Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 356

It’s easy to criticize what people do. It’s often what people don’t do that matters more, yet these inactions are often ignored. So leave me alone, you inactive, moronic toadstools.

I was recently sitting at my desk in my classroom, drinking a Diet Coke while correcting papers. A colleague walked in, and as we wrapped up our conversation, she commented on the soda that I was drinking.

“You know, Diet Coke really isn’t good for you. You drink way too much. You should think about switching to something healthier.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ve actually cut back on soda quite a bit since the beginning of the year.”

My tone was warm. My response was benign. But beneath my calm exterior, I was annoyed. Completely and thoroughly annoyed. Here’s why:

People find it exceedingly easy to criticize a person for action taken but rarely consider the reverse.

Yes, I drink Diet Coke. And yes, despite the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of this product and its 33 year history of consumer consumption without any apparent links to leprosy or tuberculosis, carbonated beverages – and Diet Coke in particular – is poison in the minds of many people.

I understand that water is probably better for me than Diet Coke, but that doesn’t mean that Diet Coke is going to kill me. Just like the coffee and alcohol that most people consume on a daily basis  (and I do not) probably isn’t going to kill them, either.

Nevertheless, I’m also able to see that too much of almost anything can be bad. Recognizing the excessive quantity of soda that I was drinking in a given day, I chose to cut back. As part of my New Year’s resolutions, I have almost completely stopped drinking Diet Coke in my home. As a result, I’ve cut my soda consumption by more than half, and other than the nights when we are eating pizza or pasta for dinner, I rarely miss it.

But here’s the thing:

I happen to know for a fact that the woman who commented on my soda consumption does not exercise. She doesn’t jog or play a sport or belong to a gym. Other than the occasionally stress-filled work situation, she may never elevate her heart rate beyond a resting position.

Yet how often does someone criticize or even express concern for her lack of physical activity? Almost never is my guess because it’s almost impossible to comment on something that can’t be seen. Unless you followed this person for a week, peering into windows of her home at all hours of the day, you would never know that she lives a relatively sedentary lifestyle.

But my Diet Coke consumption? That’s obvious. The soda is in my hand. On my desk. Stuffed in my refrigerator. It’s easy to comment on my soda consumption because you see it. It’s a positive action.

So people comment on it and criticize it all the time.

But who is living a healthier lifestyle?

The person who exercises on a treadmill or elliptical machine for 45 minutes at least four times a week, does push ups and sit ups every day, practices yoga (poorly) and meditates every morning, and plays golf and basketball and runs in the non-winter months. And drinks Diet Coke…

… or the person who restricts herself to water and all natural juices but does not exercise in any way?

If you don’t think that my lifestyle is probably healthier (and you should), can we at least agree that it’s too close to call?

I’m often criticized for my eating and drinking habits. The lack of vegetables in my diet. My somewhat limited palate. My choice of soda over every other beverage.

But I also know that I’m being criticized by people who never exercise. Who watch 30 hours of television each week. Who haven’t read a book in ten years. Who can’t name the three branches of government. Who spend hours on hair and nails and makeup but not a single minute maintaining a healthy heart. Who can name every member of the Kardahian family but don’t know the name of even one of their state’s Senators or a single member of the Supreme Court.

 

It’s so easy to criticize the overt, public actions of a person, because it’s what we can see. We can point and frown and criticize.

But it’s often the things that people don’t do – their inaction and underlying stupidity – that ultimately mean more but go unnoticed because they are not conveniently wrapped in a plastic bottle or red label.

13 thoughts upon seeing my son trying to be cooler than me.

I walked into the living room and this is what I saw.

 

The thoughts that instantly ran through my mind:

Who the hell does he think he is?
This dude is a little too relaxed.
Is this the way a two year-old is supposed to be watching Little Einsteins?
Who the hell does he think he is?
My son might already be cooler than me.
There’s no way in hell that my son is going to ever be cooler to me.
Who taught him to sit like that?
Is this what “chillin’ like a villain” looks like?
Did he arrange that pillow like that or find it that way?
Who the hell does he think he is?
Honestly, I could not look as cool as he does sitting like that.
How did this happen?
Who the hell does he think he is?

My daughter wished me luck before my most recent Moth GrandSLAM performance then promptly retracted it.

I received this incredibly sweet but slightly parroted message from my kids just before I took the stage in Brooklyn to compete in my tenth Moth GrandSLAM last week.

When I saw my daughter the next day, she asked how I did.

“Second place.”

“Again?” she asked. In ten GrandSLAMs, I’ve only won once and finished in second place seven times. Apparently my six year-old daughter is aware of this. She shook her head in disgust.

“I don’t know why I wish you good luck.”

The fallacy of private criticism and the mistake teachers often make when assigning consequences

There is a phrase that has become popular in teaching:

Praise in public. Punish (or criticize) in private.

I think this depends upon a lot of factors, and especially the climate and culture of the classroom. If a teacher is adept at bringing the class together as one big family, or a particular class has come together on their own, then much more can be said in the open.

If there is trust and love in a classroom, then most things can be said out in the open.

It’s also important to remember that private rarely remains private. The notion if private is oftentimes a farce.

One of the biggest mistakes that teachers make is not allowing a student who they are reprimanding to maintain his or her dignity. Criticizing in public is often perfectly fine if the student does not feel isolation or shame in the process. Creativity, flexibility, and a willingness to subjugate one’s ego are often required in order to reprimand a student without losing that student’s trust and respect.

Consequences are important. Self esteem is, too.

The fallacy of private criticism and the mistake teachers make when assigning consequences

There is a phrase that has become popular in teaching:

Praise in public. Punish (or criticize) in private.

I think this depends upon a lot of factors, and especially the climate and culture of the classroom. If a teacher is adept at bringing the class together as one big family, or a particular class has come together on their own, then much more can be said in the open.

If there is trust and love in a classroom, then most things can be said out in the open.

It’s also important to remember that private rarely remains private. The notion if private is oftentimes a farce.

One of the biggest mistakes that teachers make is not allowing a student who they are reprimanding to maintain his or her dignity. Criticizing in public is often perfectly fine if the student does not feel isolation or shame in the process. Creativity, flexibility, and a willingness to subjugate one’s ego are often required in order to reprimand a student without losing that student’s trust and respect.

Consequences are important. Self esteem is, too.

Novelist Jose Saramago quit writing in 1953. Part of me wants to reach back in time and hug him. The other part wants to smack him.

Nobel Prize winning novelist José Saramago submitted the manuscript of Skylight – his first – to a Lisbon publisher in 1953. Receiving no response, Saramago gave up fiction altogether. His wife says that her husband fell into a “into a painful, indelible silence that lasted decades.”

Saramago returned to fiction in 1977 and would eventually write more than 20 novels before his death.

In 1989, having published three novels, he was at work on a fourth when the publisher to which he had sent Skylight wrote to say that they had rediscovered the manuscript and it would be an honor to print it. Saramago never re-read it and said only that “it would not be published in his lifetime.”

His wife published the book in 2014 after his death in 2010.

When I first heard this story, I felt great sympathy for Saramago. A publisher ignores his manuscript, not even bothering to decline the work, and an author loses 25 years that could have been spent writing. By all accounts, his first manuscript was excellent, and the book has received rave reviews, so it’s not as if Saramago needed the 25 years for his talent to germinate. He was already brilliant in 1953.

He simply lost a quarter century of work.

That sympathy for Saramago lasted for about ten seconds, then I was reminded of all the authors I know whose first, second, third, fourth, and even fifth manuscripts were turned down by literary agents and publishing houses. Yes, as far as I know, all of these people at least received some kind of response from the entities that received their work, but still, I know authors who struggled for decades with rejections before finally breaking through.

Saramago was ignored once and decided to quit. He took his toys and went home. 

My second reaction was decidedly less sympathetic.  

I’ve read four of Saramago’s books, including Blindness, which won the Nobel Prize in Literature and caused my wife to weep for a week while reading it. I’m not much of a fan of his work. I think he was an exceptionally talented writer, and I have enjoyed his stories a great deal, but Saramago forgoes the use of chapters and paragraphs almost completely in his books. His sentences can run on for more than a page. He goes pages and pages without the use of a period, preferring instead to use commas. He doesn’t use quotations marks to delineate dialogue. In Blindness, he stopped using proper nouns completely. I can’t stand any of it. I think it demonstrates a complete disregard for the reader and an unnecessary barrier to his stories.  

Still, a small part of my wishes I could reach through time and tell him to strengthen his resolve and try again rather than waiting for 25 years before writing again. I want to hug him and tell him that it will be alright.

Another part of my wants to smack him for acting like such a fool and not having the courage to stand up and demand acknowledgement.

Ironically, my friend, who has read Skylight, reports that Saramago was not using long sentences when he wrote it in 1953. Perhaps if he had found success with the book, he would’ve continued to write more conventionally and found a wider audience.  

The blend of happiness and sadness, pride and envy of the working day is easy on some days. Impossibly hard on others. Also, my son needs to get himself a job.

It’s not uncommon to hear about my wife’s day home with our son or the times that they have spend with friends at a coffee shop or a playground or a gym class and feel incredibly jealous for this time that she has enjoyed at home with our kids.

It’s an odd tug, to be honest. Part of me is so glad that we can do this for her and our children, and part of me is so proud of myself for cobbling together my teaching and writing and speaking and storytelling and DJ and tutoring careers together into some semblance of an income that has allowed us to continue to pay the bills and keep our heads above water while one of us is not working.

But there’s always a part of me that knows that even if my next book is a huge bestseller or my last book is made into a blockbuster film, or even if we win the lottery that we never play because lotteries are for suckers, I will never get this same chance to spend the kind of time with my children that my wife has had over these past five years.

That time is gone forever. Clara is in kindergarten. Charlie will be in preschool next year. Even if I become a stay-at-home dad someday – which may actually happen at some point in the future – it will be a quieter, emptier, far more organized house. There will be chances to volunteer in classrooms and walks to school, but those lazy mornings in bed or those afternoons in the sun are not in my future, no matter what happens.

That blending of happiness for my children and my wife and sadness for what I can never have and pride for what we have accomplished is easier on some days than others.

Some days it’s easy as pie. Some days it’s a stone on my heart. 

But I really shouldn’t be jealous of my son for his time at home. He’s only two years-old, and yet, when I see photos like this, of my son playing in his big sister’s bed, while she and I are off at our respective schools, I can’t help but think that he needs to get a job.

He’s just having way too much fun.

 

It took this couple 8 years to say “I love you” to each other. It took my wife slightly less time to say it to me.

From This American Life, the insanity of a couple happily together for eight years having never said “I love you” and never spoken about its absence.

For the record – and I wonder if my wife remembers this – she said “I love you” first, on a couch in my old apartment, while we were kissing, on our second date. And less than 24 hours after our first date.

Granted, we had worked together for two years and been close friends for about a year before we started dating, but still, the second date was a bold move on her part.

The right move, too. I told her that I loved her, too, and we have said it to each other every since since then, for the past twelve years.

In the unlikely event that my books, films, and musicals don’t make me a wealthy man, I have a back-up plan more than 350 people strong.

Theologian Adam Clarke once said:

“The old proverb about having too many irons in the fire is an abominable old lie. Have all in, shovel, tongs, and poker.”

I couldn’t agree more. I like to have as many irons in the fire as possible, hoping that one or more will eventually make me a rich man.

For the past 16 years, one of these “irons in the fire” has been to teach my students about how patronage worked hundreds of years ago. In those days, kings, popes, and wealthy landowners funded the lives of artists such as musicians, painters, poets, and sculptors so that they could focus solely on their creative endeavors.

Every school year, I explain to my students that someday, one or more of them may grow up and invent the next Internet, win the lottery, discover a vein of gold in their backyard, or make their fortune on Wall Street. And when that day happens, I want them to remember their former teacher, Mr. Dicks, toiling away in his elementary school classroom, probably still loving his job and his students but perhaps ready to take a break and write  fulltime.

I won’t need much. Just enough to support my family and live in relative ease and pleasure. A big house. A couple decent cars. Two or three vacations a year. Maybe a membership to a country club so I can play golf when I’m not hunched over the computer. 

I’m not asking for much.

In my 16 years of teaching, about 350 kids have passed through my classroom. The oldest of my students – second graders in 1999 – have graduated college and either begun their careers or gone onto graduate school.

Not quite old enough to have amassed great wealth, but not too far away either.

350 irons in the fire, just starting to get warm.

There is no female counterpart to the word “guys,” and that is a tragedy.

One of college supervisors’ favorite critiques of student-teachers is their use of the word “guys” when addressing the entire class, claiming that the word is gender specific and therefore inappropriate.

This critique is made for two reasons:

College supervisors, in my experience, have very little to say that is critical of a student-teacher’s performance. They tend to heap an inordinate amount of praise upon student-teachers while rarely correcting anything that wasn’t written on paper prior to the lesson. I have yet to understand the rationale behind this culture of incessant praise, but it doesn’t make anyone a better teacher. So targeting the use of the word “guys” is a simple, non-threatening, and nearly universal form of criticism that supervisors can make without any actual critical analysis of the lesson or the student-teacher’s performance.

As gender specific as “guys” may technically be, these college supervisors apparently spend no time with actual kids, who use the word “guys” in a non-gender way throughout the entire school day. Girls refer to other girls as “guys” all the time. Boys refer to girls as “guys.” Girls refer to boys as “guys.” Even my wife refers to her girlfriends as “guys.” It’s a word that is gender specific in definition only. 

But here’s the real problem:

There is no decent female counterpart to “guys.”

“Guys” is a great word. It serves a necessary purpose and does so with skill and aplomb. It denotes a group of people. By definition, this group should be males only, but this is rarely the case, because the feminine alternatives of this word are nonexistent.

 

And please don’t say “gals.” It’s no good. Use this word in almost any context and you’ll sound like an idiot.

If you live in the South, you have the option of “y’all,” which I actually like a lot, but again, if you use it outside the South, you sound like an idiot.

I’ve heard people use the word “ladies” as an alternative, but “ladies” lacks the casual ease of “guys.” “Ladies” is like a pretentious brunch. “Guys” is a like a burger and fries. 

And besides, there is a masculine counterpart to “ladies,” therefore maintaining “guys” singular status.  

So when I am working with a student-teacher, my solution to the “guys” issue is simple:

I make sure that I use the word in the presence of the college supervisor before my student-teacher does. This will either afford my student-teacher permission to use the word (if the teacher is modeling the use of the word, how can I fault her?), or it will cause the college supervisor to engage in a discussion about the use of the word, which is always highly entertaining.