Lascelve ‘Muggy’ Graham | Excessive school spirit and sports recruiting by schools

“It seems that the rabid tribalism generated by high-school sports in Jamaica trumps all forms of reasoning, logic, community or national spirit or welfare. All stakeholders who have an interest in the proper education and socialisation of our youth – parents, students, principals, teachers, coaches, past students etc. – must, in their groups or singly, start to speak out strongly, not just privately, against this horrific practice of recruiting for sports purposes by our schools.”

THE ABOVE is from my more recent Gleaner contributions, hence I was very pleased to see the article by Dr Dennis Minott titled, ‘Excessive School Spirit: A Jamaican Comedy of Errors with Grave Implications’, Gleaner, 14/8/23.

The win-at-all costs approach with its concomitant recruiting for extracurricular activities (sports) purposes by our schools, manifests as “excessive school spirit”.

On seeing the article, I felt like Prof Higgins must have felt, in the classic movie, My Fair Lady, when he exclaimed, “By George, I think she’s got it!” in the song, The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.

BREAKING RANKS

Dr Minott is an accomplished educator, who knows the system well. He is also from that tribe across North Street, which many consider one of the citadels, the embodiment of this “excessive school spirit”. His courage, therefore, in breaking ranks is not to be overlooked. Bravo, Dr Minott!

Campion, Immaculate and others must be commended for having successfully fought off this affliction, through the years, although it has put their students at a tremendous, unfair disadvantage, because of the unlevelled playing field, especially in the high-profile sporting events. That is why it is imperative for the Ministry of Education and/or ISSA to stop burying their heads in the sand, stop turning a blind eye, and do the right thing. Ban recruiting for sports purposes by our schools! Help those schools which want to stay on the right track for the education/socialisation of our youth.

Among other things, Dr Minott noted, “Many grown citizens of this nation shamelessly hug up corporate school narcissism and remain win-at-all-costs school cultists till death.” It is the responsibility of our leaders in education to institute policies that guard our children and our nation against such inclinations.

Sports in schools have a different role to sports in a sports academy or club. In school, like the other extracurricular activities, it is to help with the proper socialisation of our children. In the latter two institutions, it is to help in the development and showcasing of outstanding sports talent. Mixing the contexts only tends to facilitate the multiplicity of antisocial behaviour that we see in Jamaica. The choice for Jamaica is simple. Do we allow our education/socialisation system to operate efficiently and effectively, or do we continue to corrupt it by having our schools function as the developmental arms of the various sports associations and hence perpetuate the “excessive school spirit”?

MIMICKING THE USA

Jamaica’s education/socialisation policy needs to stop mimicking that of the USA and start moving closer to that of the Asians and Europeans.

Some years ago, the USA-based magazine, The Atlantic, published an article in which it observed, “The United States routinely spends more tax dollars per high school athlete than per high school math student – unlike most countries worldwide. And we wonder why we lag in international education rankings”?

It went on to say, “Even in eighth grade, American kids spend more than twice the time Korean kids spend playing sports, according to a study published in the Journal of Advanced Academics. In countries with more holistic, less hard-driving education systems than Korea’s, like Finland and Germany, many kids play club sports — outside of school. Schools do not staff, manage, transport, insure, or glorify sports teams.”

PISA is the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment. It assesses the skills and knowledge of 15-year-olds. It rates students’ performance on ‘real-life’ tasks that are considered relevant for effective participation in adult society and for lifelong learning. It is a ranking of education/socialisation systems throughout the world.

None of the high-ranking countries on the PISA list, including the UK (which is fanatical about sports, especially cricket and football) have their government-run schools recruiting for sports or other extracurricular activities.

Social change

Sports can be a very powerful tool for social change in our society. Considering our history, and hence the social deficit with which we are saddled, every effort should be made to use sports as such in our schools. Let us look at instituting a sports programme which is subordinated to the academic, technical and vocational areas, while emphasising the proper socialisation of all the youth in school, who have an interest in sports.

Such a programme would stress the behavioural, emotional, and social development of participants at least as much as the technical skills. Among other things it would strengthen the emotional intelligence and conciliatory skills of students, while helping to inculcate the prosocial values, attitudes, behaviours and a whole array of life skills the society craves (delaying gratification, setting and achieving goals, decision-making and problem-solving, self-belief, etc.). This would go a long way towards improving the non-cognitive, ‘soft skills’, including academic mindset, academic perseverance, academic behaviour and hence academic performance. It would also teach children to transfer life skills from one area of their lives to another which does not happen automatically. Coaches would in fact be social coaches, not just concerned with or evaluated on the number of games won. The focus would be on helping a school accomplish its education/socialisation mission.

This would at least help to lessen the police’s workload and minimise the need for the remedial action of sports for peace, now common in our communities. We must de-emphasise this win-at-all-costs approach to sports in our schools!

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