For those who don't know, like my American friends, Sports Day is the one day of the year Asian (and apparently many commonwealth) countries try to pack a year's worth of physical education into. Basically, they take one day, make all the students come, (try to) make all the parents come, and they rent a stadium. They divide the school into four teams, Red, Blue, Yellow, and Green. The students have minimal training (a few hours usually) and then they throw them into a series of track and field events.
I must admit to going into this year's sports day with a lot of trepidation. I have two problems with Sports Days.
The first of my two problems: it's a terrible idea. Say what you want about American schools, and there is a lot of negative things you can say, mostly negative really, but in the States we have our athletic events down. We produce good teammates and good athletes, and we organize fun events where attendance isn't mandatory, it's voluntary and widespread. American schools don't divide the school in quarters and have the school compete and cheer against each other. We train our best athletes in their best events, and have them compete against other schools with friends and family supporting them, not cheering against them. I could go on, but basically, it's just an outdated and bad idea.
The second problem, I've been burned before. At Omega they put me in charge of Blue house. Blue house had been losing for so long (4th out of 4 teams) that it was demoralized, downtrodden, and seemingly without hope.
For a few weeks, I coached my ass off. We worked harder than the other teams. We worked smarter. We changed everything.
At the end of the first half, we were in 1st place. At the 3/4 mark, we were in 1st place. Then we started to slide down the rankings. I'd watch the races in between coaching, and we kept losing races it looked like we were winning. Finally I went myself to the finish line. Somehow, even in races where blue won by a few seconds, yellow ended up the winner. There were "timing mistakes." A lot of them. That's what they kept saying.
I found out later that Dato's daughter was in Yellow house.
We ended up in third place. Another banner year for the Yellow House.
So, I went into our sports day loathing the event. For most of the day it was like that too, an event worthy of loathing.
But I learned something, even with all the problems, the kids just love it. And until we can change the system to a more modern and effective one, this is what the kids have. So, we have to make the most of it. For many kids, they said it was their best day in the whole school so far.
Anyway, enough talking, here's some of the pics.
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| Red House Marching Team |
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| Educity Sports Stadium is a heck of a facility. Super cool stadium. |
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I must say: I was uncomfortable with dressing up Rose in a green headband.
They put mat salleh teachers in charge of the Green House, and they didn't know
about the implications of wearing green hats and bandannas.
Oh well, I did warn them. |
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Red House Team did win one thing this year: the marching competition.
Here's the winning team at attention in front of the VIPs. |
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One of my star history students. This kid loves history, especially military history.
I try to walk a fine line between my Quaker mentality and abhorrence for the military industrial complex,
and letting this kid pursue his dreams, which seem to revolve around the military. |
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| Rose on top of the podium. U-10 girls sprinting. Fastest by a long shot. |
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| Shaking hands with Dato and Datin, flanked by the admin. Great day for her. |
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| At home on her bday after the event. So proud. |
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| First meeting of the red house march team. Well done team Red. Next year we do better on the track, yeah!!??! |
