Online school and junior tennis: freedom, focus – and a quiet cost | Tennis
IIn a major study published recently in Epidemiology, conclusions were drawn – once again – about how lockdowns and online learning were ultimately very detrimental to children’s emotional and mental health (clearly, some cohorts of children were more affected than others, with financial security being a big part of the calculation). This is not a major surprise, as parents and students were unhappy with the remote learning environment.
Yet despite this general consensus that online education is not as healthy as regular school, a new trend has exploded since Covid: the rapid growth of online education for tennis players and other athletes. Parents and their junior athletes believe that by being able to play several hours a day instead of after school, it will accelerate their progress in the sport while still making room for academics. And from my perspective, as the parent of a competitive tennis player who attends a “regular” school, it seems that the rule, not the exception, is that most advanced junior players attend an online school and not in a physical building. I often find myself bonding with the few other parents whose children remain in mainstream school, because we are a rapidly declining species.
Consider ICL Academy, the largest online school for tennis players. According to Dayton Hansen, COO of ICL, “Since 2020, ICL Academy has seen an overall increase of 4,300% in enrollment, with a particularly strong increase among competitive student-athletes. Today, we serve approximately 532 competitive tennis players in the United States and around the world. This is by far the largest number of junior tennis players attending a single school. What we are seeing is not simply a peak due to a pandemic, it’s a lasting change driven by families looking for a model that allows their children to excel academically without compromising their training, competition schedule, mental health or long-term development.
But what about socializing in an online school environment? Hansen responded: “At ICL, socializing is not an afterthought; it is an essential part of our program design. » When asked further about what this actually means, Hansen said, “We place a high priority on in-person interaction whenever possible. A perfect example of this was last week when we brought a number of our staff members to Florida to support our students and their families at the Junior Orange Bowl. We do this several times throughout the year when we bring our students together across the United States as they participate in different tournaments and events.”
Tristan Stratton, 16, is a preternaturally talented tennis player who is one of the top-ranked juniors in the United States. He is enrolled in ICL and so far it has suited him well, according to his mother Meg Stratton. “I didn’t make the decision to enroll my son at ICL lightly,” Ms. Stratton told me. “Our intention was to keep him in an in-person high school. And I’m glad Tristan spent two years in a regular high school. But the travel and logistics of him playing in national and international tournaments made that untenable after a while. He’s much more focused now that he’s in school online and it’s honestly made our frenetic lives easier.”
This thought is echoed by another parent of an online-schooled child. Laura Lafors, of Virginia, enrolled her son Cole, 17, in Laurel Spring online school. She stated that “like [Cole’s] Junior year was approaching, I kind of felt like it was the right time to make the move. We were no longer worried about the loss of socialization since he had already experienced two years of high school. Before going online, Cole felt like it was impossible to miss school for tennis tournaments and he had very little time left in the day between school, tennis practice, and homework. Cole wants to play college tennis, so this decision to have more time to train and the flexibility to travel for tournaments was very important.
Within the tennis community, the gold standard for online education is undoubtedly the Dwight Global Online School. An offshoot of the Dwight School, a private school in Manhattan, Dwight Global believes it has found the ideal mix of online and optional in-person activities. Since Dwight has his own physics school, this makes him the perfect option for people in the New York area. That is, if one can afford it, because Dwight is more than double the annual price ($42,000) compared to ICL and other online schools.
According to Blake Spahn, vice chancellor of Dwight Schools, “Since 2020, enrollment at Dwight Global has more than doubled, representing sustained growth over several years rather than a temporary pandemic spike. » Additionally, Spahn states that “Dwight Global is the result of a 14-year head start, deep institutional learning and continued refinement – not a rapid pivot during a pandemic. We have been building, iterating and perfecting high-touch online education long before it became fashionable. This experience allows us to offer a level of academic rigor, personalization and student support that rivals – and in many cases exceeds – the best brick-and-mortar schools, while providing flexibility that traditional models simply cannot match.
Additionally, says Spahn, for students who want more in-person interactions, “We have brick-and-mortar schools around the world where our online students can come together in person for various activities. For example, we have an annual orientation; Steam (science, engineering, computer science and robotics) weekends that allow students to do labs together; music concerts; Model UN and many other activities.” I asked Spahn how many online students participate in online events. no one, and I thought he didn’t have an exact number. He said, “I can say with certainty that many tennis players do some type of activity in person, whether it’s orientation, extracurricular activities, just using the library at one of our schools, and almost all attend graduation and prom in person.
While most kids and parents seem happy with their decision to go online, I spoke with several parents, who preferred to remain anonymous, who said their children were unhappy with the online setup. “Hitting tennis balls and staring at a screen all day for school was stunting his emotional and mental growth,” a New Jersey mother told me.
Is there a type of child who thrives best in an online environment? From my perspective, it seems like there are two groups of kids who are best suited to online teaching: these high-achieving, top-ranked kids are the perfect candidates for distance learning because they travel a lot; and then those children who had difficulty adjusting socially in mainstream schools, whether due to bullying or other emotional problems.
Mary Beth Finegan, clinical director of New York Sports and Performance Psychology (NYSPP) at the Child & Family Institute, says online learning can be beneficial for some students. “Online learning for student-athletes has benefits in terms of reducing the stress burden of time management through the flexibility offered by online courses. Elite-level athletes often require extensive in-person competition schedules in locations across the United States and beyond. Considerations for student-athlete mental health include studies that show that specializing too early in a sport leads to burnout and how social support networks help prevent burnout.” But when asked which one is more optimal, Finegan said that “from my personal in-person experience, young people foster better social interactions, including how to read the facial expressions and nonverbal communication of others.”
In addition to the massive increase in the number of athletes choosing online school, over the past two decades there has been an increase in the number of young athletes in the United States – often at the behest of overly involved parents – who deliberately “reclassify” (going back a year or even two) in order to gain an advantage for college and, in the minds of many deluded parents, for professional sports. In no sport is this practice of reclassification as widespread as tennis.
And there’s probably no other sport as tortuous as tennis to watch a loved one compete. The emotional and mental pressure felt by kids (and parents) far exceeds that of any other sport, in my opinion. Watching Little League and traveling baseball games in years past was, for the most part, fun and joyous. Watching top-level junior tennis is a stressful agony where exhaustive relief is often the best outcome one can hope for. In fact, it should be mandatory for tournaments to provide portable blood pressure monitors to distribute to parents.
So why do we allow our children to engage in such a tormenting endeavor? Because the clichés are undeniably true: sport builds character and the journey through junior tennis prepares children to face adversity and learn from failure. Lots and lots of failures. After all, we were taught that what doesn’t kill…
Since the chances of becoming a professional tennis player are infinitesimal and getting into a top Division I tennis university is extremely difficult, parents need to be extremely honest with themselves, if not completely honest with their child. No one wants to stifle the dream of becoming a professional athlete, an accomplished musician or dancer, or any other activity we are passionate about, because they are all worth pursuing with intensity. But what is the real goal of having your child in a distance learning environment? All things being equal, would a parent really doubt that interacting with peers and talking in person with teachers might not be better?
The impulse of every loving parent is to provide their child with the best opportunities to prepare them for life. Who wouldn’t want the best, at all times, for a child? But there’s a fine line between wanting what’s best for your child and doing what’s right for them, making them stronger and more confident by providing them with opportunities and advantages, while showing them that life isn’t fair and that obstacles will always be present.
What is beyond doubt is that online education is here to stay and will likely only grow. It will be interesting to see if this will cause brick-and-mortar schools to pivot and offer some sort of blended learning so they can keep up. In our increasingly fragmented and compartmentalized society, where life becomes more about a la carte choices in how we receive and process information, and where universal, shared experiences are rarer, online education reinforces this trend.
