Lascelve Graham | Glorified sports academies: Aberrant behaviour the norm

THE TRANSATLANTIC Slave Trade and racism resulted in a number of disadvantages, setbacks, hurdles, areas of underdevelopment for dark skinned (black) peoples. These are particularly pronounced in education, housing and land ownership, health, among others. There are tremendous, horrendous inequities in these areas between light skinned (white) peoples and black people. This is of course reflected in poverty, crime and other social ills in black society. Add to the above, the persistent, relentless and continuing brainwashing of black people to convince them of their worthlessness and rob them of their self-belief, and one will get an idea of the enormity of the problem with which black people are faced. This is further complicated by the fact that so many black people are unaware, unconscious, naive, misguided, ignorant of the facts and the challenge, easily manipulated by racists, and so become a part of the problem themselves.

Dark skinned people are in a war to free themselves from the bondage, the social burden which slavery, racism visited upon them. This war won’t be won by an overemphasis on kicking ball, running fast or jumping long/high in school, although these activities have their place! One of the key enablers which will help us break the chains and change the status quo is education. In Jamaica, our public schools are tasked with the responsibility to deliver quality education to all our children. We have had commissions and myriad research projects looking at education. All point to the miserable failure of our schools to achieve their mission, to deliver quality education and socialisation to the overwhelming majority of our children up to the secondary level (basic education). This of course is the foundation from which just about everything else meaningful to nation-building and self-actualisation is derived. Apartheid system! A number have shouted. However, while failing at their mission of educating and helping to properly socialise the masses of our children, our schools are fully focused on winning, at all costs, in sports, and functioning as sports academies. This distraction represents a very serious dereliction of duty by those responsible for education in Jamaica. Our priorities are skewed.

THE ONLY COUNTRY

I would not be surprised if one of the reasons Jamaica does so well in track and field,is that we have more sports academies per capita than any other country in the world. Nearly all our schools act as if they are sports academies. Jamaica is the only country whose schools were praised and encouraged to continue producing world-class athletes by the president of the IAAF, an Englishman, Lord Sebastian Coe. Is this what schools should be about, especially in an underdeveloped, developing country? We excel at what we celebrate. Let us make education paramount, and celebrate that!

An Englishman coach introduced the wholesale recruiting of footballers to schoolboy football in Jamaica. Of course it was hugged up, swallowed hook, line and sinker by our banana republic mentality leadership, who saw it as being so wonderful. It fitted in beautifully with the win-at-all-costs fanaticism of our rabid, myopic school tribes. There have been teams where the whole starting 11 were imports! Kudos to Campion College for resisting this pernicious practice and staying true to its mission throughout the years. I always wondered, if it is such a fantastic approach, why wasn’t it introduced in English (white, European) schools, so that they, England and the rest, would have the competitive advantage, the edge? Instead, they continue to have their schools fully focused on socialising and developing the academic, technical and vocational skills of their citizens. They understand that this will ensure the maintenance of power, the social status quo, the hierarchy prescribed by racism.

Recruiting for sports purposes by our schools has been rationalised in different ways. The excuses for corrupting our education system to facilitate sports have been several. We have heard of the many good things, scholarships, etc., that have benefited athletes recruited for sports. Some years ago, so as to highlight the good, Dr Leahcim Semaj was asked to look at the cohort of recruits for sports across the various high schools with the aim of discovering what had become of them. He had to abort, abandon his study because the schools refused to cooperate, refused to let their good works shine among men. I suppose their humility made them very shy when it came to exposing all the good they were doing for our children. Most who are encouraged to focus on sports don’t make it, very few do. The negatives, relative to the education system, associated with this recruiting practice are too numerous to mention here.

UPSET

Nowadays, some people are upset that foreigners are being brought into our school system because of their sports ability. This was highlighted at the recently concluded Champs event. Why people are upset now I find difficult to understand, since this is the logical conclusion of the win-at-all-costs professionalisation of school sports, which has been going on for decades. In this context, no school can win Champs or schoolboy football without recruiting heavily, bringing in outsiders, whether local or foreign. What a disgrace! What a shame! Aberrant behaviour has become the norm. Whereas our schools should be out scouting for potential in science, technology, mathematics, the arts, computers and such the like, instead, too many are falling over each other ‘buying’ sporting ability, in order to win at sports.

Pyrrhic victories indeed when we look at the bigger picture! We have surely lost our way! The competition has become so intense at school level as to be counterproductive. This overemphasis on winning at sports, on the professionalisation of sports in our schools, makes sports a less effective educational tool. This is not in the best interest of the black cause! We were always encouraged by the racists to produce the sports and entertainment performers, the minstrels, the court jesters. This will not rock the white-is-right boat, and will ensure that when the circumstances change, we will not be prepared with the expertise and/or the numbers necessary to fully grasp the opportunity.

Sports is a microcosm of life and can be a very powerful agent of change, of socialisation, if used as a teaching tool in schools, as it should be. All who qualify for a school in the normal way deserve to be afforded the opportunity to represent that school at all levels, if they are the best the school can produce at a given time. All are expected to become adult citizens and so deserve all the help they can get in the various areas offered by the school. Others should not be brought in from outside to fill the representational slots! Sports in school should not be about winning at all costs and hence about assembling an all-stars team in one school, as is the case now. The win-at-all-costs philosophy, the professionalisation of sports in our public schools is not in the best interest of our children or education. It is a symptom of the breakdown of our system which is reflected in poor educational outcomes, the antisocial behaviour of our youth and the general lack of values and principled behaviour in our society. Having adopted the transactional mentality, money drives everything. Our public schools have a very difficult but important role to play in the development of our human resource not only academically, technically, vocationally, but also in terms of the socialisation of our youth into pro-social adult citizens. Extracurricular, co-curricular activities, especially sports, can help in a major way in this area. However, they must be inclusive and geared towards all the students of a school, not just the talented.

Some years ago, the current ISSA president, then a vice-president, Keith Wellington, stated words to the effect that our schools are not the developmental arms of the various sports associations. They are educational institutions that play sports. If the spirit of that statement were adhered to, there would be no conflict between education and sports in our schools and there would be no recruiting for sports purposes. ISSA and the other policymaking stakeholders in school sports must act to not only talk the talk as above, but to walk the talk. Stop recruiting for sports purposes NOW! Leave that to sports academies and clubs whose missions are different to that of public schools. All children can learn, all children must learn. Let this not be just another nice-sounding, empty, public relations turn of phrase. Let our public schools fully focus on making this a reality.

Dr Lascelve ‘Muggy’ Graham is a former captain Jamaica senior football team. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.