[Read part 7 here]
The Last of the Metrozoids
by Adam Gopnik
Part VIII
That Friday, out on Metrozoid Field, Kirk divided the boys into two teams. “A team runs the play, and B team defends,” he said.
“But they’ll know what we’re gonna do,” someone on the A team complained.
“That’s okay. Most of the time the other team knows what you’re gonna do. That’s called your tendency. The key is to do it anyway.”
“But if they know-”
“Just run the play. Most of the time the other team knows. The hard part is doing it right even when you know exactly what’s coming.”
The offense boys ran their one play, the flea flicker, and the defense boys ran around trying to stop it. Standing on the sidelines, I was amazed to see how hard it was to stop the play even if you did know it was coming. The boys on defense ran around, nettled, converging on the wrong receiver and waving their hands blindly at the ball. The boys on offense looked a little smug.
Kirk called them together. “You know what they’re going to do. Why can’t you stop it?”
The boys on the B team, slightly out of breath, shrugged.
“You can’t stop it because they know what they’re going to do, but you don’t know what you’re going to do against it. One team has a plan, and the other team doesn’t. One team knows what it’s doing, and the other team knows what they’re doing, but it doesn’t know what it’s doing. Now let’s figure out what you’re going to do.”
He went to work. Who’s the fastest kid they have? Okay, let’s put the fastest kid we have on him. Or, better, what if each guy takes a part of the field and just stays there and knocks the ball down if it comes near him? Don’t move now; just stay there and knock it down. They tried both ways – man-to-man and zone – and found that both ways worked. The play lost its luster. The boys on the B team now seemed smug, and the boys on the A team lost.
“Maybe you need another wrinkle,” Kirk said to the A team. “Let’s work on it.”
Watching him on Metrozoid Field, you could see what made him a great teacher on bigger questions for bigger kids. Football was a set of steps, art a set of actions. The mysterious, baffling things – modern art, the zone defense – weren’t so mysterious or baffling if you broke them down. By the end of the spring practice, the eight-year-olds were instinctively rotating out of man-to-man into a zone and the offense audibling out of a spread formation into a halfback option, just as the grown-ups in Washington were suddenly seeing the differences and similarities between Pollock’s drips and Twombly’s scrawls.
One particularly bright kid, Jacob, was scared of the ball, the onrushing object and the thousand intricate adjustments you had to make to catch it. He would throw out his arms and look away instead of bringing his hands together. Kirk worked with him. He stood nearby and threw Jacob the ball, underhanded, and then got him to do one thing right. When he caught it, Kirk wasn’t too encouraging; when he dropped one, he wasn’t too hard. He did not make him think it was easy. He did not make him think that he had done it when he hadn’t. He made him think that he could do it if he chose.
It is said sometimes that the great teachers and mentors, the wise men and gurus, achieve their ends by inducting the disciple into a kind of secret circle of knowledge and belief, make of their charisma a kind of gift. The more I think about it, though, the more I suspect that the best teachers – and, for that matter, the truly long-term winning coaches, the Walshes and Woodens and Weavers–do something else. They don’t mystify the work and offer themselves as a model of rabbinical authority, a practice that nearly always lapses into a history of acolytes and excommunications. The real teachers and coaches may offer a charismatic model – they probably have to – but then they insist that all the magic they have to offer is a commitment to repetition and perseverance. The great oracles may enthrall, but the really great teachers demystify. They make particle physics into a series of diagrams that anyone can follow, football into a series of steps that anyone can master, and art into a series of slides that anyone can see. A guru gives us himself and then his system; a teacher gives us his subject, and then ourselves.
[Read part 9 here]
The Last of the Metrozoids (part 8)
[Read part 7 here]
The Last of the Metrozoids
by Adam Gopnik
Part VIII
That Friday, out on Metrozoid Field, Kirk divided the boys into two teams. “A team runs the play, and B team defends,” he said.
“But they’ll know what we’re gonna do,” someone on the A team complained.
“That’s okay. Most of the time the other team knows what you’re gonna do. That’s called your tendency. The key is to do it anyway.”
“But if they know-”
“Just run the play. Most of the time the other team knows. The hard part is doing it right even when you know exactly what’s coming.”
The offense boys ran their one play, the flea flicker, and the defense boys ran around trying to stop it. Standing on the sidelines, I was amazed to see how hard it was to stop the play even if you did know it was coming. The boys on defense ran around, nettled, converging on the wrong receiver and waving their hands blindly at the ball. The boys on offense looked a little smug.
Kirk called them together. “You know what they’re going to do. Why can’t you stop it?”
The boys on the B team, slightly out of breath, shrugged.
“You can’t stop it because they know what they’re going to do, but you don’t know what you’re going to do against it. One team has a plan, and the other team doesn’t. One team knows what it’s doing, and the other team knows what they’re doing, but it doesn’t know what it’s doing. Now let’s figure out what you’re going to do.”
He went to work. Who’s the fastest kid they have? Okay, let’s put the fastest kid we have on him. Or, better, what if each guy takes a part of the field and just stays there and knocks the ball down if it comes near him? Don’t move now; just stay there and knock it down. They tried both ways – man-to-man and zone – and found that both ways worked. The play lost its luster. The boys on the B team now seemed smug, and the boys on the A team lost.
“Maybe you need another wrinkle,” Kirk said to the A team. “Let’s work on it.”
Watching him on Metrozoid Field, you could see what made him a great teacher on bigger questions for bigger kids. Football was a set of steps, art a set of actions. The mysterious, baffling things – modern art, the zone defense – weren’t so mysterious or baffling if you broke them down. By the end of the spring practice, the eight-year-olds were instinctively rotating out of man-to-man into a zone and the offense audibling out of a spread formation into a halfback option, just as the grown-ups in Washington were suddenly seeing the differences and similarities between Pollock’s drips and Twombly’s scrawls.
One particularly bright kid, Jacob, was scared of the ball, the onrushing object and the thousand intricate adjustments you had to make to catch it. He would throw out his arms and look away instead of bringing his hands together. Kirk worked with him. He stood nearby and threw Jacob the ball, underhanded, and then got him to do one thing right. When he caught it, Kirk wasn’t too encouraging; when he dropped one, he wasn’t too hard. He did not make him think it was easy. He did not make him think that he had done it when he hadn’t. He made him think that he could do it if he chose.
It is said sometimes that the great teachers and mentors, the wise men and gurus, achieve their ends by inducting the disciple into a kind of secret circle of knowledge and belief, make of their charisma a kind of gift. The more I think about it, though, the more I suspect that the best teachers – and, for that matter, the truly long-term winning coaches, the Walshes and Woodens and Weavers–do something else. They don’t mystify the work and offer themselves as a model of rabbinical authority, a practice that nearly always lapses into a history of acolytes and excommunications. The real teachers and coaches may offer a charismatic model – they probably have to – but then they insist that all the magic they have to offer is a commitment to repetition and perseverance. The great oracles may enthrall, but the really great teachers demystify. They make particle physics into a series of diagrams that anyone can follow, football into a series of steps that anyone can master, and art into a series of slides that anyone can see. A guru gives us himself and then his system; a teacher gives us his subject, and then ourselves.
[Read part 9 here]