Disclaimer: This post is about 80% less cheerful than usual and I’m going to be stepping on some toes with this one…so let me clarify. I understand that there is merit to the Upward Sports program. I understand that it is a ministry that many of my friends and my friends’ children and grandchildren are involved in. I understand that it creates a healthy, stable, and safe environment for children to learn valuable social and athletic abilities and protects children from psychotic pee-wee coaches that want to win so bad, it hurts...literally. Yet, I do believe it is a metaphor for the current ideological shift in American society; I am not however saying it is the cause of this shift. (Also, I’d like to apologize in advance to people that know me well or who work with me that might be reading this. You can actually just quit reading, because I’m almost positive that you’ve been harangued about this at least once in the last 48 hours by yours truly. Just skip this and tool around on YouTube instead).
In just a few short days, I will be standing in front of a classroom of 20-30 complete strangers. The first day of class is always my least favorite because I feel vulnerable in front of a group of students I’ve never met before. No one wants to talk (including me) and so there are a lot of Ben Stein “Bueller? Bueller?” moments that make me cringe. But my least favorite moment on any first day of class is when I ask my students the following:
“What grade should you get if you do everything that is expected of you in this class?”
Every semester, without fail, I get the exact same answer: A resounding, “A!”
And every semester (at least for now) the answer is wrong. I have to explain that no, if a student does everything that is expected of them, they should get a C, which means average. And then I explain that if you go above and beyond 50% of the time, you deserve a B, and if you go above and beyond most or all of the time, you deserve an A. And I watch as some of my students mouth across the room or to themselves, “That’ s not fair!” And then I wonder why isn’t it fair? When I was in high school, it was fair. When I was in college, it was definitely fair. Why is it so hard for people to understand that if they want to be successful and get maximum credit, they have to work hard?
At an Upward Sports event, you will never see parents hitting each other in the parking lot over a first-down, missed goal, or free-throw gone awry. The competitive spirit never takes over to the point that kids don’t enjoy the game and all the players, no matter their skill level, get equal playing time. Practices and games are not supposed to last longer than an hour a week. It sounds like an athletic Utopian society where everyone walks away with a gold-ribbon and a Happy Meal. And that’s exactly what happens. In Upward Sports, there are no losers because no scores (if kept) are ever published; it messes with Upward Sports' “Every child is a WINNER!” philosophy.
I think students are bringing that “Every child is a WINNER!” philosophy into the classroom.
I'm not saying that all students aren't capable but this is problematic because schools still publish the scores (for now at least). They’re called grades. Schools use these scores/grades to rank students. Colleges and trade schools use these rankings to make their decisions about admissions. (Yes, I understand that colleges also use other qualifications like the character that is apparent in a prospective student based on their extra-curricular participation, some of which might be fueled by the environment they experienced in an Upward Sports program, but still). Colleges and the world don’t have the same “Every child is a WINNER!” philosophy so it seems unfair to instill this.
It’s not just my classroom where I see this philosophy. There is a strange (and slightly terrifying if you ask me) shift in American ideology that becomes more apparent every day. It seems like we are becoming people that want everything, but don’t want to work for it. Think about simple things, such as research. If you wanted to write a research paper twenty years ago, you went to the library and you searched through the card catalogue, an intricate system of drawers and cards that related to a single book somewhere in the library. Then, you walked through the stacks, found the books and carried them to a table. There, you sifted through the indexes (true story, a lot of my students don’t know what an index is) and searched for keywords that related to your topic and you decided which books would be the most helpful. From there, you made note cards and source cards and you sorted them out, by hand, in the order of your outline. When I explain this process to my students (the oldest of which were born in 1994 and have almost always had the internet), they look at me like I’m telling them about a murder I committed over the weekend. They are disgusted, confused, scared. (Then I tell them about party lines from way back in the day and they start to projectile vomit). Today, research means Googling something. Or, if they decided to actually use a book, they can go to the library’s website, search for keywords and titles there, request the book online, drive up to the window at the front of the library, and the books are handed to them. We are getting the same information as twenty years ago, we are just getting it faster and through doing half of the work.
Please don’t think I’m one of those Puritans that thinks the convenience of modern technology is the end of society. I don’t. I value how much quicker and easier processes like research have become, but we need to be aware of how these conveniences are changing our world views. Anytime something new comes into our lives, it’s important to reflect on how that force is affecting us, and modern means of communication through the internet and technology are pretty new. And they are definitely a force. All of the conveniences in our world today are contributing to this have your cake (but not bake it), and eat it too, without gaining any weight or having to digest it philosophy. Suddenly we are so familiar with omnipresent convenience, that we feel entitled to it. If you don’t believe me, go stand in a very long line at the 10 items or less check-out and count how many people look pissed off. Or wait in a drive-thru line for more than five minutes and see how you feel. Or pull into a Wal-Mart parking lot, and count how many abandoned carts there are. We want to experience the convenience of that shopping cart, but a lot of people can’t be bothered to push it back to the front of the store, or to the cart return that’s just twenty feet away. Or have any of the technology in your life stop working. We freak out.
It seems that by living in an environment where we’re able to get maximum results with minimum work (or a trophy for not winning a soccer game), we’ve started to believe that when we do actually have to work for something (or when we don’t get an A for not going above and beyond), that the world is unfair or is out to get us, the victims. So instead, to uphold “fairness,” banks and businesses that aren’t successful are bailed out when they fail. People are approved for loans to buy cars and houses that they can’t afford. Students are allowed to take tests over and over and over again when they clearly don’t know the material, because we cannot leave them behind. In most school systems, if the student can’t pass the exam, as long as they attempt it a certain number of times and have at least a D in the class, they are passed on without ever showing mastery of the material on a test. (Students are aware of this, so what motivates them to take the test seriously?) While these students aren’t given a trophy for not passing the test, this “Every child is a WINNER!” philosophy obviously exists in many realms of modern society. (If the world was truly like Upward Sports I would have myriad trophies for things like: being tall, getting into graduate school, math, being attracted to emotionally available men, keeping my mouth shut, and not being sarcastic. Obviously, the world doesn't work like an Upward Sports game).
I know I’m talking about two different things here: Upward Sports' “Every child is a WINNER” philosophy and our entitlement to convenience, but they are so interrelated. They both allow us maximum output (trophies) with minimum input (not having to play well). You can do mediocre work, and get praised for it. This creates something that’s called a fixed mindset in the educational world. A student is told that they are smart so many times, that when they come across a task that is difficult, they give up. They believe that they should be able to achieve the task without strain, because if they are challenged, that means they are weak or stupid. What would encourage someone to try harder or to aspire to be better (called a growth mindset) if they are given a trophy for being mediocre? Technology has made everything so simple, that when something requires innovation or more than ten seconds worth of thought, more and more people are starting to give up. And that’s bad.
It’s also a problem because this philosophy works against societal structures that are already in place, such as capitalism and taxation. With capitalism, there are definite losers and winners. In Upward Sports, the kid that has no hand-eye coordination gets the same trophy as the all-star athlete. But in capitalism, the rules are a little different. Companies with mediocre performance don’t exactly get trophies. Just ask the employees at Circuit City…or Skybus. And taxation is problematic, too. We want good roads, schools, law enforcement, and libraries, but we don’t want to pay taxes. Our deficit is over 14 trillion dollars right now (when I looked it up, I also had to look up how to read that number…it literally took me about 2 minutes to figure out how to put that number into words). That means that if the 300 millionish Americans split the bill, we would each pay about $45,000 a piece. And yes, I know that there are government programs that a lot of people don’t support, and there are so many programs that need to be cut, so we pay our taxes resentfully. But even now when our public sector and federal and state budgets are in shambles, we’re still supporting tax cuts. It just kind of seems like we want a trophy without actually winning the game. And again, I’m not a politician, but I’ve seen enough Scorsese films to know that when you borrow a lot of money from someone and then you can’t pay it back, shit gets real...like Greek tragedy real.
I know this is long, and preachy, and quasi-political, and yes Mom and Dad, I used a bad word (but regardless of my glasses, and thanks to Daedalus and Icarus, I’m a moderate…an extreme moderate), but this has been on my mind for weeks. And it’s been on my mind in a I can’t sleep kind of way. I blame John Steinbeck because if you read Chapter 5 of The Grapes of Wrath, he basically wrote this in the 1930s when the capitalism train derailed for a little while. And I think I can’t sleep because I feel like our country is living outside of its means but because we’re on the capitalism train, we’re not allowed to slow down. Capitalism can be summed up by that progress for the sake of progress slogan (which interestingly enough, also describes malignant cancers). But with capitalism, when the progress stops, the train quits working, at all. Yikes.
I promise to write about a time I did something embarrassing soon enough. But I am currently accepting hugs from family, friends, and strangers alike (preferably family and friends…or strangers that will pay for my grad school).
Is it too late to become a transcendentalist?
In just a few short days, I will be standing in front of a classroom of 20-30 complete strangers. The first day of class is always my least favorite because I feel vulnerable in front of a group of students I’ve never met before. No one wants to talk (including me) and so there are a lot of Ben Stein “Bueller? Bueller?” moments that make me cringe. But my least favorite moment on any first day of class is when I ask my students the following:
“What grade should you get if you do everything that is expected of you in this class?”
Every semester, without fail, I get the exact same answer: A resounding, “A!”
And every semester (at least for now) the answer is wrong. I have to explain that no, if a student does everything that is expected of them, they should get a C, which means average. And then I explain that if you go above and beyond 50% of the time, you deserve a B, and if you go above and beyond most or all of the time, you deserve an A. And I watch as some of my students mouth across the room or to themselves, “That’ s not fair!” And then I wonder why isn’t it fair? When I was in high school, it was fair. When I was in college, it was definitely fair. Why is it so hard for people to understand that if they want to be successful and get maximum credit, they have to work hard?
At an Upward Sports event, you will never see parents hitting each other in the parking lot over a first-down, missed goal, or free-throw gone awry. The competitive spirit never takes over to the point that kids don’t enjoy the game and all the players, no matter their skill level, get equal playing time. Practices and games are not supposed to last longer than an hour a week. It sounds like an athletic Utopian society where everyone walks away with a gold-ribbon and a Happy Meal. And that’s exactly what happens. In Upward Sports, there are no losers because no scores (if kept) are ever published; it messes with Upward Sports' “Every child is a WINNER!” philosophy.
I think students are bringing that “Every child is a WINNER!” philosophy into the classroom.
I'm not saying that all students aren't capable but this is problematic because schools still publish the scores (for now at least). They’re called grades. Schools use these scores/grades to rank students. Colleges and trade schools use these rankings to make their decisions about admissions. (Yes, I understand that colleges also use other qualifications like the character that is apparent in a prospective student based on their extra-curricular participation, some of which might be fueled by the environment they experienced in an Upward Sports program, but still). Colleges and the world don’t have the same “Every child is a WINNER!” philosophy so it seems unfair to instill this.
It’s not just my classroom where I see this philosophy. There is a strange (and slightly terrifying if you ask me) shift in American ideology that becomes more apparent every day. It seems like we are becoming people that want everything, but don’t want to work for it. Think about simple things, such as research. If you wanted to write a research paper twenty years ago, you went to the library and you searched through the card catalogue, an intricate system of drawers and cards that related to a single book somewhere in the library. Then, you walked through the stacks, found the books and carried them to a table. There, you sifted through the indexes (true story, a lot of my students don’t know what an index is) and searched for keywords that related to your topic and you decided which books would be the most helpful. From there, you made note cards and source cards and you sorted them out, by hand, in the order of your outline. When I explain this process to my students (the oldest of which were born in 1994 and have almost always had the internet), they look at me like I’m telling them about a murder I committed over the weekend. They are disgusted, confused, scared. (Then I tell them about party lines from way back in the day and they start to projectile vomit). Today, research means Googling something. Or, if they decided to actually use a book, they can go to the library’s website, search for keywords and titles there, request the book online, drive up to the window at the front of the library, and the books are handed to them. We are getting the same information as twenty years ago, we are just getting it faster and through doing half of the work.
Please don’t think I’m one of those Puritans that thinks the convenience of modern technology is the end of society. I don’t. I value how much quicker and easier processes like research have become, but we need to be aware of how these conveniences are changing our world views. Anytime something new comes into our lives, it’s important to reflect on how that force is affecting us, and modern means of communication through the internet and technology are pretty new. And they are definitely a force. All of the conveniences in our world today are contributing to this have your cake (but not bake it), and eat it too, without gaining any weight or having to digest it philosophy. Suddenly we are so familiar with omnipresent convenience, that we feel entitled to it. If you don’t believe me, go stand in a very long line at the 10 items or less check-out and count how many people look pissed off. Or wait in a drive-thru line for more than five minutes and see how you feel. Or pull into a Wal-Mart parking lot, and count how many abandoned carts there are. We want to experience the convenience of that shopping cart, but a lot of people can’t be bothered to push it back to the front of the store, or to the cart return that’s just twenty feet away. Or have any of the technology in your life stop working. We freak out.
It seems that by living in an environment where we’re able to get maximum results with minimum work (or a trophy for not winning a soccer game), we’ve started to believe that when we do actually have to work for something (or when we don’t get an A for not going above and beyond), that the world is unfair or is out to get us, the victims. So instead, to uphold “fairness,” banks and businesses that aren’t successful are bailed out when they fail. People are approved for loans to buy cars and houses that they can’t afford. Students are allowed to take tests over and over and over again when they clearly don’t know the material, because we cannot leave them behind. In most school systems, if the student can’t pass the exam, as long as they attempt it a certain number of times and have at least a D in the class, they are passed on without ever showing mastery of the material on a test. (Students are aware of this, so what motivates them to take the test seriously?) While these students aren’t given a trophy for not passing the test, this “Every child is a WINNER!” philosophy obviously exists in many realms of modern society. (If the world was truly like Upward Sports I would have myriad trophies for things like: being tall, getting into graduate school, math, being attracted to emotionally available men, keeping my mouth shut, and not being sarcastic. Obviously, the world doesn't work like an Upward Sports game).
I know I’m talking about two different things here: Upward Sports' “Every child is a WINNER” philosophy and our entitlement to convenience, but they are so interrelated. They both allow us maximum output (trophies) with minimum input (not having to play well). You can do mediocre work, and get praised for it. This creates something that’s called a fixed mindset in the educational world. A student is told that they are smart so many times, that when they come across a task that is difficult, they give up. They believe that they should be able to achieve the task without strain, because if they are challenged, that means they are weak or stupid. What would encourage someone to try harder or to aspire to be better (called a growth mindset) if they are given a trophy for being mediocre? Technology has made everything so simple, that when something requires innovation or more than ten seconds worth of thought, more and more people are starting to give up. And that’s bad.
It’s also a problem because this philosophy works against societal structures that are already in place, such as capitalism and taxation. With capitalism, there are definite losers and winners. In Upward Sports, the kid that has no hand-eye coordination gets the same trophy as the all-star athlete. But in capitalism, the rules are a little different. Companies with mediocre performance don’t exactly get trophies. Just ask the employees at Circuit City…or Skybus. And taxation is problematic, too. We want good roads, schools, law enforcement, and libraries, but we don’t want to pay taxes. Our deficit is over 14 trillion dollars right now (when I looked it up, I also had to look up how to read that number…it literally took me about 2 minutes to figure out how to put that number into words). That means that if the 300 millionish Americans split the bill, we would each pay about $45,000 a piece. And yes, I know that there are government programs that a lot of people don’t support, and there are so many programs that need to be cut, so we pay our taxes resentfully. But even now when our public sector and federal and state budgets are in shambles, we’re still supporting tax cuts. It just kind of seems like we want a trophy without actually winning the game. And again, I’m not a politician, but I’ve seen enough Scorsese films to know that when you borrow a lot of money from someone and then you can’t pay it back, shit gets real...like Greek tragedy real.
I know this is long, and preachy, and quasi-political, and yes Mom and Dad, I used a bad word (but regardless of my glasses, and thanks to Daedalus and Icarus, I’m a moderate…an extreme moderate), but this has been on my mind for weeks. And it’s been on my mind in a I can’t sleep kind of way. I blame John Steinbeck because if you read Chapter 5 of The Grapes of Wrath, he basically wrote this in the 1930s when the capitalism train derailed for a little while. And I think I can’t sleep because I feel like our country is living outside of its means but because we’re on the capitalism train, we’re not allowed to slow down. Capitalism can be summed up by that progress for the sake of progress slogan (which interestingly enough, also describes malignant cancers). But with capitalism, when the progress stops, the train quits working, at all. Yikes.
I promise to write about a time I did something embarrassing soon enough. But I am currently accepting hugs from family, friends, and strangers alike (preferably family and friends…or strangers that will pay for my grad school).
Is it too late to become a transcendentalist?
I know this is an old post, but WELL SAID! I attended an Upwards basketball game years ago, taking my son to see one of his friends play. When I noticed that the team that was (significantly) ahead had scored, but the board didn't change, i commented to the mother near me that there had been a mistake. She explained that the team wouldn't be allowed to count any points until the other team had "caught up"! She and a couple of other mothers then explained the Upward philosophy to me...my reply was, "That's appalling - what a ridiculous concept" (and as a Christian, i believe a totally unscriptural/non-biblical one at that.) They all looked at me as if i were crazy - or just mean, i guess. I discussed it with my son on the way home and told him that anything worth having was worth fighting for - losing is part of living and often our greatest, most enduring character-building lessons come out of it. Even at 10, he got it. Now at 17, he knows he has to work for what he wants (though at 17, he also doesn't always put forth the effort...sigh.) I think i'll have him read your post to refresh his memory!
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