9. In football, emotions and human contact are expected parts of the work. When players do well, they get to be happy. When they do poorly, they get to be angry. Players are supposed to talk with one another. But we have no tools to make use of happiness or frustration in most classrooms. and we generally prohibit communication except for the most restricted exchanges. When we bring 30 students together and ask them not to communicate, not to use one another sources or exhort one another to go further, then we make it clear to them that their being together is simply cost-effective.
10. In football, players get to choose their own roles. Not only do they choose their sport, but they also choose their favorite position within that sport. In the classroom. we don't allow' people to follow their hearts very often. We give them a list of classes they have to take, and then we give them assignments within those classes that they have to do. and we don't offer may alternatives. We have set the whole school thing up as a set of requirements, But sports are a set of opportunities, a set of pleasures from which anyone gets to choose. Each one of those pleasures carries with it a set of requirements and responsibili- ties and difficult learning assignments but youngsters still do them voluntarily, following their own self-defined mission of seeking their place in the world.
11. In football the better players teach the less skilled play- ers. Sometimes this teaching is on purpose, but mostly it is by example. Every player is constantly surrounded by other players who can do things well and who love doing what they do. The really good players are allowed to show off--in fact, it's de- manded that they show off, that they work to their highest capac- ity. The people who aren't as good observe that. They don't simply see skills they can learn; they become inspired. They get to see another person -- not just the teacher but a peer -- who knows what he's doing and who loves to do it. In the classroom, the best students aren't often given a chance publicly to go beyond what everyone else is doing. They're smothered, held back, kept to the same pace as their classmates.
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