Big warnings about Fosamax, the drug used to treat osteoporosis. Like many medications, apparently there can be too much of a good thing. As a nurse, I know that all medical intervention has side effects. But this news about Fosamax has a homeschool lesson for all parents.
In a nutshell, osteoporosis is a disease causing holes in the bones that make them easy to break. Often the first symptom is a broken hip. If recognized early, the treatment may include medications that make the bones stronger and fill in those holes with healthy bone tissue. Sounds great, right? Unfortunately, after using that bone-strengthening medication for four years, they have identified that the bones become TOO strong. Filling all these porous spots has caused the bones to become rigid and inflexible. Unable to bend slightly with movement, these overly rigid bones can break suddenly. Often the first symptom of this condition is a broken thigh bone.
Too many holes and you break. Too rigid and you break. What a great analogy for homeschooling! For homeschool parents, it’s important to remember that we have to be both strong AND flexible. We have to fill wholes and gaps in education, but without filling every moment of time with inflexible schedules and rigid timeliness. We need to seek flexibility and strength.
One of the best ways to accomplish that is not through self-medicating, LOL! Instead, make sure that you have filled holes by covering core classes every year; reading, writing, math, science, social studies. Then make sure you provide additional opportunities like foreign language, fine arts, and PE while at the same time proving free time. Check your schedule and count the number of hours of schoolwork you require. Is it too much? Not a sustainable amount?
To find the balance, remember that there really CAN be too much of a good thing. As homeschooling becomes more popular, there are more and more wonderful opportunities. The wise parent will recognize there are too many wonderful opportunities to do them all. Limit your activities, and keep some time free to allow for delight directed learning. That’s the best way to avoid broken bones – or in homeschool terms, “Burn out!”
My husband found this ethical dilemma online at http://ethicsscoreboard.com/ and I thought it would be an excellent tool for homeschoolers (especially those with kids in little league) to engage their kids in a real life ethical discussion. After you read the story and before you read the discussion, please add a comment with your vote and a brief explanation. Then read the analysis and let me know if you change your mind. This is really interesting and engaging material.
Take the Little League Baseball Ethics Challenge!
Last month’s tournament leading up to the Little League World Series included one game with an unusual series of events that set the stage for a fascinating ethical debate. The Situation: On August 11 in Bristol, Conn., a Little League team from Colchester, Vt., only had to retire its Portsmouth, N.H. opposition in the top of the sixth inning (Little League games are six innings rather than nine) to win the game 9-8 and move on to the New England regional championship game.
But there was a problem. The Vermont team had made its third out in its half of the fifth inning before player Adam Bentley got to the plate. The Little League has a strict rule that requires every player to bat at least once a game, and the penalty for violating it is forfeit. Vermont’s coach Denis Place realized, to his horror, that even though his team had the lead entering the last inning the only way it could avoid losing by forfeit was for Bentley to get an at bat. For that to happen, the New Hampshire team would have to tie the score or take the lead, requiring the teams to play the last half of the sixth inning.
Place held a meeting of his players at the pitcher’s mound and instructed them to let New Hampshire score a run. The plan: walk the first batter, and ensure that he made it home with the assistance of wild pitches and intentional errors so the game would be deadlocked at 9-9. Then, hopefully, win the game in the bottom of the sixth inning, with Adam Bentley getting his mandated turn at the plate.
Not so fast. The New Hampshire team’s coach, Mark McCauley figured out what was happening and ordered his players not to score. So after a walk and two wild pitches allowed a New Hampshire runner to reach third base, the player refused to advance to the plate despite another wild pitch and a fielding error. McCauley also told his players to strike out intentionally, preserving Vermont’s lead but guaranteeing a successful New Hampshire protest that, under the rules, would require that New Hampshire win by forfeit.
This obviously led to a ridiculous spectacle: one team trying to give up a run while the other team was trying to make outs and avoid scoring. The perplexed umpires understandably chose to end the debacle by ejecting Place and his pitcher from the game. Vermont won 9-8…and then New Hampshire was awarded the victory by forfeit, because Adam Bentley never got his turn at bat. The New Hampshire team advanced to the next round.
The Question: Whose conduct was unethical?
Possible Answers:
1. Place, the Vermont coach
2. McCauley, the New Hampshire coach
3. Both coaches
4. Neither coach.
So what’s your analysis? Before you read the discussion below, enter a comment to this post. If you change your mind after you read the discussion, please let us know. And remember, neither coach had much time to consider their options.
Analysis:
A pair of sports ethicists (yes, there actually are such people) chose 3. Both coaches. Both coaches acted unethically, said Richard Lapchick, director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, at the University of Central Florida. “Anytime a coach changes how the game is played and orders his players to do something that’s not a natural at-bat or pitch, it crosses that line.” Daniel Doyle, executive director of the Institute for International Sport, in Kingston, R.I., agreed. “The lesson is anytime you’re coaching kids, you never make a decision to use strategy to impair the integrity of the game. You follow that principle and you’re going to be fine.”
The Ethics Scoreboard emphatically does not agree. Denis Place not only did not behave unethically, he made the only ethical decision open to him. But his rival manager, McCauley, indeed was unethical. Ethics Scoreboard Analysis: The dilemma arose in part because of the special objectives of Little League baseball, which are embodied by rules that occasionally work at cross purposes. Winning is important (remember that the game in question took place during an international tournament designed to determine the best team), but excellence of play is even more important, and excellence includes good sportsmanship. Co-existing with these straightforward objectives are the organizational goals of ensuring that all the young participants have a rewarding experience that includes the opportunity to play, learn and improve. Looming over all of this is the Little League Pledge, a statement that dates from the Eisenhower administration and is recited with reverence by the players before every game:
I trust in God
I love my country
And will respect its laws
I will play fair
And strive to win
But win or lose
I will always do my best
The most important aspect of the Little League’s values is this: the kids…their health, safety, happiness, development, socialization and growth, physical, mental and emotional… come first. This is why the rule that caused all the trouble exists. Coaches, particularly in games like this one in which the winners are rewarded, will naturally want to put their strongest team on the field (recall Walter Matthau’s moment of truth in “the Bad News Bears”). The rule ensures that even the weakest players will get a chance to play in every game, and it establishes a hierarchy of values by the proscribed penalty for violating it. The kids come first: if all of them don’t play, your team loses no matter what the score. The problem with the rule, like some laws, is that the punishment is effective as a threat but unjust and excessive in execution. If a game is really forfeited, the coach isn’t the only one punished; so are all the kids on the team and their families. Worst of all, perhaps, is the fate of the unlucky child whose failure to come to bat resulted, through no fault of his own, in his or her team losing a victory. The guilt and blame that will follow from the enforcement of this rule are far more damaging and long-lasting than the pain of sitting out one game.
Nobody thinks Coach Place intentionally kept Adam Bentley from batting in the fifth inning. It was simply bad luck; a hit or two by his team mates and Bentley would have come to the plate. When Place realized that his team was doomed if he didn’t find a way for the game to last into the home half of the sixth, he had three options, all of them bad:
- He could explain his plight to the umpires and the other team, and ask them to waive the rule. In seeking this result, he would have been invoking a Reciprocity ethical analysis: “Wouldn’t you want me to be generous and merciful to you if our positions were reversed?” This would be futile, and should be futile. Changing a rule mid-game, even by consensus, is both bad practice and a bad lesson for the players. It is inherently unfair. It is not a proper application of the Golden Rule.
- He could go ahead and let his team win in the top of the inning, have victory taken away by forfeit, and take full responsibility. This is apparently what the sports ethicists and the League felt he should do. It is essentially an Absolutist approach: a pledge is a pledge, and not even unanticipated and unique circumstances justify going around it. Teams do not, can not and must not intentionally let their opposition score. No exceptions.
- He could instruct his team to allow New Hampshire to tie the score, and hope that his team could win by scoring in the bottom of the sixth or in extra innings.
In choosing the last option, Coach Place was applying the balancing approach of Utilitarian ethical systems. Using that method of analysis, his course was obvious. True, allowing the other team to score intentionally was superficially a violation of the League’s “strive to win” ethic, but in this odd instance it was really the opposite: only by allowing a run to score could his team win. The Scoreboard would like to hear the argument that he
was telling his players not to “strive to win” when what they were doing was
essential to having any chance at victory. They were not throwing the game.
Doing nothing would be throwing the game.
On the positive side, extending the game meant that Adam Bentley would bat, an objective so important to the Little League that it had passed a rule mandating a forfeit if it wasn’t met. Getting to play would be a benefit to Adam, and an even greater benefit would be that he would not feel responsible when his team missed a chance to advance in the tournament because of him. It also would give his team a chance to get credit for a victory it had earned by outplaying the other team. (It is worth pointing out that Adam’s failure to bat did not give Vermont any unfair advantage or contribute to the team’s lead. One therefore cannot argue that Vermont’s coach’s miscalculation in any way entitled New Hampshire to a victory.) It would avoid the anomaly of an inferior team advancing over a superior one, and avert a forfeit, always an unsatisfactory resolution of a game except to the beneficiaries of it, and often not even them.
Place made the right ethical choice. The arguments of the sports ethicists quoted above are oddly detached from the actual situation of the Vermont team. Lapchick: “Anytime a coach changes how the game is played and orders his players to do something that’s not a natural at-bat or pitch, it crosses that line.” That is an invalid lesson for both baseball and life, and faulty ethics: an unconventional response to an unusual situation is not necessarily unethical. When a baseball player laid down the first sacrifice bunt some time in the 1880s, he was intentionally making an out…”unnatural” perhaps, but a valid and intelligent tactic that is now commonplace. Before something is declared unethical, there has to be a violation of some ethical principle. What is it in this case? The rules of baseball do not prohibit intentionally allowing the other team to score. Place was not failing to “strive to win;” on the contrary, he was striving hard, if unconventionally, while also striving to obey the Little League’s participation rule.
Doyle: “The lesson is anytime you’re coaching kids, you never make a decision to use strategy to impair the integrity of the game. You follow that principle and you’re going to be fine.” Mr. Doyle, don’t you think a result where the team that scores the most runs loses by forfeit “impairs the integrity of the game”? I sure do, and I’ll bet everyone in the stands that day agrees with me. The Little League rule that requires a player to bat at least once, while laudable in many ways, also impairs the integrity of the game (and it isn’t “natural” either, Mr. Lapchick). Following Doyle’s version of integrity in this case wouldn’t make everything “fine” at all: a victory overturned after the fact, victimized kids, a traumatized player, the inferior team advancing, a rule broken. That’s “fine”? Fine for whom?
Interestingly, Coach Place later said without elaborating that he could have accomplished his goal in a more subtle way, and he was correct. For example, he could have had all his players play out of position; a non-pitcher struggling to get a ball over the plate, his slowest players in the outfield, his weakest arms at third and short. Presumably playing an inferior team wouldn’t offend Lapchick’s definition of “natural” or Doyle’s version of “integrity,” which shows how shallow their analysis went. (Lest this sound too harsh, I should note that it is likely that neither of the ethicists were given much time to consider their opinions, and I think their AP quotes reflect that.) I regard this as a cosmetic difference only, what lawyers call “a distinction without a difference.”
He also could have waited to see if such strategies became unnecessary as a result of New Hampshire scoring a run without assistance. But the only way to make certain that his team would avoid a forfeit was to be proactive. Or so it seemed at the time. He was proactive, and his team still forfeited. Still, his plan was not unethical What about the conduct of the New Hampshire coach? Easy call: unethical:
1. His actions were aimed at ensuring that the rule would be broken, not followed.
2. He was ensuring that a young player would not get the opportunity to bat, which his own League had decreed was crucial.
3. He was asking his players to lose the game, while Place was seeking only to extend the game…a critical difference.
4. By doing the above, he was attempting to advance in the tournament through forfeit rather than merit, thus exploiting a technicality in a contest that is supposed to be a measure of skill.
5. His instructions to his team constituted an effort to block a colleague’s good faith attempt to avoid breaking a rule for the good of his team and the league.
McCauley could have reacted to Place’s desperate strategy by having his team play it straight, and either win the game by scoring as many runs as possible in the sixth inning or by proving its superiority by winning in extra innings. He wasn’t willing to take that chance, and preferred to win by forfeit. That’s bad sportsmanship. It violates the spirit of the Little League Pledge. And he was trying to lose the game.
Whose conduct was unethical?
The Scoreboard’s answer is
2. McCauley, the New Hampshire coach.
________________________________________________
Such situations are rare but have even occurred in major league games. Some managers have walked sluggers like Barry Bonds and Willy McCovey with the bases loaded, sometimes pushing across a tying or even go-ahead run, to avoid a potential grand slam. There have been games in which a home team was trailing by many runs in the top of the fifth inning with a thunderstorm approaching, and the home team’s manager realized that if the inning wasn’t completed before the rains came, it wouldn’t be an official game and the score wouldn’t count. So he instructed his team to stall, walk opposing players and refuse to make outs until the rains came.
The HomeScholar Gold Care Club will give you the comprehensive help you need tohomeschool high school.
What do you really need in order to be a “great” homeschool? What will happen if you don’t get to Socratic dialog? What if you mess up teaching state history, like I did? Can you really provide quality college preparation without a public school guidance counselor? Your homeschool CAN be a great homeschool – even without any of those things! Focus on the LOVE of learning, you you will be successful.
Hi Lee,
You’re newsletter introductory paragraph reminds me of my relative’s recent experience. She’s a public school teacher in California; due to a recent move she’s been working as a long-term substitute. When the regular teacher returned from maternity leave, my sister stayed on for a few days to help with the transition. She was dismayed to watch the teacher make mistakes about which hands are which on an analog clock and which side is which of the “greater than/less than sign.”
Homeschooling parents should remember that classroom teachers are people too and make plenty of mistakes. The Progressive movement in education has sold our society the lie that if someone has a government certificate, they have somehow “progressed” beyond the rest of us. It just isn’t so.
Very cordially,
~ A homeschool dad
Of course homeschoolers aren’t perfect. We all make mistakes sometimes. But don’t feel too bad – ALL teachers mess up sometimes, even in a public school. Take a deep breath, dust yourself off, and keep trying. “Classroom teachers are people too” – and that means they are no more perfect than we are!
Today is my birthday, and I’m turning 49 – for the FIRST time!
I’m sure that it will become easier and easier each time I turn 49. In four years, I’ll probably be thinking, “49? What a breeze! Such a great age!” And at some point I’ll long for the “good old days” of being 49 again. I’ll remember how young and spry I felt, LOL!
Homeschooling high school is the same. You may be homeschooling high school – for the FIRST time. But each year it will get easier. By the time you’ve finished your first four years of high school it will feel like old hat. You’ll remember how fun freshman year was. You’ll remember the freedom. You may even remember how sweet and compliant your children were! Ha! You probably won’t remember too many of the struggles. Four years from now is a long time away, and those memories do fade, you know.
You’re homeschooling high school for the first time. I’m turning 49 for the first time. Years from now we’ll both be old pros!
Every single day I am amazed at the things that come out of my 20yo son’s mouth! Two years ago, when he was 18, I wasn’t sure how well I had raised my son, but now…… every day I’m constantly amazed! Sunday he called to ask about doing freezer cooking. He asked about how to freeze meals, and we looked over some recipe books together. Can you believe that? I can’t believe I heard the words “freezer cooking” come out of my sons mouth! Today he called me to ask how to cook spaghetti because he’s making dinner for all his friends.
All that moaning and whining I did when he was 18, it’s all completely turned around! It’s like all those things I nagged him about years ago have finally all taken root. Suddenly he uses words and phrases that I used for YEARS thinking he wasn’t listening. Each time, he almost acts as if he had thought of it himself.
I’m beginning to realize that adult development is like vocabulary development. With vocabulary, it can take a year or two of studying a word before a child will use it spontaneously in a sentence. I guess with adult tasks, it can take years (decades?) of watching and listening to parents, and then suddenly it comes out of their very own mouth.
Obviously, the lesson here is to make sure you nag your teenagers!
Well… maybe not. Let’s see….
Obviously, the lesson here is to HANG ON! Some day all the seeds you are planting will sprout and grow!
I wanted to take a moment to wish you all a happy new year and give you a brief report on 2009 and a quick look ahead to 2010.
2009 has been amazing for us. Not only did it bring the announcement of my eldest son’s engagement (Yea!!!) but we have also seen tremendous growth in the reach of our business. Here are a few stunning tidbits:
Newsletter membership up 120%
Blog subscriptions up 163%
Web traffic up 296%
Blog traffic up 43%
Number of nations reached up 43%
2010 promises to be a very exciting one for us as well. Both boys will be graduating from Seattle Pacific University in June and we are excited to see them off on their next stage of life. Our normal summer convention season will be shortcut a bit due to graduation and wedding plans!! We do hope to meet a number of you in Cincinnati in April. Please stop by my booth or come to my talk and introduce yourself. This is our first time to this convention and we are very happy!
In 2010 we are planning a number of “big events.” First will be the release of my first “published” book, “Setting the Records Straight — How to Craft Homeschool Transcripts and Course Descriptions for College Admission and Scholarships.” We are hoping to have this ready in February.
Second, we will be the launch of our companion Course Description information product. Along with the book, this information product has consumed us for a number of months. We are very happy to be making strong progress on it.
These are the major projects we have in work right now. Of course, a lot depends on wedding plans so I am grateful for your patience!
That is all for now, I am in the midst of baking LOTS of cookies for my son’s engagement party tomorrow. 19 people in our tiny living room!! Yikes!!
Our January newsletter comes out tomorrow. I will be addressing a very important topic to homeschoolers – Teenage Motivation! It has been a hot topic on Facebook for the last few days and yesterday we had a huge jump in newsletter subscriptions. Something tells me this is a BIG deal! You can sign up for our free monthly newsletter here.
I was so excited! I was looking out my mom’s window, and I saw a sea lion swimming by! I have seen harbor seals before, both alive and “not so alive” but this was my first sea lion in her back yard! It was thrilling!
I was a little surprised at the difference between harbor seals and sea lions. In fact, we had quite a discussion about it. When you see them swimming in the distance, they look VERY similar. It wasn’t until using the binoculars that I could really tell the difference. It’s mostly about weight. Harbor seals are perhaps 200 pounds, and sea lions are about 800 pounds. From a distance, the sea lion looked like a large black dog swimming along – a dog with REALLY good breath control underwater!
Homeschools are like looking at a backyard Pinniped. You really can’t tell much unless you look at it from different perspectives. The parents that call me sometimes feel like they aren’t doing enough. They may mention a few subjects that work well, but then moan about things that aren’t going so good. They often forget some big pieces of the puzzle – things they can’t see to really notice from their perspective.
One mom failed to include on her transcript the time her son spent swimming – two hours of swimming each day. She was very concerned about the geography that wasn’t working, but didn’t recognize that her son was doing quite well in World History and that the two subjects were both in the category of social studies – a duplicate!
Think about how a seal can look like a sea lion, and then take a look at your homeschool with a fresh eye. Are you thinking you have a 200 pound high school, when really it’s 800 pounds? It can happen!
The launch of the Total Transcript Solution is in 3 DAYS!! Please read all the details here, including those amazing early responder bonuses!! Also, register for our Free webinar on Credits, Grades and Transcripts!
A quote from my eldest son: “If it’s OK with you, I would love to do the Thanksgiving dishes after we eat.”
What a blessing! First of all, as much as I love cooking the Thanksgiving feast, I just *hate* washing the dishes. And there were a LOT of dishes with 10 people for 6 hours, from appetizers to dessert. But most of all….
CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT??
He offered! Then he actually DID the dishes, and without complaining!
Homeschool Lessons from Nature: Teen feelings are like mole hills, they pop up when you least expect it.
This has been the most frustrating summer for my front yard! One day there was a mole hill. A few days later there were 7. When we arrived at the magic number of 40 mole hills, we stopped counting. We have tried everything. It’s not that I don’t like the moles… it’s just that the mole hills are so inconvenient! I leave the mole hills undisturbed when they are in my flower beds, and the brown mound blends in with the brown bark. But boy, oh boy! When those brown hills infect my should-be golf-course green grass, I start seeing red!
Do you know what I have noticed? These dumb moles don’t respect fences, shrubbery, or landscaping. They don’t care where property lines are drawn. They pop up anywhere without warning – and sometimes they are HUGE.
Teenage emotions are very similar. The poor teens are only doing what is natural. They are cauldrons of hormone-laced emotions, and sometimes it spills out. It may be a terse word, an unpleasant tone or look. It could be a feeling or frustration, or just an experience the teenager needs to talk about.
While normal, these emotions can be as difficult to deal with as molehills in the yard. You don’t know when they will pop up, and you don’t know which direction they will go. All you really know is that the emotions are there, and you have to deal with them.
One of the best thing about homeschooling is that you are physically in the proximity of your children. When they have a feeling, concern, or worry that spills out, a parent is there. Instead of their feelings spilling out into space, they are spilled out onto us. I’m the first to admit that spilled emotions are messy, but have you considered the alternative? I mean, because we are with our children, we can talk about their feelings and issues. We can know what’s going on and respond to things.
I’m thankful that teen feelings are like mole hills. I’m thankful that their emotions could pop up when I was around to help them, and learn with them. I remember it could be pretty inconvenient that the feelings popped up suddenly and without much warning, though.
I’m thankful I was there for my children when they were growing up. But I still wish I didn’t have moles in my front yard!
That free month on the Gold Care Club that you get with the purchase of mye-book on transcriptscan be your time to get some great homeschool high school parent training! You even get 20 minutes of free phone consultation each week! We can even talk about your teenagers emotions!If you want theGold Care Clubwithout the e-book you can get it here!
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