Rewards and Recognition: What Works

As I begin this article, I want to fully disclose that I have never been a fan of rewards for participation, motivation, or self-esteem.  The “everyone gets a trophy” mentality has been detrimental for years, doing more harm than good, and the spillover continues to damage the development of young people, and in turn, have a negative impact on a number of things we do in high schools.  I have written about this same topic previously on this site, and after recently reading a bit more on the topic, and am going to discuss it a little further.

In a recent Harvard study led by Carly Robinson, it was found that attendance awards, generally used to motivate students to come to school, can actually lead students to miss more days of school.  This study included 14,000 students in California in schools that gave out awards to students for school attendance.  Many of the students, once they received an award, started attending school less often.  The question then becomes, why?  We will get to that in a few minutes.

Rewards are a very big deal in American culture.  They have been used in all aspects of society to motivate performance.  Whether it is Employee of the Month in a department store, or the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, rewards permeate our society.  We have organizations that spend huge amounts of money to publicly recognize people.  The CMA Awards are just one example of a major television production, and each year the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame puts on an incredible program.  At the local level, you can most likely put together a list of rewards people are given pretty quick!  Just check out the local newspaper and someone is being recognized.

So, why am I bringing this up, and why is it a negative for kids?  Well, research is showing that rewards do not necessarily do what we want them to do.  They do not motivate people the way there were necessarily intended. 

There is a sense that there is a saturation of rewards.  Everyone is giving them.  In a school, look around a lot of classrooms and hallways and you will see stars for this, names on the wall for that, and any number of ways kids can be recognized. The volume of rewards has increased dramatically, and in some instances, you do not have to do much to get one.  Today, many of our students have figured out the game that they have to play in order to get the reward, and some simply do not want to play the game.  

To the casual observer, one would think it works because there are kids with stars and names on the wall, right?  Wrong.  If it worked, wouldn’t all kids have a star and all kids have their name on the wall?  Youth wrestling tournaments give medals to any youngster that  pays an entry fee and shows up, so why aren't youth wrestling tournaments turning kids away?  Go to some schools and get your picture on a banner when you are a senior.  Why don’t all seniors go out for athletic teams to get their banner on the wall?

There have to be reasons why.  Let’s take a look at a few possibilities, some of which have already been alluded to.  Tim Elmore provides a number of possibilities, and in my opinion, the biggest mistake people have made when it comes to giving rewards is that they have done it for behaviors that are expected.  I have had a number of colleagues question why are we rewarding students for doing what we expect them to do?  That has bothered me for a long time, and I suppose I get criticized because of my lack acknowledgment of kids.  I’ve done some of this, but I have a hard time handing out praise or rewards for things students, or anyone else, should be doing.  Rewards should be given to those who exceed expectations.  I will never apologize for having high expectations, and neither should anyone else!  Exceeding those expectations is what should get recognized.

Elmore points out that we must make sure that we understand how the reward is perceived by those who receive it, as well as their peers.  I remember a classmate of mine, Bruce Feigenbutz, who did not miss a day of school from Kindergarten through his senior year in high school!  That is impressive, and goes beyond anyone’s expectations.  As an educator, I am impressed and would certainly agree that giving a reward to someone for that kind of accomplishment is warranted.  That said, for the majority of high school students, consistent school attendance is not seen as something cool at all.  In some school cultures, really good grades are not cool either, at least for some members of the student body.  How much influence they have will often determine how a reward is perceived.  Some students will resent the recognition if they believe they are going to be mocked for their success.  Thus, a reward for attendance may in fact be something kids do not want.

I’ve already pointed out that too many rewards reduces the meaning.  Here is a real quick example.  Compared to a lot of high schools, we have a high standard for admission into the National Honor Society.  To even be considered, a student must have a 3.5 GPA, which is actually higher than the national recommendation.  For the most current induction, there were 30 students eligible to apply, and through the selection process, fourteen were inducted.  Our NHS Chapter has 29 current members.  We have another school almost exactly the same size in our area that had 100 students eligible this year, and over thirty were selected.  Their GPA requirement is 3.25.  Which one of these is the greater honor?  How about schools that have an overwhelming number of valedictorians?  How much an honor is it when 20% of the senior class is recognized as a valedictorian?  The rarer the reward, the higher the value.  For something to be motivating, it has to be valued.

What do students value?  What kinds of rewards do motivate?  That is something that those giving the reward need to find out.  In some communities with high poverty levels, the reward of a free college education paid for by wealthy benefactors has had a huge impact on academic performance.  I’m not so sure that would have the same impact in wealthy communities.  In some schools, access to free computer time has been an attractive reward.  For many, finding ways to reward excellence or exceeding expectations can be quite difficult.  What researchers have shown time again is that to be most effective, the reward must have intrinsic value.  The individual must have a high level of personal satisfaction and sense of personal accomplishment for the reward to have value, regardless of what it is.  

I have to admit that the hair stands up on the back of my neck when I am with various groups and we are talking about students and the topic of rewards come up.  In most instances as soon as that happens, I ask “What are our expectations?” and generally follow with “If kids meet the expectations, why is it necessary to reward?”  Other than a “thank you” or “good job” do we really need to give more?

A Legal Age for Cell Phones and Social Media?

What does the ping or buzz of a cell phone have in common with drinking alcohol, smoking a cigarette, and gambling?  All of them result in the brain releasing dopamine, and that makes us feel good!  Dopamine is a chemical in your brain that affects your emotions, movements and your sensations of pleasure and pain.  It functions as a neurotransmitter that sends signals to other nerve cells and is a major component in reward-motivated behavior.  Dopamine motivates one to take action toward goals, desires, and needs, and gives a surge of reinforcing pleasure when achieving them.  It is important to note that while this chemical is released by the above mentioned acts, along with endorphins and serotonin, dopamine is also released when exercising.  In reality, your body craves physical movement and even though a person may not like to exercise, when they do, the chemicals are released and the person feels good.

So why this little mini-lesson on dopamine and the “pleasure release?”  Because we often become addicted to things that give us pleasure.  As mentioned above, our bodies crave the release of this chemical, and to get that we often develop both a physical and mental addiction to it.  In the case of cigarettes, manufacturers have added other chemicals, like nicotine, to reinforce addiction.  And even with exercise, there are people that one could argue go too far, causing their bodies to break down.  And now, we have people, particularly young ones, who get that rush of pleasure when they hear that phone ping or feel it buzz.  The natural consequence of this is that they cannot put their phone away or get away from it.  In our classrooms we see this all the time, and when it becomes a disruption and I take a phone away from a student, it often looks like an addict giving up their drugs.  It is very difficult for them, and when they return to the classroom they are highly distracted because they are wondering what they are missing out on because they do not have that phone in hand.  They even become a bit agitated because they do not get that dopamine release without hearing the ping.  I am not making this up!  We see it happen with some of our students!

Here’s something else we know about young people and their devices.  According to a recent study published in January 2019 edition of the Journal of Applied Biobehavioural Research, spending too much time on “social media” sites like Facebook is not only making people miserable, it is also making them depressed.  In a study that involved 504 millennials that are active users of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and/or Snapchat, who met the criteria for a major depressive disorder also scored higher on the “Social Media Addiction” scale and exhibited other behaviors that are associated with major depression.

In another study conducted by psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania, they concluded that for those subjects who drastically cut back their use of sites, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, they often saw marked improvement in their mood and how they felt about their lives.  One of the researchers, Melissa Hunt, stated “It was striking.  What we found over the course of three weeks was that rates of depression and loneliness went down significantly for people who limited their (social media) use.” 

Simon Sinek, a British-American author, motivational speaker, and organizational consultant, who once worked in advertising, makes it very clear about the addictive nature of cell phones, and most important, how relationships are impacted.  When people go to meetings or out to dinner, and they pull out their phone and lay it on the table, they have sent the message that the people around them are not important to them.  They have told everyone else at the table that the phone is more important than the people in the room.  They are much more interested in what is going to happen on their phone than what is being said across the table.  Think of what people do when they are waiting for an appointment, whether it is at the dentist’s office or for a meeting with the principal.  They pull out their phones.  There may very well be other people in the room and instead of talking to other people, they are running through their phones.  When this is done at conferences or meetings, relationships suffer.  People get to know one another in the in-between times, and they cannot do that when they are checking out their phones.  This is not just an issue with teens; it is an issue with all of us!  However, teenagers have grown up with these devices and have not learned how to talk to each other, face-to-face, and socialize with each other.

Sinek also talks about the fact that young people are not learning to talk to people and have no idea how to develop meaningful relationships.  They have grown up in a world of immediate satisfaction, in large part supported by their smart phone.  They have the world at their fingertips!  They have developed what Sinek calls “systemic impatience,” and if they do not experience success right away, they consider that failure.  Relationships take hard work to develop, and young people do not have experience talking with people and working through difficulties.  In many instances, they are afraid to talk to people because they haven’t had to in order to communicate.  

Addiction.  Depression.  Damaged relationships.  Is it time to step in legally to prohibit use by our youngest and most vulnerable?  In the summer of 2019 there was a bill  in Congress to raise the age to use vapes, e-cigarettes, and tobacco products to 21.  Yes, serious health conditions result from their use over time, but I believe we can same about the emotional, mental, and physical health of those addicted to their electronic devises and what they can access.  For a very long time I have made the comment that we are putting incredibly powerful devices — smart phones — in the hands of kids that are not developmental mature enough to handle them.  It’s like putting a six-year old behind the wheel of a race car.  Kids do not need them.  They were fine before these things came about, and they will most likely be better if they could not use them until they are mature enough to handle them.  Yes, there is no doubt that there are positive uses for this technology.  But there needs to be balance, and for many of our young people, that does not exist.

Thoughts About the Gymnasium Uberlingen Exchange — Part IV

Upon my return from the trip to Germany, I have had a number of people ask the typical questions of “What was your favorite part of the trip?” or “What was the one thing that really stood out?”  Generally my reply was along the line of “There were many things; too many to pick just one!”  Then I would tell about how all of my mental images of the country I had developed over the years were confirmed, and how beautiful the place was.  Of course I shared about the Mercedes Benz Museum in Stuttgart, as well as a couple of side-trips Tammy and I took to Oberstdorf and Dachau.  However, as I reviewed the journal I kept on the trip, and have thought back to different things we did, there were a number of “smaller” things, those that were not necessarily in the travel guide, that made a significant impression on me.

Something that I have come back to a number of times since the trip was a very brief, but memorable encounter we had with a gentleman that stacks stones and sells photographs of his natural sculptures to make a living.  His name was Sepp Bogle, a tanned, burly man with long white hair and a matching, bushy beard that wore a blue t-shirt and blue shorts.  We had about a half-hour wait for a train at a village called Radolfzell, located along Lake Constance, and we decided to walk a little ways down a pier to enjoy the beautiful day.  I saw these stones that were stacked on a concrete ledge, and Bogle standing near by when we found a bench to sit on facing the lake.  Shortly after, a large swan came out of the lake right in front of us, walked toward and then past us, headed toward the stone sculptures.  This burly man then proceeded to “shoo” him away, and at that point we struck up a conversation.  

He shared with us that he spends six months in Radolfzell, staying in a room at a hotel or on the pier when the weather permits.  The other six months he goes to one of the Canary Islands, where he basically lives the same life as he does on the shore of Lake Constance.  He provided an English copy of an article that was written about him, and talked to us a bit as well.  He was soft-spoken and very nice, and we discovered he was a very successful business man earlier in his life, acquiring great wealth and living that fast-paced lifestyle.  However, that was not what he wanted, and after his marriage fell apart, he opted to leave all of that behind and get in touch with what he believes is much more important in life.  In fact, in addition to stacking stones and selling pictures, he often counsels people who seek him out, as well as others who are referred to him by people he has gotten to know over the years.  I wish we had spent more time talking with him as there are times that I wonder if I could actually live a similar life.  

Another one of the little things I enjoyed was a visit to the small village of Birnau, about ten miles from Uberlingen, where we saw perhaps the most incredible church I have ever seen.  The Birnau Abbey Church was decorated in the Baroque style, and included beautiful ornamentation, sculptures, and paintings.  While I have not seen some of the great churches, cathedrals, or basilicas in Rome and elsewhere, I have visited a number of them in other places, and I have to say that nothing has struck me the way this small little church did on the Bodensee.  It was amazing!

Coming from an agricultural family, I was particularly interested in farming in Germany, and since we spent the majority of our time in Baden-Wurttemberg and Bavaria, there was a lot to see.  These are the two primary agricultural states in the country.  Though nearly all of my observations were from the road, it was none the less very interesting to me.  For one thing, the farms were very small compared to what we have in Iowa, and in some respects, it seemed that everything was on a smaller scale.  Their tractors and machinery looked the same as what we have, but were about two-thirds the size.  The same with hay bales.  Dairy barns were constructed of wood rather than metal, and smaller because at most a farmer may have had twenty cows.  What was fascinating to me was that there were many places with fruit trees that were a hybrid that grew up instead of out and were planted very close together.  And, they had netting over the top to protect them from birds and hail.  They also had taller nets that covered hops that were growing, climbing over cables that were stretched the length of the nets.  Fascinating!

We also experienced a number of different things in their culture.  To no surprise a lot of people ride bicycles, and ride them significant distances.  There is no place in the towns and cities to park cars, so bikes make a lot of sense.  Of course you can take a train about anywhere, and people do.  It is a very popular type of transportation.  Some of our kids stayed with families outside of Uberlingen and rode the train every time they needed to come for an event or departure.  We rode a train quite a few times, and I have to say that it is a shame we do not have that kind of transportation more available to us in our country.  

One thing that was a surprise to many of us is that bottled water had “gas” in it, and you could buy it with different levels of gas.  Gas means carbonation, and most of our kids really did not care for it.  In a few places you could find water without gas, but that was the exception rather than the rule.  Along the food line, I expected different cuisine and was able to try traditional German food.  However, just like in our country, there were ethnic restaurants every where we traveled.  Pizza places were all over the place and it wasn’t hard to find a Chinese or Italian restaurant.  McDonalds was interesting as it lacked many of the traditional choices we have, and had quite a few different ones.  While we were there they were promoting a number of items with jalapeños.  Most satisfying were the ice cream stores!  In downtown Uberlingen there must have been at least ten ice cream shops, all of them featuring very elaborate treats.  I believe I ate ice cream every evening!

There are a number of things I am sure I will remember from this trip; some that I had never seen before.  There was also quite a bit that was familiar.  All of that said, I think two of the things that will remain with me as they took me back to the days of my youth were that every vehicle I rode in had a manual transmission, and I saw many of the old cigarette machines that used to be by the exit of restaurants years ago.  It was kind of strange to once again see those things as I had not thought about them in years.  I guess in some respects, the more things change, the more they stay the same!

Thoughts About the Gymnasium Uberlingen Exchange — Part III

Over the years I have talked to a number of people who have participated in the exchange, either as a student or as a parent of student.  I have to admit that I am still digging into the history as bit, trying to learn more about it, so my knowledge of who has been involved over the years is still quite limited.  What continues to impress me is the friendships that have endured over time.  Certainly that has not happened in all cases, as I know not everyone has continued to stay in touch.  But that said, I am impressed with those who have built relationships over the years.

To no surprise, one of the founders of the exchange, former principal Steve Story, has maintained relationships with Lothar Fritz, a former educator at Uberlingen, who was integral in starting the exchange.  They visited each other over the years and have continued correspondence far beyond their time working at their respective schools.  I know that Mr. Story often communicates with Herr Fritz in regard to their mutual interest in football, or as we call it, soccer.  In addition, I have talked with a number of parents of former students who have visited their former exchange students in their travels to Germany, some attending weddings and other big events that have taken place over the years.  

Earlier this year I had conversation with Judy Heyer, who has remained in contact with her exchange partner, Thomas Lailach, over the years since they first met each other in 1985.  They have become very good fiends, visiting each other countless times, including attendance at the recent wedding of Judy’s son. She remarked, “What an awesome experience the exchange was and I cannot express what it has meant for me!  So glad it is still an option for our students.”  Thomas’s son Nik came for a visit this fall at the start of the school year and spent a couple of days at school.  Perhaps in the future he will be part of the exchange as well!

While we were in Uberlingen I had the opportunity to meet Joerg Burghardt, a retired teacher who participated in a number of previous exchanges.  He traveled more than once with students, and developed a very strong relationship with former North Fayette teacher, Aaron Bicknese.  Over the course of a number of years, Herr Burghardt has made a number of visits to West Union to visit his friend Aaron, as well as others he has met over the years.  The reality is that in the big picture friendship can extend beyond oceans and continents, and because of this exchange, some friendships have endured for years.  When you think about it, having that friend that you are willing to get on a plane and fly ten hours to see is a pretty special friend!

In recent years, at least in the time that I have been at NFV, I have seen siblings come on the exchange, and I have seen one of our families host seven exchange students, with all five of their daughters traveling to Germany.  The Brian Gibson family has been all in on the exchange, and in talking with Linda, mother of the five girls who have participated, it has been an incredible experience.  We have had a number of conversations over the years and being able to meet students from Germany and travel to their home has certainly been a highlight of the educational experience for their family at NFV.

One of our most recent students who was involved in the exchange, Rezner Buhr, has traveled back to Uberlingen, spending time with a number of people that she met when she took her initial trip in 2017.  We have had students who have from Uberlingen on the exchange, and then their sibling has come over after the fact.  A few years back, Janika Merkle was on the exchange and stayed with the David Pleggenkuhle family, and then the next year, younger sister Hanna spent the entire school year at NFV, staying with the Tim Feldman family.

When we were in Germany on this last trip, I was informed by Hans-Juergen Borde that according to GAPP, the German American Partnership Program, this is the longest continuous running exchange between two schools that currently exists.  When you think about a chance meeting that took place almost forty years ago between two teachers who thought it would be a great idea to have an exchange, and the friendships that have been established, it is truly incredible!

If You’re Not Cheating You’re Not Trying: I Call BS!

I am sure that many of you, especially those of you have have competing in athletics, have heard someone say “if you’re not cheating you’re not trying."   I honestly cannot tell you the first time I heard it, but I can tell you that I have heard it come out of people’s mouths too many times to count.  I have heard it from coaches, parents, family members, fans, and athletes, among others.  It has been said to me by people I have worked with closely, sometimes jokingly, but not always.  It generally is said by people who maintain a win-at-all-costs mentality, that tend to believe that the integrity of the game is secondary to winning.  More often than not, it comes from people who recognize that they do not have what it takes to win, and thus they believe that either they or the team they follow must circumvent the rules to beat the better team or individual.  

This was brought up not long ago in a conversation that I was having with a colleague at school who shared that 1) he absolutely hates that philosophy and 2) he was bothered because someone had made the comment in front of one of his kids, who did not understand the context in which it was being said.  As an avid sports fan, I value the integrity of sports and recognize that in order for games or contests to be fair, there must be rules to govern them.  A person of character respects rules and follows them.  As a former athlete and a coach, I recognized how important it was to find an edge, an advantage, to improve my/our opportunity to win.  They way that is done is to put in more time to sharpen skills, or studying the opponent to plan strategy that will better take advantage of my/our strengths.  Building up one’s cardio fitness, or developing a game plan to our maneuver a team are common, accepted methods used to pursue victory.  Cheating is not.  Exploiting loopholes in rules is not.  Attempting to injure an opponent is not.

A true sportsman wants to compete against the best, when their opponent is at their best.  Whether it is in team competition or individual against individual, to truly measure yourself in the quest for ultimate victory, you want to compete with integrity so that you can honestly say you won.  Victory is not as meaningful when the opponent is not at their best, whether it is a football game against a team who has lost it’s best quarterback, or a 3200m race against a runner that is under the weather.  To be the best, you have to beat the best!  True competitors want to challenge themselves against the best, and frankly, are frustrated when they do not get that chance.  By the same token, they want to compete on a level playing field, which is where the issue of cheating comes in to play.

For all of their Super Bowl championships, history is not going to be kind of the New England Patriots.  People can argue all they want about the greatness of Coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady, and it is reasonable to consider both of them as the greatest of all time in their respective positions.  That said, in the sporting world, they are considered to be cheaters, and one has to question whether or not they would have won as many championships without cheating.  Belichick has pulled different shenanigans over the years, including “Spygate” when a Patriot staffer was directed to videotape the New York Jets play-call signals so coaches could study them for a future game.  The team and head coach were fined a combined $750,000.00.  Perhaps more famous was “Deflategate,” when the game balls used by the Patriots had air let out of them so Brady could grip them better.  In that same season, they used “deception” with what were determined to be illegal formations in a game versus the Baltimore Ravens that were so cleverly designed that they fooled the referees as well!  Bill Belichick epitomizes the statement used for this article: If you’re not cheating you’re not trying!”  And the crazy thing is, most football pundits argue that they most likely would have won without cheating!

Cheating is a character flaw, and if I have heard it once, I have heard it thousands of times . . . sports build character!  Some of the same people that I have heard make the later comment, have also said the former.  Or, perhaps they have not said it, but have done it!  In my younger days I coached against one of the most competitive people I have met in my lifetime, and he was busted on more than one occasion helping or supporting his wrestlers cheating at weigh-ins.  Caught red-handed!  I am aware of coaches that have covered up incidents that would have otherwise resulted in their athletes being found in violation of the Good Conduct policy.  One of the more prominent softball coaches in the state of Iowa, who knows the rules as well as anyone, has broken them by having his players use illegal equipment.  I cannot count the number of times when I have brought up rules regarding coaching out of season I have heard the reply, “coaches from other schools are doing it."  The question then is “Why?”  Because, if you aren’t doing everything possible to win, you aren’t doing enough, and that includes cheating.  That is unacceptable!

In some parts of the sporting world there truly is a cesspool in which the win at all cost mentality is pervasive.  In particular I am thinking about college basketball recruiting.  What is frustrating is that to some degree there is acceptance, though recently, federal law enforcement has gotten involved and perhaps there will be changes.  I am concerned that our society has come to accept cheating as something that is going to happen and we just have to acknowledge it.  I would hope that we are better than that, and would prefer that our attitude would be that if you have to cheat, is it really worth it.  We cannot turn a blind eye to it and accept that we cannot do anything about it.  Those who cheat are not worthy of victory, under any circumstance.  

Failing Online Charter Schools

I am not a fan of charter schools, or rather, I am not a fan of for-profit charter schools that siphon public money away from public schools.  It does not matter whether they are brick and mortar schools, or online programs.  In recent travels to other parts of the country, I have seen brand new buildings housing charter schools that look like palaces, and I have driven by some that occupy space in what appears to be worn out strip malls.  I am very aware of a few charters that have done incredible things, particularly KIPP Public Charter Schools, turning lives around for kids who come from poverty stricken backgrounds, but note that “public” is included in the title.  In Iowa, charter schools have struggled to gain a foothold.  In large part I believe that is due to the fact that the majority of people in a community have a positive feeling about the job being done in our public schools.  However, there are a few, and while proponents can argue that they provide more educational options to parents, overall, in our country they are not doing what they were intended to do.

In a report published in April 2019 by the Education Week Research Center, nearly three-quarters of students enrolled in online charter schools in the U.S. are attending “schools” where less than half of the students have graduated in four years.  Also contained in this report is the following:

Nationally, half of all virtual charter high schools had graduation rates     below 50-percent in the 2016-17 school year. Thirty-seven percent of schools had graduation rates at or above 50-percent. Graduation data for the remaining 13-percent of schools was masked for various reasons, such as to protect student privacy. There are about 163 virtual charter schools educating over 30,000 seniors nationally as determined by the adjusted cohort graduation rate, according to federal numbers.

In a Stanford University study in 2015, it was found that students attending an online charter school made so little progress in math over the course of a year that it was as if they hadn’t attended school at all.  That is unconscionable!  Let us apply that to our high school, or for that matter, any public high school in the United States.  If our students were not learning math in our classes, the community would be justifiably upset and many of us — from teachers up to administrators — would most likely lose our jobs.  In essence, we are talking about malpractice, and yet it appears that nothing is being done to demand accountability from these charters.

Most of the online charter schools are run by for-profit companies, and since the beginning, they have struggled with academic performance.  On a trip four summers ago we stopped in Indianapolis and spent some time downtown.  In a shopping mall, there was a lot of signage, including forty-foot banners spanning the walking area, advertising a couple of different online charter programs.  Both schools had kiosks where you could get information and sign your child up.  According to the Education Week study, not one virtual charter school operating in Indiana in 2016-17 had a graduation rate over 50% in the past four years.  What would you think if our school had a graduation rate of less than 50%?  On a national level, anything under a 90% graduation rate is considered low!

In Iowa, there are two “state approved” charter schools.  Both of them are for-profit, and both of them are aligned with and administrated by public school districts.  Students in the state can open enroll to either of the two districts and then enroll in the online charter option.  One of them is Iowa Connections Academy that is aligned with the CAM school district in southwest Iowa.  The other is called Iowa Virtual Academy in the nearby Clayton Ridge district.  In looking at graduation rates in Iowa, the state average for public schools in 2018 was an all-time high of 91.4%.  (North Fayette Valley has consistently exceeded the state average.)  The school district with the lowest graduation rate in that year was Storm Lake in western Iowa, a district with a very high percentage of ESL and low-economic status students, as well as a very transient population.  The second lowest graduation rate was CAM at 77%, which must include those students who enrolled in the Iowa Connections Academy (ICA).  In an online search, ICA’s profile reports a graduation rate between 70 and 79%, which is in lowest 50% of Iowa schools.  Clayton Ridge’s graduation rate was reported at 82.7%, which also puts them very close to the bottom of schools in the state.  There is no additional information provided by this district on the ICA profile.

While I am not sure of the financial arrangement between these two schools and their partner school district, I do know that state funds in the form of per pupil costs go to them through the open enrollment law we have in Iowa.  We have had a small number of students from our district choose to open enroll into the programs, two of whom graduated as they transferred their senior year.  None of the others graduated.  

In my opinion, this whole charter movement, which is strongly supported by current Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, is a way to separate certain groups of kids from other groups.  Many of the brick and mortar charter schools have specific entrance requirements that prevent students from certain demographic groups from enrolling, despite state and local laws that are supposed to prevent it.  It has been a way for the private sector to get public funding, and yet stay free of the same requirements and standards that public schools must meet.  In the accountability laws that exist in every state, no public school could survive unscathed with a graduation rate less than 50%.  The state would have swooped in, shut it down, and either close it or forced dramatic restructuring.  They have done this since the advent of No Child Left Behind.  However, the for-profit charter schools have been protected, and have not been held to the same standard.  It is a significant question of fairness and a level playing field.  In my mind, it is a misuse of taxpayer dollars to allow these failing schools to continue.  We wouldn’t stand for that if our school was failing.

What Your Kids Need to Know Before They Move Out

As a recent “empty-nester” I could have used something like the list I am sharing with you as my wife and I prepared to send both of our kids out the door to adulthood!  A lot has been said about our generation of parenting, quite a bit of it negative in terms of making our kids too dependent on us.  To a large extent, I agree with the criticism and have worked hard as a dad to prepare my kids to take care of themselves.  Some of it has taken hold, but some has not.  Tim Elmore, in his blog Growing Leaders, shares a list of 14 skills he believes we must instill in our children to prepare them to become independent, self-sufficient adults.  You may want to create a checklist from this and let it guide you over the course of the next few years.  I know that as I looked it over I still have some work to do!

14 Skills Your Kids Should Have Before Moving Out

https://growingleaders.com/blog/14-skills-your-kids-should-have-before-moving-out/?inf_contact_key=dc65e819cba97831f58b3c140340838d680f8914173f9191b1c0223e68310bb1

Thoughts About the Gymnasium Uberlingen Exchange — Part II

Shortly after I arrived and spent a couple of days in Uberlingen, I sent an email back to my administrator colleagues at NFV entitled Universal Truths!  We had gone on one of our outings, and I had just spent a good chunk of the morning at Gymnasium Uberlingen, with an opportunity to observe students and teachers, and to talk to my principal colleague, Hans Weber.  I also had a chance to talk with a teacher that we will get to know much better in the future, Ute Kramer, as she will travel on the next exchange to NFV.  In that small snapshot of time, I made some determinations, perhaps a little too soon or without adequate evidence!

First,  female students at Gymnasium Uberlingen dress very much like girls in our school, with shorts shorter than a conservative old foggy with a young daughter like me are comfortable with.  They do not have a dress code, but there were some observations made by a couple of their teachers that would indicate that many push the boundaries of what is acceptable in a school setting.  The boys, on the other hand, dressed a lot different than our’s.  First of all, sports are not nearly as large of a part of their culture as ours, and thus that kind of apparel influence was for the most part nonexistent.  No long baggy shorts, and not nearly the number of t-shirts.  They wore shorts and jeans, most of them other than blue denim, that were a lot more form fitting.  The point is that you could not tell the difference between American and German teenage females, but you most definitely could between the boys.

Kids do not do homework!  Teachers from the gymnasium expressed deep frustration that a high percentage of their current students do not do homework.  We see a lot of the same, to the extent that researchers have dug in trying to figure out why, and others in the field have spent a great deal of time determining what is valuable homework and what is not.  I was particularly surprised to hear this from gymnasium teachers because of their tiered educational system.  Those kids attending their school will take some very intensive exams at the conclusion of their final year of high school that will determine whether or not they will get into college, and then what college.  Talk about high stakes!  Perhaps it is indicative of this generation of young people that they haven’t internalized the concept of putting in the time to learn before you are assessed.  There are differences in motivation between our students and theirs due to the difference in school systems, but none the less students are choosing not to do homework.

Teachers from Uberlingen and our district claim that students are coming to school less prepared, and that parents are not as supportive of the school’s handling of student issues as in the past.  The same has been said in our nation’s schools as well.  In fact, schools have gone to great lengths to teach and provide services that are traditionally the responsibility of the family.  We have some great parents in our community, and I am sure that there are in Uberlingen as well, but like a lot of things, a “loud minority” often grabs the attention and focus of others.  Problems tend to receive more attention than things that are going well.  However, teachers in both places complain about giving up instruction time in their content area to teach things that should have been taught at home by parents.  

Something that was a bit of a surprise was that teachers do not feel appreciated, which is the same in our schools.  It has been well chronicled how teachers in our country face incredible challenges in the face of overwhelming criticism from a variety of different sources, and changes made by politicians.  A number of studies have determined that teacher morale is at an all-time low.  What I heard from teachers over there is primarily connected to changes in the school system made by the government.  The educational program is a lot more centralized in terms of curriculum that must be taught and assessments that have to be given.  Gymnasiums are the highest level schools for students in the country and designed to prepare students to go on to a university.  In recent years the government has relaxed admission standards and basically have taken the position that if parents want a child to go to a gymnasium, then they can, regardless of the child's academic level.  That is a drastic change, and means that there are kids in their schools that do not have the skills to succeed, and teachers are being asked to do more to see that they do.  It is a dramatic shift in expectations for teachers, and many are having a great deal of difficulty making the adjustment. 

Gaming online is a main competitor for student’s time outside of school, just as it is with some of our young people, as well as time spent on social media.  It seemed like as soon as we walked into a place that had free WiFi, out came all of the phones!  Fortnight is every bit as popular among German teens as it is with our’s.  One thing I did not see were phones in hand when students were moving through the halls at school, but at the same time, they were not carrying laptops either.  Keep in mind, however, that in their schools students stay in the same room and the teachers travel, thus the devices may have been left in the room.  Teachers expressed a similar frustration that students come to school tired in the mornings after late nights of gaming.

Over the years as I have traveled across our country, visiting schools and talking to educators, I have developed the belief that kids are kids, regardless of where they come from and live.  Now, having experienced a little bit of another country up close, this belief is further confirmed.  In this “smaller world” referenced in a previous article, technology has removed a lot of the unknowns.  More of the American way of life has seeped into the daily life of the areas we visited.  Technology has also caused change, and regardless of who you are or where you are, change is difficult.  Some of the challenges are the same for educators, both here and in Germany.  The more we communicate and work together, perhaps we can find positive ways to deal with them.

Thoughts About the Gymnasium Uberlingen Exchange — Part I

We recently completed the 19th exchange between our school and Gymnasium Uberlingen from southwest Germany.  In my time at North Fayette Valley I have been part of five exchanges, and this year was my first as a participant that traveled to Baden-Wittenburg, and the community of Uberlingen on the shores of the Bodensee, or Lake Constance.  It was an incredible experience, and I actually started to write this article on one of the “off days” we had early in our visit.  I was quite reflective that day, and already blown away by the experience up to that point.  Now that I am back in West Union, I have had more time to reflect on the experience and the exchange.  Over the course of the next few months in this blog, I will share different thoughts I have had relative to this experience.  Hopefully, some of what I write about will resonate with you, and if nothing else, give you a little more insight into the exchange that has impacted so many lives in our school district.

While this was the first time in Europe for me, my wife has traveled there before, and I remember a conversation with her about how surprised she was in regard to how much Europeans knew about our country.  And, on the flip side, how little we really know about Europe, other than a few things we learned in high school history classes.  Jay Leno used to do these “quizzes” on the street that were often about topics from history, primarily in my opinion to show how ignorant some people were about the world we live in.  He got some laughs and other people used those short clips to point fingers at school systems or “kids these days.”  What I found out in my time in Germany reinforced my wife’s view, and I was actually quite surprised how much people knew not only about our political system, but also about our economy, culture, and basically what goes on in many aspects of our society on a daily basis.  Yes, most of the time I was with highly educated people, but even when we had experience with others, this seemed to be true.

A number of years ago I read Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat, and in different settings I have referenced a number of things that I took away from that book.  Without going into a full-scale review or summary of the book, one of the fundamental points he makes is that due to technology and advances in communication we live in a “smaller” world.  We are a few keystrokes away from knowing what is going on, or being able to communicate with someone anywhere in the world.  In many ways there are not as many “mysteries” about places foreign to us because we can easily find out about them on the Internet.  Our students who have participated in the last two or three exchanges have communicated extensively with their German partners before even meeting them, and then more between visits.  A lot of this is done via social media, and so the kids were very tuned in as to what to expect when they arrived in each other’s homeland.  They were also more informed about each other’s interests, families, likes and dislikes, than in the past.

This smaller world also presented itself with signs, literally and figuratively, of the United States all over the place.  Our host drove a Skoda Citigo, a Czech manufactured vehicle.  I never heard of it, and as I started car watching on our walks and drives, I noticed a few other manufacturers I did not recognize.  At the same time, I saw a number of Fords, though they were all smaller compact cars.  We also saw a number of brown UPS trucks, though in Germany they were Mercedes Benz!  In many communities there was a McDonalds restaurant, and at the checkout in grocery stores one saw a number of familiar candy bars, such as Snickers and Kit Kat.  There was a Levi's store in a mall we visited, and a lot of people wearing Nike shoes.  We also went to an Aldi grocery store.  Oh wait, that is a German business that happens to be the faster growing grocer in the United States!

Something else that has happened is that because more information is available quickly, and because the United States is the dominant country in the world, people in other countries are hungry to know as much as they can about us.  They are very tuned in to our political situation, and many that I spoke to have established very strong beliefs about the President and current policies of the Republican Party.  More than one person remarked that based on recent foreign policy decisions, it will be decades before they trust our country if the GOP is in control.  I found that concerning, as I did the parallels that some of the people I met were drawing between the white nationalist emergence in our country and similar movements in the eastern region of theirs.  That was directly addressed by our tour guide during a visit my wife and I took to Dachau, the notorious concentration camp created in the 1930’s by the Nazis.  In fact, there was a very high level of concern expressed because our nation is viewed as a leader and if things like this are happening on our soil, they rationalized that it could happen anywhere.  

Taking all of this in, my “worry-ometer” has kicked in and I am truly concerned about how little our students know about the world, and for that matter many of us adults.  We do not have much of a global awareness or understanding compared to the average German.  They know how our economy works, and are very current on market trends in our country that have an impact beyond our border.  As the campaigns for the 2020 election are gearing up, some have studied the various Democratic candidates as much as any of us.  They are very tuned in to the migrant problems at our southern border, and easily compare it to similar situations in nearby countries.  I mention this because who among us can even name the major political parties in Germany, and outside of Angela Merkle, who are other political leaders in that country.  For that matter, beside Teresa May, Vladimir Putin, and Emmanuel Macron, who are the other leaders of European nations?  What countries belong to the European Union and what ones do not?  The people we talked to know a great deal about the various leaders in our nation, and have very strong opinions as to what they believe needs to happen.  

The United States is a model for the rest of the world, and while it may sound kind of goofy, in many ways, people want to be like us, or at least have many of the things we have.  Because of that they are very aware of most things American.  At the same time, the last thing that can happen to us is to continue this path toward isolation.  We must recognize that we are dependent on other nations, and in order to better work with them, we need to know more about them.  This exchange is a very small step toward that end, and while the fact that we have twenty kids share a couple of months with a German teen every two years does not lead to dramatic changes in the world order, it does make a difference in how some people view the world, or at least part of it.  It may matter more in the future when they are adults and have a vote, and perhaps make a decision to run for political office.  This smaller world is different from what it was in 1982 when this exchange started, but the mission is the same: to develop understanding and relationships among young people from different nations.  That mission is still very important and very much alive.

Prisons Are More Important Than Schools

I hope you disagree with the title of this article, because I certainly do.  However, if you look at the amount of money spent on both institutions over the past 33 years, there is no question that among politicians, and perhaps some other members of our society, it is more important to fund prisons than it is to fund education.  When one looks at how much a state spends on a prisoner compared to how much it spends on a child attending school, more money is spent in this country on the prisoner than the child.  According to a report by the personal finance site GoBankingRates, fifteen states spend at least $27,000 more per prisoner than they do per student, with California having the biggest gap, spending $64,642 per inmate compared to $11,495 per student.  That difference of $53, 146 is astounding!  In Iowa, the cost of educating a student is a bit under $10,000, while the cost spent on each inmate is over $30,000.  Just think what kind of education could be provided to our young people if those dollar amounts were flipped!  Or for that matter, find the average and fund them the same!

There is no question that our nation has a problem with incarceration, and perhaps some of the conversation about prison and sentencing reform you hear about every so often will come to fruition in the near future.  It is astounding that in the richest country in the world, while our country accounts for 4.4% of the world’s population, it also accounts for 22% of the world’s prison population.  The crazy thing about that statistic is that there are many other countries in the world that have far more restrictions on their citizenry and yet, do not have as many people confined.  Maybe even crazier is that in the United States, incarceration rates have tripled in the last thirty years despite crime rates falling!  How does that add up?  We are spending an incredible amount of taxpayer money, in some respects keeping for-profit, private prisons very much in the black, and at the same time short-changing the education of young people.

Within this inequity of spending, there exists some very interesting correlations between education and incarceration, students and prisoners.  The most obvious is that uneducated people are much more likely to end up in prison.  According to the U.S. Department of Education, 66% of state prison inmates have not graduated from high school, and for one demographic group in our country, black men aged 20-24, those without a high school diploma are more likely to be in jail or prison than to have a job.  It is not complicated, earn a high school diploma and stay out of jail!  Heck, we have examples in our own community of this!  Dropout of school, do something stupid because you do not have access to a good job, go to jail.  We read about these individuals in the police report all of the time!  According to former U.S. Secretary of Education John King, a 10% increase in high school graduation would result in a 9% decrease in criminal arrest rates.  Where should we put our money if we truly want to impact our future?

Another interesting statistic is that in our country it takes one prison guard to supervise an average of 5.3 prisoners, while each American teacher supervises an average of 20.8 students.  Of course that makes it more expensive simply looking at labor costs.  Toss in the fact that there are extreme shortages of educators in some parts of this country, even to the extent that teaching positions are going unfilled, and can you see where our focus is at?  Based on this, our nation places a higher priority on people giving attention to prisoners than to students.  It is more important that we have a lower guard to prisoner ratio than teacher to student!  How about we work to level that out a little bit?  I’m not saying move those prison guards into schools (though some may argue that would be helpful!), but I suspect being a teacher would be much more attractive if they did not have to deal with as many of the problems that they face on a daily basis.  That could be dealt with if schools had resources for mental health professionals and counselors to provide services to young people who bring all kinds of social and emotional issues into the building each day.

When one in three Americans of working age have a criminal record, that is a problem.  Not only does it create barriers to employment, it certainly does not bode well for an economy in need of workers.  Statistics tell us that if more people graduate from high school, fewer will become criminals, the number of prisoners will decline, and less money will be needed to operate jails and prisons.  So how about we invest up front, allocate money to education and mental health programs, and give our young people an opportunity to earn a quality education, rather than continuing to see our costly prison system expand.  Makes sense to me.  

She Wanted a YouTube Worthy Proposal

When I read this headline in the Des Moines Register January 8, 2017, I said to myself, “I am so sick and tired of all of this public proposal crap!”  I am sure that I also rolled my eyebrows and probably mumbled something like “you have to be @!#*@#! kidding me!”  The translation for this reaction is “Why are people obsessed with attention?  Why are people screaming ‘Hey!  Look at me!’”  I find it incredible that people actually stage moments in their life to get maximum exposure.  It’s kind of like average Americans have become their own hype-machine determined to make sure they get their 15-minutes of fame!  Give me a break!

At what point did we become so self-absorbed that brides-to-be, or yes, her suitor, feel it necessary to script out a proposal so that is “worthy” to be on Youtube?  Is there a Youtube proposal board out there that makes a decision on what proposal videos are worthy of being posted on the website?  Is a person’s marriage doomed if the proposal is not at the Oscar level of performance?

I tell you what I cannot wait to see.  I want to see some guy in one of these staged proposals in front of hundreds or thousands of people he does not know, get down on a knee and ask his significant other to marry him, and get a head shake and an audible “No.”  Total heartbreak!  Of course, the now rejected suitor will most likely switch course, recognizing that he has the sympathy of a large percentage of those who witnessed it, both when it happened and afterward on social media.  Self-spinning a negative into a positive their self-directed hype machine can once more kick into gear and that 15-minutes of fame is still in reach.

The perfect Facebook life is basically the same thing.  A good friend of mine made the comment a couple of years ago that no one shows pictures of their kid after they got rejected for admission to college, when they were just cut from the basketball team, or after they were arrested for doing something stupid.  People naturally post good things that are going on in their lives, things they are proud of.  And, for some people scrolling through Facebook on a regular basis, an unrealistic view of life develops in their mind, thinking that things are great for everyone else and questioning why things are not so good for themselves.  In essence, a sanitized view of life is being presented where all is good with me and everything is great!  Not that long ago a horrible tragedy took place in Colorado where a husband and father murdered his wife and two children, yet when authorities were looking through the deceased wife’s Facebook account, a beautiful, perfect life was being portrayed, rather than incredible financial hardship, an affair, and a great deal of dysfunction in the home.  Look at how great our life is!  Look everyone!

Why this obsession of being seen?  Why this quest to have the perfect event?  I blame reality television for at least part of the problem, specifically I blame those shows where people have become famous for absolutely nothing other than they were on television.  The whole Kardashian brood falls into the category, as do those who appear on shows like The Bachelor.  I assume there are those who see all of the attention those people get and wonder “why not me?”  

I also blame my generation of parents.  We have carried video cameras and now cell phones that take high quality pictures with us since our kids were born!  We have attempted to document their entire life in through images.  The result is our kids have developed a “look at me” mentality.  We have sent the message that regardless of who they are they are deserving of attention.  We have also have also taught them that they are “special,” and because of that, they believe they are entitled to having the attention of others.  There has been a growing sense of oneupmanship with this generation.

Our kids are living much more public lives than ours, due in large part to all of the social media they use, as well as the proliferation of other forms of media.  My generation was raised based on the principle of being humble and not drawing attention to oneself.  That was seen as bragging.  There were definite lines drawn between what was personal and what was public.  Today, those values have changed.  People welcome the public into their lives.  My concern with this is the standard that it sets as people will continue to chase something bigger and better, which is not a reality.  Perfection cannot be attained, and while some people get a positive feeling from attention, that is almost like an addiction that cannot be fed.

I have no idea how my kids’ lives will play out, but what I can tell you is that I hope I don’t go to a ball game some day and see one of them on the video board either giving or receiving a proposal and sharing it with thousands of people they do not know.  I’d much rather hear about it some evening at dinner, or even during an excited phone call.  Things like that should be shared with those who are closest to you, the people that care.

You Are Losing to a Game!

I have written before about students who are addicted to gaming, and shared that we have sleep deprived students at North Fayette Valley High School who are sometimes staying up most of the night playing games with friends.   I know that some people scoff at the idea that kids can become addicted to a video game, or to their cell phones.  If you are one of those, then it probably does not matter what I share in this article, though I would encourage you to do a little research online.  There is a tremendous amount of it out there that paints a pretty scary picture about what it happening to the gamers in our lives.  We see the impact on nearly a daily basis as we have students that cannot stay awake while they are at school and admit to our teachers that they have been up playing games.

I am falling back on an article from Growing Leaders for this piece.  A lot of this rings true to me as I have seen first hand some of the very things described in this article.  For those of you with teenage boys in particular, I strongly recommend you take control of screen time at home, and if that means taking physical control of gaming devices, then do it.  

Parents Are Losing Their Kids to Video Games

https://growingleaders.com/blog/parents-are-losing-their-kids-to-video-games/?mc_cid=30a9e44481&mc_eid=2e5183e691

Wrestling and Girl’s Basketball: They Made Iowa Great!

Here’s a little history lesson and perhaps a bit of personal bias snuck in!  Over my lifetime I have had opportunity to meet with educators, coaches, and athletes from all over the country, as well as some journalists that cover sports at various levels.  When talking with folks from other states, more often than not, when I mention I am from Iowa, I commonly hear some form of “wrestling’s really big there.”  They don’t talk about football or basketball, or any other sport.  Honestly, our state is not thought of very highly from a national perspective for having quality high school basketball or football programs, or for that matter, any other sport except for wrestling.  Then, when you get into any kind of conversation about girl’s sports it doesn’t take long until someone says something along the line of “didn’t they play some kind of half-court type of basketball where there six girls instead of five?”  Nowadays I tell them that game disappeared for good in the early 1990’s, but do say that back in the day the girl’s state tournament easily outdrew the boy’s and a lot of those six-on-six players became legends in the entire state.  Since girls started playing the regular game of basketball there are still people in the gym every Friday night in the winter that remark how much “better the game used to be.”

In truth, these two sports put Iowa on the map in the 20th-century.  Wrestling had an incredible history in the State of Iowa with young men from Clarion, Cresco, Eagle Grove, Waterloo, and many other places becoming legendary figures in the sport at the highest levels.  Names like Gotch, Peckham, Gable, Brand, Yagla, Davis, and Zalesky are just a few from the incredible list of outstanding wrestlers who were born, raised, and competed in Iowa high schools, as well as on the world stage.  One of the Olympic teams from the early 1900’s was made up almost entirely of Iowa born wrestlers!  Wrestling is to Iowa what football is to Texas and basketball is to Indiana.  There are some that may very well refer to it as our State Sport!  And, a number of years ago Sports Illustrated declared the the Iowa High School State Wrestling Tournament was the premier sporting event in our state, and the best in the country.

Iowa girls were given opportunity to play high school sports long before their sisters in most others states when in the early 1900’s a few high schools sanctioned basketball teams.  In 1925, a group of school superintendents formed what would become the Iowa High School Girls Athletic Union, and basketball soon became the crown jewel and remained so well into the late 1900’s.  For most of that period of time the game was dominated by teams from small towns as the urban areas were slower to add girls sports to their school programs.  Denise Long, Jeanette Olson, Deb Coates, Lynne Lorenzen, and Connie Yori were “Iowa Girls” and became household names due to the intensive media coverage given to the Sweet Sixteen teams that played in the state tournament.  Back in the day the girls tournament was a production worth of Hollywood or Broadway.

Now that were are just shy of twenty years into the new millennium, it seems to me that a lot of the luster on these two sports — the sports that made Iowa famous — is not quite as bright and shiny.  Neither of these sports are as popular as they once were.  Iowa’s population is higher now that it has ever been, yet these two sports have seen a definite decline in the number of participants.  Wrestling peaked in 1980 with 12,800 high school wrestlers, but the most recent numbers from the 2016-17 season show that the sport has lost almost half the number of participants since that time, dropping to 6,586.  Yes, there are fewer schools in Iowa than there were in 1980, but not fewer students.  Wrestling is a tough sport, yet I would guess there are a number of other factors that explain this drop.  It is particularly frustrating for wrestling fans and competitors to see teams that have more open weights and forfeits than they do varsity wrestlers.  Yes, at the state tournament the finals still sell out and most of the sessions are packed with fans from all over the state.  The state media outlets still give the sport a lot of attention, particularly in February.  However, below the surface the sport is struggling and is currently the fifth most popular boys sport in Iowa behind football, track, basketball, and baseball.

Girls basketball seems to have lost even more luster than wrestling.  The concept of the Sweet Sixteen disappeared when the IGHSAU made the decision to divide schools into classes, and now that we have five of them in basketball there are actually 40 teams that make it to the state tournament.  In the eyes of many it is not as “special” when over twice as many schools make it to state.  Another factor with that many teams is that the media is not able to give as much attention to each team.  There is no doubt that the change to five-on-five changed the sport as the play of the girls is more easily compared to boys and a lot of games are very low scoring compared to the six-on-six days. It truly is a different game.  When one looks at participation, in 1981 14,146 girls played basketball in Iowa high schools.  That has dropped to 7,576 in 2016-17, ranking the once most popular sport for girls in Iowa fourth behind volleyball, track, and softball.  Closer to home, for some schools in the Upper Iowa Conference and Northeast Iowa Conference, the low number of participants is concerning.  Five schools in the UIC and one in the NEIC started the season with just 15 girls out for basketball, including NFV and Decorah.  That makes it impossible to play three levels — 9th grade, JV and Varsity — and very difficult to  build a program to compete at the 3A level.  

If you listen to some, the number one reason that basketball has dropped in popularity is because of the emergence of volleyball.  In the glory days of girls basketball in Iowa, volleyball was not a sport that was played, though the growth of the sport started picking up before six-on-six was abandoned.  Now it is the most popular girls sport with over 11,000 Iowa girls participating.  As it has grown in popularity, girls not only play high school volleyball during the fall season, many also join club teams and play in the winter . . . the same time high school basketball season is going on.  At NFV in recent years it is not unusual to have over forty girls play volleyball during a season when they also have a choice to run cross country.  And once basketball season rolls around, the past three seasons there have been twenty or fewer players.  This is the same at a lot of schools.  What is equally discouraging is that the crowds have also declined despite the fact that these players work just as hard as their male counterparts.

I do not see either of these sports going away but it is interesting what has happened to the sports that made Iowa famous.  People will hold on to memories and take pride in the legacy that has been built, but I am a bit saddened that our student-athletes who battle on the mat and mix it up on the court no longer get a chance to have that special feeling that comes with that bright spotlight on them.

Free Range Children! Are You Kidding Me!

This was my response the first time I heard the term “free range children."  I had heard of free range chickens, and later on, free range hogs.  Both of those terms emerged basically as marketing terms to let consumer know that the meat they are consuming comes from animals that were not raised in confined spaces.  Taking that understanding,  I figure that free range children must refer to raising them in a manner where they are not confined.  I’m not talking cages, rather from a little research it refers to the concept of raising children in the spirt of encouraging them to function independently and with limited parental supervision, in accordance of their age and development.  This runs contrary to how many parents — often referred to as helicopter parents — have chosen to raise their kids in recent years.  In reality, this is basically the way I was raised, back when parents got a lot of their advice from Dr. Benjamin Spock.  That said, I am still somewhat surprised by the use of the term free range!

To be very honest, my generation of parents has in many ways disabled their kids because of the control we have exerted over their lives.  I can’t count the number of times that I have made the comment that we should “just wrap out kids up in bubble wrap” to protect them!  But what have we been protecting them from?  In retrospect, I believe we have protected them from growing up and living life.  And what I find very interesting is that there are examples of parents who have taken this “free range approach” and have been met with some serious pushback.  For example, not that long ago the Washington Post reported about a mom from Wilmette, Illinois that created a huge uproar in her neighborhood when she let her 8-year-old daughter take the family dog on a walk around the block by herself.  She saw this as giving her daughter a little more independence and responsibility.  Apparently neighbors thought different and reported her to authorities!  Really!

It went even further in Maryland where a family from Silver Spring found themselves under investigation for neglect by Child Protective Services for letting their two kids, ages 6 and 10, walk home alone from a park a few blocks away from their home.  When I think back to when I was ten, I was living in Council Bluffs, Iowa and on more than one occasion I walked home from school by myself along Highway 6 for at least three miles because I behaved badly at school and had to stay after.  My parents added to my punishment by making me walk home!  I shake my head when we have some parents in our own community that drop off and pick up kids at school rather than expecting them to walk four or five blocks!  (By the way, I know it was three miles because I checked on my odometer about ten years ago because I was curious how far I actually walked!  However, it was not uphill both ways and there was not ten foot of snow!)

It seems that leaders in at least one state see that this coddling of a couple of generations of kids has been taken too far.  However, it is a bit ridiculous that it has come to this!  In Utah, a state Senator introduced a measure that “exempts from definition of child neglect various activities that children can do without supervision, permitting a child, who’s basic needs are met and who is of sufficient age and maturity to avoid harm or unreasonable risk of harm, to engage in independent activities . . .”  That includes kids being able to walk, run, or bike to and from school, travel to recreational facilities, play outside and remain at home unattended.

When we have thirty-somethings still living at home, twenty-year-olds deeply depressed because they have no sense of self-worth or confidence, and teens who balk at being told “no,” one has to at least consider that we need to “open the range” and free young people from the cocoons we have built around them.  I truly understand the fears that parents have raising a child, but at some point we need to recognize the responsibility that comes with being a mom or dad is to raise an adult, not a child.  

The Image of the Ideal Life

I am sure that most of us have dreamed about what the perfect life would look like.  Maybe we have done that with a friend or significant other around the question “What would you do if you won the lottery?”  I think most people do subscribe to the belief that money does not buy happiness, but boy it would be fun to see if it could!  The reality for all of us is that life is a combination of ups and downs, good times and bad.  All of us are going to experience struggles in one form or another, and hopefully we are all able to experience life’s joys as well.  However, today there seems to be a new force at work, with social scientists and mental health professionals expressing concern that we are living in a world where we are creating an unrealistic expectation of life, and it is being provided to us — especially young people — through social media.  Some refer to this as creating a “fake life” that ultimately leads to significant mental health issues for some.

I am an regular Facebook user.  In my life I have lived in a number of different communities and worked in five different school districts.  I have a lot of friends that I rarely see, and until Facebook, had lost track of.  I’ve had my negative moments on Facebook, and in fact, “banned myself” for four months after the 2016 election because of all of the negativity that was being posted, me included.  I was falling into it and was not a real happy person.  That said, today I check it out at least once a day.  I am sure many of you do the same.  While Facebook is not the social media platform of choice for young people today, there are still many that use it, or at least browse through it.

So what’s the problem?  Have you seen many people post “bad” pictures, or share about the crappy things about their life? Sure, there a people that share out about loss or bad things that happen to them, but that’s not what social scientists are concerned with.  Most of us share out about the great things that have happened to us.  We put up pictures when our kids do something impressive, and brag a little in the comments we add.  When we take trips we show all of the cool things that we have done.  In essence, we have sanitized our lives, creating a snapshot of a beautiful perfect life.  We show ourselves in a positive light creating an image that all is good.  An example of this that went indescribably wrong was the Watts family in Colorado, who friends and family believed lived a beautiful, happy life, in large part due to what mom Shanann posted on social media.  She covered up the financial disaster the family faced, as well as all of the other negatives the family faced.  When she was murdered by her husband, along with their two children, people were shocked, in large part because they had no idea about all of the problems the family was facing. 

Young people that are computer savvy have taken it to another level, often exaggerating and creating unreal or artificial images of their life.  They use Photoshop to enhance images, both literally and figuratively.  Whether they literally “touch up” photos to make them look better, or simply self-edit what they post, the images they present are not accurate.  This has a negative impact not only on themselves by denying reality, but it also impacts others who see these “perfect lives” and determine their life does not measure up.

So what are we to do?  We adults have experienced life’s ups and downs, and most of us acknowledge that painting an unrealistic picture of a “perfect life” could have a negative impact on a young person.  Heck, it had a negative impact on the young mother of two mentioned above!  A good starting spot is to have direct conversations with our kids about our own life, the difficulty we have had and how we persevered and overcame the tough times.  We also need to talk about the good times and put into perspective what really made those times good.  Another conversation we can have is to sit down with our son or daughter and discuss a person that both of you know well.  Talk about what you know about them, the good and the bad.  Then pull up their Facebook page or Instagram posts and discuss whether they tell the whole story.  It become obvious that most people post about their best days, not their common old ordinary ones.

As we raise our kids there are common themes that we try to stress with them, most often connected to core values that we hold as parents.  We do need to sprinkle in conversation that points out life can be hard and disappointing.  We have done a disservice to our kids proclaiming that “all we want for them is to be happy.”  Happiness is often very difficult to attain!  Life throws tough things at us that are not going to make us happy!  We also need to stress that life does not revolve around you.  Many kids have a strong sense of self-importance.  The sooner they understand that it is not all about them, the better.  And finally, somehow we have to get the message across totem that they cannot live life in constant comparison to others.  All of us know that we can never measure up to some people, and now in the social media world, that “fake world” created by some is certainly unattainable.