Welcome to a new school year! I hope it is shaping up to be as exciting and fulfilling as I’m sure you’ve been planning all summer. May it be a wonderful year for you and your family.
In my first article of the school year, I thought I would give you a window into my classroom. I’ve written a couple of times about an issue that I’ll summarize in this way: Imagine a student who is failing. Not failing in the “they did their best and fell short” sense, but failing in the sense that they aren’t trying at all, they are sabotaging themselves, or they are just lost – not in the material, but in themselves. The question is, what is going on? If you ask the student, they will usually respond (and unfortunately adults will sometimes give a similar response) as though the problem is that they are a dumb, bad, or lazy kid.
I don’t buy it. I’ve taught many students for many years and I have yet to meet the dumb, bad, or lazy kid. What I have found is hurt kids, scared kids, kids who are struggling to meet the challenges of growing up, and kids who don’t have a substantive set of beliefs that can help them navigate a difficult and complex world. Over time I’ve found that if I want to really help students grow, then I have to be concerned about and address that sort of issue. For today’s article, I thought I would give you a view of one of the ways I try to accomplish that task: my opening day speech. Each year the first activity in my intermediate and advanced classes is a speech that I deliver. Usually it is an appeal for students to develop a set of beliefs that can help them face some of the common difficulties students face. This year’s speech is titled It Just Takes One, and I’ve provided a copy below. I hope that you enjoy.
It Just Takes One
The Setting: It’s date night, summertime 2024. The Characters: My wife and myself. My Feelings: It’s a pleasant night. The Opening Scene: My wife and I each buy a forty four ounce Zen Water at Fiiz and we need somewhere to drink it. So we bandy about ideas until we settle on a spot called Woodland Park. We drive to our destination trying not to over sip so as to ensure that we will have something left to drink when we arrive. We chat about nothing really until we pull up to Woodland Park and into the parking lot.
The Setting: Woodland Park. It’s less a park and more a wooded area with a parking lot, a pavilion, some small grass fields, an amphitheater, but most of all trails for walking among the trees. The Characters: My wife, myself, and various people milling around the parking lot rapiers in hand, wearing fencing masks and medieval clothing. My Feelings: Oh, I’m intrigued. The Second Scene: My wife and I get out of the car. I tell her that I want to go see what is going on with said sword wielding characters. She doesn’t want to. They are having a good time, she says. They don’t want us bothering them, she says. They probably don’t want prying eyes, she says. Maybe we’ll make them feel self-conscious, she says. I want to argue back but it’s a firm no, so we begin instead to wander among the trees.
And at this juncture, I’m curious if any of you would have done the same?. Walk among the trees? Sure. But really what I mean is would any of you have thought, like my wife, that our sword wielding friends would feel self conscious under the gaze of outsiders? If you would agree with my wife, then I guess I couldn’t really blame you. The desire to not stick out is deep in the species. How deep? Well, deep enough that it will make you do things more outrageous than hoping that the couple who just pulled into the parking lot will walk on by without asking any questions. How do I know? Well, because I’m part of the species and I don’t like sticking out. And also because of the Asch experiments.
The Asch experiments are famous enough that many of you may know the basics, but just in case, I’ll recap. Solomon Asch was a psychologist at Swarthmore College in the 1950s and conducted a series of experiments on conformity so groundbreaking that they serve as the basic foundation for our understanding of the subject, even today. The design was simple. First, a control group was tested. In this control group study participants were individually shown a series of cards. On each card was a line followed by three more lines labeled A, B, and C. The question was simple: which line, A, B, or C is the same length as the original line? In the control group study participants identified the correct line 99.9 whatever percent of the time. Which means that all of the cards had an obvious and easily identifiable correct answer.
However, in the experimental group things got more interesting. In the experimental group study participants were each put in a room with seven actors. The actors knew that they were actors, but the study participants were told that the actors were just other participants. In each group participants were again shown the cards. The actors in each group would sometimes give the correct answer, but would frequently, one at a time give the same wrong answer. The result was that 35% of the time the study participant would give the incorrect answer as well.
It’s sort of a good news bad news situation. The good news is that in 65% of instances study participants stuck with what they could see. The bad news is that on a verifiable, obvious truth in just over a third of all instances, study participants, that is to say humans, just went with whatever the group said. As I mentioned, conformity is deep in the species. It’s sort of a good news bad news situation. The good news is that we get to have a society. It’s difficult to imagine a functional and cohesive society without an impulse to act as a group, to seek belonging, and to be willing to sacrifice some things so that the group can function. The bad news is that denying actual objective reality you can see right in front of your eyes is some pretty powerful self delusion. But I wonder if it’s the sort of self delusion that you can identify with.
In interviews study participants were asked to explain why they answered incorrectly. They offered two primary reasons. The first was that while they initially believed the correct answer, the more that others contradicted them, the more they just started to believe they must be wrong somehow. They just couldn’t imagine that so many people could be so wrong and they just happened to be the only person who was right. Which, when you look at it, is not so terribly unreasonable. I mean, what are the chances that everyone else is wrong and you’re right? Except that, in this case you can literally see with your own eyes that you’re right.
The second reason participants gave was that they didn’t want to risk the ridicule of the group, so even though they knew the correct answer, they just gave the wrong one. This reasoning was corroborated by the fact that in a variation of the study participants were told that they had arrived late and would have to write their answers instead of saying them in front of the group and, as you might expect, incorrect answers dropped dramatically.
And if this all sounds a little crazy, don’t worry, it sounds crazy to me too. But then it also doesn’t because I wonder if you, like me, have ever engaged in that sort of self amputation, cutting off the bits and pieces of yourself that don’t fit too well.
Maybe, for you, it feels more comfortable to walk on your toes instead of your whole foot. Maybe it feels fun to sing everything you say. Maybe, instead of liking something mainstream, like football, you like something weird, like puppets. And maybe you’ve looked around at everyone else walking all flat footed, saying things all monotone-like, or all into football and thought “it can’t be that everyone else is wrong about what humans like and how they should act. I just happen to be the one person who feels this way.” Which maybe feels reasonable except that the truth is right inside of you.
Or perhaps you acknowledge that people seem to think and feel differently than you do, but you don’t want to risk the ridicule of the crowd, so you just amputate that inconvenient bit of yourself, start walking flat footed, speaking like everyone else, and playing football. Or maybe you stop playing football, like Daisy.
I taught Daisy some years ago and in her senior year she gave a remarkable speech. She said in the speech that as a child she had always been a bit of a tomboy: playing football with her brothers, wearing baseball caps, etc. But as she got older she saw all of the girls around her getting interested in makeup and clothes and definitely not in playing football and wearing baseball caps. And she really wanted to be friends with those girls. So she took that girl who liked playing football and wearing baseball caps and just didn’t let her out. And guess what, it worked. She was friends with those girls and they talked about makeup and boys and clothes and definitely not football. But, on the other hand, have you ever seen a seventeen year old girl cry because she spent five years not playing football or wearing baseball caps? Well, I have.
And If any of that resonates with you, maybe you can see why my wife would think that the sword-toting folks at Woodland Park would prefer that we would just pass on by without asking any questions. Fortunately for us, though, she was wrong.
The Setting: A dirt path in Woodland Park just as it exits the woods into the parking lot. The Characters: My wife, myself, and six faceless characters in fencing helmets. My Feelings: Excited that my plan to undermine my wife and meet up with the characters anyway has totally worked. The Third Scene: we’ve been walking on a little path and hear swords clashing and people talking ahead, just as I had figured we would. I convince my wife to just finish the path. As we come up to the parking lot three of the characters are standing on the path between two boulders that mark the line between the path and the parking lot. Three others are facing them on the asphalt. As we approach they stop and look. I say hello and innocently ask them what they’re doing. They say they’re having a lesson and tell us we can pass by if we like. I’m about to innocently ask if we can just stay and watch instead when the leader of the group preempts me with an invitation to do just that. So we sit down on a boulder off to the side sipping our drinks and watch the class. It’s fascinating. The class is about breaking through a line holding a position in a narrow place. It is being held for a character who, when she removes her helmet, is a nineteen or twenty year old young woman. Apparently she needs this class as part of her course of instruction for the group. We sit and watch for maybe forty five minutes. As helmets periodically come off we find that the group consists of a young man probably about the same age as the young woman, three men and one woman who appear to be in their early to mid twenties. And, last of all, the pies de resistance the leader of the group and teacher of the class who when she removes her fencing mask reveals herself to be a fifty something year old woman swinging a sword and just living her best life. As I watch them work together stabbing, parrying, laughing the overwhelming sense is just fun. They seem to be having so much fun. And I’m certainly having fun watching them. As the class wraps up and the characters head off to other activities, I can’t wait to find out more. Who is this woman and what does she know that the rest of us don’t?
Maybe one thing she knows is that there is no middle human. Somewhere in your psyche doesn’t it seem like there is this middle human out there and everyone who is conforming is just trying to be this human? That if you could just be this human the only thing that would stand out about you is just how great you are. No one would think you’re weird because you walk on your toes, or sing everything you say, or love puppets. You would just be tall and fit and smart and speak well. You would be talented in the right things, like the right things, say the right things. Well, maybe what this woman knows is that this person doesn’t actually exist. Even more importantly, maybe what she knows is that we wouldn’t actually want this person to exist. Because, for all we don’t want to be the weird kid who loves puppets, what would we do without the weird kid who loves puppets?
A boy named James grew up in Maryland in the forties and fifties. He was shy, soft spoken, and loved puppets. Watching them, playing with them, making them, he loved it all. He put on puppet shows for his cub scout troop, and joined the puppetry club in high school. I imagine that James or Jim, as he was known, was not scoring big popularity points at Northwestern High School for his physical prowess manipulating puppets. But he was doing something that he loved. By the time he made it to college he was doing some small puppet shows on local television with a girl he met in college, Jane Nebel. But by the time he graduated, he began to doubt whether it made sense to pursue puppets as a career. So he traveled in Europe for the summer to give himself time to work it out. And in Europe he found something remarkable: puppeteers who thought of puppetry not as a hobby, but as serious art. So, gathering inspiration, he came home, married Jane, and together they established a media company. The name of that company was Muppets Incorporated. So, again, I ask what would we do without the weird kid who loves puppets? Jim Henson went on to become one of the most influential and successful television and movie actors and producers ever. I’m serious, you probably can’t name someone who has had a larger and more enduring impact on the industry. Among his notable creations are
- Kermit the Frog
- Miss Piggy
- Fozzy Bear
- Gonzo
- Cookie Monster
- Elmo
- Big Bird
- Oscar the Grouch
- Yoda
- The Dark Crystal
- Labyrinth
- The Muppet Hour
- The Muppet Movie
- Muppet Treasure Island
- A Muppet Christmas Carol
- Sesame Street
- And a great deal more
Jim Henson more or less owned my childhood because he wasn’t trying to be some fictional middle person. And people like Jim Henson inspire all of us to stop wasting so much time and energy trying to figure out what other people want us to be, what other people want us to say, what other people want us to wear, to like, to do, and instead bring our unique gifts, interests, and perspectives, to our lives and to the lives of others and weave them into a beautiful diverse human tapestry.
It’s a truth that you can see in the life of Jim Henson. It is also a truth you can see in the Asch experiments. In another variation of the experiments one actor, just one actor in the group gave the correct answer. Everyone else said the same wrong answer, but the study participant had just one other person in the room who made them feel like they weren’t crazy, weren’t the only weirdo, weren’t the only person who liked puppets or to sing everything they said. In this scenario, various incorrect answers dropped to almost zero. Because, for most of us, it just takes one. And what would we do without that one? More specifically, what would I do without that one? More specifically, what would I do without that one sweet girl who sang everything she said?
On my first day in eleventh grade chemistry a girl sitting in front of me turned around, smiled at me and said, “Hi, I’m Anne Winters! What’s your name?” Weird, I thought. This girl apparently sings everything she says. At first, I tried to avoid her as much as one can avoid someone sitting right in front of them. But she wouldn’t let me. She just kept turning around and talking with her singsong voice and a little laugh like everything she said was a private joke just between the two of us. I guess I just couldn’t help it. How could you not like someone so fully themselves? At first I was worried that others would see me talking to this weirdo like we were friends or something. And then, suddenly, I didn’t care. Because we were friends. There isn’t a person from my time in high school that I think of more fondly than Anne Winters. Because she was that one person for me. She showed me the path and gave me courage. For me, it just took one person.
Which brings me to the question I want to ask you. Can you be that one person for the people around you here in this class? Can you have the courage to stop spending your life trying to figure out what other people want you to be, what other people want you to say, what other people want you to wear, to like, to do, and instead bring your unique gifts, interests, and perspectives into our class and, with your classmates, weave them into a beautiful human tapestry. I hope so. Because just like I needed Anne Winters, your classmates need you. I need you. And the world needs you. It needs all the weirdos. It needs the kids who sing everything they say, the kids who love puppets, and the world desperately needs fifty something year old ladies swinging a sword and living their best life.
The Setting: A patch of asphalt at the end of a trail in Woodland Park. The Characters: My wife, myself, and a fifty something year old woman swinging a sword and living her best life. My Feelings: Total awe, I mean, who is this woman?. As the group disperses I ask the woman what is going on here, and she is more than happy to oblige my question. In college she discovered that she loved sword fighting, but none of the groups she could find were close enough. So she gathered her friends and started Terra Silva, a volunteer led, totally free group dedicated to giving people like her a home. As time went on, the group grew bigger. And she grew older. And she just never stopped, because she never wanted to regardless of what people might think of a woman her age galavanting through the forest, sword in hand. And along the way she gave a home to so many people who shared her interests or maybe didn’t fit in in other places. And she gave them permission to love what they loved and be who they were. And so to that, I say hooray! Hooray for fifty something year old ladies swinging a sword and living their best life! Hooray for weird kids who like puppets and then go on to change the world! Hooray to sweet girls who sing everything they say and make their friends’ lives better! And last of all, hooray, I very much hope, for each one of you.