… bred by your systems. Fuck your systems.
So we can fund a bunch of activities that do nothing for those not talented in the arts?
You could replace sports with math or history and the statements would be just as valid. That doesn’t mean math or history is bad.
Marc
You can certainly learn the same positive traits in activities outside of sports. However, the OP didn’t say nothing valuable came out of the school paper or putting on a play. Sports was specifically mentioned and that’s what I addressed.
The school is responsible for educating students and, in my opinion, teaching them how to think for themselves. There’s nothing wrong with them teaching nutrition and physical fitness though if someone doesn’t want to join a sports team they shouldn’t have to. Ideally every student would be involved in the arts and sports.
Marc
Wow. Growing up, I used to only think that the 'Jock Versus Academic/Artistically inclined" thing was just something they used on Sitcoms, or after school specials. I really didn’t believe it really happened that much in real life. But this thread, and some others like it that pop up from time to time, make me see that it does happen. And it makes me think that when I have kids, I want to move back to South Dakota and put my kids in a district with fewer than 500 students (and I’m talking K-12).
Honestly, I don’t know that I knew many, if any, kids growing up who felt like this. I started school in a class of 26. 13 years later, I graduted in a class of 27. There was a core group of 17 of us that went through the whole thing together, and the others fit in pretty damn well when they showed up, too. breaking up into little groups based on what sport you played or what group you were in didn’t really work, becausing seeing the same 2 people day after day would get pretty old.
Yes, I was a varsity football player, 9-12 grade. I also played baritone in marching, pep, and concert band. I did two years in the choir. I was an FFA officer for four years, president of the chapter my last two. Student council, class officer, yearbook editor, school paper (OK, photocopied monthly newsletter), honor society, and co-salutatorian at graduation. And you know what? I was that much more involved than 50% of my classmates.
I don’t know. We knew each other for a long time (in a lot of cases, we played with each other before we started school). A lot of teachers we had previously taught my classmates’ parents. It was a community, and I think that a lot of kids who wouldn’t have done much more than take up space in a larger school got involved because it was expected that they do something. They didn’t have to do it well, they just needed to try. All sports had no-cut policies. You might not get a lot of playing time, but you were part of the team, and you contributed to the effort. In band, most didn’t get to play solos, but they worked to make the group sound good. We would take one day in the spring, and spend the day cleaning up the grounds, painting curbs around the school and in town, and repairing damage that might occur over the winter.
I guess I’m saying that, in my mind, it’s not a question of athletics versus arts versus academics, or at least it doesn’t have to be. It’s a question of building a community, and taking pride in how it is perceived. We were one big community, even more so when they built an addition and moved the elementary school under the same roof as the junior high and high school. This has really moved off topic, I guess, but I just want to post it as an example of how it works in some school systems. And this wasn’t just where I went, this happened across the state, at countless small schools.
Really? Nobody who partook in any of those activities ever picked on another student or got a favor from a teacher? That is a remarkably monolithic high school you had there. See, I was a member of several groups, too- sports and academic- and I wouldn’t dream of making sweeping pronouncements like that about any of those groups. Well, actually, I can say with some authority that none of us beat anyone up during our meetings. But this dichotomy you’re so desperately trying to construct just isn’t there. It’s not like I had to get shots of estrogen just to calm my sports-fueled rage enough to sit in on a Latin Club meeting.
Really, do you expect anyone to believe that nobody ever made fun of anyone else in all your groups? Considering the way you talk about everyone who was a better athlete than you, that’s hard to imagine. But that’s not unexpected, because high schoolers are nasty people. Hell, just within our twelve person yearbook staff, there were two opposing factions of girls who sniped about each other as soon as they were apart. Pretty vicious stuff, too. Came to (sort of) blows at one point. And here’s the kicker- there was no sporting equipment in sight! That’s the way it goes when you have raging hormones piloting massive stockpiles of insecurity. People are people. Some are very hurtful. Why is it that you insist on such absolutes?
I must admit I’m not sure what you mean. Aren’t all sports inherently a competition? Was your swim team out to make sure the other teams had a good time? Anyway, I don’t think it really necessary that you keep insulting hypothetical sports figures. The phantom “muscleheads” and “worthless coaches” aren’t here to defend themselves, so give it a rest. Unless you’re talking about everyone who was involved with sports, in which case you might as well come right out and say it. I hate to use the S word (I’ll take “swords” for $500, Alex), but the strawman act is getting wearying.
This is funny. I notice you brought up the Olympics. I seem to recall a few months ago, you said all sports were meaningless, and I brought up the Olympics. Good to see. Slowly the tide is turning.
Again with “those jocks.” Listen. I was the captain of a very competitive basketball team. I earned my academic scholarship and my #2 class ranking (damn you Katy Keenan). Stop with the vague references to “them,” because I’m one of them, and I’m not who you say I am.
Right. You done?
Well, define pointless. I mean, I think I learned a great deal through sports- how to handle success, how to come to terms with failure, the importance of faith in your fellow man, yada yada yada.
That’s immaterial, though, I guess, because those who dislike sports will ignore my anecdotal evidence. What I still don’t understand is this: if the kids want to play the damn games, what’s the justification for stopping them? They’re having FUN. There it is, ladies and gentlemen, the magic word. The kids are having fun. That’s not good enough? We’re going to tell them, no, Bobby, you aren’t enjoying yourself, you’re being pressured into conflict. And then we’re going to tell them what they really enjoy- they enjoy music and painting. Put that ball away, Susie, you hate it. You’re wrong to be enjoying physical activity.
If the kids are enjoying their sports (and here I am to tell you that I did) isn’t that pretty much the end of the debate?
Also, does anybody have a cite for all these funds that are pouring into athletics? Can I see an example or two wherein a school was forsaking textbooks in favor of an athletic program?
And this is a bad thing because…? School is competition. Life is competition. Breeding is competition. Big deal. You will find that getting your PhD is a competition, as is trying to get a job afterwards.
And before someone jumps to accuse me of things they know nothing about, let me volunteer the information that i: was a Varsity letterman in high school in swimming and water polo, was active in drama, and as a teacher I coach a nationally-competitive Debate Team. So I have seen it from both sides, and assholes are assholes wherever they are. It is not exclusive to sports, nor do sports intentionally promote such behavior. You would be better served losing the chip on your shoulder and seeing the real world, not the one you have created inside your head.
There’s no justifation to stop anyone. All I want (and I suspect this is true for many others) is to not suck in the clutzy ones that want no part of it.
What is this melodrama?
So some kids enjoy the competition of sports, and get something out of it. Bully for them. I, for one, have no desire to deprive them of it. All I would have liked would have been to take a pass on it. I learned competition and teamwork through more creative avenues. I didn’t want, nor need, to learn “competition” through PE. (For one thing, I didn’t learn it there. I learned that sports made people mean, bullying and petty.) But I was forced to participate anyway.
And, need I repeat, that while cattiness and bullying happened in other classes, there was a special brand of torture in the PE classes. If I screwed up in another class I might have gotten teased, but I was not berated and constantly humiliated for “letting down the team.” No matter how you slice it, and no matter how often you cite that bullying happens in all classes (and it does, it does), there’s a special brand of it happening in PE. The “you let down the team” thing and the fact that the teacher or coach is often out of earshot and an atmosphere of sports being somehow more special sometimes (though I won’t say always) makes PE more torturous than other classes.
I’m not trying to say that school sports shouldn’t exist. I’m just saying that it can be really, really, really awful for some of us, and that problem should be addressed. If it is not addressed and things remain the way that they are now, then what good is coming from sports? For some of you, some good is coming from it, but for many others, it’s fricking TORMENT. I think the torment needs to end, real quick. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
No way should things remain the way they are now. Better to have no sports than to let things remain the way they are now. No school should force this level of torment on so many of its students, just because it sometimes helps others.
Well, yosemite, considering that I quoted Zagadka and spectrum, in that post, and not you, I have to say, what? I agreed with you already that gym teachers in particular should take care to keep bullying from going on. Gym class is a hotspot for that kind of stuff. I agree.
Other than that, and excuse me for being abrupt, what are you talking about? Where did you get the impression that I was attributing any of those ideas to you? spectrum was tellling me how the evil football players ruined school. Since spectrum wasn’t on the football team, the only way to resolve that problem would be to have no football team, right? Since football breeds bullying, and bullying reached spectrum, football has to go. That’s clearly what spectrum wants. I was addressing that, not you.
All the rough kids at my high school were in the shop classes. They should have cancelled them and solved the smoking problem.
I don’t want football to go. I want football to be treated the same way drama, newspaper or any other activity is treated: based upon its merits. Football is a problem because we have PEP rallies for them (skipped everyone of them, thankfully – f— anyone and everyone who thinks “school spirit” is important), we treat the jocks like gods, we laud them for doing what amounts to a meaningless thing (ooh, he can THROW A BALL! WOW!), we treat them like they’re better than the kids out there doing other activities, and they take that to heart.
If football weren’t treated like something special, it would cut down on a lot of bullying.
I’ll accept that we’ll never get organized sports out of schools (which is too bad, because I think the European system works better – saves schools money and promotes greater community unity to boot), but for the safety and mental health of the good kids who aren’t ever going to be able to throw a ball like some sort of talented monkey, we should cut out the adulation of jocks. It’s dangerous and downright wrong to laud so highly something so worthless.
Not that I ever saw. We were small groups. Mostly all friends, and there was the general razzing that goes on amongst friends, but not bullying. And you never saw members of the swim team get special consideration for extra time on school work “'cause I got practice!” You didn’t get to wear arrogant little jackets for being the editor of the paper, like you did for being the captain of the football team. And we never had pep rallies for the film club.
Not really. First of all, it’s mainly the “team sports” which are potentially very evil and cause the denigration of the kid who “blows it for the WHOLE team!” That sort of crap should never be thrust on kids based upon a meaningless activity that one needs a preordained amount of skill to excel at.
We were racing a clock. It doesn’t matter what the person in the lane next to you is doing. In swimming, your enemy is the clock. Nothing you can do can alter how fast your counterpart is swimming, in truth you can’t even tell where they are. Your competing with the clock, not a human.
And aside from medleys, it’s not a “team” sport, either. I refused to do medleys.
I see no indication of that. You seem to look down on those who don’t like sports. You defend the meaningless talent of throwing a ball as if it’s something worth recognizing. You seem very much to me like the trash who made school miserable for those of us who didn’t waste our afternoons on the football field.
Nothing. Let them play. But don’t make other kids play. And don’t TREAT THEM LIKE LITTLE GODS FOR DOING SOMETHING SO POINTLESS.
Oh, and offer a full compliment of creative, journalistic, artistic and musical activities for the kids more interested in intellect than brute brawn. If you have sports, you should be legally required to have a full compliment of artistic and other creative endeavors available as well. If you don’t have them, you shouldn’t be allowed to have sports.
It’s not sports that I hate, per se, it’s the preferential treatment given to something so undeserving.
Look right here: you only care about the kids who like sports. You make no mention of the kids who are brutalized and traumatized by sports. Because jocks like you simply don’t care about them.
Out of earshot? To hell with that: I’ve seen coaches berate kids for “letting down the team.” Those men should be fired. Instantly.
You already have most of them in sports. Sports and arts/music/journalism cover pretty much everyone. You won’t find an activity for every kid with extremely esoteric interests, but by offering a full raft of “creative” programs as a counterweight to sports should be a legal necessity: there should not be one without the other.
Unless you want to argue that football is somehow more important than journalism, to use an example. Because, as we all know, Roger Staubach’s role in bringing down the Nixon White House is legendary…
Okay! 
I didn’t think you were getting me mixed up with spectrum. I just had more ramblings I needed to get out . . .
Indeed they should.
And, while I don’t feel as adamantly about sports as you do (while throwing a ball may be technically “worthless” in some ways, it has value to some people and I can acknowledge that), you do make a point about the “arrogant little jackets” that the athletes got to wear. There is no doubt, a different dynamic was often going on with students who excelled in sports, and also in the treatment of the sports programs themselves.
Hmm. And you say you were picked on in school, spectrum? I can’t imagine why the football team didn’t take to being called scum and trash, you snide little… ahh, it’s GD.
Take it to the Pit or shut up. That’s all I have to say at this point.
Keep in mind that neither your nor my experience is universal. Not every school treated football players like gods.
How? I wasn’t aware that football players were the primary cause of bullying in schools.
How does it promote greater community unity?
Marc
You could get a jacket for anything at my school. Band, orchestra, drama, cheerleading, etc.
That’s one way of looking at it I guess. Dress it up all you want but swimmers and runners are still in competetion. Otherwise why keep time?
You harbor an irrational hatred of sports and especially those who played football.
What a ridiculous statement. You might as well say there are kids brutalized and traumatized by math or music class. To blame bad people on sports in general is silly.
Marc
Do they? I don’t remember almost everyone in my school being involved in drama, band, orchestra, or the school paper.
I’m not going to argue that other programs shouldn’t be funded. I’m a big fan of the arts and I’m a big fan of athletics. Personally I think every student should be involved in both while they attend school not one or the other.
Marc
You answered your own question, within the same post . 
I can’t speak for spectrum, but some of the more “solitary” sports (like golf, swimming or running) didn’t necessarily have that element of “you let down the team” that other sports did. I could suck at golf, for instance, and no one else gave a rat’s ass, because it didn’t hurt their score. They might tease me about my bad score (more often they chuckled, and I along with them), but they didn’t get mad at me and yell at me for sucking at golf. My suckiness had nothing to do with them and didn’t hurt the “team.”
That, I think, is the difference between these different so-called competetive sports. I think many people can deal with sucking compared to everyone else (or at least tolerate it better) as long as they don’t have the added burden of being yelled at for bringing the whole team down, or losing the whole team a game, or a point, or whatever. Some school sports had this extra potential for misery ("you let down the team!") while others didn’t. Plain and simple.