50th Edition
I’ve always felt that in sports the toughest thing to do is to reverse a momentum swing once it has happened. Momentum swings are inevitable in virtually every competitive team sport contest, and more often than not, they determine the outcome of the game. Throughout my coaching career, now approaching three decades, I’ve studied momentum swings, the catalysts that spark them, and how to anticipate when they might happen. I have yet to figure out how to reverse them once they occur.
I’m getting the sense that a momentum switch in education is happening before our eyes. The signs have been around for a long time that the quality of our education system, particularly K-12 public schools, has deteriorated. Moreover, in recent years, people are beginning to challenge the value and return on investment of higher education. There is a long list of issues that remain problematic and unresolved, including: underpaid teachers, deteriorating test scores, soaring costs for college tuition, the politicization of curriculum and education philosophy, cancellation of free speech, and as I have written about before, the enormous, wasted opportunity to redirect the role of athletics within the overall education experience in middle school and high school. There are certainly many other problems that should be addressed as well.
If we look back at the state of education in a few years, we may say that what happened at the Ivy league schools proved to be the catalyst for change. Sounds plausible, but it’s not the point. The point is that more and more people are rethinking the state of education at all levels. But where will this take us? What ultimate changes will be implemented? These are the critical questions. In my view, the biggest danger in all this is that we will complain about education, write about it, talk about it, then rely on the government to fix it. That approach, I fear, is doomed to fail. We have to approach this from the bottom up. One school at a time. Here’s my Six Pillar Plan to do just that –
Pillar Number One:
Make personal integrity the foundation post of everything you do at the school. Without integrity what good is knowledge? Do you have any idea how many students cheat in high school? We should know that, shouldn’t we? What could possibly be more important than teaching students the importance of living a life of integrity? Are we doing that effectively?
Pillar Number Two:
Challenge each student to be the person God created them to be. Don’t let the middle go largely unchallenged by focusing too much on the exceptional, at either end. That happens too often in schools. The “average” students often underachieve because no one has inspired them to dream big, and they aren’t disruptive enough to warrant extra attention. How sad it is to lead an uninspired life.
Pillar Number Three:
Integrate a properly focused athletic program throughout the school. Very high participation rates and an unwavering commitment to building character should be the focal point. Too often today the focus is on winning at all costs, which produces low participation rates, and involves constant pressure to deemphasize character development. Coaches are massively undertrained when it comes to teaching life lessons in the moment and developing character.
Pillar Number Four:
Focus on reading, especially in elementary education. It is totally unacceptable that so many kids can’t read at grade level in our public schools today. Oral and written communication skills are also below where they should be.
Pillar Number Five:
Teach civics and world history. If this is still being done, surely we can do it more effectively. There is much to learn from our past, the great things we have accomplished as well as the mistakes we have made.
So, what is missing in this grand plan to improve education? Two obvious things. First, none of the five pillars involve the federal government in any way. This is a bottom-up approach, which may take more time, but in the long run it will be significantly more successful. Second, we have to figure out how to fund all this. High participation rates in athletics will require more extensive facilities than currently exist at most public schools. We have the wealth in our country to build adequate athletic facilities, but so far, we haven’t realized the value of athletics as the most powerful and effective way to build character in young people. And character, more than anything else matters the most. If we ever figure that out, perhaps there will be a momentum swing in terms of what we value the most in our country. That would be truly amazing, for our students and communities, and over time, for us all.
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Michael Kayes
*These views are my personal opinions and are not the viewpoints of any company or organization.