TOW Post #3- Article: "The Case Against High-School Sports"

         

  High school is one of the most important four years of someone's life, it basically is the end of your childhood and the introduction of a new life chapter; adulthood. Unfortunately, high school is not an easy run through. With papers, exams, and projects, it's likely that students are often stressed. Fortunately, there is something that relieves the stress; sports. Today sports have become a huge part of American high schools.

            In The Atlantic 2013 October issue, journalist and graduate of Cornell University, Amanda Ripley, wrote an interesting article about how American high school sports are taken more seriously than academics. Throughout her article she tries to communicates to the superintendents of all American high schools that they should pay closer attention to how balanced sports and academics are. She incorporates foreign student perspectives and interesting statistics to bring up the question if sports and academics are balanced.

            Ripley focused on comparing American high schools to other high schools around the world. A South Korean girl named Jenny had moved to New York in 2011 and Ripley interviewed her about her thoughts on the American school. One of the first things that got her attention at  her new school, Shawnee High School, was that "sports are a big deal here". Many people in the United States wouldn't see high school sports as a huge deal when it comes to time and commitment, simply because we're use to it. On the other hand to foreign students it seems as if we praise high school sports. As Jenny continued talking to Ripley, she mentions how her classmates would play "pickup soccer on a dirt field at lunchtime," and if they were in the newspapers "it was usually for their academic accomplishments." Ripley also interviewed a german student who as well thought the same: that American students care more about sports than they do. Also Ripley mentions some shocking facts in comparative to other high schools around the world. She states that "more than 20 countries are pulling off better high school graduation rates" than the U.S. The average school pays about "$1300 per player (in this case football) but only $618 per math student." Ripley also includes this shocking fact that "93 percent of South Korean students graduate from high school, compared to 77 percent of American students." With these shocking facts and interviews from foreign students' perspectives, Ripley makes American superintendents rethink about how well their high school balances the importance of sports and academics.

Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/10/the-case-against-high-school-sports/309447/