multitasking doesn’t work

multitasking seemed like a good idea

i learned that it wasn’t

i was talking on the phone, and mailing packages, which caused me to mail the wrong thing to the wrong person. luckily i realized this, just after dropping the packages into the mail slot. the truly lucky part in the story, was the extremely kind worker, who went and looked through the pile of packages, pulled mine out ,  repackaged them, and sent them to the correct people. ( somehow he also managed to save my $40.00 in shipping.)

multitasking doesn’t work

schools also try to multitask. as they make an attempt to be both a place for education, and an athlete training center, they do both poorly.

schools will all tell you that education is their number one priority, but they send some extremely mixed signals that leave us all confused. 

Here’s what i mean:

– if students play a sport for the school they are often dismissed early from school to go and play said sport, sometimes missing the entire day ( this varies from school to school on how often it happens)

– students that don’t play a sport, but wish to go and cheer on their fellow classmates that are playing a sport during the school day are welcome to fill out an educational field trip form, allowing them to miss class. on the form the educational activity is listed as cheer for :____________ ( fill in the blank with the sport) . Then they must get all of their teachers to sign said form, but it doesn’t really matter if the teacher agrees on not. Recently I’ve been signing the form with my dogs’ name. 

– school is closed due to weather, yet somehow sports practices still take place

– on very special occasions, students are dismissed from class to go and practice for an important game

– athletes are pulled from class to be drug tested, this sometimes takes the entire day

– many of the coaches are also teachers, therefore when students have to leave early or miss an entire day to play a sport, so does the teacher

this sends a confusing message to all involved. it says education is our priority, until there’s something else to do. which actually means that education is not the priority, it’s just one of the things that you do sometimes.

i have no issue with sports, i played a lot of them. but the school shouldn’t be in charge of them. here we should turn to the european model, where the schools handle the education, and club sports take care of, well the sports. they successfully play sports around the school day. or we should turn our schools into sports centers, and leave private and charter schools take care the education.

or adjust the schedule. making there be a time when sports happen, and a time when teaching/ learning happens. don’t allow the two overlap.

either way. pick one. do it well

This topic brought up a heated conversation over my brother’s birthday dinner, I want to know what you think. Leave a comment sharing what role you think sports should play in school.