REFLECTIONS ON THE PAST AND AN EDUCATED LOOK INTO THE FUTURE
“If you can imagine it, you can achieve it.”
Written by Dan Salzwedel
Those involved in activities learn or are positively reinforced regularly to take risk as part of the experience, which is educationally sound. The only limitations we have are within-by our imagination. I believe that if you have the capacity to dream you have the ability to achieve, and it is important for those we come in contact with to never have water put on those visions too early. Perhaps the only true limitation we put on our lives as interscholastic educators and leaders, hopefully, is that we tend to restrict our ability to visualize the future or dream much beyond the-present. -The capacity to conceptualize before you can realize is abesicpre-requisiteof success in-ourlaboratory for learning, yet it is often suppressed in thereal worldandevenm-conventional education other than the activity part of the conditioning process. As I attempt to force myself and others around me to conceptualize with a view toward framing the future of interscholastic activities and its place within a child’s development in the future, I was struck by some recent research that affirmed the staying power of interscholastic activities and the interscholastic objective that we hold so dear to our hearts as the basic premise for our existence (to teach morals, character and the American system of achievement).
Based upon the results of recently compiled data from both hard copy responses and hits on our web site relative to the NMAA Interscholastic Values and Success Traits Survey, I’m amazed at the staying power as well as the importance that activities play in the value selection of people far beyond their playing or performance days in high school. We chose self-confidence, self-esteem, integrity, fairness, setting goals, working under pressure, leadership, hard work, and understanding one’s inadequacies as qualities to review. Each of these represent samples of success traits that are viewed as important ingredients to a successful career, regardless of role in both private industry as well as key leadership positions within the public sector.
While female respondents did not express agreement at quite the same level as the male respondents, it is interesting to note that each of those traits are intensely viewed as important to their success in life. In fact, the older the respondent was who partiCipated in interscholastic activities to one degree or another, the more they attributed their success to those values, in whole or part, relative to their interscholastic junior and/or senior high school experience. In fact, based upon this survey, in the age groupings from 40 to 49, 50 to 59 and 60 to 69, the respondents in over 90 of the cases said that they attributed to a large extent (“mostly agree” or higher on the response scale) that they learned those traits and practiced them as a consequence of their interscholastic experience.
The commentary suggests, as other research has indicated, that the interscholastic/performance experience significantly increases in value and yet is firmly ingrained during those very early and impressionable years. In fact, it can be argued that the activity and those coaches or sponsors have even more influence than parents during that same time frame in high school. It has been stated that the most important influence in most kids’ lives are either peers and/or coaches/advisers as well as interscholastic administrators in terms of influence on society’s future than any other single population. As Dr.Harry Edwards, a noted sociologist once said very prophetically, “those who control the games children play, control society’s future” and really gave us a birds-eye view as to how important these roles are, as are the people who occupy them in shaping the future.
Further underscoring its importance, it’s notable with the items analyzed, that people in the age groupings from 15 to 19 and 20 to 29 agreed that the values learned from activities were important. They affirmed being taught each trait’s importance in the total scheme of things, the realized value paralleling the older adults’ cognizance of its importance as they matured. Even with those who graduated more recently, over 70 of the respondents agreed minimally that those values learned were largely attributed to their interscholastic experience. This is :anenormous resporrslbllitv but yet a very rewarding one to those who view this area of education as essential to the student’s total development as a person.
Contributor or Consumer?
It is also interesting to note the growth of the respondents as they related their experiences from the past. People are often more consumer oriented in the early parts of their lives and eventually grow into contributors to our society in one form or another, providing they have a sufficient basis by which to develop into productive members of the citizenry. Activities play a very important role in this area and certainly create a foundation for success later on in life. Young people contribute to teams, to their lives, to other people’s development and growth, and are energized by the things they do best. The latter concept is very important, as it establishes the map for the future, regardless of that student’s pursuit in life. Whether it is learning how to conduct oneself under pressure, using appropriate language, getting along with other people, the work ethic, managing time, persistence, pride in what you do-all of these items again are inherently taught in the experience we offer within the interscholastic educational arena, laying the foundation for being a contributor.
Often, whether someone is going to be a consumer their whole life (someone who never seems to give or is always against everything-you know people like that), or a successful contributor depends on their ability to work with other people and understand as well as assist in the implementation of a vision into the future. Make no mistake about it that if athletics in particular, with coaches and administrators as the conduit for learning, doesn’t properly teach the value premise and cause, as the research suggests, students will perpetuate the mindset which harbors only the past and never elevates that individual to contributor status.
A number of years ago a document was created that was intended to assist student- athletes to achieve. It’s called The Elite Eight Steps to Developing Character for Life. Contributors are by nature positive, and the Elite Eight Steps to Developing Character responds favorably to the items identified for analysis.
The Elite Eight Steps to Developing Character for Life
1. Faith. You have to have faith spiritually in the future, both immediate and distant.
2. Engage other people. Numbers create strength and give us the opportunity to reinforce a value system by testing its quality in recruiting others.
3. Goal setting. You have to have goals, whether they’re realistic or unrealistiC, long and short-term. Learn to adjust privately to those goals and never allow yourself to be satisfied or to ultimately reach any long-distance goal.
4. Believe in yourself. Athletic/activity experience, as well as performance, should and will affirm the importance of a positive self-concept. If you-don’t believe in – – …. – ._- .. ‘ yours’eleno one will.
5. Know your strengths and allow them to blanket your weaknesses.
6. Be a planner. All great successes establish a plan, adjust it, re-establish a pian, adjust it again, but never lose sight of the fact that it is important. Create the conditions for success. In other words, strategize your moves and do not be afraid to fail.
7. Intuitiveness. The want and desire to be the best you can be, and regardless of pursuit stick with it by getting up again, and again and again.
8. Ability. Ability! like timing! is relative. While good fortune is! by definition! association meeting opportunity! you have the ability to establish and pursue dreams-make the most of it.
Obviously! those attributes are as important today as they were yesterday, and are even more important for students to understand now. Do you have to be a star? Can strength of character be taught? Are some people more resilient than others? The answer to all of those questions is, “Yes.” But the more we can inculcate these principles for learning, the stronger our position becomes within the total education of every student participant we come in contact with through the system.
I read recently in a corporate periodical that a company’s goal is to have “an information source that originates at your desktop.” The Director of Information Systems for this particular firm stated, “you should be able to get on your computer and find the information you are looking for right now. You should be able to pull up information about any aspect of the company-anywhere. This is achievable now and helps us understand the future.” What does this mean to us as interscholastic educators? First! to qualify, it has nothing to do with college scholarships or notoriety or any other superficial measure of success. The future of education lies within individual program learning! non-traditional classroom settings, and will inherently impose certain restrictions upon human beings to interact on a daily basis. That will create a paradigm almost unimaginable by those of us in formal education today.
In spite of the fact that it is surfacing in a rather rudimentary format at this point in education! individualized learning, as well as correspondence teaching, interactive initiatives within the home with limited social contact as well as what are going to be viewed as unconventional settings to our way of thinking, like the workplace will probably be centered out of the home. As a consequence, I submit that interscholastic activities (if we shape them properly) can help create the map for the future as being the principle of formal socialization for kids to learn and to practice all those qualities we considers synonymous with success later on in life. It could very well be the only SOCial engagement on both a formal and informal basis that students realize during their educational careers. Essentially, to become a contributor as an interscholastic educator as well as to the student participants’ lives in the future is going to take on a whole new meaning, to say the least.
As a footnote to the research, and psychologists will affirm this notion, that adults are far less resilient than young people are. The ability for all of us to map the future depends upon our capability to be resilient, to dream, to practice that battery of strengths we all partiCipated in teaching young people we’ve had the honor to influence.
From the Association’s perspective, one only needs to “surf the Web” and “allow the creative juices to flow and imagination to fly and flourish to realize that in the not-too- distant future we’ll be communicating almost exclusively over that or similar mediums individually and collectively. Events will be televised over the Internet or a similar medium. If framed properly, those in control of activities will shape society’s future. Let’s never forget the fact that the point of leadership is to encourage students to dream things that others cannot fathom. Let’s make it happen!