The Values
of Co-Curricular Activities |
|
| According to
a recent American College Testing Service survey, the one
yardstick that can be used to predict later success in
life is achievement in co-curricular school activities. A
survey of Fortune 500 companies indicated that 95 percent
of people at the executive vice president level or above
had one thing in common--they all had participated in
high school sports. Among distinguished Virginians who have participated in VHSL athletics or academic activities are former Governor Douglas Wilder and former Governor Linwood Holton, former Virginia Attorney General Mary Sue Terry, NBC Today Show anchorwoman Katie Couric, Norfolk Southern Corporation President David Goode, NFL Hall of Famer Willie Lanier, golfers Lanny Watkins and Curtis Strange, and author/commentator/former tennis champion Arthur Ashe, to name just a few. Further studies show conclusively that students who participate in high school sports and activities programs have higher grade-point averages and attendance rates, fewer disciplinary problems and lower drop-out rates than non-participants. Al Burr, a renowned Missouri educator, may have described it best when he said, "Nowhere do you find it in education like you find it in athletics: that teachers are teaching what they want to teach to students who are learning what they want to learn, and both are willing to work hour after hour on their own time after school so that everything that can be taught is taught and everything that can be learned is learned." VHSL athletics and activities accomplish what the public wants by giving children positive things to do, and they are a bargain financially. On the average, less than one percent of the total school budget goes toward supplementing these programs which involve participation by more than 50 percent of the student body. The Virginia State Board of Education has proposed world-class learning goals for students that include skills such as communication and critical reasoning, together with development of personal qualities such as self-esteem, honesty, integrity and sociability. VHSL athletic and academic activities seek to produce those same skills and individual characteristics. As the League moves toward the new millennium, it stands as the most viable means of continuing to provide the Commonwealth’s children the many life-long benefits of involvement in extracurricular activities. |