Endings

Last night I attended the first round tournament game of our boy’s basketball team.  It was a fabulous effort by our young men, but unfortunately they came up on the wrong side of the scoreboard in the end. 

As I watched the final seconds tick off of the clock, I began to get that feeling within that I get at the end of every season, a mixture of disappointment, sadness, pride, satisfaction, and curiosity of the future.  Regardless of whether I am a coach, a player, or a spectator, that feeling is always overwhelming because it is the ending of something that you know each and every person that is a part of the experience spent months devoting time and effort into a common passion. 

I’ll never forget my final high school football and basketball games, or my final college basketball game, when I had tears streaming down my face not because we had lost, but because I knew something I cared about so much had come to an end.  I’ll never forget consoling players when I coached both football and basketball at Hayes and telling them that it’s OK to be sad, it shows that you cared so much.  I wasn’t able to be in the locker room after the game last night, but I’d imagine there were tears, because the effort on the court showed that each and every player to take the court cared deeply about their team. 

As I sit here this morning, I think about school.  The last day of school is filled with joy and excitement.  A weight is lifted off of students as they venture off to college, summer jobs, or three months of video games and trips to the pool.  It’s almost the opposite of that final game they cared so much about. 

Now, I would never expect a student to shed tears over the end of school as passionately as they do about their sport, but why are the emotions such polar opposites?

My fondest memories of school are of extra-curriculars such as sports, theater, and television class, and I would imagine many other people have the same memories.  I wish we could find a way to make the classroom experience as memorable.  

I believe the first step is to look at what we offer to students.  Sports, theater, and other opportunities are remembered because of the experiences we had, not because of the content we learned.  We as teachers need to provide an experience for our students.  Experiences that they enjoy, learn from, and want to put their time and effort into succeeding in.  Students view the majority of classes as requirements to graduate.  While they aren’t wrong, until we provide an experience that changes their mindset to view classes as an opportunity for an experience that benefits them as people, they’ll remain stuck in the mindset that they have to show up, put in their time, receive a letter grade, and then get a piece of paper that says they have finished. 

Will they ever tear up over the end of a class?  Likely not.  But, hopefully students will get to a point where they throw their cap up not because they don’t have to do something anymore, but because they are excited to apply their skills to the world for which they have been prepared.  

 

Take care,

Coach Mo