Half of Americans live in cities, but most (80% or so) professional athletes are from
small towns. It's not clear exactly why, but one possibility:
An important advantage of small towns is that they’re actually less competitive, thus allowing kids to sample and explore many different sports.
The idea is that variety helps you avoid burnout. I feel like this is somehow related to a piece by Camille Paglia on
education:
We need a sweeping revalorization of the trades. The pressuring of middle-class young people into officebound, paper-pushing jobs is cruelly shortsighted. Concrete manual skills, once gained through the master-apprentice alliance in guilds, build a secure identity. Our present educational system defers credentialing and maturity for too long.
Most school reforms focus on more: Pre-K, after-school programs, tutoring, longer school years. Maybe if we back off a little, and let students try a variety of things (shop class or art - not all reading and math), they'll turn out okay.
No comments:
Post a Comment