FIGHTING THE DUMB JOCK IMAGE
Unfortunately, athletes aren't always judged on their own merits. The image of athletes as dumb jocks is held by some teachers, some students, and, worst of all, by some athletes. It suggests that if you are an athlete, you are probably less able to do college-level work. Further, the dumb jock image suggests that you probably aren't interested in schoolwork even if you have the ability.
The dumb jock image exists to some degree on most college campuses. Sometimes this reputation is earned; at other times, athletes are stereotyped in this way more as a result of jealousy on the part of those who wish they had some of the attention that athletes enjoy.
The real problem of the dumb jock image lies among athletes themselves, especially when being a good student is considered "un-cool."
You may find a few teammates, some of whom might even be among the leading players, who seem to take pride in avoiding schoolwork: not studying, failing to meet deadlines, and trying to get around regulations. They don't want to do well in school. Whether this is from lack of ability or lack of interest doesn't really matter. What matters is that these individuals seem to feel better about them-selves if they can get their teammates to behave in the same uninterested, negative way about academics as they do. For them, it is a source of pride that they neither know nor care about good study habits. They believe that the coach or someone else will always take care of them.
Athletes who behave this way only help to sustain the dumb jock image. This is why we say that, in some cases, the image is earned. It is a trap that you may fall into, especially if you take the wrong team leaders as your model. Once you've chosen the dumb jock image for yourself, you'll have a hard, though not impossible, time shedding it.
Our best advice here is to be an individual in your schoolwork and be a teammate on your team. This isn't easy. You are both a student and an athlete, but you may have to act differently in each situation to feel as if you fit in. You probably would prefer not to have to play these image games, but it may be necessary in order to be considered one of the crew by your teammates and still not sacrifice your education. After all, who but you is supposed to benefit from your education? And who but you will suffer if you squander your years in college?
Even if a dumb jock image is absent at the college you have chosen, you may have doubts about your own ability to do college-level work. Join the crowd! Self-doubt is more common among new college students than homesickness. Again, starting in a new place with a clean slate provides the opportunity to create a new image for your-self and then live up to it. The first thing you may want to change is the way you view yourself, especially if your self-image contains doubts that are keeping you from trying new things and growing. This only takes willpower and the strength not to look at small setbacks (such as a low grade on a quiz or assignment) as if they were major failures.
Other people tend to look at us the way we look at ourselves. If we feel and act dumb or shy, others will naturally treat us that way.
If we wear an image of being interested in learning and improving ourselves, others will treat us as if we are bright. Notice that we didn't say you have to act smart to be treated that way. In fact, many people who "act smart" aren't particularly enjoyable to be around. The key to being treated as someone who is bright and interesting is to act interested. After all, college isn't necessarily for people who are already smart; it is for those who are interested in learning and improving.
If you were admitted to college, you are probably as bright as most other students and capable of doing college-level work. Of course, everyone knows that some athletes are admitted to college because of their good athletic skills and in spite of their poor academic skills. Athletes admitted to college on this basis are often called special admissions. First, you must decide whether this is actually your situation or whether you are simply carrying the common but unfounded newcomers' feeling that everyone else is smarter. If you are a "special admit" or if you find from test or writing scores (after giving them a good, honest try) that other students seem to be better than you, you must seek extra help.
IMPROVING LEARNING SKILLS NEEDED FOR COLLEGE-LEVEL WORK
You may have gone through high school in a college prep program. Does this mean that you are fully prepared to do college-level work? Possibly. While in high school, some students are not particularly interested in college and so don't consider taking college prep courses-until college athletic recruiters show interest in them. By then it is often too late to shift into a college prep program. Even if these students get admitted to college, they may not be able to compete in the classroom with those who have planned and worked toward college, unless they get special help.
Requirements for college graduation have been getting harder in recent years. Colleges are asking more of their students because many graduates during the past 10 or 15 years simply haven't had the skills that college graduates should have. What are those skills?
The College Board (the people who publish the SAT used for college entrance) has developed a long list of skills they believe students need in order to do college-level work. Following is a shortened list of those skills we consider to be most important in each category. This will give you an idea of what skills you should have or should be developing during your first years in college:
Reading Competencies
- The ability to use a table of contents, preface, introduction, titles and subtitles, index, glossary, appendix, and bibliography.
- The ability to define unfamiliar words by using contextual clues and a dictionary. Writing Competencies
- The ability to write standard English sentences with proper spelling, word choice, and grammar, including correct verb forms, punctuation, capitalization, pluralization, and possessive forms.
- The ability to improve one's writing by restructuring, correcting errors, and rewriting.
- The ability to engage critically and constructively in an exchange of ideas, particularly during class discussions and conferences with instructors.
- The ability to answer and ask questions coherently and concisely, and to follow spoken instructions.
- The ability to use principles of algebra and geometry, including integers, fractions, and decimals; ratios, proportions, and percentages; and roots and powers.
- The ability to use elementary concepts of probability and statistics.
- Reasoning Competencies
- The ability to recognize and use inductive and deductive reasoning, and to recognize fallacies in reasoning.
- The ability to distinguish between fact and opinion.
- Studying Competencies
- The ability to set study goals and priorities consistent with stated course objectives, to establish surroundings and habits conducive to learning independently or with others, and to follow a schedule that accounts for both short and long-term projects.
- The ability to locate and use resources external to the classroom (for example, libraries, computers, interviews, and direct observation), and to incorporate knowledge from such sources into the learning process.
Look ahead in your plan for taking classes. If, for example, you don't feel confident about your ability in mathematics and you will be taking a class next semester that requires some math skills, take an appropriate workshop this semester. If you know that a future class will require library research and writing, take a related skills workshop the term before you will need to use those skills. And if you are having trouble with more general study and coping skills, such as time management, reading, or preparing for tests, by all means, don't wait; take a workshop that will help to improve those skills immediately, before you get any deeper into academic trouble.
HOW TO HANDLE TEST ANXIETY
Few people enjoy being tested. Some people have the ability to relax during a test, but most of us feel some nervousness. Feeling anxious or nervous about a test comes from one or a combination of the following factors:
Fear of Failure: The habit of feeling anxiety when taking tests often begins with an early failure which grows into an intense fear of failure. From this point, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, with the fear about the possibility of failing causing failure to happen. You may have seen this happen to some athletes in their contests. Athletes who are good in practice, but not in contests, often fail simply because they psych themselves out.
Lack of Preparation: Poor preparation for tests is something that is generally under your control. The answer to this source of anxiety, of course, is to prepare better, which is what the previous sections of this chapter have been about.
Not Liking To Be Compared With Others: By the time they reach college, athletes generally have grown accustomed to being compared to others. However, some athletes may see comparison of physical skills as very different from comparison of acquired knowledge or intellectual ability. Because they have internalized the dumb jock image, they feel very confident and relaxed about physical comparisons but unsure and anxious about mental comparisons.
Belief that the outcome of the test is crucial to one's future success:
Few tests in college are truly crucial to your future. You can usually counteract a poor grade on a particular test with good performance elsewhere in the class.
In sports events, athletes often thrive with mild doses of anxiety. Nervousness gets their adrenalin flowing and they perform better than if they were "flat," that is, without some competitive anxiety. This is most obvious when facing a tough opponent, whom we know we must be up for in order to be competitive. As an athlete, you can take this healthful way of dealing with the anxiety you encounter in your sport's contests and apply it to test-taking in school. Look upon tests as a challenge in which you "show those people what you can do." This attitude will motivate you to prepare well for the test and thus can help you benefit from any anxiety you may experience.
HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO POOR PERFORMANCE?
Does a poor performance in your sport lead you to want to give it up, to slough off in practice and training because you now expect to do poorly? Not likely, or you wouldn't have come this far as an athlete. Instead, a poor performance probably makes you work harder toward the next challenge. There should be no difference between sports and schoolwork; in this respect, at least, your brain works just as your body does. If you did poorly on a test or paper, the answer is probably not that you aren't smart enough. You simply need to devote more time to your work or direct your energies better. Instead of giving up, do what is necessary to improve-just as you would in your sport.
Improving poor academic performance boils down to a matter of attitude. Be honest with yourself: Did you do enough in the first place to expect success, or did you almost guarantee failure by hoping to succeed on the test or paper through some miracle? Don't expect enlightened insights to appear while under the pressure of an exam or during an all-night writing session to complete an assignment at the last minute. And don't study only for exam questions that you hope the teacher will ask. With this approach, you are only asking to do poorly, since any test merely samples the material covered in a course and you've gambled your study time on a guessing game.
If, on the other hand, you worked hard and still did poorly, you may need help or direction. Go to the instructor, point out how you prepared, and ask the instructor what you should have done to prepare better. Quite often the problem is in your misunderstanding what the instructor felt was important. Knowing that you are interested in doing better, the instructor is likely to provide hints and direction that will help improve your performance.
Also, check where you characteristically sit in class. It is much easier to stay alert and learn by sitting in the front and center of the class.
Good students tend to select seats in a T-formation, with the crossbar formed by the first two rows. Students with poorer performance tend to sit in the back and to the sides. The attitude of those close to you in class is contagious.
Sometimes, poor performance comes from not being active and alert in class. Become more active after a poor test performance rather than retreating into a shell. Make sure that you record in your class notes what the instructor puts on the board. Instructors seldom write on the board things that are not important. Either the specific information is important, or it will help you to recall general ideas and the instructor's organization of the material. Some instructors have a habit of quickly erasing what they've written. If yours does that, don't be embarrassed to ask him or her to leave it on the board a little longer.
Whenever you are unsure of an instructor's meaning in what is said or written, ask for an explanation. Rarely is a question considered stupid, except in the mind of the person who asks it. And even if, in a moment of thoughtlessness, a professor or teaching assistant seems to put you down for your question or idea, everybody (with the possible exception of you) will have forgotten about it in a matter of moments. Unless the professor indicates that he or she does not want questions and comments from the class, you will find your courses to be more stimulating and a better learning experience if you take an active and confident part in them.
Being an active and productive student requires effort, although more effort is needed to begin using these techniques than to maintain them. You will benefit from these good habits throughout your career and personal life.
