This and that

By Bobby Hawthorne
Academic Director

Got a call the other day from a one-act play director who wanted to present a little goodie bag to each member of each play at her district meet, which she was to host. It’s a tradition among theater types, she said and asked, “Is that legal?” After all, they’d been doing it for years until a coach at a new school in the district argued that it violated UIL rules.

“Surely it’s not a violation to give players a paper bag with a Tootsie Roll pop and a ‘break a leg’ sticker,” she moaned.

Alas, it is, at least for now. The Awards Rule says that students may not accept from any source other than the school attended or the school district, any award in money, product or service for competing in an inter-school contest except symbolic awards that (I’m paraphrasing here) they’ll squirrel away for a half-dozen years or so and then toss out when they move into their own apartments.

Thus, it’s as illegal to distribute T-shirts that say, “Kick Butt Big Red Poetry Interpretation Team” as it is to give members of the mathematics team specialty UIL pocket protectors. If you’re hosting the district meet, you can’t even feed your academic competitors because food is a product. Heck, it may even be a service, we’re not sure, though we suspect that in some counties, it’s part of the general monetary exchange system.

“I’ll give you my chicken fried steak sandwich for that gimme cap.”

“French fries, too?”

“French fries, too.”

“Done.”

At any rate, the bottom line is this: if you’re hosting the district meet, the kids in human development or home ecology or whatever they now call home economics can feed your students so long as they feed everyone else in the school. But you cannot just feed UIL contestants. Here’s the irony: if you have six accounting participants and take the top three to district, you can’t feed them but you can feed the other three.

Coach: “Joey, I have some good news and some bad news. You’re not good enough to make the team, but show up Saturday hungry because we’re having pizza.”

Does this make sense?

The UIL has commissioned an ad hoc committee to meet in April and examine the awards and amateur rules. I have no desire to alter or eliminate the athletic amateur rule. If the athletic people are happy with it, I’m happy, too. No doubt, without it, some communities would reward cars and weekend vacations to all-district quarterbacks who lead their teams past regional.

We wish we in academics had that kind of interest and support. Last fall, an academic team was dragged before the State Executive Committee for recruiting violations, and while we officially pursed our lips, furrowed our brows and pooh-poohed the pity of it all, we secretly celebrated. At last, someone cared enough to cheat.

Be that as it may, I can assure you that we have no problem with schools or outside organizations lavishing gifts on academic competitors, all-district or otherwise, and the awards rule as it is currently written is as impossible to interpret as it is to enforce.

If you think it’s time for the UIL to get out of the goodie bag business, please drop me a line. We have countless challenges and responsibilities before us that demand our time and attention. Regulating who gets Tootsie Roll pops and pocket protectors shouldn’t be one of them.

Conflicts with conflicts

In an effort to allow students to compete in computer applications and calculator applications, we (it’s always first person plural when I screw up) tweaked the academic conflict pattern late last summer on the premise that it’s entirely possible to administer a 10-minute number sense contest, a 30-minute calculator applications contest and a 35-minute computer application contest during the first three-hour session of any meet.

Our error was not fully updating the Academic Coordinator’s Manual or the Spring Meet Manual. We posted a corrected version on our web site and asked our regional contest directors to alter their schedules, but the damage had been done.

Soon enough, we were inundated with “what if” and “why not” telephone calls, and our efforts to accommodate those dexterous computer and calculator applications students who are good at pressing buttons led to a series of unintended consequences, such as requests to allow a student to compete in number sense and ready writing or current issues & events, for example, even though these contests were never part of the deal.

Eventually, we resolved the squabbles, not to everyone’s satisfaction, of course, and apologize here for whatever heart-ache and agitation we created. Rest assured, we have revised the conflict pattern, updated next year’s manuals and have learned a valuable lesson: no good deed goes unpunished.

No more Mr. Nice guy

The three weeks prior to the Cross Examination Debate Tournament are hard enough for Jana Riggins and her staff, but the negligence of schools to submit district results and judging information turns a difficult job into an impossible one. At a time when they should be finalizing CX tournament details, Jana and her staff are calling, faxing and e-mailing schools, trying to track down district results and judging information.

No more.

In 2002, schools will have between Jan. 2 and Feb. 18 to conduct their district CX tournament, and they’ll have until Feb. 21 to submit judging information forms and certify second place winners.

Failure to meet this deadline will result in disqualification without appeal. The League asks very little of CX coaches. We allow schools to advance directly from district to state. We charge no registration fee and ask only for a $60 judging fee if the school is unable to provide a judge. This spring, we began fining schools $100 for missing the February deadline, but this didn’t serve as a sufficient deterrent either because Jana is a soft-hearted former teacher who would rather chop off a finger than punish a child, but she’s been abused long enough.

Be warned: failure to meet next year’s district certification and judging information deadline will result in disqualification without appeal, no matter how sick you or your parents or your kids get, or if the school is flattened by a meteor or washed away by a flood. You can write us nasty letters, call us ugly names, tell us we’re insensitive and mean-spirited, arbitrary and capricious. It won’t matter. The deadline will be the deadline, and there will be no exceptions.

Be a pro

Interesting article from the Associated Press: “Even smart students are slacking off during their senior years in high school, the government said in the last study released by outgoing Education Secretary Richard Riley.”

The report suggests that high schools are neglecting 12th graders and that those students are neglecting classes, mostly out of boredom. They’ve taken all their required courses. They’ve already applied for college. They realize they are beyond high school and it’s time to move on.

On a related topic columnist William Raspberry noted, “Something is missing in current education reform agendas. Increasing the quantity and quality of educational resources and raising standards and accountability don’t address two of the most critical issues in education today.

“And what are those critical issues? That too many children aren’t being imbued with the attitudes, habits and skills necessary for successful learning, and that schools aren’t equipping them for lifelong learning.”

He goes on: “What really matters are the preconditions of school learning - what Dorothy Rich, founder and president of the Home and School Institute, has called ‘MegaSkills’: confidence, motivation, effort, focus, responsibility and perseverance.”

Some children are born with these skills. Others acquire them by osmosis, mostly through their family and friends. But schools can also inculcate these traits, and one way to keep seniors engaged, to imbue them with the “attitudes, habits and skills” necessary to successful learning: academic competitions.

This assumes, of course, that these competitions are led by confident, motivated, focused and responsible educators. A few years ago, my daughter, then in junior high, ran track. As best I could tell, the season began on Thursday. The first meet was Friday, and the coach had Sarah running the half-mile and a leg on the 400-meter relay. The child was in no shape to do either, and consequently stumbled, fell and ended the day with a strawberry on her thigh, cleat marks across her ankle, a lot of tears and a few words I didn’t realize she used.

Simply put, coaches have an obligation to prepare students for competition. I realize UIL academic coaches are paid pocket change, if that, but if you agree to sponsor UIL academics, you’re obliged to prepare them. It’s not enough to collar three smart kids on your way out of class the day before the district meet and give them the old “sink or swim” pep talk. Succeeding in UIL is as much a matter of practice and preparation as it is intellect.

Give your students a chance to succeed. Buy the practice materials. Attend an invitational meet or two. Create an environment in which success is expected. Anything short of this is unprofessional.

In a recent editorial about teacher retention, The Dallas Morning News stated, “So if teachers are asked what they want, what do they answer? Beyond money, they want to have an impact, and they want help in having an impact.”

Few opportunities exist for teachers to have a more profound impact on a young person’s life than through school activities, whether we’re talking about track, National Honor Society or Lincoln-Douglas debate. You’ll never earn what you’re worth by coaching UIL academics, but that doesn’t mean you should shortchange the kids.