Letter to the Editor
Columbia Tribune
Published Wednesday, June 6, 2007
"Imagine that a school district decides to change how the high school basketball team is taught, based on recommendations from consultants who are neither basketball players nor coaches and have a vested interest in promoting the new techniques. The district adopts the recommendations without determining whether they are effective at teaching basketball skills. The consultants claim that because children are natural athletes, directly teaching rules or transmitting a cumulative knowledge base should be avoided, along with practice drills. When your team plays against other teams using the same new methods, they seem to perform comparably, and the district proclaims success. However, when they play against teams using the traditional, coach-directed strategies, they consistently lose. They are unable to make baskets; they foul because they don’t know the rules; and they seem lost on the court. No one on your team gets a scholarship."
"That hypothetical new basketball method would not last long."
Ines Segert, Ph.D. Princeton
University of Missouri-Columbia
Department of Psychological Sciences
Read the whole letter here: Columbia Tribune
Hat Tip: Columbia Parents For Real Math
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