Souring on candy sales: some school-endorsed activities teach the wrong lesson. (understanding the times).

No matter how hard I try to understand, some things just seem out of place. As we wind down one calendar year, and get ready to start another, I'll give you three examples.

First, and probably foremost, is the school-sponsored candy sale--or magazine subscription sale, or wrapping paper sale. What are we thinking when we invite these companies into our schools under the auspices of providing important fundraising services? When I was a student they duped me into selling for them, but as a teacher I said, "No way! They're not taking advantage of my students like that." As a parent, and prime target of these child-labor abusing companies, I say, "How dare they take advantage of me like that."

The blatant offensiveness in their game is that they know that in exchange for a few bucks, we'll sell out our students as a free labor force. But free labor is just the tip of the iceberg. What the wolves-in-sheep's-clothing fundraisers are really after is the army of parents, relatives and neighbors, who can quickly and easily be converted from non-prospects into willing customers, just because they want to see the kids and their schools succeed.

I say keep the scoundrels out. There are plenty of legitimate fundraising opportunities through which students can actually provide a useful service and keep the whole take. Beyond car washes and bake sales we should work with our students to come up with innovative fundraising ideas that are fun to do, provide a benefit to the community and make money for the schools.

MIDDLE SCHOOL INTERSCHOLASTIC SPORTS I love sports, but middle school interscholastic sports are a tough sell. Selecting just a few students and cutting others goes against the grain of an emphasis on teaming, inclusion, exploration and full participation.

This is not an argument against competition, or against winning and losing. Tremendously valuable lessons can be learned through defeat and failure, but the starting point for middle school athletics should be a robust intramural program focused on teaching the sport and on teaching sportsmanship through real competition. When every student has a valid opportunity to engage in competitive play, then we can add special "advanced" interscholastic teams. But cutting students and leaving them no viable outlet through which to develop their athletic aspirations thwarts the spirit of middle grade education.

The challenge here may be a shortage of adult volunteers available at 3 p.m. on a weekday to run such programs. If so, why not offer intramural coaching as a community service option to local high school or community college students, who under the supervision of the local recreation department or physical education staff can create a program that serves students well.

WORD SEARCH Finally, of somewhat less magnitude but still a valid pet peeve, is the practice of offering students extra credit for busy work. The chief culprit here is the nearly ubiquitous Word Search. This type of low-level cognitive task (e.g., identify and circle words in a grid) has virtually no place in school, yet there it is daily in millions of back packs--the cheap ticket to getting grades up.

Word searches are the easy way out: ready-made, self-grading, no-help required. But what do students learn? That classroom learning is short-term with no future utility attached? That it's merely a way to pass time and appease the teacher? By offering easy extra credit, grades stay up and parents are happy too. The problem is that the word search has no more scholastic value than a game of solitaire on a computer.

We owe it to our students to engage them in academic activities--extra credit included--that require higher order thinking skills. A good start is to focus not only on giving them problems to solve, but to engage them in formulating problems themselves. In other words, don't have them respond to a word search, have them make one.

But forget word searches. There's no end to the great academic adventures that students will eagerly participate in; many activities can be generated simply by trying to match students' individual interests with our education aims.

Maybe we should start by giving our students extra credit for coming up with better fundraising ideas.

Daniel E. Kinnaman, [e-mail], is publisher.