I was reading a recent Newsweek article in my thinking room the other day and there was a quote about Washington, that leaders from both parties are terrified to ask America to make short term sacrifices in exchange for long term benefits. Got me thinking.....
I feel the same way about how the paradigm of school sports has evolved. Schools should be focussing on teaching our kids. Teaching them facts, teaching them theories, teaching them problem solving, teaching them critical thinking, teaching them to write and speak coherently.
Not Northwestern vs. Irmo (oops.....IRMO).
I love HS sports (and MS sports!!!). Actually, I love sports period. However, I feel that culturally we've crossed a threshold here recently......and if we're going to be successful we need to pick and choose how we spend/invest. Our education dollars need to go to education, not sports. Teachers....not coaches. Libraries and IT facilities.....not stadiums and gyms. While I understand the value and joy of sport, I feel we risk diluting our focus and our resources with school sports in general.
Thoughts like this sound crazy....but I'm unaware of schools in other countries offering a vast array of sports and spending the kind of money we do on school sports. The Japanese, Chinese, and Indians are most certainly not.
Will we run from short term sacrifice? Probably.
