I sat this year as I did last year watching and coaching my son and other children preparing for the upcoming BEST Robotics http://best.eng.auburn.edu/competition at Southern Poly Tech here in GA., which is a school for engineering, where they finished 10th overall out of about 35 competing schools. They were only 1 of 5 middle schools who competed against mostly all high schools. I ask myself, Why do we spend so much time brainwashing our children into thinking they need to play sports or entertain in order to be successful while putting athletes on pedestals directly in front of them ?
We are loosing our academic edge in the world. I found out that engineers have to be imported from other countries in order to fill positions in this country because we don't have enough.
How many people will you meet who will say "I was a engineering major in college but i decided to do something else", not many ; however you will meet a ton of men who will say," I used to play football in college but I couldn't cut it."We just don't put enough importance on education
and specialized fields. If a father can coach his son to be the best basketball player by making him practice everyday why cant we do the same thing with engineers
or any other field of choice ?
I reflect back to last year when a school could not attend the competition because they didn't have transportation to get to the event yet the football team from that school had three buses for themselves and the cheerleaders to get to their game the next day. What kind of message does that send from the school and the parents?
As my sons baseball coach who by the way is a great baseball player who also had the highest batting average on his teams in past years, I found it amazing how whenever other kids would speak about who their favorite professional player was ,he was criticized and ridiculed for having no clue as too who any of the players were. The kids all laughed at him as though there was something wrong with him not keeping up with the statistics of players who they may never meet or get a paycheck from. I had to take the time and explain to him that those things are not important and why, despite what they said. Fortunately, I am my sons hero and role model so he listened to me and not them.
Adults are brainwashing their own kids to worship the wrong things directly and in-directly.
You better believe they are watching you sit and cheer an athlete or swoon over an entertainer. The messages we send by our behavior is dangerous and helping to continue our deterioration as a society particularly as it pertains to education. There is nothing wrong with entertainment but some people worship these things like a drug addict loves crack.
I listen to my own peers , "Grown Ass Men watching a game on T.V. and when a team wins or loses they say," We Won" or"We Lost ". I am amazed by this behavior because last I checked they don't work for the NFL ,NBA, MLB or any of the other alphabets that describe sports and will not be receiving a check after that days game. These people get angry at a loss while armchair quarterbacking as though they were in the game themselves.
If we put that much energy and emphasis toward Kids learning to read and be productive instead of performing like a racehorse, I can only imagine where we would be as a society and as a black man , where our culture would be as a people ,by now. It seems that no one cares about academics anymore. Most kids will never be pro anything and there is nothing worse than seeing a grown man still trying to relive his high school or college days imagining he is in the NFL while his kid stands by learning to read rushing yards rather than quantum physics...its pathetic.
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