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By Root 1307 0

earn more than $175,000 per year, and being regularly enrolled in activities that cost the family thousands of dollars, Garrett is bothered by what he perceives as insufficient wealth. From his perspective, his parents’ financial reach is limited because it does not encompass something he very much wants—a return to private school. He takes for granted the fact that his parents can afford the cost of clothing, groceries, fast food, cars, medical appointments, and assorted activities for their children. In fact, when offered a free toothbrush by the dentist, he declines. For Garrett, expenditures like these are simply part of his life; they are (unexamined) entitlements. He can’t—and doesn’t—even imagine that for working-class and poor children, these same taken-for-granted items and opportunities are viewed as (unavailable) privileges.

LEARNING SKILLS FOR LIFE

Middle-class children may take for granted their “right” to be involved in various activities. Their parents, though, are conscious of the advantages such participation brings to their children. Both Mr. and Ms. Tallinger strongly believe that sports teach children crucial life lessons, such as knowing “when to practice and when to perform,” as Ms. Tallinger puts it during an interview. Mr. Tallinger, noting that it’s “good to be competitive,” adds

You could apply all the clichés you can think of. But when you’re the hero, you get all the satisfaction out of that; and when you’re the goat, you find out who your friends are in a hurry. . . . I’ve found very few other activities where you can experience that as directly.

Young athletes get a head start on maturity:

I think it makes you mentally tough. So that when things are not going your way you have the ability to kind of buckle down or dig down deeper, whatever it is, and try harder and not look for excuses.

They also learn to be team players:

So you learn to play as part of a team . . . His soccer coach is fantastic, preaching to them. If our team scores a goal, it’s the whole team that scores the goal, and if we get scored upon, it’s the whole team that let the goal in, not one guy. And they all seem to be sucking that up and abiding by that attitude.

Finally, nine- and ten-year-old children who play on organized sports teams develop the ability to perform in public, in front of adults, including strangers.4 As children regularly see themselves and other members of the team do well and do poorly, performance-based assessment gradually becomes routine. Also, exposure to public scrutiny is itself graduated. During practices, spectators tend to be mainly mothers who alternate between chatting with one another and watching the field; comments from the sidelines are low key. During games, however, parents’ demeanors change. There is much more overt emphasis on the importance of children performing well. Cheering is mixed with explicit advice—and criticism—as this excerpt from a tape recording at an Intercounty soccer game shows (the speakers include Mr. Tallinger and the fathers of two other players):

—Garrett, hold the ball!

—That’s it, Tom!

—Garrett! Look behind you!

—Garrett, come on! Get back.

—Hold up, Garrett!

—Yeah, that’s it, that’s it, take a run Garrett, take a run!

—Watch your feet, watch your feet!

—Paul, if you need a rest, ask for it!

—Way to go, Jim!

Organized sports, like the soccer teams Garrett is part of, with their mandatory tryouts and public games, can help prepare participants for performance-based assessment at school, as well. For example, auditions are required in order to qualify for the “select choir” at the middle-class neighborhood school the Tallinger children attend. Similarly, the “rules of the game” children learn on the playing field can be applied to schoolwork. Mr. Tallinger recalls, in an interview, making this point to Garrett:

Last week or the week before, he came down with semi-weepy eyes [saying] that homework was too difficult. So we said, “You know, it’s like a soccer game. What do you do if you’re playing in a soccer game? Do you start crying and say you