Because you whiners kept crying.
Because you whiners kept crying.
Brenda Hawley wrote:
I taught High School AP English in an upper middle class high school in the Mid-west for 31 years. This all started in the late 1980s when the universities and child psychologists began to preach that the educational institutions were stifling children's creativity and self- esteem by using authority. As an English teacher, I was no longer allowed to use red pen to mark papers and for every negative comment I made, I had to make at least one positive one (which was often difficult) When I developed the Advanced Placement class, I was told there could not be any requirements for admission as that would make students feel badly about themselves if they didn't get in. We were to avoid calling on students who didn't have their hands up as to not embarrass them. Students believed that teachers shouldn't grade their opinions even though they were poorly expressed and had no support just because they were "their opinions" and everyone was equal. Praise for initiative, ability and intellect were discouraged. Parents started to assume their students should receive all A's for just showing up and coaches were under pressure not to cut kids from sports as it would damage their self esteem. Most HS teachers were opposed to all this as our job was to prepare kids for college and the real world and telling everyone they were wonderful for nothing certainly didn't help. What we created was generations of people who do not understand why they did not get into a top college or get a great job, who don't know why they don't get promoted and change jobs frequently as they are not appreciated or understood. This whole thing has filtered down to praising mediocrity at all levels and thus the everyone gets a trophy. Look at road races today. Most of the runners have no idea nor do they care who wins the race or what time the winner runs. All they care about is praising themselves for finishing the race. Race Directors want more participants thus more money so finisher medals get more and more elaborate and races need more gimmicks.
Not that the dates are important, but I coached youth sports starting in the late 80s. I say it started in earnest in the early 90s and considering the baby boomers were born in the 50s, for the most part this is only an indirect product of the baby boomers. These are the grand kids of the baby boomers and came about as a rebellion to the way the kids of baby boomers were raised. Also, a lot of it has to with kids coming from single family homes, usually being raised by Mom. Btw, I would say it has probably reached a tipping point. I don't coach kids anymore, but the coaches I talk to say they can see a slight reversal in some circles. I don't want to take this discussion down a racial path, but this giving out awards for participation was more of a White suburban phenomena. I coached some intercity teams and did not see this as much.
It got really bad at one point where I would see a 125 Mom carrying the athletic bag for a 160 pound boy and 12 year old kids who would have 3 pairs of $100 sneakers. I coached in a basketball league where it was mandatory that every kid played in every game. Coaching strategy became more about how you can win with every kid getting playing time. Btw, I don't like seeing a sit the bench every game and always tried to get every kid playing time, but when you are up against a good team and down by points, you need your best players on the floor.
At banquets we did away with the MVP award because parents felt it wasn't treating the kids as equals and eventually came up with an awards system were every kid got awarded for something in addition to getting their participation trophy. In fact, I remember making up an award called "Most Supportive Teammate" so that one particular kid could get an award. I remember another time talking to a kid about always forgetting to bring his spikes to meets and the Mom speaking to me afterwards about admonishing her child in public. I can go on and on, but you get the point.
I started out as a basketball player and was a backup on every team I played on. I never became a starter, but I worked my butt off to get the playing time I got. As a preteen, I was small as kid, but I was always the fastest kid on the team and one team I played on the basketball coach was also a track coach and the rest is history. I went through a growth spurt at age 15 and eventually became and standout runner and football player.
No aspect of sitting the bench on every basketball team I played on has affected me negatively as an adult. Perhaps it made me realize not everybody is good at everything and that some people are just better at certain things.
Calm down and do two things:
1) Check your trust fund balance
2) Take your meds
Two crazy good posts in one.
TrackCoach wrote:
Brenda Hawley wrote:I taught High School AP English in an upper middle class high school in the Mid-west for 31 years. This all started in the late 1980s when the universities and child psychologists began to preach that the educational institutions were stifling children's creativity and self- esteem by using authority. As an English teacher, I was no longer allowed to use red pen to mark papers and for every negative comment I made, I had to make at least one positive one (which was often difficult) When I developed the Advanced Placement class, I was told there could not be any requirements for admission as that would make students feel badly about themselves if they didn't get in. We were to avoid calling on students who didn't have their hands up as to not embarrass them. Students believed that teachers shouldn't grade their opinions even though they were poorly expressed and had no support just because they were "their opinions" and everyone was equal. Praise for initiative, ability and intellect were discouraged. Parents started to assume their students should receive all A's for just showing up and coaches were under pressure not to cut kids from sports as it would damage their self esteem. Most HS teachers were opposed to all this as our job was to prepare kids for college and the real world and telling everyone they were wonderful for nothing certainly didn't help. What we created was generations of people who do not understand why they did not get into a top college or get a great job, who don't know why they don't get promoted and change jobs frequently as they are not appreciated or understood. This whole thing has filtered down to praising mediocrity at all levels and thus the everyone gets a trophy. Look at road races today. Most of the runners have no idea nor do they care who wins the race or what time the winner runs. All they care about is praising themselves for finishing the race. Race Directors want more participants thus more money so finisher medals get more and more elaborate and races need more gimmicks.
Not that the dates are important, but I coached youth sports starting in the late 80s. I say it started in earnest in the early 90s and considering the baby boomers were born in the 50s, for the most part this is only an indirect product of the baby boomers. These are the grand kids of the baby boomers and came about as a rebellion to the way the kids of baby boomers were raised. Also, a lot of it has to with kids coming from single family homes, usually being raised by Mom. Btw, I would say it has probably reached a tipping point. I don't coach kids anymore, but the coaches I talk to say they can see a slight reversal in some circles. I don't want to take this discussion down a racial path, but this giving out awards for participation was more of a White suburban phenomena. I coached some intercity teams and did not see this as much.
It got really bad at one point where I would see a 125 Mom carrying the athletic bag for a 160 pound boy and 12 year old kids who would have 3 pairs of $100 sneakers. I coached in a basketball league where it was mandatory that every kid played in every game. Coaching strategy became more about how you can win with every kid getting playing time. Btw, I don't like seeing a sit the bench every game and always tried to get every kid playing time, but when you are up against a good team and down by points, you need your best players on the floor.
At banquets we did away with the MVP award because parents felt it wasn't treating the kids as equals and eventually came up with an awards system were every kid got awarded for something in addition to getting their participation trophy. In fact, I remember making up an award called "Most Supportive Teammate" so that one particular kid could get an award. I remember another time talking to a kid about always forgetting to bring his spikes to meets and the Mom speaking to me afterwards about admonishing her child in public. I can go on and on, but you get the point.
I started out as a basketball player and was a backup on every team I played on. I never became a starter, but I worked my butt off to get the playing time I got. As a preteen, I was small as kid, but I was always the fastest kid on the team and one team I played on the basketball coach was also a track coach and the rest is history. I went through a growth spurt at age 15 and eventually became and standout runner and football player.
No aspect of sitting the bench on every basketball team I played on has affected me negatively as an adult. Perhaps it made me realize not everybody is good at everything and that some people are just better at certain things.
You are incorrect with your date range TrackCoach. The official dates of birth for the Boomers (aka the entitlement generation) are 1946-1964. Thus, the parents of the kids you were coaching were almost certainly members of America's worst generation...unless all of these parents had kids when they were teenagers.