Baseball. It’s considered by some to be the American pastime. For those of you that don’t follow the game, the grand finale has started and the World Series is underway. This afternoon I read, “Just how good is Buster Posey?” an article by Ted Berg in the October 23, 2014 issue of USA Today Sports.
I was interested in the article because I have a personal
connection to Buster Posey. His grandmother was my principal many years ago. I
know the family and what great people they are. It’s exciting to see someone
you know excelling.
Berg illuminated an interesting fact about baseball in this
article. He wrote about Posey’s offensive numbers, how he’s the best hitter on
a World Series team. Then he explained that this is only half of the story because
Posey plays baseball’s most physically demanding position, he’s the catcher.
Being behind the plate is totally different than being an outfielder. A catcher
has to work with each pitcher on his team along with each hitter on the other
team. He reads their hitters, their defenses, and learns everyone’s personality
and game plans.
Berg explains that it is nearly impossible to pare all the
variables because there is so much anecdotal evidence that players hit better
when they are moved from behind the plate. But Posey has been behind the plate for
at least 110 games. According to Berg he’s caught every inning of the Giants’
postseason run this season.
Evaluating catchers can be difficult for baseball’s most
dedicated statisticians. Berg states, “By its very nature, playing behind the
plate requires a nebulous set of skills that are frequently discussed but
impossible to measure, like calling pitches and negotiating a pitching staff’s
various personalities.”
By the metrics that exist to try to measure catchers
defensively, how does Posey look? He throws out base runners at an above
average rate. He blocks wild pitches as well as anyone. He’s got a good arm and
quite simply, he is a great catcher.
Berg concludes that Posey is extremely invaluable, even though
it’s impossible to measure the full impact he has on his team. The point of
baseball is winning, right? And Posey has already been the best player on two championship
teams and now is only two wins from making it happen all over again.
At a time when baseball analysts are finding increasingly
thorough ways to measure and assess players, educational analysts and politicians
are doing the same thing in education.
The point of school is to educate students. It used to be
enough to educate them to participate in the American democracy. But that is no
longer enough. School must prepare students to participate and compete in a
global environment. But just like baseball, there are many variables of school
that cannot be measured. It simply is not possible to find a metric that will
measure everything that a child learns in school. It’s also not possible to find a metric that
will measure everything that a teacher contributes to a child’s educational
experience.
Posey comes out between innings and talks to the pitchers in
the dug out. He tells them which pitches were good and which ones really
weren’t good. He provides instant feedback that’s invaluable to the pitchers.
Berg states that Posey is a dependable and consistent start on both sides of
the ball. Posey has a unique collection of talents and quantifying each of his
talents is impossible.
Teachers are like catchers. They provide instant feedback to
their students, telling them what they are doing right, what needs to be
improved, what they are doing that’s working or not. Teachers talk to parents
during the day, at night, in the grocery stores, in the car pick up line and on
weekends. Not only do they teach academic skills, they teach social and
emotional skills. They teach skills about being healthy, making good choices
and becoming contributing citizens of the world. They are invaluable to
parents, students, and administrators.
Teachers each possess a unique collection of talents and
quantifying each of them is just as impossible as it is to quantify Buster
Posey’s assets and contributions to the San Francisco Giants.
I wish there was a way we could simply “accept” that
everything in teaching can not be quantifiable, just like in baseball. After
all, we all know what greatness looks like when we see it, but when we try to
put it into words and numbers, it becomes impossible. Posey says that he likes
baseball and enjoys playing the game. There isn’t a teacher that I know that
became a teacher because of the money. They became teachers because they like
teaching and love children.
