Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 618

Subtly ignored

Elysha and I enjoy Five Guys Burgers and Fries quite a bit.

Actually, we like the burgers a lot but no longer order the fries.  They're okay, but nothing great.

But since everything is cooked in peanut oil and they offer free peanuts from boxes positioned around the restaurant, we cannot take our peanut-allergic daughter there for lunch.

It's like a death-trap for anyone with a peanut allergy.

Still, we love the place and look forward to opportunities to eat there.

But one thing bothers me:

The amount of self-congratulatory advertising that they plaster over their walls. 

  

It borders on ego-maniacal, and it seems fairly pointless. 

We're already in the restaurant, eating your food.  At that point, just make sure the food is excellent and we'll come back for more.  This is the kind of advertising that one uses to bring customers in the door. 

It's not supposed to be used to assault our senses once we are inside.

In fact, it strikes me as slightly under-confident, which in my mind is one of the worst things a business can be. 

Top 10 post-wedding thoughts

Last night's wedding was the first of the year.  Amidst the mixing of music and making announcements came the following random thoughts:

_______________________________________________

1.  I have no respect for a minister or justice of the peace who requires a microphone at a wedding ceremony.  The ability to project one's voice should be a prerequisite for the job.

2.  Vodka and Diet Coke are two words that should never be spoken together.

3.  One of the most embarrassing moments as a DJ was the night that I accidentally played the Jerry Maguire mix of Springsteen's Secret Garden, with dialogue by Tom Cruise, Renee Zellweger and Cuba Gooding, Jr. interspersed throughout the song.  A four-minute cringe that I am reminded of every time I play the correct version of the song (I deleted the Jerry Maguire version immediately after playing it). 

4.  The bride and groom should never be criticized for scheduling their wedding on the Saturday before Easter. There's no such thing as Easter Eve, jerk-face. 

5.  If you are so tall that you can see over the restroom stall, you should never choose the urinal directly adjacent to the stall, especially when the DJ is changing into his tuxedo and likes to put on a fresh pair of underwear prior to a wedding because it makes him feel a little better about the next seven hours he will spend on his feet.

6.  When your dress is shorter than the tee-shirt that my wife wears to bed, it ceases being attractive. 

7.  Announcing that the groom's favorite hockey team is winning is never recommended, because when the Bruins give up the tying goal with eight minutes left and are eventually forced to win in a shoot-out after a full overtime period, you spend the remainder of the wedding worried that Boston might lose and you will look like a jackass for insisting that the DJ announce the score before the game was over.  

8.  Flirting with the DJ in order to get him to play The Cupid Shuffle is both ineffectual and embarrassing for the both of us.   

9.  The value of a competent, experienced maid of honor cannot be overestimated. 

10.  As much as I love Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World, Joey Ramone's version of the song is emphatically better.

You made that look easy, George. Well played, sir.

Sucks when one of your core issues gets turned on its head and your find yourself suddenly sleeping with the enemy. 

You are probably a better judge of interesting or unusual than me

I am working on an author questionnaire for my publisher and must answer the following question:

Tell us anything about you as a working writer that you think might be interesting or unusual. 

I decided to crowd-source the answer.  Thoughts anyone?

Full contact yoga?

You know that Living Social is a successful business model when I purchase their "20 yoga lessons for $20" deal.

Me.  Yoga.

I know. 

I was told that improved flexibility would help my golf swing, and I figured that if I didn't like it, I could just pass the lessons onto my wife or someone else who might be interested.

Plus I have a friend who is a yoga instructor who might be interested in partnering with me in creating a new form of yoga that includes score keeping, offense and defense, winners and losers.

I want to take the boring out of yoga.

Best book club ever

My book club got a mention in Shelf Awareness today, courtesy of author John Milliken Thompson.

People were already jealous of our couples book group.  I have visited with more than a dozen book clubs over the past three years, and I have yet to attend one that has a male member. 

The idea of a couples book club was downright revolutionary. 

And now a mention in Shelf Awareness?

We're pretty much the best club in America now. 

Even if one or two of us fail to finish the book in any given month.

Shut up, Teacher Man.

I have often said that the less a teacher speaks, the more a student learns. 

John Hunter, creator of the World Peace Game and recent TED Talk speaker, said something similar but significantly more profound:

"I don't have to control every conversation and response in the classroom. The students' collective wisdom is much greater than mine."

John Hunter is right.  In fact, I believe that this is the hardest but most important lesson that a teacher can learn. 

Thankfully, I was able to begin the process of learning this lesson during my first year of teaching, thanks to the honesty and directness of colleague and friend.   

I was teaching second grade, in a time before Smartboards and laptops and much of the technology that dominates a classroom today.  I was teaching writing to my students one morning, and I was having a blast. 

The lights in the classroom were switched off and I was projecting a student-written poem onto onto a screen using an overhead projector.  We were revising and editing the poem together, and the kids were doing great.  They were just seven years old but I had them commenting on line break choices, the effectiveness of similes and metaphors and alternative word choices.  I was scribbling their thoughts and ideas all over the poem, making it look like the mess that good revision should be.   

I was so proud of them. 

And when we finished with the poem, we moved onto another.  And another.  And another. 

I have no idea how long the lights were turned off that day and how long those poems were projected on that screen, but eventually my colleague, my mentor, my role model, and a future character in MEMOIRS OF AN IMAGINARY FRIEND walked into my room, bent down beside me, and whispered the three words that have echoed throughout my teaching career:

"You're killing them."

That was all she said, but that was all that needed to be said.  I lifted my head above the warm glow of the overhead projector and looked into the dull, disinterested, sleepy eyes of my students who had been listening to me for entirely too long.

A minute later the lights were back on, the kids were eating snacks, and I was desperately trying to find ways for them to learn without having to listen to me.

Those three words, "You're killing them," have guided my career.  They eventually became the foundation of my teaching philosophy and the impetus for my core belief that learning should always be fun, independent, and self-directed, regardless of the day or the subject, and that the teacher should do his best to get the hell out of their way.  

This is the essence of John Hunter's TED Talk, and it is clear that he follows these principles much better than I could ever hope to do.   

This is what I mean when I say that the effectiveness of a teacher can be determined by the ease in which you can walk into a classroom and have a conversation with the teacher without bringing student learning to a halt. 

This is the lesson that I try to pass down to new teachers, student teachers and even veteran teachers who have become what my mentor and friend calls The Sage on Stage.  These are teachers who have forgotten that their voice should be heard the least in a classroom.  These are teachers whose students are not engaged in interesting, student-directed work during the majority of their school day.  These are teachers who do not believe that every educator has the responsibility to make school fun for their students, because when they are having fun, they are learning best. 

I constantly ask myself if I am killing them again. 

And sometimes I am. 

Sometimes I fall back into those bad habits of too much talk and not enough work.  But thankfully my friend's words have never stopped ringing in my ears. 

Thankfully I know enough to look up from time to time to see if my kids are smiling, reading, writing, calculating and talking to one another. 

Are they laughing? 

Or are they just listening?

Titanic under the big top

Am I the only one who thinks the Water for Elephants trailer makes the movie look like James Cameron's Titanic restaged at the circus?

Han Solo still rules. Even if he is a murderer.

The Internet makes me happy.  It brings together people with tiny, insignificant, extremely relevant beliefs. 

It lets me know that I am not alone.

My talk included wishing for the death of an elderly woman and the apparent arrival of her ghost

A couple of weeks ago I participated in the Books on the Nightstand Retreat, which I've written about previously.

Nine authors came together with about one hundred readers to talk about books. 

On Saturday morning I conducted a one-hour session on the decisions that authors must make in the process of publishing a book (ironic since I had been forced to decide upon two offers for my next book as we drove to Vermont), and then later in the evening all nine authors came together to speak to an audience of well over one hundred people on a topic of our choice.

The organizers of the event, the illustrious Ann Kingman and Michael Kindness, recorded these 10-15 minute talks and have been releasing them as part of their Books on the Nightstand weekly podcast.

This week's podcast includes my talk.

I have yet to listen to the recording. 

My original plan that evening was to speak to the group about my books, read a short passage from UNEXEPECTEDLY, MILO, and tell an amusing story from earlier in the day.  But I changed my mind as I rose from my chair and approached the podium and instead spoke about the writing and the need for more people to write in today's world. 

Since it was fairly unprepared, I am afraid to listen to the results.  Every unrehearsed "um" or "ah" will be like a thousand tiny cuts into my soul.

I am a bit of a perfectionist, despite the absolute lack of perfection in almost everything I do.  I live a life of perpetual dissatisfaction, but I don't typically have to re-live my failures.

So I may avoid listening to this week's podcast altogether. 

Still, I think the talk went well despite my unprepared state, my wish for an elderly woman's death, and the apparent arrival of her spirit mid-talk.  If you are interested, you can listen to the podcast on the Books on the Nightstand website or download it from iTunes and perhaps become a regular listener.  And I did listen to the other author featured in the podcast, Ellen Meeropol, and she is most certainly worth a listen.