I've been noodling about this in my head for a few days now, trying to figure out how to write about ths without becoming (or seeming) heavy-handed or intolerant.
I don't think I've got it yet. But time marches ever onward, so I'll just offer this ...
Within just a few hours, I read two pieces that concerned young people -- well, it's always boys, isn't it? -- playing baseball. The first was Eric Nusbaum's take on Mike Matheny's upcoming book, The Matheny Manifesto. Like Nusbaum, I find some things about Matheny's public stance ... unattractive. Your coach is always right, "even when he's wrong"? Sorry. No. There just doesn't seem to be room for a great deal of fun, let alone questioning of authority, in Matheny's manifesto. Which is sort of a strange word to use, anyway.
Then there's Jordan Ellenberg's essay in the Times, wherein he writes about his eight-year-old, baseball-obsessed son -- see! we haven't lost our youths! -- and what he's learned about teaching math from ... his son's baseball coaches.
I think we have a lot more to learn from Ellenberg's essay than Matheny's entire book-length manifesto (which, granted, I haven't actually seen).
But that's me. Your mileage might well differ. Which is okay too.
