Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If spending for sports is justifiable then there's no way and no reason that funding G&T isn't.

Why the obsession with spending on sports?

It's the GT way. They complain that their kids are not "getting enough" all the time. It is pathetic. They hate to see a child get something that they did not get. It is probably because they never played a sport and did not have to deal with inequity, like the coaches son... or maybe when the did they quit.

Anonymous wrote:If spending for sports is justifiable then there's no way and no reason that funding G&T isn't.

Why the obsession with spending on sports?

If spending for sports is justifiable then there's no way and no reason that funding G&T isn't.

I was in g/t programs for most of my elementary and HS education. I also played sports. Sports was a lot more useful as far as teaching valuable life skills. The stick-to-it skills I learned from sports came in handy when I got on a very hard academic track in college. The g/t programs didn't do much for that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess you mean that you see NO value at all in athletics? Again, did you grow up in the United States?

Nobody said there was NO value.
But I do happen to believe that mentoring in academics will actually take one farther in life than sports ever will (unless of course you are a one-in-a-million athlete who will see stardom in sports - you have a better chance of winning the lottery or being struck by lightning). Sports is all fine and good when you're young but after that... think Al Bundy, working in the shoe store, with the sole highlight of his entire life being throwing that touchdown pass in the citywide championship game. I prefer to be always looking forward to the future rather than looking backward to the past with high school as the pinnacle of life and all else a downhill slide from there. I did my share of various sports in high school and college and other than bad knees and a host of other injuries I don't particularly have much else to show for it today. Instead, I got much more out of life thanks to academics and having my brain stimulated.
And it's not as though it's adding something to their lives that they wouldn't likely have had or done anyways. People are going to run, play soccer, kayak, play softball, play pickup basketball, yoga, rock climb, swim, ski, do mixed martial arts - all kinds of sports - regardless of schools. Lots of kids end up doing as much or more with sports outside of school than they do in school.

Oh, my. There are sooo many benefits that a person can get from being involved in athletics that have nothing to do with being a star or elite athlete! In fact. the majority of sports participants are not planning to be professional athletes. The lessons in teamwork and leadership are invaluable. Colleges like to see kids who have been involved with athletics because they know that these kids have learned to work with teammates toward a larger goal, they know the value of discipline and persistence, and many also learn what it takes to be a good leader of others. Athletics are about so much more than what happens on the field of competition.

It is entirely possible to fund academics and athletics: one does not have to take away from the other. My child was in the GT program, presently goes to TJ and is a varsity athlete. My child is benefiting from funding for both academics and athletics and is developing into an adult who we hope will be capable of contributing to the community in ways developed by experiences in both academics and athletics.

Anonymous wrote:I guess you mean that you see NO value at all in athletics? Again, did you grow up in the United States?

Nobody said there was NO value.

But I do happen to believe that mentoring in academics will actually take one farther in life than sports ever will (unless of course you are a one-in-a-million athlete who will see stardom in sports - you have a better chance of winning the lottery or being struck by lightning). Sports is all fine and good when you're young but after that... think Al Bundy, working in the shoe store, with the sole highlight of his entire life being throwing that touchdown pass in the citywide championship game. I prefer to be always looking forward to the future rather than looking backward to the past with high school as the pinnacle of life and all else a downhill slide from there. I did my share of various sports in high school and college and other than bad knees and a host of other injuries I don't particularly have much else to show for it today. Instead, I got much more out of life thanks to academics and having my brain stimulated.

And it's not as though it's adding something to their lives that they wouldn't likely have had or done anyways. People are going to run, play soccer, kayak, play softball, play pickup basketball, yoga, rock climb, swim, ski, do mixed martial arts - all kinds of sports - regardless of schools. Lots of kids end up doing as much or more with sports outside of school than they do in school.

I guess you mean that you see NO value at all in athletics? Again, did you grow up in the United States?

Anonymous wrote:

Stuff = money and resources

Examples, please. Not at my kids' public school.

What's not at your kids' public school? Funding and resources for special ed.? Funding and resources for athletics (assuming it's not an elementary school)?

Stuff = money and resources

Examples, please. Not at my kids' public school.

HS sports coaches are abysmal. They have no training and they curse at the kids.

Real athletes play for club teams that cost families $3000+/ year depending how much you travel.

Anonymous wrote:

Yes, people did, and do. For example, the OP: how come gifted athletes get stuff and gifted students don't? (I'm assuming that OP has a child the OP considers gifted.) And the PP immediately before my post: gifted athletes get brain trauma, gifted students find a cure for malaria. I don't understand this obsession on the part of the parents-of-gifted-children lobby with athletics, and I find the envy of the resources of special ed. shameful.

What "stuff" are you talking about? I don't think you know what you are talking about.

Stuff = money and resources

As the mom of two hs grads--one a varsity athlete and one a valedictorian, I have to say that the athlete learned more about life than the V. ever did.

Yes, people did, and do. For example, the OP: how come gifted athletes get stuff and gifted students don't? (I'm assuming that OP has a child the OP considers gifted.) And the PP immediately before my post: gifted athletes get brain trauma, gifted students find a cure for malaria. I don't understand this obsession on the part of the parents-of-gifted-children lobby with athletics, and I find the envy of the resources of special ed. shameful.

What "stuff" are you talking about? I don't think you know what you are talking about.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a good thing that the PP didn't actually say that.

And, speaking for myself -- I have no problem with education for the gifted, in principle. I have a big problem with the parents who are proponents of gifted education and whose rhetoric consists of:

1. All those other kids get stuff; how come my kid doesn't?
2. Gifted kids contribute more to society than non-gifted kids.

Nobody exactly said either of those things, but since you brought them up, let's explore those questions... who thinks sports contributes more to society, given that's how we treat and fund sports as opposed to other programs? Why are sports programs more valuable than G&T? Why should athletes get stuff but other kids don't? And why would anyone "have a problem" with someone asking about those things when there's evidently no problem with the situation being reversed?

Yes, people did, and do. For example, the OP: how come gifted athletes get stuff and gifted students don't? (I'm assuming that OP has a child the OP considers gifted.) And the PP immediately before my post: gifted athletes get brain trauma, gifted students find a cure for malaria. I don't understand this obsession on the part of the parents-of-gifted-children lobby with athletics, and I find the envy of the resources of special ed. shameful.

Nobody exactly said either of those things, but since you brought them up, let's explore those questions... who thinks sports contributes more to society, given that's how we treat and fund sports as opposed to other programs? Why are sports programs more valuable than G&T? Why should athletes get stuff but other kids don't? And why would anyone "have a problem" with someone asking about those things when there's evidently no problem with the situation being reversed?

I think your basic premise--that athletics is getting more than academics--is mistaken.