Matt's Journal

My son’s private grammar school has a cadre of parents that want them to turn their playground — currently, a grassy lot — into an artificial turf soccer field.

I admit that I’m biased against athletics. I was clumsy growing up. We moved a lot and at every new place I was ostracized and made fun of whenever my path crossed anything related to sports at school in any form. So, naturally, I don’t want to see sports dominate schools. I found school libraries enjoyable and safe (when they were available) so I support them. All this is to set my biases in sight, because I know that not everyone shares them.

I think schools are there to support education. We need to keep school school. No one else will do it.

Ideally, schools are places that Educate. All. Well.

Why Educate? Because education tends to make children into good, able, useful, sane adults. Useful to others, and useful to themselves. Why All? Because part of getting educated is being exposed to other ideas and opinions and types of people. Why Well? Because doing it badly can be worse than not doing it at all. A lousy education experience can turn a child off on education permanently, just as I was turned off on sports.

I resent it when groups get hijacked by people for private ends. It’s unfair. People use all sorts of tricks to do this. They schmooze and persuade over drinks and golf. They argue. They influence. And they co-opt public resources for their private ends.

Educate. All. Well. School leaders, stick to your mission. Don’t have your resources steered to private parties, to help “our” sporty kids rather than all the students. Find some way to cooperate, for sure, because sports mean a lot to many. But don’t get stuck in a narrow groove benefiting only a few.

I’m a bit sensitive to this, too, because I’m not a successful salesman/persuader/athlete. This type has come to define success in the US. I have known too many who have fallen for this standard and this type of person. They forget that co-opting resources is not the same as creating them. It takes many people and many types of people to create resources from reluctant Nature.

The school needs to be clear as to the importance of their Mission — however they define it. Some leaders like to be one of the ‘influentials”, one of the gang, one of the club. They have to understand this human tendency in themselves, see it as exploitable, put it behind them, and focus on the larger Mission. Educate. All. Well.