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Saturday, March 15, 2008

No baller left behind

I found this little gem over on Equity is not Optional, via So You Want to Teach?

It is a great basketball equivalent to what our kids and teachers are going through in public school nowadays. Also, it seemed to fit the theme of the month, baby! ;)

The basketball version of what is going on in education right now.

All teams must make the state playoffs and all MUST win the championship. If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable. If after two years they have not won the championship their basketballs and equipment will be taken away UNTIL they do win the championship.

All kids will be expected to have the same basketball skills at the same time, even if they do not have the same conditions or opportunities to practice on their own. NO exceptions will be made for lack of interest in basketball, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabilities of themselves or their parents. ALL KIDS WILL PLAY BASKETBALL AT A PROFICIENT LEVEL!

Talented players will be asked to workout on their own, without instruction. This is because the coaches will be using all their instructional time with the athletes who aren’t interested in basketball, have limited athletic ability or whose parents don’t like basketball!

Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in the 4th, 8th, and 11th games. This will create a New Age of Sports where every school is expected to have the same level of talent and all teams will reach the same minimum goals. If no child gets ahead, then no child gets left behind. If parents do not like this new law, they are encouraged to vote for vouchers and support private schools that can screen out the non-athletes and prevent their children from having to go to school with bad basketball players.

5 comments:

Mrs. T said...

I love this, were it not so insanely close to being true.

Edna Lee said...

Amen!

I had read a similar analogy a few years ago, only the sport was football. All the same, the insanity of it is the truth.

I'm still waiting for our country to fall into third world status due to our long history of poor education standards. It's simply amazing we've managed to remain an influential force in the world with a population largely educated in this shoddy public education system... huummm

Anonymous said...

Wow.. thats a very poor analogy. The very function of sports is to provide a competition. That is not the function of an education system. You simply can not have a sports system without winners and losers, but the aim of an education system should surely be to get as many winners as we can and as few losers.

Mrs. T said...

donalbain- perhaps THIS would make more sense to you, then:

http://www.trelease-on-reading.com/no-dentist.html

It's the teacher-dentist analogy. There, the aim is to have as many people without cavities as possible.

Mister Teacher said...

Donalbain, I see your point, but I still like the basketball analogy because it's saying that we expect EVERYONE of all backgrounds, abilities, intellects, and conditions to be able to perform at the same level at the same time. That's utterly ridiculous! I heard a guy say once that he lined all his kids up on one side of the gym and told them he was going to blow the whistle for them to race to the other side. He told them there were only two rules. Number 1, they all had to run as fast as they possibly could. Number 2, they all had to reach the finish line at exactly the same time.
Ridiculous!