6-yr old: "Dad, who invented soccer?"
Dad: "I don't know. I think it started in S.America, with people kicking rubber band balls. Let's google it."
I didn't know that
The game of soccer, as we know it today, was officially separated from rugby during the second part of the 19th century
The ancient game could have been from the far east, the Mediterranean, or the Americas. Here's the one I was thinking of.
According to historians, the Meso-American ball game Pok-A-Tok has been around since 3000 BC. However, the earliest found playing court (Paso de la Amada, Mexico) dates back to 1600 BC. The Paso de la Amada court was refurbished and expanded over a period of 150 years. It consisted of an 80-meter-long, flat playing alley bracketed by elevated "bleachers." Scientists believe that this particular court was a part of a network of similar courts throughout Meso-America.
On Monday, after soccer practice one of the Moms approached me asking what to do about the fact that her daughter does not like being on the team. There's many issues here. First, the daughter has never played soccer before, anywhere. Second, she's playing it with a bunch of boys who have been playing it passionately at school recess for at least a year. Third, their coaches are talented semi-professionals who are cutting their chops on 6-yr olds for the first time. All told, the 4 girls are not having much fun compared to the 16 boys and two men.
This is truly a shame. Since when does a child have to start doing anything at age 4 or 5 if they are to stand any chance of enjoying it later in life?
There seems to be a growing industry in outside school instruction for young children. I remember when me son was FIVE, one of his classmates already had 9 distinct after-school instructional activities. Off the top of my head, here are some I have encountered 5-8 year olds doing in the past year - sometimes very competitively. Soccer, gymnastics, skiing, baseball, sketching/painting, musical instrument, choir, chess club, math club, ultimate frisbee, indoor rock climbing, lacrosse, swimming, hockey, Kumon, tennis, golf. The list just goes on and on.
The only hope that a 12 or 13 year-old has is to wait for all the kids above to get bored and drop out, and then come in with passion and determination. Or to pick something that cannot be done physically or legally by anyone younger than 12.
Here's where Gladwell comes in. Gladwell begins Outliers with a detailed analysis of why professional ice hockey players in the Canadian league are most likely to have a birthday in January or February. Basically, since the cutoff date for the various children's divisions is Jan. 1st, the earlier you are born in the year, the bigger and faster you are compared to your 5 or 6 or 7 year-old peers. The early advantage then accumulates year on year.
Gladwell suggest that one way to double the pool of potential professional ice hockey players is to have two cut-off dates (Jan 1st, and June 1st).
Now I see this at school in other subjects, as I will just describe. But you can take the argument all the way into the core curriculum and back, and argue that specific socio-economic and physical advantages that a child comes to Kindergarten with, predispose them to later success. [I am sensitive to this since my son is one of the youngest and smallest boys in his class.]
Technology=Tools.
Teaching technoloy is to teach tool use. However, you can't do that in a vacuum. The tools must be used for something. So you can only teach tool use by using tools. (Duh!) But for a tool of any sophistication, and especially with a cultural history, that takes you into a culture with its own norms, vocabulary, language. Enculturation is the word, I believe. So where exactly do the specific advantages begin, and how do they accumulate?
Phys Ed: At my boys' elementary school, as in schools all over the world, PE is the most popular subject. I find the teachers truly creative about bringing in 'games' that no one in the class has played before. These games develop the same set of skills, but the take away any advantage that soccer or baseball or other outside school coaching has given some of the children in the class.
Music: Music is another story. The proficiency that some of the children bring to the classroom is much higher than in sports. At the same time, the cultural view of what music is supposed to be seems to limit teachers and parents on the vehicles (i.e. instruments = technology) through which music skills can be taught. This leaves some students, some parents, and many a teacher frustrated.
Art: Fortunately for art teachers, fewer young children take art outside school compared to sports and music. (For how long, I wonder?)
Computer-based Technology: I am assuming that most elementary schools don't yet teach basic Computer skills as part of the curriculum. If they do, it is more as a nod to a need/demand, rather than as a well planned and integrated part of the curriculum.
However, when they do start doing it, they are going to slam full-speed into the issue above. Some kids are already creating sophisticated content at home. Some kids can't spell their name or password well enough to log-in. What are we going to do?
Gladwell's analysis suggests that if we continue doing busines-as-usual, then the kids who are going to succeed 20 years from now in the global, professional, digital-content league (a.k.a some significant part of The Real World), are the ones whose early advantage the system nurtured at the expense of others.
Is that going to be true?
All is not lost, however, as we do have the past to build on, or at least learn from in some small way. Don't kids come to their first day of school with a wide spread of literacy and numeracy skills? And don't we somehow manage to squish them all into the same round hole called a Grade?
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