I was going through the websites of our local papers looking for articles about academic excellence. There were some pleasant articles about student of the week and teacher of the week that told how they were helpful and courteous and did their work well. Some nice individual recognition.
But there were so many more articles about basketball games... boys and girls... and hockey and swimming and wrestling [which I personally like because I did that for 10 years]. And that's just high school....
I really didn't read about the competition between the high schools for academic excellence and number of college scholarships... couldn't find those articles... but they must be there, right? As the Yoopers say, "Yah, eh?"
We express concern when school districts have bad MEAP scores or SAT scores are just not high enough. That's news for about a couple of days. But, hey, what's to get excited about academic excellence? Basketball is what gets the blood moving! Or football... or hockey.
I like sports as much as the next guy, but I have to tell you that those awards for being National Merit Scholars and marching band letters for my older sons meant at least as much to me as the football letters my youngest son got... because they were part of achieving academic excellence. I don't mean to imply that participating in sports is less worthy than marching band or debate club. What I do mean to say is that the attention given to sports versus academic activities (marching band is part of music education which is part of the academic curriculum in my mind), is lopsided. And the effect is lopsided.
The children that need to focus most on academic excellence are the ones drawn to the spotlight of sports. The high school to NBA stars are the role models for those who need Condoleeza Rice as one (political leanings aside).
Oh, that's just hyperbole!
Really? Then just go to the next graduation ceremony at U. M. or M.S.U. or E.M.U. or Wayne State and look at who is getting the Ph.Ds. And then explain again how the U.S. will be moving to a new, non-manufacturing, intellectual-capital economy... and those who would have taken those manufacturing jobs will now be researchers.
