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MY FAVORITE DYNAMIC DUO: BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AND JOHN WOODEN: "THE PURPOSE OF EDUCATION." (BOOKER T. WASHINGTON PART THIRTY ONE)
Coach Wooden’s message to his players on Education was: "You are in UCLA for an education. Keep that first in your thoughts. Earn the respect of everyone, especially of yourself." With his example he educated his players on how to live.
In his 1902 book, Character Building, Booker T. Washington made clear to his students "The Purpose of Education":
"Education in the usual sense of the word is the mere committing to memory of something which has been known before us.
We must be able to put into visible form the results of our education. Just in proportion as an individual is able to do that, he or she is of value to the world. We are trying to turn out people who are able to do something that the world wants done, that the world needs to have done.
Regardless of color or condition, the world is going to give the places of trust and remuneration to the people who can do a certain thing as well as anybody else or better.
Education should give us strong, orderly, and well-developed minds. If there is one person more than another who is to be pitied, it is the individual who is all heart and no head.
This is not the end of education. Education is meant to give us an idea of truth. I do not care how much you have gotten out of all your textbooks: —unless you have got truth, you have failed in your purpose to be educated. Unless you get the idea of truth so pure that you cannot be false in anything, your education is a failure.
Education is meant to make us absolutely honest in dealing with others. I don’t care how much arithmetic we have, or how many cities we can locate—it all is useless unless we have an education that makes us absolutely honest.
Education in the broadest and truest sense will make an individual seek to help all people, regardless of race, regardless of color, regardless of condition."
Our Public Schools should formally engage in Character Education. Honesty and Compassion are not values that are unique to political parties, religious groups, or any race. They are needed values for humans.
Will we just teach our students how to read or will we teach them how to live?
Yours in Coaching,
Craig Impelman
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COACH'S FAVORITE POETRY AND PROSE
A Fine Sight
I reckon the finest sight of all
That a man can see in this world of ours
Ain't the works of art on the gallery wall,
Or the red an' white o' the fust spring flowers,
Or a hoard o' gold from the yellow mines;
But the' sight that'll make ye want t' yell
Is t' catch a glimpse o' the fust pink signs
In yer baby's cheek, that she's gittin' well.
When ye see the pink jes' a-creepin' back
T' the pale, drawn cheek, an' ye note a smile,
Then th' cords o' yer heart that were tight, grow slack
An' ye jump fer joy every little while,
An' ye tiptoe back to her little bed
As though ye doubted yer eyes, or were
Afraid it was fever come back instead,
An' ye found that th' pink still blossomed there.
Ye've watched fer that smile an' that bit o' bloom
With a heavy heart fer weeks an' weeks;
An' a castle o' joy becomes that room
When ye glimpse th' pink 'in yer baby's cheeks.
An' out o' yer breast flies a weight o' care,
An' ye're lifted up by some magic spell,
An' yer heart jes' naturally beats a prayer
O' joy to the Lord 'cause she's gittin' well.
Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959)
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