Click here to subscribe today or Login.
The Times Leader’s July 5 editorial asked for feedback on the concept of “pay to play” for area school districts.
Let me start by declaring it a bad idea, one that loses sight not only of what school athletics are, but also of what it means to get an education.
For one thing, the term “pay to play” originates not with sports but as shorthand for political corruption. It’s the idea that you have to make campaign contributions to high-powered politicians before you have any chance to get lucrative contracts. In that context, it’s a way of cheating all of us. And the idea that the editorial proposes does the same thing. It cheats some of our most vulnerable children out of a crucial part of their education.
We talk about kids “playing” football, basketball or field hockey, but those sports are more than games. They are different kinds of classes in different kinds of classrooms. Learning how to be part of a team, how to prepare for an event down the road or how to deal with defeat are all core lessons that help students grow.
If we want thoughtful citizens and effective workers in the next generation, we have to make sure our kids learn such things now. And, since some of the students who struggle most in conventional classrooms are the ones who excel most on the field, the court or the mat, we have an obligation to help them learn through sports.
Education happens in the classroom, but it also happens anywhere students find themselves pushed to reflect on how to push themselves beyond what’s comfortable. If we ask them or their families to “pay to play,” we close off that process to too many of them, and we’re hurting not only them, but all of us.
Joe Kraus
Shavertown