Lascelve ‘Muggy’ Graham | Eating your cake and having it too

A RECENT Gleaner editorial was cause to reflect on the win-at-all-cost culture that now seems to dominate our society. This is reflected in school sports, by the dumping of the idea that, ‘It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game’.

The above is energised by the obsession and fanaticism of old boys, particularly of traditional schools, aided and abetted by our leaders in politics, the private sector, the church and education. Hence, the heavy recruiting of youngsters for sports purposes by our specialised educational/socialisation institutions and the very rosy picture painted of schools’ sports competitions, especially Champs and football. Even the recruiting of foreigners to replace poor Jamaican citizens on the teams of our public specialised educational institutions, the logical outcome of the above approach is lauded and marketed as a very positive development! The darker side, the dark underbelly of these competitions as exposed by social media and other documentaries, and writings throughout the years, is, of course, suppressed.

Our people need to understand that the only reason, the motive for our schools recruiting based on sports ability, is to win at all cost! Full stop!

All the other arguments are just to rationalise, justify, cover up, this fact. It is not helping poor people’s children who comprise the bulk of the children in school. They are just being used. The odds against making it in sports are severe. The odds of getting a meaningful sports scholarship are also very low. Academics, technology, productivity, critical thinking, socialisation matter! Those need to be the focus of our schools, NOT winning at sports!

What many Jamaicans want is to have the professionalisation of school sports, which produces the intense, counterproductive competitions like Champs and schoolboy football and at the same time have sports perform efficiently and effectively its role in school, as the socialising/teaching/learning tool for all our students. They want to have their cake and eat it too. It’s not possible!

Our public specialised educational institutions are not sports academies. They do not have the same mission! Continuing to use our public specialised educational institutions as sports academies will ensure the exacerbation of our economic and social problems. If we don’t change our approach, the idea of our schools focusing on producing rounded citizens will just be the usual lip service.

It is generally accepted all over the world, that the mission of public educational institutions up to the high school level, is to prepare young people for a socially meaningful life by providing formal quality education focused especially on the academic, technical and vocational areas. In Jamaica where there is such a severe unevenness in the quality of education delivered by our high schools, there is a publicly declared protocol for entry, based on academic merit, and the preparedness of youngsters to best utilise the scarce educational resources (academic, technical, vocational) of the country.

Jamaican educators also believed that for roundedness, the delivery of a holistic experience to our young citizens, and to assist in their socialisation and the inculcation of pro-social values, attitudes, behaviours and skills, extracurricular, co-curricular activities such as sports would be of tremendous benefit to the students who had qualified to be at the various schools.

Sports was introduced to help in the ‘rounding out’ process, not as a focus for the development of sports ability.

Hence, sports and other extracurricular activities were brought in for students who had qualified to be at the school, not students brought in for sports as at a sports academy/club. The mantra was, ‘It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game’. With this approach we wouldn’t have local or foreign students being recruited on the basis of sports ability, thus crowding out others who had qualified or would, on the normal basis.

Champs, which is big business, is the product of the win-at-all-cost approach to sports in our schools. This leads to recruiting for sports purposes by our schools, the mechanism through which the imbalance in priorities is facilitated, exacerbated. This is what gives embodiment to the overemphasis on sports in our public specialised educational institutions and ensures the intensely competitive school sports competitions exemplified by Champs and football.

This is what has rubbished the claim that it is not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game, which is the philosophy on which sports as a socialising tool in school, as a character builder, is grounded. Recruiting for sports emphasises that WINNING IS EVERYTHING! Our schools cannot serve two masters.

Circumstances alter cases. Sports can have different functions and the framework within which it operates determines its purpose and hence its constraints. Recently, we heard of Craig Town using football to foster peace and unity within the community. Recruiting from outside the community in an attempt to win at all costs would defeat the purpose of the games. Similarly, importing/recruiting sports talent from outside a school community weakens, corrupts, defeats the role of sports as a teaching/ learning/socialising tool which should be helping to round out, develop the young citizens who have qualified to be at that school.

An overemphasis on schools winning sports crowds out deserving students and completely turns on its head what should be the role of sports in our schools. This contributes to the continued failure of our education/socialisation system (wrong focus) and feeds into the remedial action now necessary in our communities, where sports is being used to help in the socialisation of our people. Let’s allow this pro-social effort to take place in our schools, where it should!

We need to act decisively on the decision that our public schools are specialised educational institutions, not sports academies/clubs. Our education/socialisation system will not function efficiently when our schools attempt to straddle both arenas. Division of labour increases efficiency. Our public high schools cannot be all things to all people! The time has long past, when in keeping with the changes in, and our prioritisation of sports, we should have developed many more sports academies. Better late than never.

We need to stop having the tail wagging the dog!

Dr Lascelve ‘Muggy’ Graham is a former captain of the senior Jamaica football team. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com