GUEST BLOG: Kathleen Spring Second Grade Teacher on Learning

Teachers know that the best learning occurs when everyone is actively engaged in rigorous content that is accessible to all of them.  Good teachers know how to make that happen.  A teacher does not only teach math to the best math students.  There are also times when a student learns better from another student.  Kids have ways of talking to other kids that make it more understandable and the material less intimidating. 

In a classroom, there are all different types of learners with strengths and weaknesses.  Educators have a clear knowledge of their students and how to use a student’s strengths to develop their weaknesses.  For example, a student might be strong in math but not in interpersonal skills.  Therefore, a teacher could pair that student with a group of highly interpersonal but weaker math students and have them work through problems together.  Anyone who has ever had to teach something knows that you learn it even better when you have to teach it.  All in the group benefit. 

True educators find out what the strengths are in each student and make sure that those strengths are brought to light and utilized to benefit everyone.  Jonny might need help from Susie in spelling, but then he teaches her how to record her story on the computer the next day. 

It seems to me the same would hold true on an athletic team.  Coaches are teachers of a sport and the skills that go along with that sport.  Coaches know the strengths and weaknesses of their players.  Yet in my experience many coaches spend more time with the players with more skills then less skills.  I have seen this divide teams on many occasions when both my children played “elite” sports. 

Then people are surprised when they see teams and players in a dysfunctional setting.  We try to avoid this everyday in the classroom. 

Kathleen Spring

Second grade special education teacher, 15 years classroom experience

Myth #2 Playing one sport year round helps you get a scholaraship

Myth #2 A child should play one sport year round to get the athletic scholarship.

One sport year round is needed to make your child a better athlete, really? Let’s take a look at the reasons this is happening. There are many many children playing one sport year round. It certainly is a paradigm that has taken hold and grown over the last thirty years.  More and more youth sports organizations, including USA Soccer, adhere to this policy of having children commit to this level of participation. They actually ask for the family to submit a calendar of their “outside” activities and make sure that the parents know that their child, if he or she does not want to fall behind, needs to make this commitment to a year round “training” program. It is also inferred by some of these coaches that failure to make this level of commitment will cause the child to be benched. Interestingly though, it is never the star player that receives this sort of demand. Excuses are commonly made for this player.

“Mandatory” camps are held during the “off” season. While not being exactly mandatory, it is made clear you better attend if you want to keep your spot. Families are told that the team must stay together and play together if they want to win.  It becomes a partnership with the parents and the children, a “lifestyle” I am told.

I would much rather be home, with a home cooked meal. My family eats together 6 times a week and I am confident it is a major reason we are such a close knit family. Plus it would save a lot of money.

 Let's insert an interesting fact hare. ALMOST all these teams and organizations speak this mantra and yet many of them don’t win as much as they would lead you to believe with the importance they put on winning. Oh sure if you play enough games, go to enough tournaments you will eventually win or get “close,” thus providing the impetus to play fewer kids and to go out and recruit better players.

Few parents realize when this is happening that their child may be losing playing time to the new kid. AND this new kid, the new “chosen one” comes in and is given  ‘cart blanch” and special treatment by the coach on many occasions, thus undermining the team concept and the mantra that we must stick together and play together.

Sometimes I hear that the parents allow this because the children really “love” the sport and the parents are letting their children “take this as far as they can.” ( I LOVE ice cream. But I can’t eat it every day, it’s not healthy for me.) Other times I hear that the “pros” do it this way so should I. The   athletic scholarship mantra is repeated where this child got a scholarship playing one sport year round. My kid is as good or close so why not, more is better. BUT IS IT?

Let’s look at the science, psychology and data.

First there are two to eight times more injuries for those who play one sport year round. Health, according to Dr. James Andrews considered being the TOP Orthopeadic sports surgeon in the country says the most important thing for an athlete’s success at each level, is their health. Next, children change their mind all the time. So having them do something, anything year round, is against their nature and will begin to wear on them and they won’t continue to grow and benefit. It’s called the law of diminishing returns. That may initially want to play the sport year round. They may even enjoy it. But soon, it will wear on them. They are kids, and kids want to do different things. They will continue on to please their parents and avoid the stigma of quitting, but then injurious start to pop up and their bodies and minds tell them that they need rest and soon you have a child not having any fun.

Lastly the drive for athletic scholarships or a pro career is not dependent on one sport year round according to professional teams. The Minnesota twins look for multi sport athletes. Their top prospect, Byron Buxton, and the #1 prospect in ALL of minor league baseball was a basketball star in high school also. Three out of the four quarterbacks in this 2013 AFC and NFC championship game were drafted by MLB teams. And Peyton Manning, the one quarterback who wasn’t drafted, played shortstop in high school through his senior year and continued to play baseball in the summer. Ryan Callahan, captain of the New York Rangers played soccer growing up and advocates time away from hockey in an interview with me at frozenshorts.com. Brian Gionta, captain of the Montreal Canadiens takes three months off from skating after every season. See his interview also, at frozenshorts.com.

 Absence does make the heart grow fonder. Abby Wambach, considered to be the top female soccer player in the world, was a high school basketball star.

Besides, doing something year round for 20 hours a week is considered a job.

5 Myths about playing “ELITE” travel youth sports:Part1

5 Myths about playing “ELITE” travel youth sports:

1.     Because you pay a lot of money your child’s athletic ability has a quantitative value. Oh boy! I have heard over and over people brag about how much money they have spent on their child’s youth sports experience. I have heard parents brag/complain about how whipped they are from the brutal schedule their child has in youth sports. Parents bragging about their child’s Orthopeadic surgeon of personal trainer. I have heard parents say “they got cut” from a team “My son signed his first contract to play junior hockey.   (Even though they paid $10,000 to play on that team.  I have seen children go play on an elite academy team with their families paying thousands of dollars and bragging about it only to hear that they regretted the decision.

 There is no correlation to the money you spend on your child’s athletic “elite” travel team and their ability to play at a higher level. You can’t buy talent. If this was true, how do poor kids reach their athletic peak? Think of this example. Your child has a cold. You take her to the pediatrician and they give a prescription for some medicine. You are done. You are not sent to a specialist and pay more money do you? You go to a specialist to get special results. What if this is not a special situation? Then wouldn’t you get frustrated?

Over and over again we hear the disappointment in the end game of this monetary path. The money spent far outweighs the money the families receive in scholarship. There is a tangible hangover to this paradigm. We see it every day.

 On our website frozenshorts.com we have a form to fill out that will tell you what it cost per hour for your child to play elite travel sports for a weekend.

The New Blowout Mentality

The New Blowout Mentality

Over the course of the last five years where I have attended over 500 high school, and youth sports games and practices and a disturbing trend has emerged. Teams, coaches, parents, and players, have gone far away from sportsmanship and fair competition to clobbering an opponent.

 In a bizarre way it seemed, in most of these games, that there is little if any pleasure derived from these victories or defeats. There seems to mostly angst for the victorious team.

On many occasions I have stood near the exit where players, coaches and referees leave the playing field or court. I have heard some of the most incredible comments emanating from the participants in the days contest.

“They sucked what a waste of time.”  “We could have beaten them by more if we wanted.” “”The officials lost control of the game.” “The other coach didn’t have his team under control.” “They sucked, that is why they were so dirty.”

 When I asked a coach why he didn’t substitute early his response was chilling “What did the other team came back and made it close?

What? Wait a minute. Isn’t the whole point of playing a game with an opponent, the competition? Isn’t having fun and learning about positive pressure a direct result of this fair and even competition? Shouldn’t we as coaches strive to keep the games closer when blowouts occur?

Nothing good happens on either side of the ball when blowouts occur. Injuries can come about as the team that is losing tries to enact revenge for being beaten up. Kids sitting on the bench needlessly lose interest and eventually, for 70% of hem, quit playing sports.

Isn’t there some kind of we are all in this together, and this is only a game   missing in this paradigm that would bring reason and logic to the debate? How about some compassion and class?

 If you use Science, Psychology, and data, you will find that not only does neither team benefit from this keep winning, but in actuality, both teams lose. The winning team learns bad habits that are reinforced by scores.

 The losing team feels pounded needlessly and looks to enact some sort of retribution, during the game, or in the future. They may be on the other side with another team so they feel it is quite all right to run up the score.  Hey, it was done to me so I can do it to someone else.

Only a few times in all the games I went to and covered was there any indication of compassion towards the opponent. Hey, I am all for playing hard and trying to win in a team concept. But time after time, I saw starters padding their stats. Coaches,’ standing on the sidelines, purposely running up the score for their own ego and status, all the while allowing children on their team to sit and watch instead of getting to play.

 They were coaching their butts off with the game completely won, like it was the Super Bowl or the seventh game of the NBA playoffs. Parents complaining that their child didn’t get enough playing time or that the other team was so bad that they didn’t deserve to be on the field or court with their kids.

I watched the losing coaches refuse to put in their substitutes because they did not want to see their scores in the newspaper or on television the next day so lopsided. Maybe, their thought process was, if they kept their starters in longer they would keep the score closer at the expense of the team concept.

 Coaches yelling at the officials up 20 points with two minutes to go in the game because they saw a DI coach or Professional coach do the same. (NOTE: There is no connection between high school and youth sports with DI and the pros)

I mean really, what was accomplished during that game? Is this the example we want to set for our kids? Is the behavior we want modeled?

I watched parents complain to one another that, even with a big lead, their kid should not have been taken out. Other parents complained that their child only got a couple meaningless minutes at the end of the game and was embarrassed.

Why not sub early and often, keep it close, make it more fun and competitive?

It’s not about the coaches or the parents. It’s about the kids having fun, learning life lessons, and competing, fairly, and with sportsmanship.