Basketball changed my life.

Basketball changed my life. (Part I: my experience)

I went to a basketball camp in 6th grade-ish.  I don't remember anything except that I went because my friend was going, I had never played before, and I was repeatedly embarrassed by not being strong enough to get the ball to the rim from the free throw line.  I'd only played soccer up to that point; my arms didn't have what it takes.  The next year I joined the basketball team, again because of a friend (no, a NEW one!).  I was the last player on the bench.  I didn't get much better over the course of the year, either. I barely played and only scored 10 points in the season, but it awakened something in me.  For the first time in my life, I knew what I wanted.  I wanted to be good at basketball.

I don't need to go into the details, but basketball dominated my life for the next five years.  Looking back now, it was an unhealthy obsession.  And, oddly enough, it was all mine.  My parents supported me whole-heartedly (my dad bought me a hoop and paved part of our gravel driveway, paid for summer camps, etc), but it was almost as if I were possessed.  My family didn't follow sports at all, and for several years it wasn't uncommon for me to have to explain the basic rules of the game.  Yet, they took me to practices, helped drive the team to our games, and were proud of my successes.  I can't imagine how that feels as a parent.  Your kid just takes off in a direction you've never prompted?  Is entirely self-motivated by something you don't fully understand?

When my high school playing "career" ended, it nearly broke me.  I had nothing to guide me.  In the previous five years, I had never looked beyond that last game.  I wasn't ready.  I had a few college opportunities, but as I evaluated my options and slowly accepted it didn't make sense for me to chase a college roster spot out of desperation, I faced depression.  What had I spent the bulk of my teenage life thinking, dreaming about? How many hours had I spent with only an inflated rubber sphere for company? To what end had I practiced daily? The crazy part is I was playing for a small Christian school.  We weren't competing for a state title.  We were struggling to compete against other small private schools.  Yet, it was all I thought about.  That was a good lesson for me, looking back: it doesn't matter how much you should care, or how much others think you should care. It only matters how much you do care, in that moment.  There's not necessarily a rational connection between your emotions and what is at stake.  It's easy for an outsider, or even current me, to look back and say "why was winning the HCC basketball championship the most important goal in your life" but ultimately the "why" doesn't change anything.  I had never wanted anything more; I knew nothing else.

Now, I recognize that I would be a far lesser person without that experience (and I'm also thankful I wasn't a scholarship athlete in college).  Basketball, and sports as a whole, introduced me to the world.  I was about the shyest kid you could imagine.  Homeschooled, quiet, with a handful of friends from church or other homeschooled families, mainly both.  I played for the community soccer league but I was a complete outsider.  My teammates went to school together and played club together.  I showed up to practice, hardly said a word, and went home, no less silently.  The hospital my dad worked for once made a documentary about our family (he's an ER doc), and when the video team was trying to interview us individually, and I would not say a word to them.  My older sister spoke for me a majority of my childhood.

Then, basketball.  I was getting better.  Sophomore year I was a co-captain, along w/ my friend David (the reason I had joined in 7th grade) and a star senior point guard, Caleb.  I had never wanted to be a leader, I just wanted to be good.  You can't really separate the two in a team sport, though, especially in a small environment where skill is hard to come by.  Being good meant being a leader.

Like most kids who fall in love with basketball, I loved to score.  The higher the level of difficulty, the better.  Early on, basketball was mainly about the obvious glory, points, and maybe steals.  It wasn't until I became a skilled player, and was looked to as a leader, that I started to understand the rest of the game.  The responsibility of leadership forced me to recognize the importance of the little things.  Boxing out.  Communication.  Ultimately, what I wanted to do was win, and I had to find the best way to do that.  When we lost, I blamed myself.  It was not uncommon for me to cry in the locker room after a loss, feeling the weight of the final outcome on my shoulders.  By my senior year, I had reached a point where I took more joy from managing a game than I did from making a difficult basket.  I still took most of the shots, but if we had a better strategy, I was willing to employ it.

So, basketball not only turned me into a leader, it turned me into an competitor.  I loved to compete and played every sport our school offered, meaning I ended up a relatively well-rounded athlete, even though I specialized as much as I could in basketball.  This gave me practice applying diverse strategies across many sports, and starting to think more like a coach.  It also meant I was a captain essentially year-round, giving me plenty of time to learn how to lead (and also inflate my ego to nearly irreparable levels).

Being a go-to player develops a certain mindset, and I didn't resist it.  I thought I was hot stuff for a while.  Part of me recognizes a significant part of my adult life has been spent recovering from the hubris I succumbed to as a big fish in a minuscule pond.  It does weird things to your head, being worshipped.  Ask Alexander the Great, or Matt Munsil. Basil Inman. Or literally any 21st century celebrity. That being said, I'm convinced having a healthy amount of confidence is about the hardest thing for an individual to attain, and a tightrope that requires constant focus.  If your choices are being insecure or prideful, I'd rather have to talk myself down than talk myself up.  Now that I'm rationally detached from the person I was in high school, we've arrived at a mutual understanding of sorts (me and myself).  Last Christmas I dug up a few old HS tapes, and honestly, they were tough to watch.  Current-coach me is not a fan of high-school-player me.  But, I did the best I could with what I knew at the time, so. What can you do.

All that I set out to say is that I can look back at that experience as a whole and I'm awestruck by the impact it has had on my life.  The good outweighs the bad, and it's not even close.  How many of our current high school athletes will be able to do the same?  How many kids that I've coached will be able to look back at their playing experience and identify watershed moments that helped define the person they've become? Sports reveal character, and allow you to build on it.  Competition is a test, and there is no substitute.

Sports are part of education. (Part II: maybe a kinda-sorta rant)

You know the part in The Fault in Our Stars when ex-basketball star Augustus Waters somewhat bitterly points out the absurdity of practicing throwing a sphere through a circle?  John Green is basically throwing a bone to everyone who doesn't "get" sports.  "Haha," they think, "he's right, sports are pointless."  The joke is on them, though, because Green doesn't mean it; he thinks that version of Augustus is wrong about basketball.  Have you seen Green's sports Twitter account? He's a rabid sports fan.  Augustus is only at second-level thought, in that particular instance.  If you love a sport, at first you just play, or watch (level one).  Then, at some point, hopefully, you question it (level two).  Questioning things is easy.  Teenagers specifically and Millennials in general are prone to mistake skepticism for intelligence.  I could take anything you do in a given day and point out the absurdity of it all.  You can do it for what you learn in any class in school.  The point where you come back around and recognize the deeper, perhaps even universal and eternal value to our particular actions is when you start to transcend absurdity (level three).  I've gone through the same perspectives Augustus had towards basketball, but I managed to come back around on a higher level.  That's a big reason why I'm not an advocate for any particular sport, but rather try to promote physical activity and competition of any kind.  To me, the value of basketball is ultimately not in the specific rules and regulations of the sport, but simply the fact it is a physical challenge with benefits across the entire spectrum of life, long-term.  

This is what bothered me about Scottsdale Prep's approach to athletics.  It felt like the people in charge were settling for Augustus' perspective: "For some reason kids enjoy running in circles on a track and it doesn't make sense but they'll definitely be mad if we don't have a track team so well I guess we should have a track team."  I'm exaggerating, but it felt like lip-service at times.  It felt like our administration knew they had to say certain things about sports, but ultimately they didn't get it, or worse, didn't care.  The best way to summarize it is that the athletic department was swimming against the current: we had to fight for everything we got.  It's not just important to say athletics are important, they are important in and of themselves.  I've written before about the false dichotomy between being an athlete and being a scholar.  Because we tend to stereotype and generalize, few athletes become teachers and few teachers respect athletes.  This is true everywhere, not just Great Hearts, yet I believe that a general apathy from school faculty toward athletics can be overcome by a proper outlook from the top; the administrative vision is vital in bridging the gap.  And I'm not suggesting that every school administrator have a significant background in sports, but merely that, if they don't, they should understand that they need to allow people who do, like the Athletic Director, have a significant role in policy forming.  At least recognize there is something you don't fully understand, and trust someone who does, rather than acting like there is nothing to understand.

P.S. the solution to the Great Hearts athletics "problem" is not to merge schools.  It's to give anything more than the minimum level of attention and commitment to athletics.  The problem is the opposite they pretend it to be.  They are acting like it's their students who aren't capable of competing, but it's them who are placing their student-athletes in a position to fail.  If you scare away quality athletes by 1) revealing your apathy (it's obvious to those who know what to look for) and 2) pretending like the curriculum is harder than it is because you want to build your "brand", and then 3) you don't provide basic necessities like FIELDS or decent pay to attract quality coaches for the students who do choose to stay, all while frantically spending $$$ opening as many new schools as you can across the country, guess what, your sports programs aren't gonna be great and you're not fooling anyone.  Well, you're not fooling me.

Unfortunately, since classical education and Great Hearts draw academic types like a moth to a conflagration, even less of them know what it means to compete: to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield — on the field.  You cannot understand something you have not experienced, and too many school faculty have not experienced the glory of sport.  No sympathy was shown for those committed to extracurricular endeavors.  Teachers often treated early dismissal as a personal affront.  Athletes who missed their class were targets.  Sure, we can agree that it's not an ideal situation to miss school for sports, but that's our reality.  The presumption that what you had to say in sixth period Tuesday was unquestionably more valuable than the experience of competing, of striving for greatness, of being part of a team?  I just wanted to scream.  It's not just a GAME.  This isn't RECESS.  This is war and peace, this is life and death, this is bigger than you; this has every opportunity to be as life-changing as discussing the rage of Achilles in Book 1 of the Iliad in Humane Letters.

I should not feel obligated to qualify anything, but I do.  I totally get both sides, I really do. I've been both a high school athlete and a high school teacher.  They are both wrong, to some degree.  It's true high school athletes would nearly always choose playing a sport over attending class, and rarely have long-run awareness of the value of what they are doing — not in the way I'm describing, at least.  And it's true that it's tough on teachers to have students miss material.  But, really, is it that hard to see the other side's perspective?  It is that hard for teachers to recognize that their students have slaved and sweated and cried and given everything they have for their school? For their teammates? Their colors?  Instead, sports are commonly treated as a diversion.  A distraction from what truly matters, whether that's learning Latin or reading Dostoevsky or singing in the choir.  If you've never played a sport, what do you think happens at practice?  Do you imagine it to be relaxing?  Refreshing? Not in my experience.  Practice is work, whether or not you enjoy it.  And no I'm not saying athletes should have less homework or anything like that.  Just don't act like what students do outside of school hours isn't difficult and important and rewarding, too.

To elaborate, there are plenty of extracurriculars and hobbies students do that are beneficial to them, and should be treated with respect.  What I'm pointing out is the tendency for adults and teachers to dismiss anything they don't value personally.  Because of my focus on community, my own bias is towards school-sponsored activities, and anything done within community.  So, yes, given the choice I'd promote participation in a school group over an outside solo project.  I think sports get a bad rap for many reasons, and admittedly some of those are because of the kids themselves.

No, if you grabbed a student-athlete who was boarding a bus for an away game and asked him what he was gaining from this, he would probably say something about being willing to do anything to get out of class.  Girls say the same thing, of course.  I'm not faulting teachers for knowing that is the answer to their question, I'm faulting them for believing it.  When you're an athlete, every game, every play, is an opportunity to learn something about yourself, an opportunity to pursue excellence, a chance to change your stars.  That's a fact, whether or not the athletes are capable of communicating it at the time.

It's hard to sit by and watch a school say they're committed to athletics while simultaneously handicapping every team's potential.  How do you tell your bosses they don't understand? You don't; you leave, frustrated.

What is Physical Education for? (Part III: my attempt to justify PE classically)

Is it so students have an energy outlet and can be calmer for their real classes? Is it to burn calories the students would otherwise collect to their detriment? It is to learn rules of sports many students have no interest in? Is it to smear the queers? Note to self, don't put that last one in the syllabus.

What is the goal of physical education, really.

This is what I need to be able to explain to middle schoolers.  Not that they're looking for an explanation.  But still. They should be.

I think we've lost sight of the physical aspect of being human. When I saw "we", I think I mean academics.  Teachers.  When we ask what it means to be human, how often do we mention being physically active? Competing? Courage, maybe?  Too rarely, I think.  And too often, we associate intellectuals with overweight bearded fellows with thick glasses scribbling unintelligibly on a whiteboard.  Are those the people living Socrates' idea of the examined life? I've never thought so.  At Hillsdale, I always had immense respect for the professors who were physically active.  There were some I played basketball with occasionally, others I saw in the racquetball court at the gym, and of course plenty who told stories about bicycling or cross country skiing, etc., over the weekend.  One of my econ profs was an ultra-marathoner, appropriately named Dr. Steele.  That, I thought, is the good life.  A balance.  Mind and body.

So why doesn't anyone else think this way? What's wrong with us?

We've taken specialization too far.  We're surprised to see professional athletes reading books (Shane Battier, anyone?), and the idea of a NFL player retiring in his prime to pursue a Ph.D is beyond comprehension.  We are shocked if a high school teacher can make a 3-pointer (Kirsten Byers?). We settle.

The Greeks are at the foundation of the Western Tradition.  They have some of the greatest thinkers in history to their credit, and their society also produced the Olympics.  Homer's Odyssey was a mix: an epic poem advancing through physical action.

Plato, the Greek philosopher, talked about something called "thumos".  Ever heard of it? There's no word that directly translates to English, which supports my overall point, methinks.  It means something like "passion to defend what you love", or "spiritedness".  It's usually used in context with soldiers and war, which in the ancient world meant hand-to-hand combat.  We don't do that much anymore.  In some ways, I think Ray Lewis might have been the male embodiment of "thumos" for the early 21st century.  Or maybe the entire New Zealand All Blacks team.

I'm not saying those guys are role models, necessarily.  But isn't thumos undervalued?  Where do we even have an opportunity to display "thumos" anymore? When a guy makes a move on your girlfriend, do you punch him?  No, that's too macho.  Outdated.  Or maybe she's not worth it?  I tend to be pretty old school in those matters.

So, the sporting arena is one of the few places left where "thumos" is valued and appreciated.  Fact is, many of our greatest competitors are only great because of their capacity for "thumos".  Muhammad Ali ("I am the greatest").  Ricky Henderson ("I am the greatest of all time").  Or, more recently, Richard Sherman or The Mountain (I AM THE FUTURE OF STRENGTH).

The Richard Sherman interview after the Super Bowl is a great example.  It's one of the rare times we didn't let the professional athlete come down from the mental high he generated in order to make a great play.  And in the aftermath, we revealed our hypocrisy.  We want the performance, but not the backstory.  In order to compete at a high level, you must have thumos.  But if you verbalize your mentality, you are rejected by society.  I'd be willing to bet Sherman understands this.  Many professional athletes do, but few are willing to run the gauntlet.  Society yearns for greatness, even just to witness it (why else do so many people watch sports?), but if you presume to think you're better than someone else, there's something wrong with you.  On the field as a competitor, Peyton Manning thinks more like Richard Sherman than he will ever show you.  He has to. He expects to complete a pass every time he drops back. But Peyton's never going to say it, because he knows how humans work.

Thumos is morally ambiguous.  Having it isn't necessarily good or bad.  We should be able to agree, however, that thumos can be misdirected and unbalanced.  An excess of misguided thumos is why we get high school linebackers trying to choke out school nurses. (At the beginning of this school year we went through a training session where the nurse claimed three different football players had attempted to choke her over the past 10 years. Because they were mad at their teachers.)  And of course there's the obvious connection to the domestic violence issue in the NFL.

The character closest associated with thumos might be Achilles.  He was a hero in Homer's epic poem The Odyssey.  If Achilles were alive today, I don't know that we'd call him a hero.  It's more likely we'd call him an asshole.  He's reckless and arrogant.  When he kills Hector, the greatest warrior of Troy, he shows no respect for his defeated opponent.  He can't turn it off.

The man I named as the modern embodiment of thumos, Ray Lewis, may have murdered someone.  That's not good.

So can thumos be good?  Well, it leads us to greatness, doesn't it? Excellence?  There's an obvious relationship between excellence and Truth, Beauty, Goodness.  And no one can deny that thumos is distinctly human.  Nothing else in nature demonstrates the quality.

Where am I going with this.  Thumos used to be part of the human experience.  It's more rare now, and nearly exclusively combined to athletic competition.  Like anything else, it needs to be moderated, but we can't ignore it completely or pretend we've moved past it.

At risk of turning this into a thesis, I want to briefly say that thumos is a valuable trait for females to possess as well.  There are fewer obvious examples in pop culture, but I can name any number of girls I've coached who demonstrate the quality.  Girls who won't back down from anyone, who expect to beat the best their opponent has to offer (even if their opponent is their own body), and actively use this mindset to pursue greatness.  In fact, it may be more natural for girls to moderate thumos, which we why we have fewer examples like Ray Lewis on the female side.

So, without drawing any particularly controversial conclusions, I'd like to suggest that sports provide us a unique opportunity to tap into our humanity.

Now, the flip side.  While thumos is great for developing confidence, self-reliance, and a desire to be challenged and prevail, it's primarily an individual thing.  The beauty of sport is that it also the best place to learn teamwork, trust, and sacrifice.  When teaching Economics, I frequently highlight the choice between cooperation and every-man-for-himself.  Playing a team sport can be one of the earliest opportunities to break out of the seemingly default perspective that the world exists for you. The first time you realize the team comes before everything else, your perspective is altered forever.  It's not about you, it's about something bigger than you.  Sometimes that takes the form of a team, and I have often starting seeing kids start to understand that on the field.

I know I've already said more than you care to read, but here's a few more things in passing.  Discipline & time-management.  Self-control.  Mental toughness.  Shared experiences and memories.  I don't think I need to carry out the arguments for those benefits of playing sports and being on a team, they are relatively self-explanatory.  And finally..

Games teach us about justice.  Often our earliest experiences with unjustice involve someone breaking a rule on the playground, or cheating at Monopoly, even.  If you're an 6th-grader and the high schoolers keep making rules to their advantage on the four square court, you know it's wrong.  That is an introduction of sorts to natural law as well as the importance of the rules we live by.  In Book VII of Plato's Laws he points out that "the character of the games played [in any given city] is decisive for the establishment of the laws"... The games we play say a lot about us individually, but also as cities and nations.

Again, to clarify, I love the liberal arts.  I love reading, I love learning, and I'm seriously considering pursuing a PhD and someday leading a school.  You can't get much more academic than that.  I had a educational "conversion experience" in college, and attending Hillsdale College is possibly the only decision more influential in my life than playing basketball in 7th grade.  But I'm passionate about both (all) sides of the equation.  If I were living in a community where academics are subverted and athletics are highlighted, I would be writing from the opposite perspective.  As it is now, I cannot ignore I am the product of sport; basketball changed my life.


Sources:
Should We Teach Plato In Gym Class?

"On the Seriousness of Sports" by James V. Schall

Nightcap convos with John Peterson

Mission statements by Founders Admin

Tammy Sanders

Endings matter so

Conclusions are important.

The end of the semester is one of my least favorite times of the year, both as a student and as a paren- I mean, teacher.  I began typing "parent" unintentionally. Foreshadowing? What? No. What? Finals start, and everyone is locked in on doing what they have to do to survive, then finals end and the semester is just over.  There's no time for reflection, no appreciation, nothing.  At Hillsdale, my friends finished finals on all sorts of days/times, and it was likely a majority of the friend group left town before anyone really acknowledged they were leaving.  You have a plane to catch, or a long drive ahead, and you don't have time to hunt everyone down and say goodbye, and the people you hunted down might resent you interrupting valuable study time, so you just hug the people you see on the way out and justify the rest by saying you'll see them next semester.  It's unfortunate, but unavoidable.

My worst semester ending was my first at Hillsdale.  I had pulled multiple all-nighters during the week (Thurs - Wed), and my last final was 8 a.m. Wednesday. Calculus. I finished at 10 a.m., and all my friends were gone.  I hadn't even been aware of the passage of time or what day it was; everything blurred together.  Funny story: I may have dozed off during the math final and scrawled some nonsentence about Dante's Inferno as an answer (my previous final had been English).  Thankfully I woke up and realized the potential disaster, pulled myself together, and finished the test with mostly number responses.  I can only call it a funny story because I still pulled out an "A" in Calc that semester (Calc 2 is a much different, much longer, story).  Also, it's important to note that I learned from that experience.  I got better at finals, and sleeping, later.

My master plan called for me to move dorms (from Simpson to the Suites, long story) by myself, then drive the 8 hours home (by myself).  I had no one to help me move, so this involved several car trips in freezing weather on no sleep.  There's this one brutal scene where my biggest piece of furniture (a papasan) won't fit in my car so I'm balancing it on the roof as I drive through the snow. A combination of all the most horrible things in life: moving, sleep deprivation, cold, solitude...  Between every trip I would collapse on the sheetless bed and give myself a pep talk to keep going.  More than anything, I just wanted to make it home and sleep in my own bed.  The worst part was, they were closing down the dorms so I couldn't have stayed if I wanted to.

Once I'd moved everything, I started driving, made it an hour or so, then pulled over and slept in a parking lot.  Remember, I was going on no sleep, a math final, and moving by myself.  The only reason I woke up was because my body was slowly freezing (try napping in a car for an hour when it's 10 degrees out), but my extremities somehow resisted hypothermia and I made it the rest of the way home.

The same thing happens now as a young teacher... everyone just wants to get home, and very few of my friends are actually from Phoenix, so that means the last few days are full of trips to the airport and hasty goodbyes.  Different schools end at different days/times, too, which doesn't help.  My only warning that Travis was leaving for good was that he yelled "Merry Christmas!" as he slammed the door on his way out.  I was left on the couch thinking... "hmm, that's unusual behavior, I wonder when I'll see him again..." Sub-optimal for sure.

It's obvious that the finals system is to blame here, rather than a lack of planning ahead on our part. Tongue-in-cheek?  Either way, the solution is far less obvious.  In fact, as a teacher I've been just as frustrated.

I have two scenarios.  First, Economics.  Their final is group presentations, and it takes the entire period.  No opportunity to address them one last time, and I won't teach them again in the spring.
Then, Medieval History.  I give them a final and they usually have some time left at the end of the period, then I will see them again next semester.

Economics was tough because their presentations ran long this time, meaning the whole class had to stay over the assigned hour forty-five slot.  So, our last experience together was a majority of the class getting stressed/annoyed, with a few unlucky students up front attempting to finish their presentation after the bell rang.  There's no way I could keep them longer and attempt to give a few final thoughts or even to thank them for a good semester, it wouldn't be fair.  It really bothers me that, after a semester of teaching those two sections, now I'll never have a chance to address that group all at once again.  Even though we had a great semester, I don't like the last experience, and that takes away from the overall experience.

Medieval is both more and less tough.  There is a lot of variation between when they finish the test, so the first student may be done a solid 30-40 minutes before the last.  In that time, my main requirement is to keep the classroom quiet.  Some kids are fine; they bring study materials or books, but most of them are as restless as you would imagine being after finishing a final exam.  So, they end up being loud, and what usually ends up happening is me rebuking/threatening the students for the last part of class.  I can't even realistically threaten them with detention, or send them out in the hall, or any of my go-to disciplinary tactics, because its the end of the semester.  It's a lose-lose situation.  Even if I were to settle them down successfully and talk to them the last 10 minutes before the bell rang, they wouldn't be listening. At all.  Which, would make me even more frustrated. I know because it's been a failed strategy in the past.

During that last week or so of school, the momentum is building so quickly that it becomes impossible to stop, or even slow down.  Ideally, I would be able to find a time to have a brief heart-to-hearts with the section, to review the semester and summarize a few takeaways, or things to think about for next year.  I failed this year, and it's on short list of things I haven't gotten better at over the first few years of teaching.  The closest thing I've come to a solution is note-writing... this year I managed to write a note to every student who brought me a gift, plus a few extra/special students.  The way I see it, if I know there won't be an opportunity for us to pause in the chaos together, I can pause it in writing on my own, and they can pause to read it later.  An imperfect solution, and not one I'm satisfied with.

The importance of endings is related to the "What have you done for me lately?" mentality, which says that a multitude of positives can be blotted out by one negative, if the negative comes at the end.  It's both entirely unfair, and entirely understandable.  I know its the way my memory works, and it takes a Herculean effort for me to see things in a more rational, balanced perspective.  One thing I'm good at is viewing other people in the long run.  Rather than judge them on their last interaction, I can average it out to have a more accurate opinion of them.  I'm much more hard on myself, though.  In each of the first two quarters, the worst week for me was the last week, and that has been driving me crazy.  It makes me feel like a failure.  I can't get around it.

Now for the sports analogy that you've all been waiting for!  It's not at all necessary, but it's a good story, and it's Christmas.

My freshman year, there was a quite open four-way race to be the 5th starter on the varsity basketball team.  Me, my two best friends (both named David), and my best friend's older brother, Bryan, who was a senior.  The coach used it as motivation the whole pre-season, and didn't tell us who'd he picked for the spot until the practice before the first game.  He picked me.

We were basically a two-man team, so the last three starters were very much role players, but still.  Starting varsity was a big deal, especially when you're beating out your friends.

I had played basketball for the first time in 7th grade, and I was the last player on the bench by a wide margin.  For whatever reason, I fell in love with it, and basketball became the single biggest focus of my high school life.  I wanted to be good at everything, but basketball more than anything.  Getting named a varsity starter as a freshman felt like all the work I'd put in over the previous two years was paying off.

I was unbelievably nervous/excited for the game.  It was an absolute disaster.  I had three traveling violations (4 total TO) in the first half, and I started the third quarter with another traveling call.  Kobe can get away with those stats, but not a freshman role player on a HS team coached by a lawyer.  I guess that's what happens when you spend your summer practicing without referees around and have an infamously quick first step.

So, there's me, sitting on the bench for the rest of the third quarter.  Was I crying, you ask? Yes.  I had just squandered my chance, everything I'd worked for was wasted.  The immensity of the failure was impossible to ignore.  I didn't start another varsity game that season.

That's a sad story, right? But, I skipped the ending.  I didn't tell you what happened in the fourth quarter.

By the fourth quarter, our team had opened up a lead, and the coach decided to give me a few more minutes.  I came into the game knowing I couldn't play worse than I had.

I got a pass on a breakaway and made a layup. Then a jumpshot from the left side.  Then an and-1 (FT good) on another fast break.  Then a 3-pointer (one of those that looked bad the whole way before kinda swishing through the side).  Then, I was fouled on a jumpshot and made 1-of-2 free throws.

11 points in the 4th.  More than any other role player scored in a game the whole season (with one exception).

The story isn't sad anymore.  I wasn't ready for varsity pressure, but I did have a high ceiling, potentially.  The coaches changed their approach to me as a result of that first game.  I was going to gain experience playing JV primarily.  So, freshman year I was the go-to guy on the JV team, and it made me an immensely more confident player, and a leader.  The next season I was a co-captain on the varsity team.

Fun game: you can measure how well you know me by the point in this blog where you realized it wasn't going to have a conclusion.  Before I started writing? Tom Sawyer level.  The title?  Jon Gregg level. The first sentence? No excuse for missing that cue, folks.
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Fine. The point of not having a conclusion?  If you feel somewhat robbed by the lack of a cohesive ending, that's the same feeling I get at the end of the semester.  If you feel like a lot of potential was lost, yeah.  And, obviously, these last few sentences are the filter through which you will view the earlier thoughts.  Now, whether you want to call this paragraph explaining why there's no conclusion a conclusion is up to you.

Did you see that coming, Tom?

How bout that?

The end.

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Just do something.

It seems like there should be a small gap between the thought "X should happen" and "I will do X".  All too often, that thought process is hijacked after "X should happen" into "Somebody should do X".  And when everyone is thinking "Somebody should do X", more often than not, "X" doesn't happen.

There's a term that applies to this, more or less: the bystander effect.  If you scroll down to the examples on that Wiki page, they are nothing short of shocking.  Twenty-five people walked by a man as he lay dying on the sidewalk, having been stabbed in NYC.  Eighteen walked by a toddler who had been hit by a truck in China.  Essentially, the more people observing a situation which requires action, the less of a chance any of them will act.  Everyone thinks someone else will do it.

This rationalization is even easier when you have reason to believe it is someone else's responsibility.  Why would you stop a crime if you aren't a police officer?  Why would you save someone drowning if you aren't a lifeguard?  We love to segment responsibility to justify inactivity.  There's plenty of evidence, for example, that people donate far more to charity when the government isn't involved in a cause.  Once the government takes on Hurricane Sandy relief, everyone else stops giving.

Students and schools provide another great example.

I've noticed over the last few years that our high school students complaints had a general theme to them: there is a lack of school spirit and very few non-academic extra-curricular outlets.  Basically, they felt as if the school asks them to go to class, do homework and go to practice, then sleep and do it all again.  Everything they do for the school is exhausting, mentally and physically.  Playing sports and doing Jazz Band and attending Quiz Bowl events are enjoyable, but they also require hard work.  It comes down to the "All work and no play theory", ultimately.  Is "play" necessary? What is play? Where does it come from?

The normal school outlets such as football games and dances have historically been poorly attended by our students.  We are a relatively young school, so many of the customary high school spirit traditions haven't been built up yet.

When this came up in the past, I always tried to sell it as a positive.  If we don't have traditions yet, that means the current students have the opportunity to shape the school into what they want it to be.  I always told them the change had to start with them.  They had to set the example, not wait for others to lead.

Anyway, I had that conversation many times with students last year.  But, I didn't really see any notable/systemic changes in behavior.

So, the problem we've identified is an absence of school spirit and extra-curricular activities/distractions of the "fun" variety.  Here's where the "bystander effect" comes into play...  All sides - students, parents, teachers, administration - can see and acknowledge the problem, but no one views it is part of their "job description", so to speak. Administration has more important things to worry about, Parents don't have the access required, Teachers don't have the time, and Students don't have the mindset/authority.

I am totally committed to Scottsdale Prep.  At the same time, I'm close enough with my students that they feel comfortable coming to me with their complaints.  So, it has been really hard for me to see my students so unsatisfied, especially in an area that seems so fixable, and feel powerless to help them.  Am I powerless, though?  Of the four sides, it seems like teachers have the best opportunity to make a difference.

So, to recap.
Year 1: Too overwhelmed to recognize any problems, much less attempt to solve them.
Year 2: Acknowledge legitimate student complaints, verbally guide them toward solutions.
Year 3: ???

In short, my mindset entering the year was to be the catalyst for the students.  When I heard/thought "Someone should...", the someone is always going to be me.  I was going to help make ALL the "X's" happen.

There are a few reasons I had this mindset.  First, no one else came to mind to fill this leadership role (the Myers-Briggs personality test has me pegged as an INTJ (introverted, intuitive, thinking, judging) — one of the major characteristics is being reluctant to lead but capable when necessary. ..(Seriously, skim over that INTJ description and you will understand me so much better)... Secondly, the DO ALL THE THINGS mindset was at least partially leftover from our month-long Europe trip.  When you're traveling, you live every day as if you may never come back.  Mainly because it's true. That is only sustainable over short periods of time, though.  When I look back at Europe, I'm still amazed at how much we fit into every single day.  A day in Europe is like 4-5 days of a typical summer schedule, maybe more. Anyway.  Finally, this was the first year of teaching that I wasn't going to be coaching a fall sport, so I figured I had some extra time to work with.

Here's the list of extra-curricular accomplishments from the 1st quarter:
-Created a Spartan Twitter account so that game updates could be sent out instantaneously.
-Sent out updates from the Twitter account nearly every day.
-Oversaw an unofficial weekly group of students discussing God and religion.
-Started Four Square Club, which now has 30+ members and weekly "meetings".
-Assigned an economics project to see which section could get the most people to a football game
-Designed/ordered the t-shirts for Homecoming, which had been an area of complaint last year.
-Made the playlist for home football games, and DJ-ed games.
-Put together a weekly Athletic Update sent out to all parents w/ team summaries.
-Started a weekly Ultimate Frisbee game that turned into an Ultimate Frisbee Club.
-Facilitated a game of Senior Assassin which is now running smoothly w/o me.
-Advised students on the best way to get a "Powderpuff" (girls flag) football tourney going.
-Applied to Guinness World Records for a chance to beat Longest Marathon Four Square game (29+ hours).. response pending.

 All of this is in addition to attending multiple school athletic events per week, often volunteering, always tweeting updates.  Twitter alone has provided a visible boost to school spirit this year so far, in my opinion.

Oh, one example from before this quarter.  When I coach Sand Volleyball, we have open practices on Saturdays.  Anyone can show up and play, which I like because my girls get to play against guys and beat them. This is doubly worthwhile because it puts the boys in their place and gives the girls training playing against unusually athletic competition.  The tradition continued after the season, and there was a whole group who got together and played regularly over the summer.

In a few of those examples, I had significant initiative from students, but I took the step to give them the responsibility.  I specifically asked a few students to help design the homecoming shirt, with great results.  I helped create the rules for Senior Assassin, which are currently being enforced by an alum.

I abandoned many other aspects of my life in order to accomplish these things, but teaching was not one of those aspects.  In the first quarter, I was by far the best-organized and prepared I have been as a teacher so far.  I also managed to work out regularly, which I've found vital to maintaining high energy levels from day to day.  Beyond that, I didn't have much of a life.  Many of my relationships suffered, and my focus on building community amongst the faculty wavered.  I was not paid for accomplishing any of those things on the list, which is especially painful considering I actually lost money from not coaching and many of my friends spent the quarter prepping for the GRE.  So, was it worth it?

I'd like to think I've had an impact on the students' school experience this year, and I love that I can provide immediate help for the students that I've known for years and care so much about.  Without those connections, I certainly wouldn't have considered this project.  But, my goal is also far more wide-reaching than just this year.  I want those students to get to a point where they don't rely on other people to make things happen.  They need to become self-reliant.  High school is such a crucial time in realizing this and making the leap to be an initiater.  Once that leap happens for them, it will benefit them the rest of their lives.  I suspect it comes naturally to me because my own high school provided so few possibilities, and we all had to make our own fun.    If our upperclassmen can get over the mental hurdle and begin taking more initiative, the rest of the students will follow their example, and I won't even be necessary.  Not only that, but if I can build the framework this year for activities that are repeatable next year, we may even start having a few traditions beyond studying for final exams every semester.  Again, the reason I can justify doing all of this volunteer work is because I think the impact will continue beyond this year.  Our school has a great curriculum, great teachers, and great families.  I'm trying to build a sense of community while correcting the belief that an academically rigorous school cannot be fun.  If we can have both strong academics and genuine school spirit, Scottsdale Prep will be unstoppable.

The best example of the full spectrum of change so far is Ultimate Frisbee club.  There's a senior who had mentioned the possibility of an Ultimate Frisbee club to me for a couple years.  My typical response: "Get it started, and I will gladly be the faculty advisor."  Well, one day he brought it up again and I just said: "Name a time and place. Okay. Now tell all your friends."  Well, he did, and I told my classes, and that was that.  It was huge for him to realize it didn't even have to be a club.  They didn't have to jump through tons of official red tape hoops to get together and play frisbee regularly.  Since then, the senior has turned it into a real club, contacted another Great Hearts school with a club, and scheduled a game — all without my direct influence or input.  The game was played while I was out of town.  Scottsdale Prep won.

Via Ferrata: Week 1

Here's my idea.  I'm going to write about four of my favorite experiences from the month in Europe last summer.  When I sat down to think about it, I wanted five, but only four came to mind immediately, and I'm not going to force it.  Besides, we were there for four weeks, so that sounds about right, if I pick one per week (and I did).  I'm not going to rank them 1 to 4, because that's not how I look at life.  I'm going to cover them in chronological order.

Our group dynamic was a complete mystery going in to the Europe trip.  We had Dani and I, who only take breaks from being a model couple when we're not around other people (and even then it's rare :-P); Dani and Christine, whose friendship had been kindled on a Eurotrip the previous summer; Christine and I, a pairing that I was far more comfortable with than Christine was, going in.  We're both competitive and stubborn, to similar degrees.  Basically, I had to give Christine a money-back guarantee to get her on board: if she didn't enjoy the trip, I'd pay her expenses.

Then there was Mark.  Mark is my younger brother by three years, and we've always been different and never been close.  I had brown hair/green(ish) eyes, he was blond-haired/blue-eyed.  I played mainstream sports, he preferred alternatives.  I took piano lessons, he insisted on drums.  I got suspended from high school due to a "disagreement" over whether choir should be a required course, he had many solo parts during his time in choir.  I had an inexplicable drive to get good grades that he never shared.  He likes poetry (even was known to write some) and dated several girls in high school, while I was a multiple choice kinda guy and never chose to have a girlfriend.  We also have an oldest sister (Jessica) and a youngest brother (Scott).  I could put together a similar paragraph about any two siblings, so don't get the idea that Mark or I are the odd duck.

Mark is a senior in college this year, so I figured it may be one of the last summers we both had time to travel.  We've talked about it (backpacking Europe) before, but it never worked out.  I got Dani and Christine to accept Mark as our fourth participant by assuring them he was nothing like me.

So.  That's the context for the context.  Next thing you know we're all in Ireland and committed to spending a month together on a hectic and foreign schedule.  The first few days had their rocky points — we all slept through a reserved tour that I had pre-paid for, Dani was sick for a few days, and we came as close as you can get to missing our flight out of Dublin. Stressful.

James Joyce is huge in Dublin, and, in the random near miss of the trip, our schedule had us leaving Dublin the day before Bloomsday, which is a huge celebration in honor of Joyce.  Would have been a nice touch.  Then, the next day, I left my Digital SLR Canon 40D on the train from Zurich to Interlaken.  When we got to Interlake, our hostel was a 30-minute walk from the train station. With 40 lb. backpacks. Cranky.

I'm not saying the first week was a bad experience, but that we were fighting hard to keep from letting the negatives bring us down, and it showed.  I still enjoyed that time, despite the difficulties, and I think the others would say the same.  It was also never openly acknowledged that we were having more trouble than would be reasonable to expect, but I had a vague feeling that we were a few mishaps away from a breakdown on some level.

Then we got to The Mountain Hostel in Gimmelwald, Switzerland. The place is the ultimate stress reducer.  Everything is slow, and beautiful.

Also cows.

One of the best things about being up in the Alps in Switzerland is that there was no pressure to do anything.  Most tourists are constantly checking things off a list as they move from place to place, but in this place, just being there is enough. You don't even need to hike, because the view is always there.

We made a few friends of strangers staying at the same hostel, and stayed up with them late into the night looking at the stars in the Alps from the side of a quiet mountain path.  The next day they told us about the Via Ferrata.

Via Ferrata means Iron Road.  We later learned that the term comes from a time when climbers placed iron spikes in paths up/through the Alps to make the trek easier for soldiers to follow.  The originals date back to the World Wars, but I doubt that the local path, from Murren to Gimmelwald, was original.


Our new friends had gotten up early and done the Via Ferrata, getting back around midday raving about the experience.  We were won over, and went to the Via Ferrata in the early afternoon.  Going there means buying a ticket on the cable car to Murren, which was the next Swiss village up the mountain (5 minutes via cable car and a few thousand feet of elevation), then walking to the Sport Shop on the far side of the village.  When we got there, the man behind the counter told us that he had shut down the route for the day, because of high winds.  There was apparently a significant chance of getting blown off the side of the Alps.  We were disappointed, and more than a little irrationally cocky ("if the wind blows stronger, we'll just hold on tighter"), but we let it go and headed back.  We took the path back, which winds along the side of the mountain, going downhill the whole way.  Dani and I used the afternoon to buy a ticket up to Mt. Schilthorn, the highest point on our range.  This involved a total of four cable car trips...

                                     Ask me if they filmed a Bond movie there.  Yes.


The next day was our last full day in the mountains.  We were all amped about the Via Ferrata by now, so we woke up and headed over early.  The man behind the counter absolutely crushed us by saying the wind was too strong, again.  As we hung our heads and left, convinced this was another setback in our early string (we're still under a week into the trip at this point), I asked if we could come back later and see if anything changed.  Even asking this was a stretch, because it cost us about $10 for the cable car and over an hour of our day every time we "checked" with him.  Thankfully, he was cooperative and gave us a number to call and told me a good time to check in.

In the meantime, we walked back to the hostel.  This was our second 40-minute walk on the same trail in less than 24 hours, and if we hadn't been in the Alps, our morale may have suffered.  I invented a game where we took turns kicking a rock and trying to keep it on the path.  Christine kept ruining it, and it was hilarious.  I guess you'd have to be there... We also met some cows, and Dani kept trying, and failing, to pet them.  Also funny.

In the end, it was Dani who made the call.  I was afraid of annoying the front office people at the hostel by asking to use their phone, but it's hard to say no to Dani.  She brings out the best in people.

So, though I'm taking credit for sheer doggedness, Dani also played an important role.  The man on the other end of the line told us the route was hike-able!! (possibly just because he could tell how disappointed we were after being denied twice).  Side note: what's the difference between being maddeningly stubborn and inspiringly determined? Is is just the final outcome?

We quickly got our stuff together and headed to Murren for the third time.  I just had to grab my bandana, because that's what seemed the most rock-climby.

Yes, to this point I haven't even started writing about the actual experience.  I told you, this was a top-5 adventure in a month of adventures.  It wasn't just the experience itself, it was the timing and adversity involved.

Listen to this.  This hike is easily the second-most dangerous I've ever done, and the first was illegal, because of deaths.  This hike was legal and a fee was charged, yet, there was exactly zero supervision or training.  The man in the store gave us each a harness with two carabiners, and said to always have one clipped to the guiding wire.  If we fell, it should catch us "within 5 meters or so".  We put them on (Christine was in the bathroom and missed the tutorial).  He pointed us to where the trail started.  We walked to the edge of the Alps.  Just like that, we were completely on our own.  We didn't see another soul for the next 3-4 hours.

This could never happen in today's America.

For the record, I'd describe myself as a surefooted, moderately experienced climber with a manageable fear of heights.

As you can see in the picture, you have the hooks on the wire, and you slide them along as you move.  Every few feet you have to unhook them both to get around the hook in the mountain, but you're supposed to do it one at a time, so you're never completely detached.

The next three hours were exhilarating, terrifying, and mesmerizing.  Mark led the way, then Christine, Dani, and me — at least at first.  Dani has a legitimate fear of heights, and had a point in the first ten minutes where she froze and started swearing (she never swears).  That seriously worried me, especially since it came at a point where we were on a ladder she probably could have jumped off and been fine.  I suspected the level of difficulty would get much, much worse, but I had no idea just how bad it would be.

The first real test was a 40-yard stretch where we had to move horizontally along a sheer cliff face.  Nothing above, nothing below.  Those iron rings, by the way, often had some give to them. Not the sort of thing you just jump onto with your whole weight. Everyone got really loud when we saw it this portion coming, then got really quiet until it was over.  My journalistic impulses overcame my sheer terror, and I paused here for a few selfies.  My palms were sweating,  my legs were shaking, and the others had disappeared around the corner of the cliff.  I was completely alone, suspended a few thousand feet above a Swiss village.  Incredible.

You just have to take one rung at a time.  Focus. Step. Focus. Shift hands. Focus. Wipe hands on jorts. Focus. Nothing else matters, and all of your brain's power is working toward a single goal — not dying.

The best word to describe my learning curve is dangerous.  I get used to something new, then get bored, then find ways to push the limits.  This is how I got a concussion by going off a jump on my second day snowboarding. But, I digress..

Anyway, we're over an hour into the Via Ferrata experience at this point....

The rope bridge was our second real challenge.  I'm careful!

Our enormous final obstacle, and there were several notable portions I haven't mentioned, was the suspension bridge.  This thing was way too long to trust, and though it appeared sturdy, when you stepped on it, it proved otherwise.  Not only that, but the handhold was only on one side, so you felt unbalanced the entire time.  Oh, also, you still had to clip and unclip every few feet.

When Dani saw it, she said "I can't do that", and I believed her, because I felt similarly.  Even though many parts of the hike were frightening, you were at least up against the mountain the whole time, which was comforting on some level.  Besides, I've seen way too many movies where bridges of this sort snap with hapless people trapped between solid ground.   The alternative was hiking three hours back the way we came.

We went one at a time.

Photo cred: Dani

When Christine stopped in the middle to untangle her clips, leaving herself 100 percent unanchored, we didn't even know what to do.  We didn't want to shout at her and startle her, but if a gust of wind had come along at that moment, there was nothing keeping her on that bridge.  She made it.

When we all got across the bridge, that was it.  We were done.  A quick walk back to the hostel to turn in the harnesses, and it was over.  I grabbed a mug and walked up the path a little ways, already feeling familiar with this tiny village.  There was a hollowed-out log a few hundred feet past the shops, a hollowed-out log which was full of fresh Alpine spring water delivered by a steadily dripping faucet.  I sat and filled my mug again and again, as I reflected on what we had just accomplished.  I have given up hope that I will ever have a better glass of water.

The Via Ferrata brought us together as a group at a time when we really needed it.  We shared so many things over those few short hours: anticipation, fears, concern, awe, adrenaline, wonder, achievement.  We forgot everything else, because we didn't need anything else to make that experience perfect.  We weren't trying, we were just doing.  I will always look back at the Via Ferrata as a defining point in our trip in the best possible way, of special significance because it came so close to not happening.

My review of The Great Gatsby

Ralph Waldo Emerson has an essay entitled "Self Reliance". I read it for the first time somewhat recently, and liked it so much that I gave it to all my economics students as a parting reading.  You should read it (21 pages).

Though I'm tempted to point out the irony of Emerson traveling the country and lecturing captivated crowds to rely on themselves and not listen to anyone else, I will.

His essay actually provides an excellent context for me to explain one of my rarely explained and oft misunderstood approaches to the world: my complete disregard for movie reviews.  I don't have much respect or tolerance for movie critics, irregardless of whether their critique is positive or negative.


The release of The Great Gatsby two weeks ago was a pretty big deal in my circles.  How bout yours?  That just made me realize something...my "circles" are basically teachers and students.  Who am I?

What's the big deal with movie trailers, anyway?  I have so many friends who hunt down every trailer for new movies.  What's the point?

My approach is the opposite.  I'd rather not know what's going to happen before I see it.  Once you know you want to see a movie, why do anything more than wait?  

I don't go to the theaters often. When I do, it's usually to see something I've been wanting to see for a while.  My last several movies minus Gatsby were..., Perks of Being a Wallflower, Start Trek: Into Darkness, Silver Linings Playbook, The Hobbit, Skyfall, in order of enjoyment.  I didn't hate any of them.

Maybe it's just a self-control thing.  Some people deal with the difficulty of waiting for something they want by consuming all the information they can find as soon as they can find it.  I learned early on that comedies often use their best jokes in their trailers, and trailers even depict scenes pretty regularly that don't even make the final cut.  Spending an entire movie anticipating certain jokes, memorable one-liners and particular scenes happening, especially when some of the ones you were expecting never happen, is not my idea of a good time.

I suppose self control is a part of self reliance, but the more obvious connection is still coming.

I make a point not to read reviews before I go see a movie.

WHY DO PEOPLE DO THAT.

If you want to see Movie X, see it.  If you don't, don't.  What I don't want to hear is you second-guessing yourself because of some random critic who typed up their intentionally reactionary reaction.  I mean, I might understand if you're trying to find a good movie, or choosing between several options.  But even then, I would advise looking at the overall rating and not the details.  Extreme claims get attention, but if you take the average review, the law of large numbers says it will be closer to the truth.  Nevertheless, I would never read a review of a movie I know I'm definitely going to see. It's worse than a waste of time.

If I know anything about the human mind, I know if I tell you something specific I liked or disliked about a movie before you go see it, it will affect your experience.

"Man, Bane's voice was really over-the-top ridiculous.  Almost as ridiculous as Batman using that absurdly gravelly voice way beyond the point when EVERYONE KNOWS BATMAN IS BRUCE WAYNE."

How does that comment not affect your experience of Dark Knight Rises?  It's basically a filter that you are now forced to watch the movie through.  Coming out of the movie, your opinion will either agree with or reject mine.

It's kinda like this sign.

Because I put this in your field of vision, now you either have the urge to touch the sign (which you wouldn't have if I didn't show it to you), or you intentionally decide not to touch the sign (which you wouldn't have if I didn't show it to you).  My action forced your reaction.

Reading a review is the same.  Most times it's unavoidable, so why not avoid it when we have the option?

On a related note, The Great Gatsby had a 48% on Rotten Tomatoes the weekend of its release.  That is silly.  I have a theory to explain it.

I just finished reading The Phantom Tollbooth — a text our kids read in fifth grade.  It was recommended to me, and I liked it (didn't read any reviews beforehand, though).  Consider this quote:

"My goodness," thought Milo, "everybody is so terribly sensitive about the things they know best."

That sums it up, doesn't it? Why books turned to movies generally don't do well, with Gatsby being the most recent example.  Those are the only instances where a large percentage of the audience (and EVERY critic) comes in with a set opinion and expectations already formed.  Everyone who has read the book considers themselves a legitimate critic, and has the confidence to follow through with criticism.  If we don't have an opinion/expectation coming in, we are far less likely to come out with a negative opinion.

And the "real" critics!  These people's horses could not be higher.  If the movie adaption doesn't match their particular interpretation, they initiate lambasting.  The problem is, the appeal of quality novels is their openness. You can't make a successful (mainstream) movie as ambiguous and open to interpretation as the original book; you just can't (especially if the primary plot mover is internalized).  And Baz Luhrmann was certainly attempting to make a mainstream movie.  If fact, if you watch his interview on the Colbert Report, you'll see how proud he is that The Great Gatsby sold more copies in the week before the movie opening than sold in Fitzgerald's ENTIRE LIFE.  Sure, it's not the ideal adaption, but it created a world where more people read F. Scott Fitzgerald, and that is better than it not happening.

By the way, if you don't have strong feelings about Carey Mulligan, you might after watching this clip.

I'm not saying I totally disregard movie reviews, I just refuse to "like" or "not like" something because some stranger told me to.  Once I've seen the movie and decided what I think, I'll read a few reviews.  My goal is to see how closely my opinion lines up with the critics.  They often have insight that I find useful, and observations I hadn't considered before.  And so, over time, my initial impression becomes more and more informed, balanced and, well, good.

But I'm not about to burden you with my actual review.

Save / Invest

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Dear mom,

This entry is dedicated to you.  You gave up your veterinary practice to homeschool me for my first 13 years.  You taught me how to read, and you taught me how to think for myself.  In addition to everything else, you're probably the only person who reads all of my blog posts.  Thanks.

Love,
Nathan
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I recently finished teaching a week of Game Theory in my economics class.  Game is my favorite type of theory, and economics is my favorite type of class.  When I gave them the test, I added a little section at the end which I called a "Bonus".  It was a bonus, but it was also a game theory experiment, a mind game, and the outcome in an indicator of how much faith we should have in humanity.  Here it is:

BONUS

1. You have a free bonus point right here in your grasp (+1).  You can choose to keep it, or invest it.  If 85% or more of the class invests, each investor will gain an additional bonus point.  If less than 85% invests, each investor will lose their bonus point.  If you save it, it’s guaranteed.  Circle one.

            SAVE                                                   INVEST

Now, what is the most desirable outcome of this game?  Let's break it down.  It's simple.

                    Everyone Else (>85%)

                  Save              Invest

       Save    1, 1                1, 2

You

      Invest   0, 1                2, 2

The point value before the comma is what "You" get, the one after is what "Everyone Else" gets. Is there any additional information you need?  It IS important to know that my class isn't graded on a curve.  It can't help your grade to hurt someone else's, and theoretically everyone could finish with A's.  Another way of looking at it is that all the students are competing against me (no curve), as opposed to each other (curve).

Given a non-competitive environment, what is the best decision?  Keep in mind that these are students who probably have a better understanding of cost/benefit than the typical high school sophomore.  The best outcome is clearly that everyone invest.  When I say clearly, I mean it's as clear as the answer to "Would you rather have one bonus point, or two? No, this isn't a trick question." 

The students had a tad more information than you do.  They knew how many of the fellow game-players had to invest for them to gain that extra extra point (and when I say they "knew", I mean they had access to that information).  For both of my sections of 16 students, the magic number was two.  They could have up to two people save, and the rest of the 14 would still be safe to invest.  If three or more saved, the investors would lose their investment.  They also knew the characters/personality of other players in this "game", which could turn out to be a positive or a negative, depending on the other players.  

To review.  Asking what outcome is best is the same as asking which outcome results in the highest total of bonus points.  Well, "all invest" equals 32 total bonus points, "all save" equals 16 bonus points, and the worst-case scenario?  Three save, 13 invest.  THAT results in three total bonus points.  So we could end up anywhere from 3 to 32 bonus points.

With me so far?

Great! I trusted you, really.  It's all those other people I question sometimes.

Last week I did a week on business cycle theory, focusing almost exclusively on the Frederich Hayek vs. John Maynard Keynes debate.  small government vs. big government.  lasseiz faire vs. interventionism.  intentional saving vs. intentional deficits.  solve the boom vs. solve the bust.  human action vs. central planning.  

They are opposite in every conceivable way, yet they both make convincing arguments.  Okay so "opposite" is a slight exaggeration, since Keynes is more towards the center of the big picture spectrum (flanked by Marx on the left and libertarians/anarcho-capitalists on the right).  Here is my off-the-cuff summary...

Hayek says if we allowed individuals to make their own decisions without interfering with their incentives, we would arrive at the best outcome (though he admits there will be less-than-optimal outcomes along the way).  Interference in the market results in false signals, false signals result in malinvestment, and malinvestment can lead to booms (unsustainably "strong" economies).  Booms eventually lead to busts.  

Keynes says we can't trust individuals to make decisions which are best for them in the long run.  He says the fluctuation in the stock markets are based on random & unpredictable elements of the human psyche, calling these irrational impulses "animal spirits".  Since we can't predict them, the best solution is to minimize the busts once they happen.  When people notice the economy is slowing/crashing, they become conservative and hoard their money.  This over-saving leads to an even slower economy, leading to more saving, leading to... he calls this the Paradox of Thrift.  The solution, then, is to replace the lost consumer spending with government spending.  The gov't can provide jobs and stimulate the market, at least until the economy is strong again.  

Is it funny that I'm concerned that one summary is noticeably longer/more complicated than the other? Because of Occam's Razor.  It's concerning to me.  I'm trying to avoid bias.

Their debate is articulately and succinctly stated in this unbiased video. It's 8 minutes.  You don't have to watch it.

When it comes down to it, Hayek has faith in individuals, and Keynes does not.  Keynes thinks he needs to make decisions FOR normal (irrational) people.  

Are you wondering why this post thus far has been on two completely separate topics?

Are you wondering how many students saved and how many invested?

Are you wondering who is right?

Where to begin..

The answer is 8.  Eight students invested, and eight saved.  In both sections!

So both sections received a total of eight bonus points (eight got one, eight lost one), approximately 24 points less than the optimal-and-completely-attainable outcome of 32.  

What conclusion can we draw from this?  As the teacher/dictator, where is the teachable moment?

Well, the students failed to arrive at the best outcome under their own power.  Simply put, Keynes won round one.  I could "guarantee" a better solution by taking away their freedom to make the choice at all. And it's in my power to do so.  Why not?

As we discussed in class later, what's the difference between this situation and, say, passing a law requiring everyone to wear a seat belt? Or, making smoking illegal.  Orrr... even more literal, imagine this.  Since, upon retirement, a majority of people wish they had accumulated more money, and, even knowing this, younger people (such as myself) STILL don't put enough way, shouldn't the government force us to do what's best for us in the long run, and divert a percentage of money from our incomes into saving?  If the decision is Spend All  /  Save Some, and the best long run outcome is "Save Some", should we even be left with a choice?  Sound familiar?

Maybe you're still wondering why anyone would choose to save in MY little game.  It comes down to a few things.  First, it matters how you think about the bonus point.  Some people think of it as potentially avoiding losing a point when they save.  The other type of person thinks of it as potentially gaining a point when they invest.  The first type will tend to be conservative, the second embraces risk.  The decision they make in this game would be a somewhat reliable indicator for how risky they are in general (and when I say "somewhat reliable", I mean I would love to track them for the rest of their lives and see what decisions they make and how they turn out).  It's very difficult for each type of person to see from the other's perspective, as they realized during discussion.  Many people strongly prefer avoiding losses to acquiring gains.  It's called Loss Aversion and I'll tell you more about it later.

The thought process the savers described in class was fascinating.  "I was afraid that too many people would save, so I saved."  Translated, "I was afraid that other people would make the worst decision, so I made the worst decision."  They became what they were afraid of, because of their fear.  This lines up perfectly with Keynes theory; he said that uncertainty leads to underinvestment.  

I wasn't finished with the game yet, though.  After we discussed it, I had to try it again.  I'm more than a little obsessed, if you can't tell.  One thing that adds another angle is the concept of a Nash Equilibrium.  In a multi-player "game", a Nash Equilibrium is a stable outcome where you know the payoffs of the other players, and there is no benefit to any one player changing their strategy.  This game has two Nash Equilibrium points.  If everyone saves, no one player can benefit by switching to invest. Similarly, if everyone invests, no one player can benefit from switching to save.  Because either extreme is a stable state, once the players shift in one direction, that shift becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.  For example, if the second time 6 invested and 10 saved, the shifts in strategy would most likely continue until all 16 saved.  And, once all 16 saved, it would take something special for them to break out of that cycle.  The opposite is true as well.

Thankfully, both sections moved to the better end of the spectrum.  Presented with the same problem, one section had all 16 invest, and the other had 14.  

Hayek wins round two.  

The only difference between round one and round two was education.  This is a hopeful solution in my opinion, because it's attainable.  Education can be fixed; we are fixing education.  Though the government (me, in this case) theoretically has the power to coerce people into choosing "correctly", I could never side with Keynes and endorse an increase in government power.  Everything I've seen, learned, and experienced has reinforced the idea that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  When you give someone power over you, you are also giving them an opportunity to abuse it.    So, given the choice between taking away freedom or adding education, I'd rather add education.

*Update*
I added this game to the end of my 8th graders' final.  It was the most straightfoward test I gave all year, with the exception of this little mind game.
In one section, they had 5 invest and 17 save.
In the other, 12 invested and 8 saved.

I had predicted the second section would have a higher rate of investment, but I didn't really have a good reason until after the results were in.  Wanna know the reason?

This game is a fascinatingly reliable indicator of how much trust exists in a particular environment.  If you trust your classmates, you are more likely to invest.  If you don't trust your peers, you will save.  This theory is backed up by the fact that the chemistry in the second section is much better than the first.  I predict that this game could predict the degree to which participants in a particular environment trust and respect their "teammates".