Advantage
Source/Author: Mike Murphy, Headmaster
September 18, 2015
Not long ago, parents who had never gone to college dedicated their lives to ensure their children would be able to attend a university and have advantages not available to those parents. College was the ticket to opportunities unimaginable to people who did not attend!
Advantages. Parents will go to great extremes and expense to give their children an advantage. In the United States, thousands of semi-pro quality little league programs for every sport imaginable are packed with young children. Parents pay with time, travel and fees to give their children these experiences and some probably have hopes and dreams that their child will be the one in 10,000 who advances to the next level. Every kick, throw, swing, stroke, dive, hit and catch is recorded and replayed by well-intentioned parents and caring adults.
The same is true for the arts. Whether it be for theatre, music, dance, ceramics, drawing, painting, photography or digital film, there are parents paying hefty sums to ensure that their children are well trained and differentiated from the pack.
When I look at the energy and money expended on athletics and arts for young children, I wonder just how large we will need to build our preschools and elementary schools to meet the demand for young children whose parents want them to have an academic advantage. The odds of being successful academically far exceed the odds of being a scholarship athlete or artist. More children will receive academic scholarships than all the athletic and arts scholarships combined. More children will pursue careers and lifetime pursuits in areas of knowledge and skill that are related to academics than related to athletics and the arts.
As much as I enjoy athletics and arts, and as important as they are to our overall curriculum at Shorecrest, the investment in a young child’s academic success is a more logical commitment than the one made for athletics or arts. I will probably be dodging paintballs, pots, footballs and soccer balls for the rest of my life for making this statement, but there is no doubt in my mind that The Experiential School and Lower School experiences have greater long-term value and deserve more energy and engagement from parents and students than any little league or arts activity.
Hopefully, this is not an either/or proposition. Parents can provide their children with great opportunities in many different ways. Given the opportunity and resources, sending a child to The Experiential School of Tampa Bay and the Lower School at Shorecrest becomes the advantage for modern day parents that college was just a generation or two ago. Our PE and arts programs give all children opportunities to develop interests and skills in arts and athletics that they can explore more deeply as they grow. But the readiness skills, habits of mind and achievement of young people who have the advantage of high quality early learning environments increases the possibility that a child will thrive in high school, university and into citizenship.
Cheers!
Mike
Cheers!
Mike
