodies, intended to be a time when those entities recommit to following all the rules, all the time.
A new wrinkle in the routine is the opportunity to include 6th-graders in middle school membership. Approximately two-thirds of member middle schools are doing so.
What is not known to us through the Membership Resolution process is how those 6th-graders will be involved – where the school will have separate 6th-grade teams and where 6th-graders will be part of teams for 7th- and/or 8th-graders.
Junior high/middle schools which join the MHSAA at the 6th-grade level may allow 6th-graders to participate with 7th- and 8th-graders in individual sports (e.g., bowling, cross country, track & field, swimming & diving, tennis and wrestling). With the approval of their middle school leagues, this may occur also in team sports.
The MHSAA’s Junior High/Middle School Committee will depart from other standing committees by meeting twice during 2016-17 and subsequent school years. Its full agenda will include a review of how 6th-graders are being accommodated by middle schools and their leagues.
All of this is under the over-arching goal to involve more students in school-sponsored sports at younger ages, and to capture their interests and meet their needs within the philosophies of educational athletics.