School spirit doesn’t have to be relegated to the athletic field, and “go team” resonates just as well in the classroom.

Area schools are officially back in session this week, even though many athletic teams are actually approaching their third week of contests. (I’ll never understand having games before the school year starts but that’s an argument for another day.)

Daniel Brown, a reader from Edwardsburg, wrote a very thoughtful letter (you can read it inside today’s newspaper) about not forgetting about academic achievements.

And, Dan is absolutely right.

Many of us love sports. Certainly the staff at Leader Publications feels it is important to recognize our student athletes. This is evidenced in our Kickoff special publication inside today’s newspaper that showcase as the fall high school sports teams in our area schools.

But Brown’s point was relevant. He politely challenged the newspaper for referring to cherry pit spitting champion Kevin Bartz as the Edwardsburg High School football coach but making no mention of his many years of service as a respected science teacher.

This certainly was an unintentional omission on our part since Bartz is most publicly known outside the Edwardsburg community for his work on the field rather than in the classroom.

And maybe that is part of the problem.

As a society we celebrate our athletes and celebrities, while often marginalizing academic accomplishments and our educators. We cannot change the world, but we can certainly do our part to level the playing field — pun intended — right here in southwest Michigan.

As citizens we can all play a role by learning more about the great things going on in our schools and congratulating students for a job well done. It start with asking questions and being engaged.

As a newspaper we certainly want to do our part. If you have a child or grandchild that does something extraordinary, let us know about it. If you are a teacher who has a class that is going above and beyond, help us sing their praises.

I honestly believe it is possible to celebrate all our students.

So let’s show our school spirit under the Friday night lights and on the other fields of competition, but let’s do a better job of cheering on our classroom stars, too.

 

Michael Caldwell is the publisher of Leader Publications LLC. He can be reached at (269) 687-7700 or by email at mike.caldwell@leaderpub.com.