Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 283

The real answer to "Why did the chicken cross the road?"

i just realized that “Why did the chicken cross the road?” is a suicide joke. 

"To get to the other side."

The other side.

Mind blown.

Before you criticize the Superintendent for a snow day decision, consider this.

One of the most criticized decision that any Superintendent can make is the decision to declare a snow day or a delay in the school day due to inclement weather. 

I have made it a policy to never criticize a Superintendent - as both a parent and a teacher - for these decisions for a number of reasons:

I believe that every Superintendent is making what he or she believes to be the right call when it comes to inclement weather. No Superintendent in the world wants a child harmed on the way to school. In other words, these difficult decisions are made with the best possible intentions, which is all we can ask of leaders when making decisions involving enormous uncertainty. Complaining about the decision after the fact serves absolutely no purpose. Your complaints will not cause a Superintendent to make a better decision next time. He or she  are already trying to make the best possible decision every time already.    
 This is a decision involving the weather. Any decision regarding the weather is an incredibly difficult one to make. It's impossible to predict. Thinking that a school official knows what the weather conditions will be with any degree of certainty when the meteorologists are often uncertain is absurd.  
 Just as important as the actual road conditions are the sidewalks. Many children walk to school. The roads might look pristine, but if the sidewalks around the schools have not been cleared, a delay may need to be called. Too often people decide if a Superintendent has made a good decision based upon their own limited set of information.
 Superintendents know that for many students, the breakfast and lunch they eat at school are the best and most complete meals of their day. This was the case for me as a child. A snow day often means that children will go hungry that day. This weighs heavily on a Superintendent's mind when making the decision. Even a two hour delay will wipe out breakfast at most schools. 
 Snow days and and delays throw families into chaos. Childcare must often be found at the last minute. When it can't be found, children far too young to be left home alone often are. Adults arrive at work late and risk losing their jobs if it happens too often. All of this also weighs heavily on the mind of a Superintendent.   

None of this is to imply that safety should be first and foremost in the mind of a Superintendent when making the decision, but he or she must also bring all of these factors to bear when making the call. It's a much more complex decision than I think most people realize. 

Here are two more factors that are so often forgotten:

Parents and colleagues will complain that the roads were unsafe on a given day and that a delay or cancellation was in order, yet when I check at the end of the day, all children across the district have arrived to school safely. No accidents or injuries whatsoever. If every child in the district has arrived to school safely, the right call was apparently made, regardless of how slippery you thought the roads were earlier in the day. 
 Teachers should never complain about their drive to school during inclement weather. Snow days and delays are not meant for the safety of adults. My friends who work as lawyers, custodians, IT professionals. doctors, cashiers, and cooks do not get snow days. My buddy who works at ESPN goes to work regardless of the weather. My friend who works as an attorney in Hartford doesn't get the morning off if the roads are slippery. When I worked in banking and in restaurants, I went to work regardless of road conditions. Teachers are professionals and have no business complaining about their drive to work. Snow days are not meant for them.

 I recently wrote a piece about the snow days of my youth in my humor column in Seasons magazine. You can check it out here on page 49.

Trumpian typos abound - and frighten me to death

ALL OF THIS JUST ON SUNDAY:

The US Department of Education published a tweet that spelled W.E.B. Du Bois's name incorrectly. That error stood for four hours before it was finally corrected. The Department of Education then apologized, with another typo:

“Our deepest apologizes for the earlier typo..."

Great start for Betsy DeVos. Or DuVos. Or DeVes.  

A couple hours later, the Republican Party published a tweet that quoted Abraham Lincoln on his birthday, except that it wasn't something Abraham Lincoln ever said. 

In fact, the quote probably originates from the 1940s. As the website Quote Investigator notes, a version of the quote was probably first uttered by a medical doctor named Edward J. Stieglitz, quoted in the Chicago Tribune in 1947.

To top it all off, the official inaugural photo of Donald Trump, on sale now at the Library of Congress, also has a typo in its one and only sentence:

Earlier in the week, The Trump Administration gave the press a typo-riddled lists of terrorist attacks that they claimed were not covered enough by the press.

Kellyanne Conaway's Bowling Green Massacre (a story that she has repeated multiple times until she was caught) was not on this list, but it received ample coverage nonetheless. Rightfully so. 

I know. I know. I'm an elitist for thinking that our government might have some spell checking apparatus in place and we might expect a modicum of professionalism from our leaders, but it doesn't look good and makes me worry about other items requiring precision. 

Say... the value of the dollar. The rate of inflation. Interest rates. The location to drop a bomb on a terrorist. The nuclear codes. 

Brother and Sister Day

Yesterday, February 11, my kids declared it Brother and Sister Day, a self-made holiday of sorts.

I thought it was cute when they proposed the idea the day before but thought nothing else of it. I figured that they'd probably forget about the whole thing by the next day.

Boy was I wrong. 

The two of them actually turned it into a genuine holiday, spending enormous amounts of time in each other's company. They didn't argue a single bit. Cuddled frequently. Complimented each other constantly.

They don't fight very often, but yesterday was a genuine love fest.  

And around 6:30 PM, Elysha and I heard Charlie lament, "It's so sad, Clara. Brother and Sister Day is almost over."

"I know," Clara said. "It was such a good day. I love you."

I listen to my kids say these impossible things. I watch them love each other beyond measure. I often turn to Elysha and say, "No one would believe the things our kids say to each other."

I witness all of it and know that they will always have each other.

Each other. It might be the best thing we ever give them. 

Got kids? Here's how to turn them into writers.

As a teacher and a writer, I often give parents advice on helping their children to become effective writers who (more importantly) love to write.

My advice is simple:

Be the best audience possible for your child’s work. If he or she wants to read something to you, drop everything. Allow the chicken to burn in the frying pan. Allow the phone to ring off the hook. Give your child your full and complete attention. When a child reads something that they have written to someone who they love and respect, it is the most important thing happening in the world at that moment. Treat is as such.  

Don’t look at the piece. Don’t even touch the piece. Any comment made about the piece should never be about handwriting, spelling, punctuation, and the like. By never seeing the actual text, you innate, insatiable parental need to comment on these things will be properly stifled. Your child does not want to hear about your thoughts on punctuation or the neatness of their printing. No writer does. Your child has given birth to something from the heart and mind. Treat it with reverence. Speak about how it makes you feel. Rave about the ideas and images. Talk about the word choices that you loved. Compliment the title. Ask for more. Forget the rest.

Remember: Rough drafts are supposed to be rough. Even final drafts are not meant to be perfect. That’s why editors exist. Go online and look at the rough drafts of EB White’s Charlotte’s Web. They’re almost illegible. Who cares? Writing is messy.  

Once your child has finished reading the piece, offer three positive statements about the writing. Compliments. Nothing more. Only after you have said three positive things may you offer a suggestion. Maintain this 3:1 compliment/criticism ratio always. Use the word “could” instead of “should” when commenting.

If your child asks how to spell a word, spell it. Sending a child to the dictionary to find the spelling of a word is an act of cruelty and a surefire way to make writing less fun. You probably so this because it was the way that your parents and teachers treated you, but it didn’t help you one bit. It only turned writing into a chore. If you were to ask a colleague how to spell a word, you wouldn’t expect to be sent to the dictionary. That would be rude, The same holds true for your child.

Also, the dictionary was not designed for this purpose. It’s an alphabetical list of definitions and other information about words, but is wasn’t meant for spelling. Just watch a first grader look for the word “phone” in the F section of the dictionary and you will quickly realize how inefficient and pointless this process is.

When it comes to writing, the most important job for parents and teachers is to ensure that kids learn to love to write. If a child enjoys putting words on a page, even if those words are poorly spelled, slightly illegible, and not entirely comprehensible, that’s okay. The skills and strategies for effective writing will come in time, though direct instruction, lots of practice, and a little osmosis. The challenge – the mountain to climb – is getting a child to love writing. Make that your primary objective. Make that your only objective. Do everything you can to ensure that your child loves the writing process. Once you and your child achieve that summit, the rest will fall into place.

I promise.

Except for the handwriting. Sometimes there’s nothing we can do about that. Just be grateful that we live in a world where most of the writing is done on a computer. 

Follow this rule. Change your life.

Here's a rule to consider when living your life:

At least once a year (and much more often if possible), you should try something that is:

NewDifficultAt least a little frighteningReduces the amount of time spent watching televisionHas the potential of becoming something meaningful - a new hobby, a new career, something that you can be proud of - if done well

Change in our lives is essential, and yet so many of us avoid it at all costs. An enormous percentage of the population slowly settles into a daily routine that only varies if external factors forces change upon them. Days bleed into one another, with the Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Thursdays of last year resembling the Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Thursdays of the year before in almost every possible way. 

So many of us forget how good a new struggle can feel. We fail to remember the joy of self discovery that we so often experiences when we were younger. We no longer see the value of variety.   

Change keeps us youthful, interesting, happy, and motivated. Constant, relentless change is the thing that prevents us from feeling like time is flying by. It brings greater meaning not only to our lives but to the individual days of our lives.

Following my suggestion just once a year is a reasonable goal. An admittedly low bar, but a good start. The chance to bring something new into your life. The chance to change your life.  

Victory brownies and the definition of fandom and friendship

Our tailgate meal prior to a New England Patriots game has many glorious traditions.

One of these traditions are "victory brownies." Tony and his wife, Erin, bake brownies for dessert after an enormous meal of meat and meat and meat and potato, but we don't eat the brownies until the Patriots win.

Yesterday I received a package from Tony. When I opened the box, this is what I found:

Victory brownies. "Victory brownies of all time."

THIS, my friends, is what friendship and fandom look like. 

15 piece of advice from Elizabeth Sampat

Elizabeth Sampat, an award-winning game designer and activist, recently took to Twitter to offer 100 pieces of advice. I pulled out 15 of what I thought were the best and offer them to you here.

My favorite is #71.

___________________________

2. Unless you are a salaried employee or have guaranteed regular hours, always buy the largest amount of toilet paper you can afford.

4. When someone says they can’t do something, 75% of the time it means “There are things not worth sacrificing to make this happen."

6. Never feel bad for dropping people from your life. Friends, family, whoever.

15. Treat your kids like human beings from the day they’re born and you’ll end up living with people whose company you like for 18 years.

20. Don’t put more than five words on a slide or people will be reading instead of listening to you talk.

22. Have a tweet in your drafts that a friend can send if you die, so your last tweet ever isn’t a drill RT or something.

25. If you have to say “I was just kidding around” then your joke wasn’t funny.

40. It’s just as important to have enemies as it is to have friends, otherwise you haven’t done anything worth doing with your life.

49. If you’re the smartest person in the room, it’s time to find a different room.

50. The best thing you can ever do for your kid is to replace every hope/dream/preconceived notion with a desire to help them be themselves.

70. Listen and learn from marginalized people, especially black women, and give them credit every time you say something you learned from them.

71. We’re all going to die someday, and it’s good to remember that, but don’t think about it after 8PM.

72. Your childhood wasn’t normal. PROMISE. The sooner you realize it, the better off you are. (if it felt “happy” normal, it was privileged).

82. It’s 1000000% okay to laugh during sex.

90. Dishes only get grosser the longer they sit in the sink. Soaking for more than an hour is a lie.

Things About Me #6

I can sing all of the words to the theme song for Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears, a Saturday morning cartoon that ran from 1985-1991. 

The math on this is a little disconcerting, given that I was 14 years old in 1985. 

I can also sing the theme songs to the first two seasons of Star Blazers, an American animated television series adaptation of the Japanese anime series Space Battleship Yamato. When I was watching it in the early 1980's, it was an after school cartoon on the UHF stations.  

The fact that these two theme songs are also embedded in my mind is disconcerting. 

It's so much more than just a game.

I know it's only a game.

It's a game played by men who I have never met and never will.

Still, I feel sorry for those who don't have the opportunity to experience the sense of collective purpose and love that being a sport fan can bring. I can't imagine missing out on the unmitigated euphoria that a victory like last night can offer.

The Patriots won the Super Bowl in the most dramatic fashion possible, capping off a season of obstacles and hardships. Their quarterback was (in the mind of every physicist) unfairly suspended for four games and they were stripped of a first round draft pick. Their backup quarterback was injured in his second game. Their second best player - one of the greatest tight ends of all time - was injured and could not play for most of the season.

They overcame each obstacle and remained mentally tough on the biggest, brightest stage in the world. They won glory last night. Eternal, unforgettable glory.

I stood with these men who I have never met and never will all season long. I stood in the sun and freezing rain and snow at Gillette Stadium, cheering them on. I rearranged every Sunday afternoon during the season so I could watch them perform. I stood in muddy parking lots with friends before the games eating meat and talking about the game. I was not a member of the 2016 New England Patriots, but I'll be damned if I didn't feel like one.

Just as important, this team has brought me closer and closer to the people I love most. With each play, each game, and each football season, I take a step closer and closer into the hearts and minds of these friends.

It is a collective joining of spirit and soul that is so rarely found in today's world. It's a mutual understanding of who we are and who we can be through our hope, our pain, our sorrow, and our joy. It's an opening of hearts and a baring of souls. We learn about our frailties. Our strengths. The way we handle pressure. The way we manage disappointment. The way we accept defeat. We learn about who we can poke. Where we can prod. When we must be gentle.

The Patriots won the Super Bowl last night. It was a historic victory. An unforgettable football game. A moment of a lifetime.

It was also a night when many of the people who I love most joined in sprit and soul and took one collective step forward into a ever-closing circle of friendship and love.

I know. It's only a game. Except it's so much more.