"False dichotomies are often at the heart of discord," wrote linguist Deborah Tannen. One such false dichotomy is that imagined to exist between academics and athletics. Society leads children to believe they must pick their identity from the cast of stereotypes in John Hughes teen comedy from the 80s. Hey kid! Are you a jock, or a nerd? You can't be both! Unfortunately, this false dichotomy is not endemic to American moviegoing audiences. In Winneba, Ghana, we find reports of the same troubling divide. As Francis Owusu-Mensah of Winneba reports, "In Africa, children who love sports do not want to go to school." Fortunately, Owusu-Mensah is in a position to do something about it. As director of the Effutu Table Tennis Club (ETTC, pictured), he has leveraged the popularity of sport to promote school attendance. "At my club, I have been able to use table tennis to influence them to go to school," explains Owusu-Mensah. "We have a rule at the club that the children that do not go to school cannot play table tennis nor join the club. I know these children. They love table tennis so much and they all want to play and improve their skills. This is how I make sure they go to school." Now, through a grant from the ITTF (International Table Tennis Federation) Foundation's #TableTennisUnited fund, the ETTC has been able to cultivate a new generation of scholars and athletes, one and the same.

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