Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 311

How I don't write

This is how Susan Orleans writes.

I can't even. 

TEDxTheCountrySchool: Speak Less. Expect More.

This is a TEDx Talk that I delivered in April of 2016 at The Country School in Madison, CT. The conference was run almost exclusively by the students of the school, who were of middle and high school age.

It's a variation of a talk that I have delivered before about the idea that teachers should be speaking less in their classrooms and expecting more from their students. 

Cold, hard truth from a middle school boy that explains why many people want to succeed but few do.

A middle school student reading a poem onstage at a TEDx Talk said this:

"You are who you want to be."

This is some cold, hard truth.
That is a truth that many people don't understand.
That is the truth that holds many, many people back from achieving their goals.    

What does it mean?

I am often contacted by people (more often than you might think) who want my advice on becoming more productive. More efficient. A better writer. A published writer. A better storyteller. A better teacher. They want to be more organized. More goal oriented. Happier. Healthier. More successful.

Sometimes I am able to help. I'll coach them. Point them in the right direction. Offer some advice. But what I have learned over the years is this:

You are who you want to be.

Many people want to improve their life. 
Few people want to change in order to do so.

People assume that I have some magic bullet to offer that will instantly make them more successful. They think that all they are missing is a bit of unfound wisdom. A simple strategy or two that will change everything. A mindset that will transform them into the person they've always wanted to be. 

They want the results, but they don't want to do the work required to achieve those results. 

When my doctor told me that my cholesterol was borderline and suggested that I start eating high fiber foods like oatmeal, I began eating oatmeal every single day for lunch, almost without exception.

When I returned for my annual physical a year later, my cholesterol was down almost 40 points. My doctor was shocked. She was sure that I was going to have to begin taking medication. When she asked me what I had done to lower my cholesterol, I told her:

"Oatmeal. I eat it every day. Just like you told me to do."  

Most people want to lower their cholesterol naturally and avoid a lifetime of medication, but few are willing to take the steps to make it happen, so they end up taking pills for the rest of their life. 

You are who you want to be.

I wanted to be someone who didn't have to take medication to control his cholesterol. 

Most people don't want to take medication to control their cholesterol, but they want to maintain their current diet and exercise regime more.

In the end, they are people who eat the foods they like most and wish their cholesterol was lower.

They are the people they want to be.   

This doesn't mean that change isn't possible. It simply means that you need to want to change more than you want to remain the same, and for many people, this is not the case.

I don't know if that kid onstage understood all this when he spoke those seven words, but he was right. 

You are who you want to be. 

Gender reveals: Another example of "Not every thing needs to be a thing"

Gender reveal shenanigans are pretty stupid on a couple levels.

First, they are stupid just because they are stupid.

Your doctor tells you that you're having a girl, so you plan a party. You bake a pink cake with white frosting. You send invitations to friends and relatives who have much better things to do that day. Your guests gather around the cake and watch you slice, revealing the pink interior and therefore the gender of your future child. People pretend to cheer. They shake your hand with false enthusiasm and wonder how long they need to linger at the party before leaving. 

If you need this kind of attention, try stand-up comedy instead. Or ballet. Maybe learn to joust so you can perform in the local Renaissance fair. Do something where the public attention you so desperately crave is part of the deal. Required, even.

Stop turning things like gender reveals and prom proposals into performance art. Every thing doesn't need to be a thing.  

But here's the other reason gender reveals are stupid:

There's no way of knowing what your child's gender is. You can know the sex of your child, but as we now know, gender is much more complex than the genitals that you have been assigned. Cutting into that pink cake is no guarantee that your child will identify as female later in life.

If you're going to engage in this stupidity, you'll at least need to ditch "gender reveal"" and instead call it a "sex reveal."

Or maybe a "Penis or vagina reveal" (though it would probably be more accurate to refer to it as a "Penis and vulva reveal" since the exterior female sex organ is the vulva and not the vagina, as everyone seems to think). 

 Hopefully, you find phrases like "sex reveal" or Penis and vulva reveal"  so disconcerting that you cancel the whole shebang and reveal your child's sex the old fashioned way:

You call your mom. You meet your friend for dinner. You tell your buddy on the golf course. Hang some pink or blue balloons off your mailbox. You post the news to social media. 

Or do what my wife and I did:

Wait until the baby is born. Check for yourself. Then tell everyone.

And if you thought the sex reveal cake was bad - and it is - check out this Mensa candidate revealing the sex of his child via colored chalk and explosives. 

What is the longterm impact of not having the support of parents after high school?

My friend and I were discussing the possibilities of a barbecue this summer. I asked him about the size and condition of his gas grill.

"It's a little dented, but it came that way. My dad assembled it and gave it to me for Father's Day, but he didn't secure it well in the back of the truck when he drove it over. It got tossed around a bit. But it works fine."

"Hard to complain about a free gas grill," I said. "I had to buy my own. And assemble it by myself, too."

As I said these words, it occurred to me that I haven't received anything from either one of my parents since I was 17 years-old.

My father left my life when I was very young, and my mother rapidly descended into abject poverty when her second husband - an evil son-of-a-bitch - left her with almost nothing about a year after I graduated from high school. Other than a music box, a collection of state quarters, and a few other small gifts, I haven't received anything of value from my parents for almost thirty years. 

No gas grill. 
No college tuition.
No cash bailouts when I was in trouble.
No downpayment on my first home.
No birthday, wedding, house warming, or anniversary gifts. 
No grandparent gifts for my children. 

Furthermore, there was no inheritance when my mother passed away. No family home. No savings account. No precious family heirlooms. My mother died in a nursing home with almost nothing to her name.

I've been on my own for a long, long time. 

I've bought every car that I've ever owned with my own money. I paid every penny of my college tuition.When I was arrested for a crime I did not commit, I worked more than 80 hours a week for almost two years to pay the $25,000 attorney fee.When I was 22 years-old and lost my home, there was no childhood home to return to. No place to recover and regain my footing. I moved into my car and became homeless for a time. 

No safety net. No support system. No backup plan.

Thankfully, my life has turned out well despite the lack of support. I managed to make it to college when I was 23 years-old and managed to graduate five years later with degrees in English and elementary education. I became the teacher and writer I always dreamed of being when I was a little boy.

I was lucky. My dreams came true. 

But I find myself wondering about the longterm financial impact of financially stable parents on a person. More specifically, how do outcomes differ between individuals who have the financial support of their parents into adulthood and those who do not?

When a person have to pay their way through college, how does this impact their life longterm?

When a person doesn't have parents to assist with the purchase of a car or a home, how does this change their longterm financial outlook? When there are no parents to pay for weddings, assist with home repairs, provide infusions of cash at precarious moments in the person's life, and even buy the occasional meal or holiday gift, how does this alter a person's future?

is their financial outlook vastly different? Do they differ in terms of happiness and healthiness? Do their life spans differ significantly? Do they become fundamentally different people? 

I have friends whose parents have paid for their family vacations. Supplied a downpayment on a home. Fully funded their wedding and honeymoon. Paid every penny of their college tuition.

I have a friend with two children who has never purchased a diaper in his life.

His mother buys them. 

I have friends who have joined successful family businesses and have never felt the fear, uncertainty, and sting of longterm unemployment or debilitating poverty. I have friends who have been bailed out of enormous jams by their parents. 

Then I have friends like me who have had to grind it out on their own. Find their own way. Save themselves over and over again.

If you're a sociologist, I'd like you to conduct a study that examines the longterm outcomes of people who enjoy parental support post high school graduation and those who do not. I'd like to know how these two groups of people differ in terms of employment, wealth, happiness, life span, health, marital outcomes, and overall achievement.

I'm curious. Which type of person fairs better in the long run?

I'd like to think that those who make it on their own are ultimately more successful in the indicators I have mentioned above, but I suspect that this isn't the case. If I were to hazard a guess, I suspect that people with the support of parents after high school are far better off than those who do not. They tend to be happier, healthier, and wealthier than their counterparts. 

And while I certainly don't denigrate my friends who have enjoyed the ongoing support of their parents or joined ready-made family businesses, I tend to be more impressed by the people I know who had to blaze their own trail through life, absent of the gifts of college tuition, downpayments, family businesses, and gas grills.

Unfortunately, I suspect that many of these parentless people fail to blaze their own trails and often fall by the wayside without anyone ever acknowledging the way in which a lack of parental support may have contributed to their negative outcomes.

Perhaps I'm wrong. I hope so. In a day and age in which the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee claims to be a self-made business man despite joining his family's real estate business at an early age and receiving an enormous cash infusion from a father who was worth more than 200 million dollars, it would be nice to know that actual self-made people exist and thrive, despite their lack of familial support.   

Get on that, sociologists. I want to know. 

Stop it, teachers: 3 things educators must stop doing now.

As a teacher, I admire the hell out of my colleagues. I've been teaching for almost two decades, and the vast majority of educators with whom I've worked during that time are outstanding professionals who care deeply about their students.

This does not mean that all teachers and school administrators are perfect, and sometimes they can be downright stupid. 

Here are three things that educators do that need to cease immediately:

1. Stop using writing as a form of punishment.

Just last week, a friend told me that her daughter - a middle schooler - was required to write a five page essay as punishment for a recent infraction.

This is backwards and asinine, and it needs to stop. It also flies in the face of all research done on this subject. 

It's hard enough to get students excited about writing today. With so few teachers of writing actually engaging in the writing process in an authentic and meaningful way, writing instruction is often boiled down to a simplistic, uninspired, unrealistic, formulaic approach. Add to this the idea that writing is also a viable means of punishment, and we have all but guaranteed that students will stop all meaningful and expressive writing once they are done with school.

Writing is not punishment. Writing is a glorious means of self expression. Writing represents the ability to exist beyond the moment. It's a means by which to process thoughts and feelings on the page. It's a way to create something new and remarkable in this world. 

When it is allowed to be just that, students will learn to love to write. 

When you turn writing into a form of punishment, you're an idiot who doesn't understand writing. Or kids. Or education in general. 

2. Stop telling kids what they can't be.

It seems like every other week, I hear some highly accomplished person in an interview or as a part of their memoir tell the story of an idiotic teacher who said they didn't have the talent to succeed in their chosen field.

"You'll never make it in the music industry."

"You just don't have the talent to compete in the literary world."

"You should think about a more reasonable career. Maybe in sales or marketing?"   

A teacher has no business telling student what he or she can't do. Even if every fiber of your being says that the kid will never play the French horn in the New York Symphony or doesn't stand a chance in the world of investment banking, shut the hell up. It's not your business to squash dreams. Teachers are in the business of creating as many possibilities as possible for their students through education, inspiration, and enlightenment.

If the kid will never play the French horn professionally, let him discover that for himself.

If your struggling math student won't ever be hired by even the shadiest of investment banks, let that happen in its own time. 

While we don't want students putting all their eggs in one basket, we have no business stomping on any eggs, either. It is only through incredible arrogance and ridiculous hubris that we should even begin to think that we can predict the future of a 15-year old kid.   

Had you asked my high school teachers if I would ever become a novelist, storyteller, wedding DJ, business owner, or even a teacher, I suspect few would have seen any of those careers in my future.

Thankfully, none of them told me what I couldn't do. Instead, they tried to fill me with the knowledge and skills required to do whatever I damn well pleased. 

3. Stop acting like bigots.

Last week a high school in Pennsylvania barred a student from attending her prom because she chose to wear a tuxedo rather than a dress.  The school says the student, Aniya Wolf, failed to follow a clear dress code for the prom that was laid out months in advance. “The dress code for the prom specified girls must wear formal dresses,” the school said in a statement. “It also stated that students who failed to follow the dress code would not be admitted.”

Even if that's true - and there is some evidence that this dress code was only imposed after learning that Wolf would be wearing a tuxedo - this is a bigoted, ass-backward policy that can only be described as homophobic and stupid. 

Two weeks ago a North Carolina school banned transgender students from using their preferred restroom, even though the student in question had been doing so for years without incident. 

Another North Carolina school system has adopted a policy allowing high school students to carry pepper spray this fall, a policy one board member said may be useful for students who encounter transgender classmates in the bathroom.

This is insanity. Schools are supposed to be places of enlightenment. They should be looking to make this world better for all students regardless of their gender or sexual preference. Instead, these school systems and others like it are standing in opposition to reform that has already been accepted by much of the country and the world.

If the White House or IBM or Disney or Apple or Ford Motor Company was hosting a black tie gala, do we think for a moment that they would bar a woman from attending the event because she chose to wear a tuxedo?

Of course not. 

If a transgender person at one of these same black tie galas chose to use the restroom that matched his or her gender, do we think that President Obama or Ginni Rometty or Michael Eisner or Tim Cook or Mark Fields would require their guest to use the restroom that best matched their genitals?

Of course not.

The world is moving on and changing rapidly. We have begun to accept differences in gender identity and sexual preference at a remarkably rapid rate, but in certain corners of the world, educators are taking ass-backward stances and clinging to ancient values that only serve to marginalize students who don't quite fit their 1950's paradigm of appropriate behavior. 

It's an embarrassment. It's a disgrace. It's a black eye on an otherwise noble profession. Teachers, administrators, and school boards must stop it now or otherwise be forever be remember as people who were on the wrong side of history when so many people were moving so quickly to the right side.

Questions asked so far this morning by my children (ages 7 and 3):

What's a heart defect?Why is water slippery?Why is Mommy still asleep?Why are Cheerios round?Can I have more Cheerios?Can I have pizza for a snack?Why didn't you scream when I scared you?Is Kaleigh a dog?What are CDs for?Can I touch a CD?Can I hold a CD?Can you tell Charlie to stop elbowing me?Isn't Mommy the best? 

These people don't know Jesus, and Jesus doesn't give a damn about toilets

A woman defending transgender rights at a school-board meeting in Horry County, South Carolina last week was interrupted by a roughly 500-person chorus of “Jesus Loves Me.”

Jesus may love these people, but these people apparently know nothing about Jesus. Son of God or ancient philosopher, I promise you this: 

Jesus wouldn't give a damn about where a person chooses to pee.

Reach out to a teacher. We want to hear from you.

My former second and third grade student - now a 24 year old woman - texted me this image along a message:

I know this answer because of you.

Being a teacher, this may sound a little self serving, but if you have the chance to reach out to a former teacher and let them know how their teaching still lives inside you, please do it.

We wonder how the kids who we loved like our own for a year and then left us forever are doing. We wonder if they remember us like we remember them, and we wonder if the year we spent with them helped them to become the people they wanted to be. 

We wonder more than you know.

Pick up the phone. Send an email or a text. Maybe even an old fashioned letter. It will mean the world to a teacher who you once meant the world to and probably still do.

My former students discover that their teacher is still alive (and maybe doing cool things) thanks to The Moth

In the last two days, The Moth - the preeminent storytelling organization in the world - has oddly brought me in contact with two of my former students in fairly bizarre ways. 

Yesterday, a former student who was in my class 15 years ago texted me this photo, which was sent to her by another former student of 15 years ago who spotted it on the NYC Snapchat feed. It's a photograph of me performing at The Moth Ball on Tuesday night. The NYC Snapchat feed was handed over to The Moth for the evening, so it was full of photos from the event. As my former student said, "That's going to be seen by a lot of people!"

I can't imagine what it would be like to see Mrs. Laverne or Mrs. Shultz on some public social media feed, performing at an event alongside celebrities like Carrie Brownstein.

Yes, kids. I'm still alive and still doing stuff. 

Earlier in the week, Elysha ran into a former student who was in my very first class 18 years ago. She lives in Australia but was in town visiting family. She told Elysha that recently, she met a guy in Australia and the two got talking. In the midst of the conversation, he brought up a show about storytelling that he had just been listening to and said, "I heard this great story by an American named Matthew Dicks."

My former student, who is now a 24 year-old woman, said, "Matthew Dicks? He was my second grade teacher."

On the other side of the world, a man heard my story on the radio and mentioned it to a girl who I once taught when she was seven years old.

Only The Moth could make something like this happen.