In this episode of the Rural Voice, all three co-hosts discuss the importance of extra-curricular activities for not only teaching teamwork and social norms but also building community. The co-hosts share their own experiences with extra-curricular activities both as students as well as teachers and administrators. They discuss how these programs have changed and some of the challenges experienced by small schools in offering such programs. They talk about how these programs vary and the role they play in creating meaning for students by offering activities to keep kids out of trouble.
Allen Pratt:
Welcome back to the National Rural Education Podcast focusing on all things rural schools and
communities. Pleasure to be here today with Dr. Jerry Bigham, our co-host, and of course myself, Allen
Pratt. We also have Dr. Chris Silvers on the, I guess you would say the board. Is that correct?
Chris Silver:
Yeah, I guess I'm the sound guy. You know how Joe Rogan on his has the sound guy he talks to? I guess
that's who I'll be for you guys.
Allen Pratt:
All right. We have a sound board, our guy on the sound board. Today's topic, we're not going to have a
guest. We're going to chat and talk through some things around rural schools and the importance of
extracurricular activities on the community but also the school and then the participation for students to
be involved and impact on hiring practices and impact on students, where they go to school, especially
in this day and age where a lot of students singular focus on a sport. They're not multiple sport athletes
like they used to be and how they impact on rural communities there as well. Jared and Chris, you all
can start this off and we'll take it from there.
Jared Bigham:
I have a lot of thoughts on this and feelings as a former rural student and the extracurriculars that I had
and how that's a big part of the community. I know we're going to talk about for good or bad on that.
Jared Bigham:
Also, you mentioned hiring practices. That's also pretty significant for rural schools when you're trying to
not only fill academic positions but coaching positions and other extracurricular activities like band, if
schools are even lucky enough to have that, and other programs. A lot of times teachers have to wear
multiple hats. Sometimes they might be drafted into becoming a coach or a choir director or something
like that.
Allen Pratt:
Or volun-told. I think that's a good point. I think sometimes, as being former principals, we're labeled
that we don't want other extracurriculars. It's simply the fact that we don't have people to fill the spots
or the budget may not allow. I remember as a principal, I always wanted more art classes, more drama,
plays, musicals but we always couldn't have that option just simply because of budget but also simply
because of there wasn't folks that could do that other than being volun-told. Chris, you got a comment
on that one?
Chris Silver:
Yeah. Of course, I'm born and raised in the country like both of you. Those extracurricular activities
probably kept me out of trouble. I'm just throwing that out there. I was involved in band, 4-H, church.
You're right, Jared, about the whole volun-told business. My dad was the insurance agent for Farm
Bureau for a long time, in fact, pretty much my entire life until I got to grad school before he retired. I
can't tell you how many times he got sucked into 4-H or Boy Scouts. It's almost like when you're in a
small town, everybody's getting volun-told at some level. It's not like a larger city where sometimes you
can sidestep some of that.
Jared Bigham:
In some bigger urban areas, I know that they have full-time coaches. You're not even expected to pull
double duty. Your entire focus might be the band or the wrestling team or football team. Those
dynamics are different at times. Chris, you said something about how it kept you out of trouble,
extracurriculars did.
Chris Silver:
Yeah, big time.
Jared Bigham:
By and large, the research shows that students that are involved in extracurriculars, whether you're in a
one-room schoolhouse or you're in an urban middle school with 3,000 students, the extracurriculars
help students engage more, their grades tend to improve, or they tend to have better grades, so if
nothing else, to keep their eligibility up. Truancy and discipline, those kind of things are all impacted in a
positive way when students are involved.
Jared Bigham:
I think that in a rural setting, it's even a little bit different because the extracurriculars tend to be a big
part of the community, not just what's going on at school but throughout the community, it's almost like
we talk about Friday Night Lights and things like that. Sometimes a whole community is just sitting
around waiting on Friday night to come to the football game, whereas in more urban areas, that's not
the case always.
Allen Pratt:
I think you've got a good point of being part of the community. I think also a part of that is my children
had the opportunity to go to a small school, a small rural school. My daughter played volleyball. If we
were at a larger school, there's no way she would probably be on the volleyball team. But she got to
experience and play volleyball.
Allen Pratt:
I know Jared and I's cases, we were 712 building, so our students could play eighth grade and play
varsity sports in eighth grade. My daughter played volleyball from eighth grade to her senior year, which
I think is very important.
Chris Silver:
Us too actually. If you were in junior high, seventh and eighth grade, you could be in the marching band.
A lot of times the band director, I think, made a determination about maturity would determine if you
got in. Like most things in the country, if you're really good at what you do, we can let the maturity thing
slide a little bit if you're amazing at what you do.
Chris Silver:
We had a lot football players and band kids that at seventh and eighth grade we just went ahead and let
them play. Of course, that was a different time back then.
Jared Bigham:
I think also when you look at the logistics around extracurricular activities, the challenge becomes for
rural schools, especially isolated rural schools, of how do you get kids back and forth to participate in
these. It's not like they can go home, eat a snack or whatever, come back two hours later. You find that
schools are a lot of times scheduling around extracurriculars, figuring out a way to do them during the
school day.
Jared Bigham:
Even at the school I attended, we had a block in the day, a 90-minute block for basketball practice
because it was so hard for a lot of students that didn't drive to be able to get back to the school for
practice.
Allen Pratt:
That's a big point. I think you had a good point on being involved helps grades, helps attendance. I think
a lot of our rural students are involved in extracurricular activities. I know it sounds crazy or sounds bad
sometimes but that's the reason they go to school. We know that as a factor as well.
Allen Pratt:
I think without every student athlete or every student participating in all activities, you can't get to the
level, I think, of where those schools can be competitive. I think that's one of the things about being a
multi-sport person or multi-extracurricular person is very important simply because it's a well-rounded
life and prepares you for life a little bit better than focusing in on one particular area.
Chris Silver:
Allen, when you say competitive, do you academically competitive or do you mean athletic competitive?
Allen Pratt:
I think when I meant competitive, I mean athletically from the sense of if you look at the schools that
Jared and I were involved and schools that we were competing against, if a couple of people on, say the
football team, if they were a good athlete and could compete in other sports, if they didn't play baseball
and basketball, those sports suffered because they weren't out there helping out.
Allen Pratt:
I think that's where the community comes in because a lot of times that's community of we want to
beat our rival, we want to be involved, we want to be competitive, we want to do things the right way.
But it also gets to the point of the fine line of can students do too much and is there too much going on
and we know the way that we're connected socially now and kind of connected ... it's a little bit more
difficult to, I guess, harness their attendance on every sport.
Jared Bigham:
Not even does the team suffer maybe from a talent standpoint if those great athletes of football don't
play another sport, but literally, some teams need all the athletes whether they're even good, have a
particular skillset in basketball or baseball or whatever it may be, that they just need bodies. They
wouldn't be able to put a team together without those bodies.
Jared Bigham:
I think in rural schools, a lot times you see more, in general, athletes just like with general athleticism
versus skilled athletes. I know some of my friends in Nashville, for instance, and even San Diego, when
they hear me talk about my son playing multiple sports, he's in high school, they're just aghast. They're
like, "How does he fit in all the extra specialty coaching in the evenings," and how does he do this and
do that. I'm like, "Number one, we don't have specialty coaches in rural communities they go to after
school.
Jared Bigham:
Number two, it's just the way it's done. You have a group of, let's say, five to 10 athletes in each grade
level, male and female, that tend to have to play usually three major sports or at least two at the school
just to help field teams. They're not expected to be Michael Jordan in basketball. They're expected to be
more like a Dennis Rodman or old players sometimes. It's just hustles.
Allen Pratt:
We're dating ourself now.
Jared Bigham:
We've got a bunch of millennials that are Googling Dennis Rodman right now.
Allen Pratt:
There you go. I think that's important, the school side. I think the community side, it's very important
and it's a place to be. It's a place to come to. I think that is vital to rural schools and rural communities
on actually being a part. Everyone wants to be a part of something and be included and feel like they're
doing what is needed to make their community better.
Chris Silver:
The other thing too, I was thinking about listening to you all talk is I know, at least in my case, I had the
option of either going to football or band at one point. I went band. What was fascinating about it was
that ... I'm sorry, everybody, I sound like Marvin Gaye this morning. I'm coming over a cold. One of the
things that always, I thought back then at least and I should mention to our listeners, that we're talking
around 20 years ago when I was in high school. Sports, band, those kinds of things a lot of times were
your meal ticket into higher ed anyway. When you're coming from rural background, at least in my
home town, it's changed now, but back before it was a suburb, the top 10 kids went to college. The rest
of us were expected to take some kind of blue collar job.
Chris Silver:
The exception of that sometimes was the athletes and the musicians and even sometimes the drama
folks. That opened a door. I was no different. I was a musician so that opened the door for me to do
music even though that's not what I wanted to do the rest of my life.
Chris Silver:
That's another reason I think. Besides even just the social capital of the community coming together and
the benefits, I think the other side of it is is that I think we always want to talk about how sports is a
waste of time or music's a waste of time. You always hear these arguments in the small schools because,
quite frankly, they're expensive to run.
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Chris Silver:
As Jared and I were discussing at the beginning of the podcast, I think that those kinds of programs,
besides even the learning facilitation that teamwork and, like in my case, music is great for cognitive
development.
Chris Silver:
The flip side of it is is the trouble factor. It's like the old saying. What's the old saying in the Bible about
the idle hands ...
Jared Bigham:
Idle hands are the devil's workshop.
Chris Silver:
Yeah. It's not even in the Bible. I'm sure some minister said that and everybody thinks it's in the Bible
now. My point is, that's still very real in the South. If you have tons of free time, you're probably going to
get in trouble. That's a lot of times the perception.
Jared Bigham:
Yeah. I think that's even more of an issue, and I don't want it to sound like we're always saying yeah, it's
more and worse in rural communities. That's not the argument we're always trying to make. But when I
kid ultimately does get home from school, whether that's if they go straight home and they're not a part
of an extracurricular activity or it's after something kind of practice, typically they're going to be a mile if
not multiple dozens of miles even away from another student. It's not like when they get home I'm
going to go run down the block and hang out at the park with my friends or go down and shoot
basketball at the park or hang out at the YMCA or Boys and Girls Club. You just don't have those ...
Chris Silver:
Resources.
Jared Bigham:
Yeah and access points after school for students. If they're going to get it, that social interaction outside
the classroom and engagement, it's probably going to happen while they're on that campus because it's
typically not going to happen at home.
Chris Silver:
Yeah. That's true.
Jared Bigham:
Something that also cracks me up that I experienced myself in speaking about how these activities are a
piece of the community and that's how a lot of socializing goes on between parents, and many times
these are parents that if you're going to a Little League game and they're sitting beside each other, quite
possibly they played Little League together themselves 20 years or so before. You can look around the
stands, and you probably know 90 plus percent of the people in the stands, whether it's practice or a
game, if not 100%.
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Jared Bigham:
One of my daughters was in rec league soccer when I had a brief stint living in a mid-town city. I went to
the first three or four practices and was standing amid all the parents and the coaches and even other
parents and coaches that were practicing at an adjacent part of the field there. I looked around. I was
like, "I don't know one blooming person on this whole soccer field." I mean zero. Zero people did I know
on that soccer ...
Jared Bigham:
I actually went to college in that city and worked nearby for a long time. It was just baffling to me to
realize, because I've got five kids, that this was the first time that I had gone to a practice where I didn't
know 90% or if not all the people there.
Allen Pratt:
I think that's a good point. I think going back to a little bit of the community and you talked about
people, it's just tradition of what's expected that your kids are going to play those same kind of rec as
you move up.
Allen Pratt:
I remember, as a principal, moving one of our award nights that we used to do during the day for the
seniors and people for academics. I moved the seniors to a night activity. They could dress up but their
parents could come. More people could come instead of 9:00 in the morning.
Allen Pratt:
I remember a community member goes, "Are you going to advertise a singer night?" I said, "Why?" They
go, "Well, we want to go see what these awards that these seniors that we watched on multiple athletic
events or multiple things, we want to see what they receive." We ended up getting more people from
the community to come that were church members, that went to church with them.
Chris Silver:
That's interesting. Making it optional actually drove demand, right? Is that what you're basically saying?
Allen Pratt:
Yeah. I thought it was pretty cool for them to come and honor those seniors. And especially in the
school I was in, a lot of our students went to school, I know Jared said the same thing and I know Chris
the same thing, from kindergarten to 12th grade, they were all classmates pretty much the same time
and they knew each other for 12 years or 13 years. Pretty interesting from that standpoint.
Jared Bigham:
Something I'm interested in from your travels to various rural districts across the country and some of
the one-room schoolhouses in one-room schoolhouse districts that you visited, what does athletics and
extracurricular activities look like in these very remote rural schools?
Chris Silver:
That's a great question.
Allen Pratt:
I think your K-8 students that are in those one-rooms, they're probably not doing an athletic team together. They would do it when they went to more of the big high school or a larger school but a lot of it co-op. You may have a K-12 school with 50 students, and they're going to co-op football with another school or two schools and create a community or regional team. I think that's a big part of it, six-man football, eight-man football. There are classifications. I know in Colorado, they do six-man, eight-man and that's a big deal as they set things up.
What's unique is I was in Dighton, Kansas and visited the school system. They have a great little community center that's connected to their football stadium. But their football field was built during, I guess, the Roosevelt era. It was the workers. I can't think of-
Jared Bigham:
C.C. Camps.
Allen Pratt:
Yeah. They were coming. You could see the stone work and how they built it. It was from the actual '30s.
It's set up as a regulation football field. They play eight-man which is a smaller field. It's set up and it's
like are you going to change your field? They had a turf field. They said, "No, because you never know,
we may come back to 11-man."
Allen Pratt:
It's one of those things where it's still a draw of the community. It's still a part of what they're doing. It's
unique. I went to that school to talk to economic leaders of the community. They said, "We're going to
bring our students in, K-12." I'm like, "Oh man, this will be an interesting talk." I realized there was only
175 or 300 max people in that building because it is just a small school.
Jared Bigham:
I feel like I would have been an awesome three-on-three football player.
Allen Pratt:
We'd have to start a league probably.
Chris Silver:
That's funny. I think that one thing that my school system did do correctly, because I don't want to
sound like Jared or I don't want like Chris Lamb and rural education, one thing that they did do well was
they would try to incorporate 4-H and some of those things into the curriculum. You would have a 4-H
day once a month where they would send in 4-H folks that would come and give a talk or something like
that.
Chris Silver:
I don't know what they're doing today, at least in terms of the extension service. I know that back then,
that was always nice because; a, you got a break from class, but it was good. You got to engage about
the challenges that many of us were living working on farms and stuff. Ironically, a lot the people I went
to school with, they stayed in the community.
Chris Silver:
I know we talk a lot about that percentage of return after they get an education. My hometown was no
different. People that didn't get an education stay there. A lot of the ones that did get an education
went on and moved somewhere else. My hometown suffers from a lot of the same things you guys are
talking about.
Allen Pratt:
One thing to your point on 4-H days, I know when I was a principal, leaving the principal job, archery
started becoming a part of our school. The 4-H group actually introduced a lot of that. I know Van Buren
County, Van Buren High School, they have an archery team that's won a couple state championships. I
know Sequatchie County locally here. I think that's one of those areas that when I see state and
nationwide, you're seeing those agriculture/other events, what I call them, come into play which I think
is very strong and it's good for our students.
Jared Bigham:
As I've been sitting here thinking about the different dynamics of rural extracurricular activities versus
suburban or urban high schools or middle schools that are larger, elementary schools, yes, there's
significant resource gap just because of student numbers. You're getting more per capita money at a
larger high school which enables you to have more programs and do more things, have more
extracurriculars.
Jared Bigham:
One thing I always loved about the school where I was principal was actually the idea that I had stolen
from you, that open lunch concept. We built in some additional time for club meetings. Our school was
small enough that I remember one day I brought my faculty in the library. We all had a roster of all the
students in the high school. We only had 363, seven through 12. Each teacher was responsible for a club
that met at least once a week during that open lunch. They could have more but at least one club.
Jared Bigham:
It was also like a draft where we went around and we said, let's first mark all students that play a sport.
We take them off the list. Let's mark all students that we already know were in a club, take them off the
list. Now we've got all these students that are left which was only, let's say 75. We just went around the
room and teachers said, "I'll go recruit this student to be in my club. I'll recruit this one to be in my club."
Jared Bigham:
We were just small enough we could do that to where we had 100% of our students involved in at least
one club and extracurricular activity. That's just something ... it would be a little bit more logistical
challenge, I would say, at a school with 2,000 students. There are some benefits sometimes having a
smaller school.
Allen Pratt:
I think you made a great point. I remember coming to visit you when you were principal and they were
doing ping pong championships during that time period.
Jared Bigham:
Which I still am the reigning ping pong champion at the school, but go ahead.
Chris Silver:
Nice.
Allen Pratt:
They did retire the pin pong ball, right?
Chris Silver:
He's like, "Go ahead."
Allen Pratt:
Or the paddle.
Jared Bigham:
They tried to retire the paddle, but since it made it all the way to China with me and back and a trip to
the Olympics and ... well, maybe not the Olympics but ...
Allen Pratt:
I got you. I got you.
Jared Bigham:
I think I was loathe to give that up.
Chris Silver:
I got you. I got you.
Allen Pratt:
I think it was pretty good. I know we did it at South Pittsburgh High School for a time period. I know
being in the gym or being ... A lot of our students use it as study hall.
Chris Silver:
It's the worse.
Allen Pratt:
I know that's not a club but it was a chance for them to catch up and collaborate with other students,
which I think was important. I think there's a lot of ways that rural schools can be creative to include all
students. I think sometimes they get the message, and I'm not bashing anything or anyone, they get a
message from above that they only are there to do certain things because that's how we're scored and
accountable. I think that's difficult.
Allen Pratt:
I think the end game, we're producing our next citizens to run our communities. I used to tell our
teachers, "Are you planning on staying in this community?" "Yeah." I said, "So the people you're shoving
to the side sometimes, they may run for school board when they become an adult." You don't want that
person to have a little grudge against you. [crosstalk 00:24:49] Or they might run for county
commissioner or city commissioner, so those things are very important. We need to teach them what
the community's all about. I think that's very important as well.
Chris Silver:
Yup. That's good stuff. I hate to say it, at least in my own experience, it's an old adage but I hate to say
it's true is that be careful which geeks you make fun of in high school because they may be in charge of
you one day. I know that sounds messed up to say but it's true.
Allen Pratt:
I think you're right.
Chris Silver:
I was somewhere in that nice sweet spot between being a geek and being a quasi cool kid. I kept
vacillating back and forth based on my acne. One minute I'm the cool kid because I'm the musician,
alternative guy. The next minute, I look like I got in a fight with a pepperoni pizza.
Allen Pratt:
I understand that as well. I do. I really do.
Chris Silver:
I think that one of the things that we don't realize is, and this is why I think these kinds of things are
important to discuss is is that a lot of the rural kids have a very unique challenge. Allen talked about it a
few episodes back about how you've got families that live 30 miles from any civilization in any direction.
You've got other school systems where these afterschool programs, they're not common unfortunately.
Even if you're in those kinds of spaces where those distances are large, that still doesn't mean you may
not try to get in a little bit of trouble here and there, right?
Chris Silver:
I think besides even just the [inaudible 00:26:39] aspect, I think they're good. Plus, let's just be honest,
we see this in higher ed a lot, school doesn't always, by itself, just the curriculum doesn't always
completely prepare you for life. Sometimes those extracurricular activities do serve as a supplemental
education. If you think [Darwinian 00:26:57] view of experiential education, living your learning, not just
going to a formalized space for it, right?
Jared Bigham:
Yeah. I think that, and there's a lot more in depth conversations we could have with several of these
things we talked about, but I do want to come back just before we sign off about the resource gap
sometimes. We mentioned it a little bit earlier but in equipment, in things like access to updated
technology, I know one of the coolest things that does get kids excited today at school is some type of
technology pathway. There's so many of them out there and so many different ways to use technology
beyond just computers, with music now and video and all these different things. It's a struggle, a real
struggle to either get a critical mass of students in a particular class to justify buying equipment or
literally you might not have high speed internet to even make it worthwhile and make an investment in
the equipment itself. I know that resources will always be something that we end up talking about
probably on every podcast.
Jared Bigham:
It hit home personally with me my freshman year of playing basketball because, I know this might be
foreign to a lot of people, we had hand-me-down uniforms in every sport, every extracurricular. The
cheerleaders had hand-me-down uniforms.
Chris Silver:
Band kids.
Jared Bigham:
Yeah, band uniforms.
Allen Pratt:
Instruments, right?
Chris Silver:
Yes. I had a sousaphone that was 35-years-old when I was in high school.
Jared Bigham:
I just remember having to go out and beg my mom and dad to go buy some of those spandex shorts that
you wear under your ... like Michael Jordan. That was cool anyway '90 because that's what Michael
Jordan wore.
Allen Pratt:
I get it, yeah.
Jared Bigham:
What wasn't cool was that our basketball shorts were from the late '70s, '78, '79. You remember, they
liked to wear them about four inches long back then.
Allen Pratt:
The John Stockton look?
Jared Bigham:
Like Speedo shorts. Yeah.
Allen Pratt:
You can Google John Stockton basketball shorts.
Jared Bigham:
We were probably the only team in the conference that our spandex shorts, we could see about 18
inches of, and we didn't have the flowing down-to-the-knee shorts that the Bulls did. We had just
basically wearing spandex shorts. We looked like we were headed to do the Tour De France or
something.
Allen Pratt:
Yeah, I remember those shorts. I don't want them to come back, especially to basketball. I want to add
one point, and I think this is pretty good. It goes to resources. I think you're dead on when you're talking
about the latest, greatest thing that each school could have. It could be extracurricular, it could be
instructional, whatever. It goes back to teachers and people being volun-told or facilitators of that
[crosstalk 00:30:18].
Chris Silver:
That's right.
Allen Pratt:
They have to be trained and/or the willing desire to go do and find those things. That's a struggle in rural
communities. Not that they're not passionate about what they do, but the training sometimes to use
those tools and instructions are difficult but also the training that would be affordable for those districts
to bring to their teachers which is important.
Allen Pratt:
I think the latest, greatest uniforms or whatever may be equipment-wise, I think that is a challenge as
well. I think it goes back to community and how involved your community is in those particular events
and how they can help extra money, foundation, whatever they create, booster clubs that helps that
process out as well.
Jared Bigham:
Speaking of latest, greatest uniforms, we're still looking for that major sportswear/athletic wear
sponsors, so Nike, Adidas, if you're listening, feel free to start a bidding war.
Allen Pratt:
It looks like Starter or Champion they're coming back.
Chris Silver:
Yeah, yeah. Again, the other thing I always notice too is it also depends on who your administrators are,
so extending what Allen's saying about being volun-told. If you've got someone who ... for example, one
of the things that used to happen in my hometown, I don't know if it's still the case, but there was a lot
of times where they would talk about closing the band program down every three years. There was
always this big debate about the value of music versus the value of the athletics. I always thought that
they weren't mutually exclusively constructs.
Chris Silver:
Look at any marching band kid, for example. I played sports too, so I can speak to this, is that you look at
a marching back kid, they're wearing those heavy uniforms, carrying heavy instruments. They do a lot of
the same things that you would see the athletes do. At the same time, with the band program much like
the football players, we would travel a lot. We had to learn to adjust to our schedules and those things
too, very similar to the athletics.
Chris Silver:
Now, there's been all this new research on how teamwork with athletics, music, drama, a lot of these
humanities that we've just saw as periphery as the holistic education view. Now what's happened in a
lot of the literature is we're seeing that no, this actually teaches emotional intelligence. It turns out it
teaches teamwork, leadership, which you know is a hot button of mine because I teach in a leadership
doctorate program. A lot of those things are now turning out to have value where we didn't have the
sophisticated ways to measure them before.
Chris Silver:
I think one tech way I would add to this episode is is that while we get a lot of times we're stressed by
the bottom line, there is value in the tradition of some of the things that we've done while we were all
in school, right?
Allen Pratt:
Yeah.
Chris Silver:
Now, maybe the question becomes do we need better metrics for those. That may be the better
question. Yeah, I think building that community. I would even argue it's not a rural thing solely. You look
at some of the magnet schools. They have a very close knit community in a lot of the bigger cities. But
then you also will have both the challenges of what a rural school would have as well as an urban school,
so getting everybody out for things, getting people to actively participate even if it's mandatory that
they put in volunteer hours or whatever.
Jared Bigham:
Yeah. Speaking to that well-roundedness, some of the most well-rounded kids and some of the best kids
that when I was in school and then even as I was an educator and teacher/administrator, is the football
players that played in the band also. I saw there were several of those guys that they would run in at
halftime, throw the shoulder pads off, didn't have time to do any more than put a band jacket on. They
would come out in their cleats and their-
Chris Silver:
That's the classic small town scenario.
Allen Pratt:
That is a good one. You're right.
Chris Silver:
For example, my hometown, the football players also played baseball, a lot of them played basketball.
Most of the time when people are involved in these extracurricular activities, at least that was my case, I
was involved in a lot of stuff. I was in Boy Scouts, 4-H, all that stuff. Now, was I a straight student? No.
But especially 4-H, I would argue really prepared me for higher ed in a way that school actually probably
never did.
Jared Bigham:
I think that there's a whole episode out there on this pervasiveness in our culture to specialize at an
early age, especially in sports or in an extracurricular activity of interest for students. It's basically
impossible in rural schools, especially if you're good at one or more things, you're just expected to
participate in multiple things. I think there's a whole podcast there in itself.
Chris Silver:
Absolutely. I would even add, too, one of the innovations that we've seen since we were kids is now
you've got things like the STEM scouts which is science, engineering, mathematics scouts. It's like Boy
and Girl Scouts but the difference is it's about learning science, mathematics, engineering. We're
starting to see some extracurricular activities that do have direct connections back to the curriculum as
well, which I think is interesting. I think it's also funny to hear I am the psychologist lecturing to
educators.
Jared Bigham:
No, that just gave me a great idea, I think. What about the beer scouts? You must be 21 to join.
Chris Silver:
I think they have it at the college, don't they?
Jared Bigham:
Moonshine?
Allen Pratt:
I think that's the Shine Scouts. That's a chemistry lesson set up right there.
Chris Silver:
Actually, everything I learned about chemistry I learned in ag and shining. I'm just letting you all know.
Jared Bigham:
I think that's passing on tradition of rural Appalachia, right?
Chris Silver:
S01E03 -- Extra-Curricular Activities in Rural E... (Completed 02/19/20) Page 14 of 17 Transcript by Rev.com
This transcript was exported on Feb 19, 2020 - view latest version here.
That is. By the way, folks, a public service announcement: if it's a corn/sugar based mash, it is not
moonshine, period. If it's a true corn mash without the sweetened, and it's all in how it's made too, it's
shine.
Allen Pratt:
If you want to partake, you can come to our national conference in Indianapolis. I'm sure we'll be able to
auction some of that off in our charity auction.
Jared Bigham:
It's always the highest bidded out every year.
Chris Silver:
I'll bet it is.
Allen Pratt:
That's a little shameless plug for our conference, which will be in Indianapolis, Indiana November 4th
through the 6th, coming up in 2020.
Chris Silver:
Make sure you're there, folks. It's going to be good.
Allen Pratt:
I think we hit the point where we have discussed the extracurriculars. It's been a good session for us, an
episode. Please make sure you're listening to what we're producing and what we're going to continue to
bring to the table. We're excited about being able to chat about rural schools and communities. Jared
and Chris, you want to add anything as we close?
Jared Bigham:
No, I enjoyed it. I just think it opened up somewhat of a Pandora's Box of other topics of interest. We
definitely didn't choke-slam this particular topic into the ground. We've got a lot more to discuss here. I
found it interesting.
Allen Pratt:
It always leads to research, right Chris?
Chris Silver:
It absolutely does, yeah. Also, as your producer, I would add whatever medium you're listening to us on,
please like and subscribe to us out there. That's how we get the algorithm noticing that we exist. After, I
think, it's 1,000 or 2,000, something like that subscriptions on whatever medium you're on, then those
mediums start bumping us up to the top of the list for people searching about education.
Allen Pratt:
Yeah, and let us know when you do that on our Twitter at NREA one. We get to that thousand or 2,000,
we might be able to work out a pre-conference registration for someone who gets to that 1,000 or 2,000
mark.
Chris Silver:
Can co-hosts compete for that too?
Jared Bigham:
We thought already had 1,000 pre-subscriptions is what I ...
Allen Pratt:
Change that to 2,000. When we get to 2,000, we're good to go.
Chris Silver:
Yeah, that'd be good stuff. Good deal. That's got us from the podcast basically. If you have any
comments, suggestions, questions, feel free to send them in to us. We might actually address them on
an episode. From ourselves, Allen, myself and Jared, we are signing off.
Jared Bigham:
I hadn't thought about that.
Chris Silver:
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast and website are those of Dr. Allen Pratt, Dr. Jared
Bigham and Dr. Christopher F. Silver and do not represent the affiliated universities and/or any
organization affiliated with the host.
Chris Silver:
This podcast and the accompanying material, including our website, represent the opinions of Dr. Allen
Pratt, Dr. Jared Bigham and Dr. Christopher F. Silver and their guests to this show and website. The
content here should not be taken as medical or professional advice, and should be used at your own
risk. The content here is for informational purposes only and should be understood as such.
Chris Silver:
The Rural Voice Podcast or its hosts do not endorse, approve, recommend or certify any information,
product, process, service or organization presented or mentioned in this podcast. The information from
this podcast should not be referenced in any way to imply such approval or endorsement.
Chris Silver:
Further, the content of this podcast are the property of the National Rural Education Association and are
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Chris Silver:
By listening to this podcast, you agree to the terms and conditions, and while we make every effort to ensure that the information that we are sharing is accurate, we welcome any comments, suggestions or corrections of errors. Thank you.