That bitch.
Depending on how ineffective/toxic the parents in question are, possibly so. What the Uber-Mommy Clique that runs off people like Moejoe and Doreen and WhyNot is saying with their actions is that if you can’t spare 10 hours and $100 a week to helping with fundraisers and activities and such, you shouldn’t bother donating that $20 and 2 hours you do have available on occasion. And the notion that every little bit doesn’t count, that if you can’t go balls to the wall and be super-awesome you shouldn’t even bother to try at all…that’s quite possibly the most destructive notion you can ever embed in somebody’s head, especially if that somebody is a child.
It’s that kind of thinking that keeps somebody from hopping on a treadmill for 20 minutes a week because they can’t commit to 30 minutes 3 times a week and will never be a size six anyway, from picking up a musical instrument because they can’t practice every day and will never be good enough to play in public anyway, from turning on a stove because they can’t make an entire meal from scratch out of local organic heirloom ingredients, from picking up a paintbrush or needle or hot glue gun and trying to make something they’ve always wanted to be able to make because they’ll never be Martha Stewart. In other words, it keeps them from improving and enriching their lives because they’re scared of not being very good at something or other.
I’d have to argue that a kid would absolutely be better off with fewer parties and field trips and older equipment if it meant they didn’t pick up that mind set.
No, I’d feel better if they only sent out invites and notices when they need the help.
[QUOTE=WhyNot]
Just stop sending home notes begging for me to come in and help out if my help isn’t really required or welcomed.
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Oh so I have to make sure to offer you a certain minimal amount of information to prevent you from jumping to unwarranted conclusions based on a single data point? Isn’t that the actual problem with the OP? Maybe those kids’ patents aren’t sufficiently involved with their lives, but why jump to that conclusion based solely on a single football game?
This is very true in my neighborhood.school. Many, many people will show up for soccer games and the soccer program is fully funded by donations, concession stand sales, etc. It doesn’t take so much as an extra penny that could be used for academic and vocational programs (you know actually learning activities). Baseball is less of a big deal, but at least it’s not leeching money like the football program. We’re in Texas by the way and our dream is to scrap the the football program. It’s a long shot, but everybody one needs positive goals.
This debate (?) grows stranger with each post. No fans of high school athletics advocates cutting funding or decrying support for science fairs, debate team, speech, art, chess, or any other intellectual pursuit. No athletic team supporter has complained that science fair funding should be channelled to football. Each student participating in athletic programs has an extra incentive to keep his or her grades up. There are numerous athletic scholarships available that will guarantee a college education no matter the athlete’s income. We have an obesity problem in this country; participants in athletic programs are getting significant amounts of exercise. Prove to me that any of this exists at the expense of academics.
I think the argument is, what added utility is gained by purchasing a custom painted semi-trailer, that did not exist in the program already? Was that money well-spent? What about the single-use gymnasium? Is having a training facility for the exclusive use of .01% of the school helping kids learn teamwork? Or are they learning that pleasing the right people gets you cushy favors and some are more worthy than others?
But saying that the situation at pullin’s local high school is cukoo for cocoa puffs is not the same thing as saying there’s no merit in football programs, or sports programs in general. There’s lots of merit in them, especially when minimum grades are required. That doesn’t mean it isn’t possible for a sports program to circle back and become destructive to the community and the school.
Sports are just not an inherent good nor an inherent evil. it depends what’s done with them.
The added utility is twofold. The current and future kids participating in the program have an added tool and incentive, and the boosters get to spend their money in a manner that pleases them.
Ok. And do you believe it is possible that extravagant focus on one very sucessful program, can have a downside?
To elaborate, IMHO a problem exists wherever too much focus is placed on one extracurricular activity, to the point where the school, students, and parents become identified with it to the exclusion of other things. At that point, there is almost limitless opportunity for abuse of power. At my high school, the issue arose, not in the context of football, but in the context of the Intel (nee Westinghouse) Science Talent Search, a national science fair competition requiring original research and offering prize money up to $100,000. My high school regularly fielded more finalists than any other U.S. state.
Over a period of more than a decade, the program advisor abused his position to extract sexual favors from female students who were required to be in his advising group to participate. He would threaten them with exclusion from the program if they said anything. Every girl in the school knew not to be alone with Mr. X, but no one did shit, even after a complaint to the Board of Ed, which the principle chose to ignore. Mr. X was busted for sexual touching of a 15 year old female student a few years after I graduated.
That’s fucked up. No program should be so important to a school’s identity that something like that just gets ignored because people would rather not know. Ultimately it is NOT to the benefit of the school or the students to have so much identification with one program.
I don’t know whether this was what Sateryn was getting at, but this is how I see it: If on the one hand you have a public school that is so devoid of resources that it is affecting students’ ability to get the basic education and it is forcing teachers to live on poverty-level wages, and on the other hand you have a school that is so flush with resources that it can afford blatantly unnecessary luxuries like a custom semi-tractor trailer and a football-only stadium, yes, that does make me feel kind of ill. I understand that those parents are volunteering their own resources for their own chosen purposes, but the fact that two public schools can have such an unbalanced access to resources is nauseating.
Hello Again, I’m truly sorry that students were harmed by an authority figure, but that data point is hardly a reason to argue for limiting contributions to extracurricular activities.
The OP’s point is that parents in a certain community appear to have little interest in their kids’ activities. My point is that extracurricular activities are exactly that: extra. And beneficial to the kids who participate, and harmless to those who don’t.
I agree with your basic point: extracurrics are, indeed extra and usually beneficial to participants. Where we differ is that I think it is very easy for too much focus on one particular program to become harmful. The issue is not that an authority figure harmed a student - unfortunately, that is going to happen because teachers are human and not perfect – the problem it’s that this teacher harmed many students over a period of years and everyone looked the other way specifically because of this persons involvement with, and enormous success in, one specific very high status extracurricular program.
Actually, as far as I can tell, the point of the OP is that the pullin’ can’t imagine a world in which parents care about their children and yet don’t allow their lives to revolve around high school football.
To answer the first part of your question, yes. If you’re going to engage people in a conversation via a computer BBS don’t be surprised when you receive replies based on what you wrote. You could have easily said, “my parents stopped going to my concerts but…” You didn’t do this. Instead you simply said they stopped going once you could drive yourself. Based on the information you initially provided my conclusion was hardly unwarranted.
I haven’t forgotten the fiasco at Penn State, Boy Scouts, Catholics, etc. While it’s true that offenders often seek out opportunities to be near kids, it does not follow that abuse of kids is a side effect of heavily funded programs.
It’s important to remember that kids who belong to generous boosters do graduate, and interest in funding wanes or is transferred to other channels. Schools notorious for successful programs attract students; a local public high school with a Macy’s Parade quality band turns away a few stusdents each year. Another nearby school has such a successful basketball record that families with talented kids move to that district. Think of these activities as incentives. Perks. Similar to optional medical benefits, gym memberships, stock offers in the workforce. Doesn’t change the job duties, doesn’t harm those who opt out, but enhances the lives of those who do.
And the unbalance could just perpetuate the problem. If I went to a school with crappy facilities and my team had to meet up against the school with the semi-trailer truck for its drill team and a band in nice shiny uniforms, I probably wouldn’t be too hopped up on school spirit. Which means I wouldn’t care if my parents didn’t come cheer me on. I wouldn’t care that there were only 19 people in the stands to witness us get clobbered.
I don’t know how to rectify this situation, though. As a kid, I attended the district’s best high school. But it was also a city school, poorer than most schools it competed against in various meet-ups. So I’ve been on both sides of the superior/inferior coin.
A lot of public districts rely on income from athletics to fund other extracurricular activities, either directly or indirectly. For example, the debate team and parents may run the concession stand one night in exchange for a cut of the sales, which may be enough to cover the cost of an out-of-town speech tournament. And in fundraising, a dollar raised that was spent by a willing person is a dollar that doesn’t have to be begged for later.
It’s sad that the shenanigans you described went down, but that’s the wrong approach. If you had a good enough situation, you could have a dozen programs offering as much utility to the students as the one you described.
The solution to grown men who abuse their authority to sexually impose on young girls is for:
- potential victims to be taught to come forward to the police if this hit happens
– the real police, not the principal, not mall security, and not the campus police - the police to actually act on credible complaints
It is certainly NOT to try to avoid having people in positions of authority, or positions of great authority.
If an individual is vulnerable, it only takes a tiny amount of authority for that to be abused.
Heck, for many people outside the US, it’s weird whether it’s football or not - and the idea of having an inter-school HS sports competition in the middle of the work day? Hell to the nay, at that time the kids are supposed to be in class, not traveling between schools!
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I think this was a game at 7 p.m. on Friday, which is not time in which students are usually in class.
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The point that some people are making is that for poor people, especially, even 7 p.m. on a Friday might be during work hours. There isn’t any time of day in the United States that isn’t somebody’s work hour.