What we take for granted

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here’s many things we take for granted living in Newcastle, Wyoming. Our kids get to go school and have equal opportunity to receive the same education as every other student who attends school. 
Our kids get to be a part of every school sponsored sport or activity as long as they abide by the rules and maintain the grades to make them eligible to compete.
We also tend to feel like our kids are entitled to being able to not only participate in the activities they wish to, but also to be given preference regardless of their abilities.
Not only do they have the “right” to compete, but also that the school is responsible for financing their participation. We’ll buy our kids their shoes, pack their lunches, and give them money for their personal expenses, but we know that the school covers the rest.
In return for our child going out for the sport, and for us providing
the bare necessities for them to participate, we tend to think that our child should be given the opportunity to be on the court or field a majority of the time.
But, what we don’t realize is that our kids are so lucky to have the opportunities that schools in the United States offer their students.
I knew that education was different outside of the U.S., and that students in other countries were tracked and offered different opportunities based on their academic ability at a relatively young age, but I didn’t know that there were no school sponsored athletics offered to them.
Recently, I had a nice visit with two foreign exchange students, one from Germany and one from the Netherlands, about what life is like in their countries. We talked mostly about school, and the differences between here and there, but we also talked about their experiences with sports back home.
Anneke Riemenschneider is from northern Germany and she is a world champion roller skater, so obviously she has been participating in that sport for quite some time. Louise Rietra, from the Netherlands, participates in field hockey.
The girls arrived in Newcastle in late August to attend high school here, and both have taken advantage of extracurricular activities during their time here.
They both played volleyball and are currently playing basketball. Though it is the first time playing either sport for both girls, they claim that they are loving it. 
During the course of our conversation, I discovered that schools in their countries do not offer school sponsored sporting activities. 
In order to participate in sports, they have to do so through an organization outside of school, much like club sports here in the U.S. They have to compete for a place on the team and they have to pay out-of-pocket for all expenses. 
This got me thinking about what we take for granted here.
Yes, we enroll our kids in club sports and pay for the opportunity when they are young. I know that I paid the fees, and drove my kids,
paid for hotels, and all of that when they were young and participating in club sports. 
I did that so they would be able to develop a passion for the sports that they love, and in the process, develop skills which would help them when they were old enough to compete in school sponsored sports.
But, when they got to middle school and high school, my only responsibility was to get them the personal equipment they needed to compete. I didn’t have to pay for their participation, their lodging for tournaments, or their transportation to and from competitions. 
My discussion with these two exchange students really made me feel a little bad about my feeling of entitlement for my kids to have the “right” to participate in extracurricular activities, and made me realize how extremely grateful I am for all the crazy awesome opportunities our young people have in the education system of the United States.