But before I re-post it, let me add an addendum that I have been thinking a lot about this year partly because I turned 50 last May and partly because I think a lot about how do I get better. Let me illustrate the addendum by telling a story.
My first year of teaching (1985-86 School Year), I was a "Faculty-Intern" at the Culver Academies in Culver, Indiana. The idea of that one year program was that Culver would hire about a dozen -- at the time all-male -- interns who would work for a year with a Master Teacher in the discipline they were interested in teaching, live-in and help supervise a dormitory, and coach. I was lucky in that I had a tremendous Master Teacher to work with -- Joe Horvath. Joe seemed to have the perfect temperament for working with me. I expected a lot of myself, but I was really green. Over the course of the year, he gradually allowed me to take over his courses. At first he would stay in the classroom and give me feedback after the lesson. Then eventually he left and let me sink or swim -- to a certain extent.
Like lots of new teachers, I had my bad days. I had my days when I did not deliver the lesson well. I had my days when I had trouble controlling a couple of unruly kids in the class. But after I was done for the day, I always had Joe to advise me and encourage me.
I had a couple of days that went so poorly and I was so embarrassed by my performance, I told Joe I did not want to teach the next day. But Joe gave me the best advice anyone has ever given me about teaching. When things go poorly one day, you have to return the next day. Avoiding returning to the classroom immediately would only increase your problems. So I did, and returning was never as bad as I thought it would be.
When I shared the observation with Joe that returning after a poor class was never as bad as I thought it would be, he shared with me two beliefs he had. First, he said I would always find kids much more forgiving than adults. Even though it did not seem that way all the time, kids really wanted me to do well. Second, he said I had one big advantage -- at that time -- over him. It was my age. At the time I was 23 and Joe was in his late 30's. I said to him, how could that be. You are one of the most respected teachers on campus. Your years of experience give you so much more knowledge than I have.
He then explained that as a young teacher, I had the advantage that students were drawn to me based on my youth. Although I needed to work on the craft of teaching and the knowledge of my subject, that would come in time. But as a young teacher, students would innately trust me -- partly because they saw themselves in me. That relationship was key to those kids being successful and wanting to do well often to please me. What he found he had to work more on as he got older was not the craft of teaching or the knowledge of his subject matter but relationships with students. Having strong relationships was key to his ability to teach his students. Yet as he got older, their perception of him changed. It became harder for him to gain their trust and make students feel that his heavy demands on them were in their best interest. He often found, he had to work through what seemed to be distrust from some students that he never experienced when he was a young teacher.
I thought about this advice now given 27 years ago as I looked back at my post "Back to Work." I have had a lot of experience and learned a lot since first landing on the Culver Academy campus in the Fall of 1985. But the life of a teacher is in part all about reinventing and learning how do I get better for my students. I still enjoy learning and increasing my knowledge. But more and more my focus is on how do I get better at making what I do relevant to the students I teach as the gap in our ages increases. How do I improve our relationships so that all the experience and knowledge I have accumulated over these years goes to good use.
I recently finished reading the book Practice Perfect: 42 Rules for Getting Better at Getting Better. I will write a review on it in a couple of days. But my main take away is that getting better is a struggle, and a struggle we should all embrace. As I think about getting back to work today, I am also thinking a lot about how to embrace that struggle and get even better than we currently are. Enjoy the post.
January 25, 2012
Ross Jacobson of the Patch has done a wonderful job this week writing a series of articles on the growth and transformation of our athletic program over the last 18 years: The Transformation of North Shore Country Day Sports. I have been very fortunate to have had two supportive Heads of School who I believe need more mention in the process of this transformation. Julie Hall and Tom Doar have allowed me to implement what I have seen as a coherent vision for our department. They have both been great partners. Anything we have accomplished has ultimately been a result of that support as there are always people in sports who will disagree.
You might think from reading the set of articles that there has always been universal agreement in the direction we were taking. That has not been the case. Like most change people along this progression have told me they do not get it, what ever we were trying to do at the time would not work or is not worth it. Despite plenty of evidence of the success of an athletic development approach, to some extent disagreement even continues today.
After the end of my day Wednesday, I had to re-look at a series of posts in a forum entitled ELITETRACK Sport Training and Conditioning. Just after the State Track meet in 2008, there was a short argument on their forum about Peter Callahan who as a junior had just defeated the defending State Champ Parker Thompson, also a junior, over 1600m. The argument basically boiled down to the fact that Peter had won the 1600m in 2008 because Thompson was tired and somewhat banged up from winning the 800m earlier in the day. And that next year -- 2009 -- things would be different. Here was what the poster said.
No disrespect to Peter Callahan. He really came of age, but Parker Thompson is head and shoulders above him. 45 minutes earlier Thompson pushed out a 1:55 800m to win the small class title in Illinois. To put this in perspective, an 800/1600m double is so rare in Illinois at the Illinois State meet(1 time in the last 15 years), the larger class rarely has anyone attempt it anymore. I know Callahan ran leadoff for his teams 4x8, but with 2x the rest period that Thompson had. The other factor that no one takes a look at is Callahan while in the Chicago area has had opportunities to run against top talent in the state while Thompson from would be able to get that from 3 kids in a 90 mile radius of 1:55 800m or 4:20 1600m talent. If Vern wants to talk about training, let him talk to Parker Thompson, because how do you get a 4:20 miler and 1:55 1/2’s out of someone whose best competition runs 4:40’s and 2:05’s? The year before, Thompson won the 1600m after finishing 2nd in the 800m.
I’ll look forward to the battle next year, but Thompson will likely win both next year and solidify his place in Illinois State Meet history, as someone who did the double, and won 2 800m and 2 1600m titles.
I did not share this post with anyone at the time, but it became great motivation for me as Peter's coach in preparation for 2009. Not to take anything away from Thompson and the Tremont program -- which year in year out produces great runners -- but I felt we had figured Peter and his talent out after 2008 and by being even more detailed in planning for 2009 could get a double state title out of Peter. You plan and plan as a coach. But the crazy thing about track is you have to be ready on ONE day. My coaching experience at the Illinois State Final in 2009 was near surreal. I never expected the plan to come together like this.
In the 800m run, Parker Thompson, Zebo Zebebe and Peter all broke the state 800m record. The former record was set by no slouch as Zach Glavash, the former record holder, was ranked #1 in the world over 800m while in college. I probably will have someone who will disagree with me, but I believe the 2009 Class A 800m was one of the greatest races in Illinois State Meet history.
I felt especially lucky to share this victory with Peter's parents, my wife and children and a number of close friends and colleagues from school. I have never been so thrilled as a coach. But I have to say I felt vindicated a bit too. You see in my first years at North Shore I had had arguments with students and colleagues about whether it was possible to create a performance like this. Every year I have been at North Shore there have been a number of strong athletes. One in particular I remember trying to convince in the Mac Gym office one night while we waited for their ride. I told him how good I thought they were and what we could do if we would work together. They flat out told me that I did not know what I was talking about and that a great athlete could not come from North Shore. Long ago I reconciled myself to the fact that just like St. Paul -- I would not convert everyone. But when you believe you can change the way a person sees themselves -- or even better -- change their life, it is pretty bitter pill to swallow some times.
So when Peter won in 2009, I felt vindicated and the first call I made was to Vern Gambetta, and I said "he won and he broke the state record!!" After that I was pretty much speechless.
Over the previous 9 years Vern had mentored me into a coach who could help an athlete produce a performance like this. Producing a state record setting performance is certainly about talent, but I believe it is also about planning. We know so much more than ever before about elements of training and putting them together at the right time to get the greatest effect. Although Vern is known for Functional Training, it was not any particular training method that we used that made the difference. It was knowing Peter and putting the elements of a top performance together in the right way and right time to give him the strongest chance to win.
The biggest issue I have found in sports is that most sports have their sacred cows. In high school distance running, it is all about mileage. How many miles a week are you running determines how good you are. In high school football, it is all about your bench, your squat and your 40 time. Baseball is probably the worst for sacred cows and now we even have a book and movie -- Moneyball -- which has made millions over the story of breaking them. Daring to break these sacred cows takes tremendous fortitude.
These sacred cows all have one thing in common. None of them have anything directly to do with performing in the event or the game. To run a 4:05 mile you have to run 4 quarter miles in 61 seconds each. (Try running one quarter mile in 61 seconds.) Despite these requirements, you will see many high school milers saying they have to run 10-15 miles every Sunday because Sunday is the traditional long run day. What a slow 10-15 mile Sunday run has to do with the speed it takes to run 4:05 for the mile baffles me. But I used to do it.
The same is true for high school football players who spend endless hours in the weight room. Someone (I would bet with Nebraska heritage) has convinced them that it is best for them to work on increasing their bench and squat while they are out of season. I know mass is important in the game, but I have yet to see any football player in a game lie on a bench and push anything. That is not the way the game is played. So why is powerlifting more important than working on athleticism?
One of the big differences between 1994 and today in our athletic program is we now have lots of kids who aspire to greatness. Many who will spend hour after hour working. That fact at North Shore was not true 18 years ago. My question about the work they do, though, is, is it making them better or is it just making them tired.
One of the latest fitness fads is Crossfit. I guarantee you, Crossfit -- despite its corporate sponsorship and ESPN televised events -- will eventually go the way of the Nautilus machine and other fitness fads. But right now as we wait for the inherent dangers of Crossfit to be agreed upon, the media buzz around it has an influence on others. What is especially scary to me about Crossfit is the encouragement by the Crossfit gurus that everyone should do the same workout and everyone should go as hard as they can. That does not match anything we know about proper athletic development and progression. When I came home tonight I tweeted a recent critique of Crossfit by Nike Oregon Project Coach Steve Magness Crossfit Endurance, tabata sprints and why people just don't get it.
I do not know if any athletes at North Shore do Crossfit, but what I see too much is a Crossfit like philosophy of working really really hard -- with little or no purpose.
What I learned from the Gambetta method was not that the harder you work the better you will become. It was the smarter you work the better you become. The three P's of planning, purpose and progression were central to what we did each season, each month, each week, each session and why I felt confident that the mysterious poster in 2008 would be proven wrong in 2009.
When Peter won the 800m and the 1600m at the 2009 Illinois State Meet and then two weeks later went on to run the third fastest mile ever for a boy from Illinois, I thought others would be interested in how this performance could have come from a little school with no track and no history of great athletic performances and others in our community would be won over by the magnitude of the achievement. I thought it might lead to a little more agreement. Although some were interested, many told me we were just lucky. I have even heard some athletes say due to Peter's performance, I only know how to coach Middle Distance runners. Its sad that people had forgotten that before Peter our best track athletes were sprinters and hurdlers whose sessions may have been different but they used a similar philosophy.
Despite growth and transformation, the issues today for our program are very different than they were in 1994. Now we have athletes who have a strong desire to succeed. But they also now have many more voices telling them what they could or should do. Information -- both good and bad -- is much more accesible. As our athletes discover what so-called "top programs" are doing, they want to replicate that experience. I fear too many of them will develop what Carol Dweck would refer to as a fixed mindset. Because there is such a public accounting of every team every season on the scoreboard and winning is now more expected, I worry that coaches, teams and athletes will settle for the most "popular" way to train. The sacred cows in their sports are just hard to slay and sticking with them is the safe way.
So in many ways -- despite success, progress and transformation -- I seem to still have days like Wednesday where I am metaphorically still back in that Mac Gym office trying to tell a kid if we work together we can be great and the kid telling me I do not know what I am talking about. Education to me has always been a one kid at a time approach. It is hard. It can be painful and certainly ego bruising. Not every kid is going to follow, but I am going to keep trying to change everyone of them. So today -- Thursday -- it is back to work.
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