Login

Gallup Sun

Thursday, Mar 28th

Last update12:57:39 AM GMT

You are here: Sports Bleacher Talk Paying Attention to All Students

Paying Attention to All Students

E-mail Print PDF

Probably the most difficult position in the world is trying to remain totally unbiased, especially towards younger people. Of course it also applies to adults, but parents, teachers and coaches would seem to take the brunt of the problem upon themselves, maybe or not rightly so.

I’ve talked about this before, but with more of a sports theme. The problem, naturally, doesn’t end with just games, but extends itself to almost every other aspect of humanity, including: food choices; to read or not to read; TV programming; and the list is almost endless. We have become so convinced of our wants and desires they render us incapable of seeing, listening, tasting, smelling or thinking in another way.

It is not the differences that separate us, necessarily. Sometimes it is really the way we like our food cooked or the genre of stories we prefer to read or watch. Splitting hairs is a universal past-time, it seems, and us ignorant humans can’t seem to kick the habit, no matter how silly, stupid, or out of the world our thinking becomes.

It is no wonder our forefathers, when drawing up our Constitution, included common sense items we would have overlooked, probably gladly. We still today have personal problems with some of them.

I absolutely detest the parent, coach or teacher, including their supervisors, who deny their prejudice and who overuse the phrase, “It’s all about the kids.” Makes me want to punch them in the nose and divert their attention span to where it belongs.

A local Poly Sci and History high school teacher spent the entire year, as far as I know, convincing his classes that the Democratic Party had all the right answers. He spent a great deal of his lessons in debunking any idea that did not come from his political party of choice, demeaning any student that dared to bring up these concepts. At year’s end, he took a poll of his students and discovered through this means that over 90 percent said they would always vote for Democrats in the future. He was so proud of the progress his classes made!

I wonder how he would have felt if he had been compelled under the same conditions to learn the same lessons from a Right-wing Republican? Or wouldn’t the switch have been fair?

This is exactly the place where common sense comes into play; it’s not if what you say is absolute truth, but whether there is a different side to consider. And what is the long-range gain or loss as a consequence of your belief?

I have three children, so I can’t just call my vote split down the middle. All three of them are different in many ways from the others, but there are many similarities as well. I never, that I remember, attempted to steer them one way in life. It was tempting, of course, but just not something I wanted to do.

Perhaps that is because of my own childhood, where choices were limited by the beliefs and experiences of my parents, both very good people who wanted only the best for all of their children. But still the iron fences were always evident.

Spent a little time at Wingate today, as the reader can tell from the accompanying picture. Not a big crowd for a game between two reservation schools, but it is the middle of the week, sorta, and in between holidays. The Wingate girls’ was way ahead in the third quarter against Navajo Pine, but I wasn’t able to stay for the final score because of the jumped up deadline this week. The boys were ready to go at it once the girls finished up.

Got to see several people I don’t run into every day, which made the day trip even more enjoyable. But I don’t remember seeing YOU there, and YOU know who I mean. Maybe I’ll get lucky and see you next week in the bleachers at the Bengal Boys’ Invite.