The Path to Olympic Gold? (spoof introducing ramo)

[ramo]

The Path to Olympic Gold?

Well, I must admit I was surprised when they asked me to select the members of the Chinese Men’s Olympic Basketball Team, and then to coach them. I asked, “Why me?”

“You are Canadaian.”

“So?”

“Basketball was invented by a Canadian… and you speak English.”

“So?”

“Most great basketball players speak English, but, most importantly, you are tall.”

“And?”

“ALL great basketball players are tall. We will pay you well and you will be loved by all the beautiful girls in China!”

”In that case, I’ll do it. I’ll need to work out a plan but I think I want to start by finding all the good basketball players in China.”

“OH! No. That will be too difficult. We have talked with the English Teachers and they have a plan.”

“The English Teachers? A plan?”

“Yes. We will measure the height of every man in China and send you the tallest ones.”

“Don’t we want to see how well they play basketball?”

“NO, that is not important. The English teachers have a helpful analogy. In China if we want to measure a student’s English ability we give them a multiple choice (a-b-c-d) test. These tests are very easy to administer.”

“But these tests don’t actually tell us how well the students know English. When a person speaks or writes or reads English they do not do so by making a series of selections from 4 possible choices. The process is MUCH more complicated..”

“Of course, you are right. But we use this system to decide the future of every student in China, so we must explain to the students that this system works almost perfectly. And, we can see from our tests that many students are good at English.”

“Even though they can’t understand English TV or movies or books? Even though they can’t speak well to Foreigners? Even though, if they go abroad they have huge problems?”

“But those things are not important. What is most important is their test score. They can show it to their parents and to their friends. How else will their parents know how well their kids know English?”

“Yes, I have heard it is impossible to change. So let’s get back to basketball. Do you or the English Teachers have any other ideas?

“Definitely! For one thing, since the Olympics will be held in China in 2008 we have decided to change the rules of the basketball tournament to what we will call the English Teachers’ Format. Instead of playing basketball, each team will write a multiple choice test about basketball. The team with the tallest players will then be declared the winners. We haven’t told the other teams about this yet so maybe they will still try and bring short players who have skill. But this won’t work, Your players can win a Gold Medal if you follow our plan.”

“Ummmm…. You said something about beautiful girls? … well, ok, if this is what is best for the players, I guess we can try it. It will certainly be much more fair and much safer for the players.”

Good. Do you have any more questions before we begin?”

“Well, you said I’d be the coach. I guess that means I should teach these tall men how to play basketball if they don’t already know how?”

“Oh no. That is not necessary. Again the English teachers have a plan. And another analogy. You see, it is true that almost everyone in the world learns English by using English in some way. This works because that is how their brains are designed when it comes to learning languages. However, in China it is impossible for anyone to use English, so teaching them to use English is obviously not going to be effective. Instead, we make them spend as many hours as possible learning the rules of English. This is MUCH better than learning English itself directly. By learning the rules their brains will (in 10 or 20 or maybe 30 years) eventually become fully bilingual (and if they don’t it doesn’t matter because there is no possibility of their ever needing to use English in that time). So, we want you to teach the players the rules of Basketball. This will also save a lot of time and money since you will not need basketballs or basketball courts or shoes or uniforms. “

“Oh.”

“In fact, the English Teachers have discovered that testing the students is more important than teaching them. This must be true of basketball as well. So we want you to give the players one hour of lessons about the rules every day and then 5 tests (with a 2 hour break for lunch, of course). And don’t forget to give them as much homework as possible. To make it even more like the way we teach English be sure to use rule books from 20 or 30 years ago. Only rules which haven’t changed in a quarter of a century are really a part of modern basketball. Good luck!”

“Sure. Thanks.”

ramo: Sunday, May 06, 2007