Policy Does Not Encourage Success Rigidity Kills Hope System Must Welcome Kids With Varied Skills

Spokane School District 81 recently made a decision to enforce a “no-pass, no-play” rule. The rule means that athletes, band members, cheerleaders and students involved in some other extracurricular activities cannot participate unless they are getting passing grades in all of their classes.

Taken in a vacuum, it’s probably a good decision. However, the policy doesn’t take into consideration how an extracurricular activity can often be the best pathway to education for struggling students. A ballplayer’s interest in physiology develops through working with a trainer. The class clown learns to read better because he wants to be in a play. The argumentative misfit excels at debate.

The complexity of the world makes us eager for simple, clear rules. No dinner, no dessert. No-pass, no-play. But policies and rules should serve a purpose. If our purpose is to keep all types of students engaged in school, then we need to address that issue. The no-pass, no-play policy seems to stress that it’s more important to eke through classes to stay on a team. It doesn’t address the larger issue.

Schools function best when students sit quietly at a desk, read, test well on pen-and-paper assessments and do group projects. Only about 38 percent of the population is wired to do that kind of learning easily. They are an important group who have the temperament which keeps our laws and tends our traditions and institutions.

But students, and all people, vary in temperament and type. We now know a lot more about emotional, artistic, mechanical and analytical intelligence. If school is for all students, then different learning styles and temperaments must be incorporated so all students can succeed. Parents know this; we devise different strategies to deal with the different personalities of our children.

Extracurricular activities are one way to accommodate those differences and allow academically marginal students to taste success in their own way. Another way is through varied teaching methods. When the District 81 committee meets to reconsider the no-pass, no-play rule, we hope the larger issue is discussed as well.

Schools, and society, need all our creative and unique individuals.