Inevitable, I Suppose

[selenite0]

Niven's 16th Law: There is no cause so right that one cannot find a fool following it.

A few days ago I wrote about the troubles boys are having getting a good education in public school. Today celticdragonfly pointed me at a post about some total idiot suing a school and demanding "the school system should compensate boys for the discrimination by boosting their grades retroactively." Argh.

Okay, let me restate this. The problem is that boys are not learning what they need to. Inflating grades doesn't make them more knowledgable, it just postpones dealing with the problem to a worse time (further discussion of affirmative action should be on my other journal). I want to work toward getting a better education for boys, not a better transcript. There's no point in helping them flunk out of a better class of college.

There was a suggestion in there I could go for--making sports eligible for credit. Most are complicated enough that you can do a whole class in them. But I'd want it to be rigorous, not just handing out credit to everyone who plays. This means forcing coaches to make speeches like this:

"Biff, you're a great tackle. I want you on the team. I'll start you every game. But you can't get a pass to less than ten yards from the receiver. Plus you bombed on the final last year. C'mon, the essay question was 'When is a toss sweep better than a cross toss?' and you left it blank. Please don't take football for credit this year. I don't want to flunk you again."

Comments

[phanatic.livejournal.com]

I'd be okay with sports for credit in lieu of requiring kids to take four years of gym.

It's pretty ridiculous. I had to take four years of phys ed, but only three years of math. I say that if you're on a school sports team, be it varsity or intramurals, that's your phys ed credit for that semester.

[kd5mdk.livejournal.com]

The challenge is that there isn't a formalized theory in sports, usually. There's lots of strategy and thinking involved, but rather than formed into any sort of unified theories, they're broken up into individual coaches as gurus with their ideas absorbed by assistants and players. The only real "theory" I can think of in football is the West Coast Offense. There's probably more, but it really is mostly what you were taught by the coach where you went.

[kd5mdk.livejournal.com]

It usually is.

That said, given the health importance of exercise, PE is one of the subjects that needs to be taught well.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

Engish and "social studies" are bearing up under that handicap.

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

That's how they did it in my home state. We were only required to have 2 years of PE, but you could get the same credit for PE, ROTC, sports, or band.

DV

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

The problem is, what the boys need is to learn academic stuff. If they don't like that girls are dominating AP classes, they need to start taking them.

Where I think more sports/PT might be a better idea is in the running off nervous energy.

DV

[selenite.livejournal.com]

I think you could get boys to do a lot of research, writing, statistics, game theory, and logical analysis if you packaged it as "Theory and Analysis of Football."

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

oh MAN, if I could have gotten PE credit for Band, I would have been a HAPPY camper. (flag core, that was me)

[carbonelle.livejournal.com]

There's no point in helping them flunk out of a better class of college.

I think I want this in bronze.

Have you read any of the news coming out about single-sex education? It's coming at the same time as various neurological studies showing that male and female brains are pretty much equal in capacities, but develop them unevenly and at different rates (which has interesting pedagogical consequences).

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

The theory was that ROTC and band (including flags, yes) involved just as much practice time commitment as sports, and that all the marching around was good exercise. Truthfully, probably better exercise than the PE class.

DV

[selenite.livejournal.com]

I'm leaning toward the theory that the best way to educate a median boy is to start him off each day with enough physical exertion that sitting down for a lecture is a welcome respite. Would probably make things worse for geeks like me, but there's a big percentage that would benefit from it.

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

So we really need to buy a small farm, and have the boys doing the morning chores? That fits.

Hm, they'll need supervision. And I bet if you had to get up with them and help with it, the annoyances of your sit-down, indoors, non-physical job would look a lot smaller...

[xinef.livejournal.com]

But part of the problem is the WAY that many subjects are now being taught. Used to be that boys did way better than girls, so they changed the way that many subjects were taught. The pendulum went too far and now they lose a lot of boys. The pendulum needs to swing back a bit.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

That could work . . . but I think we'd need more kids to make it cost-effective.

[carbonelle.livejournal.com]

And I think even the geeks would benefit if it were done kindly.