No Cheering. Homework instead.

This story was told to me by a friend, Ralph Maltese. He said that his niece(?) had played a soccer game and her team had won. It was a big deal game. Ralph asked her, "So were you all cheering on the bus on the way home?" "No", she said. "We were all doing homework.

That's the gist of the movie "Race to Nowhere", isn't it? I don't know, but I think it's a sad day when kids can win a big game and not be able to celebrate because they have homework to do.

Or don't they do that at all any more? When I was in school the bus would rock with the noise we made, especially going through a town - the town of our rival, for sure. We would be hoarse from cheering and singing the fight song. Come to think of it, I was in a school recently where they didn't even know if they HAD a fight song. And they didn't know their alma mater, either.

Am I wrong to be mourning the loss of these traditions?