During my five decades of experiencing the educational system in many different roles, I have had the opportunity to observe all aspects of the process, including numerous efforts toward reforming what appears to be wrong with our system
Introduction is like a Texas longhorn ..: .. Great to be here – hope you’ve enjoyed the conference, Everybody get thru Homeland Security OK? Have all of you gotten your complimentary Drivers Licences, YOU KNOW we are famous for that here.
To accomplish great things in your life, you must first understand yourself and some basic principles as to how one gets into the position to be successful, regardless of pursuit. The following represents a model in statement form that, in a rather simplistic manner, provides a framework for the establishment of goals.
Whatever time I have, I occasionally enjoy working in the garden, seeing things grow and nurturing some sensitive plants as well as weeding out that growth considered undesirable to the plants we intend to harvest or view for enjoyment at a later date. The latter has caused me on many occasions to think of parallels in interscholastic activities-and there are many.
I recently saw an article in a kindergarten classroom that struck me as important at all levels. It read something like this, “We need to fill a child’s bucket with self-esteem so high that the rest of the world can’t poke enough holes in it to drain it dry.” Self-esteem is probably the most important thing that we teach and affirm through the interscholastic educational process.
While it’s quite obvious that a mountain of values are taught through the interscholastic educational process by both athletic and non-athletic activities, it’s also equally evident that it is not by design as it once was by most of our agents of interscholastic activities-coaches, administrators, etc
Henry David Thoreau once said, “the future belongs to those who can see it.” To be effective leaders in our society, we have to know the consequences, or what lies ahead in the future, to truly have an impact upon the mindset of generations to come.
I’ve always had a passion for what we as an organization-the NMAA-stands for in terms of the importance of interscholastic activities within the total educational framework
Those involved in activities learn or are positively reinforced regularly to take risk as part of the experience, which is educationally sound.
Wisdom can be operationally defined as a collection of experiences that are handed down with the intent of establishing a legacy that will be perpetuated through the ages.