Athletics and Academics of Equal Importance? Options

[MeanBastard]

Athletics and Academics of Equal Importance?

Today, to my dismay, the school I attend, had a rather interesting thing happen, again. Something called a pep rally. Basically the Athletic group of the school organizes to waste 45 minutes of class time. Pretty simple concept. The entire rally is dedicated to lauding laurels upon the athletics teams.

Which brings me to an interesting consideration. The schools motto, or perhaps just a random saying, is Amor Doctrinae Floreat."Let the Love of Learning Flourish".
Very nice, very hypocritical. Let the Love of Learning Flourish. My sentiments exactly. However, the school seems to be going about this in one of the weirdest ways ever. You see, this pep rally, the entire school was forced to attend. I was going to go to the library to work on biology so I could learn , but the librarian said “Sorry, you can’t come in, you’ve got to go to the pep rally”. So I was on my way to the cafeteria to do my work in there, but apparently that was simply not acceptable. How dare I try to increase my mental capacity rather then hear senselessly lauded laurels being placed upon athletes heads!?

All I can say, is I truly envy those who skipped out and just wandered around, or went home early; I salute you all for making the right decision.

Now, what do I find odd about everyone being forced to attend this pep rally if possible? Well, the fact that it was spontaneous. Even for in school field trips, I believe several days notice is required. I talked to the head of the students council; she learned about it earlier that morning. Right hand, meet left hand. Aside from the spontaneous nature of it, I was rather shocked by the everyone being forced to attend factor. You see, in schools, I was under the impression academics took a rather important role. And our administration says that they do.

Then why is it that for a pep rally, everyone is forced to attend;
And a ceremony for awarding those with academic awards, the only people allowed to attend are the people who got the awards?(3)

Sports: Less important, everyone has to be there for their kudos ceremony.
Academics: More important, no requirement for people to be at the ceremony for academics.

That doesn’t quite add up to me.

Furthermore, Athletics already play a little too large of a role in education. I found it incredibly depressing to hear that a guy I know was invited, accepted into Western. Now, I know one of the Western maxims reads “Western is where rich kids go to play, Queens is where rich kids go to learn”. However, even such a maxim did not prepare me for the little bit of knowledge I found out. He, in grade 10, was accepted into Western, for his long jump abilities. He had broken a record of some sort apparently. Meanwhile, he failed grade 10 math. Now, all through highschool teachers have been telling me, marks are the primary consideration. However, somebody with marks below the median is accepted into a university; before he graduates. What would he major in? Hopefully not health care. Or anything else that would require one to know what they are doing. Although I am under the impression he would make a fine teacher. At least for physical education.

Now why are sports in school to begin with? Some people say it’s to give kids a chance to play them, that wouldn’t otherwise get to. A rather interesting idea, to say the least. I, for one, tried out for the high school soccer team; while sitting between games (We were divided into 4 teams, 2 played at once), I realized I had nothing in common with these guys as they talked about how they had n times 3 amount of marijuana last night, and how they were failing a class because they were too busy staring at some girls...(which, I may say, is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as it is not in excess). They talked about crimes and adventures with the law. And I realized; wow, these are not people like me. I didn’t get on the team. I ended up relieved about this fact. Later I heard that the team wasn’t allowed to participate in any tournaments because they were too lazy and/or stupid to fundraise, and the coach didn’t trust them enough to allow them to go anyways.
So, that gave me an opportunity to play a sport I never would have otherwise, right? Oops, not quite. Interestingly enough, I had no problem finding another league, which contained different players, where everyone was welcome. Interestingly enough, a better quality of player was generally maintained, there was significantly less swearing. And it was cheaper, which is always a nice thing. Another interesting notes is some people from the school team also played in this house league. I suppose it’s fortunate they skipped most of their games to do drugs or have young and unprotected sex, because otherwise their teams may have had an unfair advantage, with being on a school team which gets nightly practices.

Another problem is announcements, public appeal. Every morning you hear a 2-3 minute list of the scores of the previous evenings games, their top scorers, and what was so great about them. Volleyball, had a tournament. Played 4 games, each took 2 hours, each had 9 players involved. That totals to 56 hours of man time (4 times 2 times 9). They get 2-3 minutes on the announcements. Seems fair. It’s interesting to compare that to say, band, a normal practice runs an hour and a half usually. With about 40 kids. And guess what? 40 times 1.5 is 60 hours. And yet the schools band is lucky if anybody remembers their existence in light of the joy (or anger, or annoyance) and cacophony caused by sports.

Some people think that it allows schools to be proud. Some people think wrongly. Schools should take pride in their academic abilities: “Hooray, there is not a single student failing a single class”, as opposed to “Hooray, our football team is undefeated” (A poor joke nobody ever enjoys; the football team has never played a game, either.)
Do you know what is a really great instiller of pride? The horse statue and the surrounding terrace (which had 3 rows of benches made of stone and mortar, spaced equally, nicely curved. Quite nice benches). And a beautiful black, almost ebony, statue of a horse, rearing up on its hind legs. Beautiful. Pity one of the benches is falling apart in a mass of rubble, and the horse, I have tried to avoid looking at it recently, but I believe it lost it’s head, one of its legs, fell over, its stomach chipped and torn. Not a pretty sight. It does make a rather fine statement about the school, however. Derelict.

The actual running of the pep rally was very impressive as well. Most of the gym wasn’t used, the regular students were packed into the bleachers, with crowds around the doors and front, and the athletes stuck to one side. I rather enjoyed the way athletes ran out of the locker room to a row of cheerleading students council representatives doing the wave. Especially when they didn’t plan for athletes who got injuries and milled around in confusion as the athlete walked slowly out. And I rather enjoyed the way athletes that weren’t there were called anyways, and everyone looked around for them and couldn’t find them. “And in jersey number 19, Athlete 0012,”...everyone looks. The students council members do the wave. And then we go on “And in jersey number 42, Athlete 0013,”.

Also, 45 minutes was allotted to this mistake. You see, despite 45 minutes being allotted to this ... “event”, it only took 20 minutes. At the end, our vice principal announced that we were to return to our classes. The moment I heart that I knew it: Bureaucracy gone wrong. You see, I don’t know what the beloved vice principal was thinking, however, not all students had the intention of returning to class. I was impressed to hear that even some teachers did not bother returning to their classes. A friend reported an attendance of 3 people for her last class. I had music, a good bunch of dedicated kids; we had 13, as well as a couple students from other classes. There wasn’t much we could do; we had already packed our instruments up, and none of us were warmed up or ready to play anymore. So we discussed American politics (which, I must say, was educational, fun, and interesting, if not music related). We also did a bit of playing around with piano and listening to music from CD’s, so I suppose it wasn’t a complete waste, but it could have been time better spent.

Now, you may be saying “Oh well, so what, what’s 45 minutes of class time? Who cares?” Well, it’s more about the principal, but, this happens twice a year. Totals to an hour and a half of class time. An hour and a half of biology right now would be beautiful. An hour and a half dedicated to learning and reviewing all that stuff I did not get, would be so nice, so perfect. I’d even enjoy 3 or 4 hours, just to go over these first couple of units that I did not understand perfectly. Really, that’s 45 minutes, twice a year, that could have been, and could still be much better spent.

So, I ask, I beg, I appeal. You teachers, you fine educators, how do you abide by such wanton waste of class time? Oh, and here’s something you guys may have learned in that math that we missed: (1)640, times (2)20 minutes = 213 hours and 20 minutes. That is a lot of waste.


Spelling and Grammar errors are appreciated. But only if you point them out.

(1)Taken from the school website: “Approximately 640 students attend ESS coming from five elementary schools in the region”
(2)I didn’t use the full 45 minutes, despite 45 minutes of class time being wasted. If counting as 45 minutes, it totals to 480 hours of learning wasted.
(3)If you a viewing this as a printout or on a site that does not use HTML codes, just read that section as italics and/or bold in your mind please.