The Track Meet

My middle school didn't have a track team. Even if it had, I almost certainly would not have joined it; Academic Pentathlon was my preferred extra curricular activity in seventh grade, and I was always among the last to finish the weekly run we had to complete in P.E. every Friday. In high school, I filled the P.E. requirement by taking four years of Marching Band. Though I make sporadic efforts to keep myself fit, I have never been athletically inclined. It was, therefore, quite a surprise to find myself on a bus a few Wednesdays ago on my way to a middle school track meet.

The previous day, I had been sitting in the staff room enjoying lunch with several of my colleagues, including the sixth-grade language arts teacher who also happens to be the track coach. I've discovered that a key to happiness in teaching is remembering that we teachers are all in this together, and thus that it is in our best interest to support each other. So, as the track coach went around the table looking for a volunteer to help out as an official timer at the upcoming track meet, I couldn't say no.

It turned out to be a remarkable experience, the first of several track meets at which I had the privilege of timing this year. I learned something about the value of school spirit, and of having a sense of being a member of a team. I watched our small collection of students wander onto the field, some in old cross-country uniforms, some in their P.E. clothes, take a warm up lap, and do a bit of stretching. Then I saw our rivals, twice as large as us in number at least--all of them wearing smart green, brand new uniforms, clapping and chanting in unison as they spread out across the field to warm up. While the uniforms seemed to be making their first appearance at a track meet, the students certainly were not. They stretched together, chanting in unison as they did so, took a warm up lap, and listened to the direction and encouragement of their coach with a discipline I have not seen in middle school students. I saw in their eyes a certain pride in representing their school; I saw in their stride a determination to win.

Now, don't get me wrong--I was certainly not feeling any disloyalty to my own school. Simply learning what I could from our rivals. We have neither fancy new uniforms nor a full time coach, but certainly we could find a way to instill in our students the same pride in representing our school that I saw in the eyes of our rivals. And perhaps, with any luck, that feeling of pride, of belonging, of ownership, might spread from the track team to the soccer team, and from the soccer team to the whole school. That, more than anything, is what our school desperately needs--something around which the students (and the teachers, for that matter), can rally; something to create a sense of ownership and belonging; something to be proud of.


We certainly have the raw material for it. In spite of their full time coach and fancy uniforms, I took great satisfaction in noting that, at the League Finals, two of our seventh grade boys running the mile beat the fastest runner at our rival school by over ten seconds. Standing on the sideline, cheering them on with a few other teachers and parents, I felt had more meaning than all the lecturing I had done in the classroom that week. It is good to be a member of a team. For the students, and for the teachers. We all need to feel like we belong to something, that we are a part of something, and not that we simply show up each day to fill a desk or stand in front of a class. Track team, Academic Decathlon team, or simply a team of teachers working together, belonging makes all the difference.