If Mainstream Educators Were In Charge of Athletic Training

Drill and Kill.  You know, the emphasis on basic skills mastery that is to be avoided if kids are to be authentic learners.

Read this parody and weep:

The particular theme chosen for the retreat was speed skating performance management and measurement. The AERA instructors argued that traditional methods amounted to an artificial training of speed skaters, one distanced from the experience of the skaters and the knowledge base of the trainers. Natural, genuine training had been supplanted by activities whose sole purpose was to reduce the times of speed skaters in particular races. That led to "drill and kill" training techniques, not appropriate to the development of the "whole athlete." Scarce training dollars had been diverted away from such high quality training needs as better skates, higher pay for trainers, and nicer ice rinks in favor of skating drills of limited training value. Skaters were even being made to skate in conditions strikingly similar to actual races, which was far removed from a natural and authentic way of skating.

These endless, mind-numbing practices only served to narrow the training, take time away from genuine, authentic training in real skating, and reduce race times at the expense of deep, long-term skating understanding. In traditional training, too much time was spent focused on a narrow set of activities, such as leg strokes, rounding curves, arm movements, and endurance training. Not enough time was devoted to more substantive training, with a focus on rich and creative training techniques that allow the whole skater to emerge with critical skating skills responsive to a wide variety of challenges that may face them in the future. If skating skills are to endure, they must flower naturally from each skater's own well of experience and understanding. Each skater must construct his or her own, unique skating skills.

From the Third Education Group

And now another one!  Balanced golf instruction

We know intuitively that golf is an irreducibly holistic experience best learned by authentic experiences.

• We enter all our novices in the US Open because that's authentic golf.
• The teacher's role is that of motivator/facilitator - we empower our students to grow in golf while experiencing a sense of enchantment.
• We do not teach skills, of course, even though some emerging golfers may naively request help with their swing. We explain that swing is only a sub-skill of golf, and to emphasise it out of the context of authentic golf is time-wasting, or even developmentally inappropriate.

Students may choose to practise their invented swing during the Open itself, of course. The principles of the conventional swing are eventually induced by the learner who is highly motivated during an Open, but probably bored to tears and disheartened by artificially timetabled swing practice on a lonely practice range. We know that the swing will evolve naturally, and that feedback is pointless - even damaging to the self-esteem that learners need if they are to take risks with their golf.

Jargon guides:

School Wise Press guide to jargon
Texas Educational Consumers' Association Terms Every Parent Must Understand
Illinois Loop's Eduspeak Page
ReformK12's take on jargon

ReformK12 on the myth of drill and kill
EdTech on the myth of drill and kill (and sage on the stage)

And for humor,
Science Geek's educational jargon generator

Comments

[Liz]

It gets better!

We are also conscious of the developing golfer's learning style. We advise the visual learners to focus their learning transactions on watching the golf on TV (with the sound off) at every opportunity. The auditory learners actually go to golf courses, but wear blindfolds - better to focus attention on the sound of the ball being struck. They also make use of brain-based golf education employing a looped audiotape of a ball being struck. When played during sleep, this procedure repatterns the golfing region of the brain for these fortunate students. The kinaesthetic learners must actually swing the club regularly, but their oneness with the game is dramatically enhanced when they cannot see the ball. The feel is the thing. Because our teachers are so skilled they are also able to use multiple methods, tailor-made to parallel each of the multiple golf intelligences our students may display.