Orville Higgins | Focus on sports, education can wait

Have you ever heard of the staggering salaries that sportsmen collect and secretly wished that you had paid more attention to sports in your formative years? Have you ever secretly wished that your parents were a little less insistent on education and pushed you more into pursuing your sporting dreams? Have you ever wished that you could have parents like the Williams sisters', who channelled them into a life of sports from very early, making them into millionaires? Have you ever seen sportsmen living large and wondered why the dynamics of the market pays greater rewards to those who excel in sports than those who excel with books? Have you ever thought that you are far brighter than some sportsmen you know and found it unfair that their talents ensure they live far better than you? Well I have!

In 1998, I was a literature teacher at Holmwood Technical. I was teaching To Kill a Mockingbird to the fourth-formers. One boy simply refused to read the book and showed a general lack of interest. I was bothered because unlike a few of his peers, he was a good reader and wasn't a 'dunce' child. I sought him out one evening after school and asked him why he was showing so little enthusiasm in my class. His answer has stayed with me. He said, and I'm quoting, "Mr Higgins, me nuh see the need to read the book, sir. You know about books very well, and yet, you still down a the hill foot a take bus a evening time, sir!"

I was taken aback. He wasn't being rude. He was a quite affable chap. He was just pointing out, in his own brutally honest way, that he didn't see how knowing about Atticus Finch and Boo Radley would make any real difference to his life. I struggled as a young teacher to get him to see the importance of being able to analyse and interpret books. The idea came to me then that one of the reasons why some students do poorly in school is because they don't see the teachers' lifestyle as something they necessarily want to aspire to. We tell them education is the most important thing, and yet, the brightest ones in the society are not necessarily the ones living the best lives.

FAMILY SUPPORT

Over the years, I have often wondered whether we, as parents, have our priorities wrong. I hear of Jamaican born winger Raheem Sterling's new deal with Manchester City, £300,000 thousand pounds a week! I know of dozens, maybe hundreds, of youngsters who had amazing ability in one sporting endeavour or another at a young age but saw this talent died a natural death because of a lack of support from family. Aunty and uncle would 'chumps up' and pay for a book or an exam but would not do the same for a pair or boots or a nice bat.

They will allow the youngster to stay back for extra lessons after school but will frown if the child is staying back for practice to make a team. When I was growing up as a boy, the opportunity to make money from sports wasn't as big and widespread as it is now. So parents from that generation could be excused for channelling their children almost exclusively towards the academic route. The parents of the '80s wanted their children to be teachers and doctors and lawyers. Times are now changing.

Given the amount of money in sports nowadays, when you are encouraging a child now, you probably should be telling him that you hope he turns out to be another Usain Bolt or Chris Gayle or Raheem Sterling!

Are we going to see a paradigm shift in how children are raised in 30 years? Are we going to see parents drilling into their children's heads from early that they must get involved in sports? Will participation in sports have the same fundamental importance to parents as learning history, for example? Is it going to be the norm for parents to buy a football boots or a bat, even at the expense of another text-book? Would that be such a wrong thing?

Are parents nowadays too focused on book learning for their kids, as opposed to pushing that to develop their talents?

Maybe I am too radical, but I'm thinking that education can wait. A person can take up schooling at any age. Sports is predominantly for young people. If a child shows remarkable ability in sports, then that is what should be pushed, especially if the child is not able to perform at a high level in both sports and the classroom. Make sports the priority for gifted sports kids. Put education on the back burner if you have to.

Give him a chance to earn £100,000 thousand pounds a week as a footballer. If that fails he can always go back to school and become a journalist and, like me, make... (I probably shouldn't say!).