“We” Didn’t Play The Game

I got into a debate with an online friend after a Nebraska football game that on the surface may appear to be about vocabulary, but in reality goes much deeper than that.  First off, I am a loyal member of a community of Big Red football fans that watch our beloved team play on television and communicate through an online thread, chatting about the game.  Yeah, it is kind of nerdy, and yeah, I could probably do things a lot more productive than chat on my computer with other folks, only a couple that I know face-to-face.  But I enjoy it and it keeps me connected to my alma mater’s football team, and gives me a chance to “hang out” with friends that love the Cornhuskers as much as I do.

Okay, so what was that debate?  What it really comes down to is the use of the word “we.”  I do not use the word “we” when my favorite football team wins.  I am not part of the team.  I do not practice with the team.  I do not sweat with the team. I do not coach the team.  I watch the team.  I do not own the team.  I do not contribute large sums of money to the team.  I watch the team.  I wear red clothes with the team’s name on it.  I have a cap with an “N” on it.  But, I am not on the team.  The same is true for any fan.  So, when I hear a fan say  “we kicked your butt” or “we’re number 1!” it gives me pause because those making the statement generally did nothing to earn the right to make the statement!  There are people that is seems live so vicariously through their favorite team that they honestly believe they have a stake in the teams success!  I find that incredible!

This manifests itself in a couple of ways that I find interesting.  First of all, in our society we place a very high value on being a winner, and if you cannot distinguish yourself as a winner by your actions or accomplishments, people will “hitch a ride” with one so that they can proclaim themselves a winner.  I have been fortunate to be at a number of national championship events, including the football game a few years back at the Fiesta Bowl between Ohio State and Miami.  When it was over, you would have thought that all of those Buckeye fans were out there on the field playing the game!  The fact that it has been a number of years since Nebraska has won a conference championship has had an impact on the psyche of Big Red fans.  I believe that the reason many of them are so critical of their coach, who by the way, has won a minimum of nine games since he took over, is because they can’t strut around like roosters with their chest pumped out feeling good about themselves.  They want to be able to brag to fans of other teams that their team is best, kind of like that childhood argument of “my dad can beat up your dad!”  The fans want to be viewed as winners!

The other part of this that intrigues me is that fans believe that their opinion should matter.  I got news, unless you own the team, fund the team, or are a member of the team, you’re opinion really doesn’t matter!  I understand the role of boosters, but the reality is that unless we are talking about professional ones, teams are part of an institution and answer to the people in charge of the institution.  It is part of a community, but it is not the community.  However, those of us on the edge or the periphery need to be careful of putting ourselves too close to the group that did the work!  In our case at NFVHS, I didn’t see too many 40-somethings out there on the football field this year!

Perhaps more concerning to me on this whole “we” thing is the parent that lives vicariously through their child.  I could go on and on with this and actually get quite nasty.  Generally speaking, those parents that do this are frustrated former student-athletes that were never as good as they thought they were.  The most common indicator is when talking about their child they use the term “we.”  “We” think “we” have a good chance to beat Joe Schmo.  “We” are looking forward to taking on Billy Bruiser.  “We” think there’s a good chance to get to state.  “We’re” working real hard on improving our swing.  The parent is so wrapped up in the pursuits of their child that they are living vicariously through them!  And you can often seem them on the sidelines emotionally and sometimes physically invested in their child’s performance far beyond what is normal.  They fail to see the reality that it is not “we” but rather “he” or “she.”

It’s The Little Things: Details Are Important

I sweat the details.  I always have.  Both my parents, but especially my dad, are detail-oriented people.  My wife pays close attention to the details.  My kids are detail oriented as well.  A couple of us (me?) are maybe even detail obsessed!  It is frustrating to all of us when people do not pay attention to the details.  I recall hearing a statement and then reading a book that was called Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff, and some people add on to it and say, “it’s all small stuff.”  I guess it depends on perspective, and I do know that for those that are of the “don’t sweat it camp” they are basically talking about stress relief.  But that being said, try as I may to “not sweat it,” it is my opinion that details are important and cannot be ignored. 

In the classroom there are examples on both sides of the teacher-student relationship.  For example, as much as teachers try to be clear and concise in their explanation, from time to time they over look a small important point.  Without that information a common result is confusion on behalf of the students.  On the other side, a skill that a lot of students lack is writing in a detailed manner.  “Give me the details!” is often heard when proofing or correcting a student’s writing. 

I deal with a lot of incidents where something has happened to a student and I let them tell their story before I start asking questions and so often they leave out the details, which are critical because the details tell the story.  I alluded to it earlier, but it amazes me that details are seemingly skipped over.  I generally start the student over, slow them down, and ask a lot of questions to get to the details.

I see it all the time in athletics.  We are in an era where kids play a lot of games, but have paid little attention to the fundamentals.  The fundamentals are the details, and even then there are details to the details.  Coaching softball, I see a lot of pitchers that do not snap their wrist at release or do not get up on top of their drag toe on their drive foot, two little things that can mean the difference of up to five or six mph.  In basketball the angle of release with their shooting arm it critical to increasing the odds that they will make a shot. 

As I have visited both our chorus and band rooms, instructors hone in on what appear to the untrained ear as very subtle differences, but in when you hear the entire group make an adjustment, the difference in sound is incredible. 

Another example that I cannot believe is overlooked is proofreading.  Students hate to proofread, but it is incredible what a difference it makes when you do!  I proof nearly everything I write, or in some instances ask my secretary to do so.  And even then, I miss things.  Young writers that do not proofread generally turn in papers with a ridiculously high number of errors.  Why not proofread?  Perhaps it is because there is a desire to be done, and by proofreading there may still be work to do!

All of this is kind of like reading the fine print.  In the cyber world, people have found that if they do not read the fine print, it may cost them thousands of dollars.  Consumers have recently been successfully sued because they have posted derogatory comments online about certain companies in violation of conditions they agreed to, but did not bother to read.  It was in the fine print.

It is easy for the sake of time or convenience to skip over the details.  It takes a lot of work when it comes to taking care of the details.  However, if a job is going to be done well, one must make certain to pay attention to them.  Otherwise, something important will most likely be left out, and it could be costly in the long run.

Is Public Education In America As Bad As Some People Say It Is?

I have become frustrated with the political ping-pong ball that public education has become in the past ten to fifteen years, smacked unmercifully by people that manipulate statistics, data, and other information to push agendas and special interests.  Are their problems with public education?  Yes.  And, there is a tremendous amount of research out there, as well as models of very effective education programs that need to be used as guidelines as to how to make changes that will in fact lead to better education programs for our children.  However, a lot of the changes being proposed by politicians, most of whom have little or no expertise in education, are not the changes that have been shown to work.  In fact, privatization, charter schools, and many of the accountability systems that some insist on have been shown to not work, or certainly not any better that what is currently in place!  Maybe we ought to look at the things that do work.

I have included a link to a slide presentation that appeared shortly after the most recent results of the PISA test.  The PISA test is an international assessment that is probably the best comparison of educational programs between nations.  This is the one that many refer to when wanting to point out that America's schools are failing.  However, that is a surface level assessment of the data.  When one takes a deeper look, there is a totally different story to be told.  You will fine that the quality of education is not declining and for the vast majority of students, their performance is quite good.  Do we have problems?  Absolutely!  However, they are not necessarily education problems.  Take a look and decide for yourself.  

Note: While the slide presentation was put together by the American Federation of Teachers, this data and the analysis is supported by numerous educational researchers.

5 Myths About Our Schools That Fall Apart When You Look Closer

Nature, Nurture, Luck? What Leads to Success?

When I interview prospective teachers, I pull a couple of questions out of left field with the intention of getting to know a little bit about them that I might not otherwise find out.  The first question is “What is the last book you read?” followed by “What book has made the greatest impact on your life?”  I won’t go into the purpose of each question at this point, but I now have a new answer to the second one if it were asked of me.  A couple of years ago I read Malcom Gladwell’s Outliers.   My cousin gave it to me when we were together on a trip to Costa Rica and insisted that I read it.  I was actually familiar with it as I read a review in a magazine and had intentions of picking it up.  Well, I started reading the book in the airport in San Jose and could not put it down.  So, why has it had such an impact on my life?  Well, here we go!

Gladwell, journalist, bestselling author, and speaker, became interested in the factors that contribute to high levels of success, looking in a variety of different areas to support or dispel notions that we have.  He looked into some interesting places, including Canadian hockey to explain why such a very high percentage of players on rosters of elite teams were born in the first three months of the calendar year.  He dug into Bill Gates’ background trying to figure out why he was able to achieve such great wealth, as well as into the lives of the Beatles, who became arguably the most successful musical act in human history.  Gladwell looked at two people with exceptional intelligence that ended up with significantly different wealth, and how a New York law firm rose to one of the most successful in the world.

Each chapter focused on a different “contributor” to success, or at least what some of us attribute to being successful.  He digs into the above mentioned topics to identify why they are successful, actually, exceptional.  What he shares is actually fascinating.  First and foremost, Gladwell refers numerous times throughout the book that the key to success in any field is what he calls the 10,000-hour rule.  Coaches, directors, teachers, and others have preached the practice-makes-perfect philosophy for years.  Gladwell claims that to a large extent, the key to success is practicing a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours.  To put that in perspective, that means practicing a specific task for an hour a day, every day, for over 27 years!  The incredible thing is that there are people that have done this, and they are truly exceptional.  While I don’t remember specifics, Steve Alford, one of the greatest pure shooters in the history of college basketball, shot for hours on a daily basis.  The time that professional golfers spend on the practice range are incredible.  And while I fought every minute of practicing the piano, those who are at the top of their field put tremendous focus on practice.  Gladwell found that over the course of four years, the Beatles performed live in Hamburg, Germany over 1200 times, easily reaching the 10,000 hour rule, as did Bill Gates at age 13, who acquired a high school computer in 1968 – well ahead of most students – and was able to meet the 10,000 hours of computer programming.

While practice is the fundamental contributor to success, Gladwell researched other factors as well, sharing about how family, culture, intelligence, family, and luck factor into a person’s success, and at each step through the book he questions whether successful people deserve the praise that is heaped upon them.  For example, Gates happened to live in a community where the schools had access to “cast off” computers and a very aggressive parent support organization that sought out these computers for their children’s schools.  While Gates would still be a highly intelligent and most likely successful individual, the fact that he was in the right place at the right time cannot be discounted.  A similar example has to do with the birth dates of Canadian hockey players who are born in the first three months of the calendar year.  In Canada leagues are set up to include children born January 1 to December 31 of the same year and at a young age, those born earlier in the year are generally bigger and more mature than those born later in the year.  Thus, they are more likely to get selected to all-star teams and elite leagues, giving them access to more ice time and better coaching.  In some respects, this follows the concept of “the rich get richer,” and simply because of when one is born, there are advantages.

So what about intelligence?  Certainly this is an advantage when it comes to being successful.  While important, Gladwell argues in the book that it is not the most important factor in determining success.  To prove his point, he cites two individuals: J. Robert Oppenheimer and Christopher Langan.  Oppenheimer a noted physicist is most often referred to as “the father of the atomic bomb.”  Langan owns a horse farm in Missouri.  What they have in common is an incredibly high IQ:  195.  To put that in perspective, Gladwell claims that Einstein had an IQ of 150.  According to Gladwell, because of this tremendous gift both men should have become very successful, but as he points out, intelligence alone is not enough.  Individuals need access to other tools, and in Oppenheimer’s case, his families wealth opened doors for him, attending the finest schools and associating with people of great success as he grew up in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Manhattan.  Langan grew up in poverty in a rural area, was often beaten by his stepfather, and for the most part taught himself his high school curriculum.  By his mid-40’s he has worked as a construction worker, cowboy, forest service firefighter, farmhand, and a bouncer.  While he has been recognized the smartest man in America and developed a theory of the relationship between mind and reality, because of a lack of social skills and a lack of tools from growing up in poverty, Gladwell states that he did not come close to reaching his potential.

Reading this book has put a lot of things in perspective, especially as I work with students and families in my role as an educator.  We all want to be successful, and when it really comes down to it, there is no replacement for practice, practice, and more practice.  My experience is that most high school kids do not want to put in the time practicing.  There is a disconnect between where they want to go in life and what they need to do to get there.  When one looks at the performers and athletes at the top of their field, most of us have no idea what they have done to get where they are.  To reach that level takes more than most of us are willing to give.  That’s why there are so few who are truly exceptional.

Are Our Expectations Really Too High?

A short time ago I was watching one of my favorite program, The Colbert Report, and the guest was America's Poet Laureate, Billy Collins.  He and Stephen Colbert read the poem that I have included below.  Having a 17-year old daughter, it struck home to me.  It does kind of make you think that perhaps we are not expecting enough!

To My Favorite 17-Year-Old High School Girl

by Billy Collins

Do you realize that if you had started

building the Parthenon on the day you were born

you would be all done in only two more years?

Of course, you would have needed lots of help,

so never mind, you’re fine just as you are.

You are loved for simply being yourself.

But did you know at your age Judy Garland

was pulling down $150,000 a picture,

Joan of Arc was leading the French army to victory,

and Blaise Pascal had cleaned up his room?

No, wait, I mean he had invented the calculator.

Of course, there will be time for all that later in your life

after you come out of your room

and begin to blossom, at least pick up all your socks.

For some reason, I keep remembering that Lady Jane Grey

was Queen of England when she was only fifteen

but then she was beheaded, so never mind her as a role model.

A few centuries later, when he was your age,

Franz Schubert was doing the dishes for his family,

but that did not keep him from composing two symphonies,

four operas, and two complete Masses, as a youngster.

But of course that was in Austria at the height

of romantic lyricism, not here in the suburbs of Cleveland.

Frankly, who cares if Annie Oakley was a crack shot at 15

or if Maria Callas debuted as Tosca at 17?

We think you are special by just being you,

playing with your food and staring into space.

By the way, I lied about Schubert doing the dishes,

but that doesn’t mean he never helped out around the house.