Not Even as a Scribe

One comment I have gotten on my refereeing over the Spring - as I move on to the bigger and better world of high school games - is that I lack "confidence".  It has taken me quite a while to figure out exactly what this (probably) means, because in one sense confidence is not a problem for me.  I am, for the most part, quite capable of carrying on in my opinions regardless of what anyone thinks.  So, confidence as such is not exactly the problem.

It would be more accurate, I think, to say what is lacking is presence, in the stage sense.  I came to this conclusion following a sequence of two games, at the same school, dealing with the same coach.  The first I centered; the second I was on the line.  The comments the assessor gave me at the end of my game were generally positive but focused on this lack of confidence and some problems with what we call mechanics - the signals used to communicate fouls, goals, restarts, and so forth.  The coach was not happy with me in general - but then, he lost.

Then in the second game I noticed the center was, probably, worse than me in some ways mechanically.  His positioning was better than mine; but his signals were largely muted and occasionally inaccurate.  What he did have, though, which I find hard to hold on to, was control of the game - a parent said afterwards it was the best refereeing he'd ever seen, which almost certainly is not true but speaks volumes for the game control he did have.

There are, I think, three ways to referee a soccer match and still maintain control.  From worst to best, you can enforce The Rules, you can call "Your Game", or you can call The Game.  Learning and enforcing the rules is where anyone has to start, of course; without the rules - at least in essence - anything higher is impossible.  This is where I find myself most of the time, still - and it is problematic for two reasons.  If you make mistakes (as I do with some regularity) you call your understanding and judgment into question.  Or, if your understanding does not match the expectations the spectators, or worse, the coaches' - or worse yet, the players' - you can lose their goodwill: especially dangerous if your expectation has let the game become too "loose", that is, violent.  But the second problem is that, even when done right to exacting standards, you run the danger of coming off as, for lack of a better term, a legalistic jerk.  But at least you have the game under control.

It is therefore necessary to move on at least to the stage of being able to call "Your Game".  I would say - as an observer - that this is where the other ref I mentioned is.  The central hallmark at this stage is that the referee has internalized the rules and more importantly the flow of the game, so that the result is a consistent standard resulting in clarity and control.  The important word there is "consistent".  Many stupid mistakes are forgiven if you make the same stupid mistake for everyone.  Lack of precision is okay if you are consistently imprecise, and do not miss anything big.  For myself, the diagnosis to get here is, I think, either to watch many more games or start playing again - probably both - and of course to continue to referee, and more carefully.

Finally I suppose a referee can call The Game.  The rules are known; consistency is achieved; the mechanics are there; and the game is allowed to play out as it should.  A well-called match on the premier or international level will, I think, reach to this ideal (though poor decisions may reduce a crew to trying to call "Their Game" or even "This One Game That How Did We Get Here?")

Some Thoughts on Mathematics

It is a well-rehearsed complaint that the United States is "falling behind" the rest of the world in technical studies - meaning mathematics and science.  It is paradoxical, then, that the general United States curriculum features specific study of advanced mathematical topics - Algebra and Geometry.  Sometimes requirements have even advanced up to basic calculus or at least its underlying principles (indignified with the moniker "pre-calculus").  Most other countries teach Mathematics, perhaps glorified with a grade number, throughout middle and high school.

Speculating on the explanation for this oddity, I would suspect something like the following happened in American education: Years ago when "high school" would have been considered fairly advanced education, algebra and trigonometry and other advanced math would reasonably have been studied, possibly as electives; essential math would have been learned earlier.  Mathematics instruction likely suffered from the overall decline in American education over the (later part of the?) 20th century.  The language problems, I suppose, are documented better because writers felt them more critically.  Either the courses were never dropped in name, or people noticing the problems codified the "Algebra" and "Geometry" to be studied; however the rigor of the courses was slackened and the material diluted with the addition of other elements which were no longer being learned earlier - or which were part of newly expanding fields and felt to be "necessary".

As evidence, I have mainly the (I am tempted to say absurd) amount of review contained from year to year in the average modern US mathematics textbook series.  Admittedly mathematics is a subject I have some affinity for, but in my estimation the material generally spread over the three years from pre-algebra to second-year algebra either could be condensed into at most two years; or should be taught earlier; or is (at least from a conceptual standpoint) superfluous to the subject at hand.  An "Algebra II" class - I am speaking here from experience - by the end of the first month of classes can still be reviewing material theoretically learned up to three years before in "Pre-Algebra" (possibly even the first semester of that course) - linear equations.  True, the more advanced course has more detail and harder problems; I am not convinced that excuses the state of affairs.

I do not think - at this point in my career, at least - that the problem is the (nominal) focus of American courses.  The integrated approach adopted most famously by most Asian schools does have its advantages, mainly in maintaining a unity in the discipline; the focused study of a particular branch of a subject has off-setting advantages, mainly in ability to explain details rather than teaching by rote.  In disadvantages, the "subject-based" approach of American textbooks does tend to create artificial distinctions of one thing from another that ought to be known as related; however, an integrated approach obscures the focus achieved by distinguishing between the parts of a field of study.  Beyond that I am not qualified to comment - except to mention that more American textbooks seem to be actually using an essentially integrated approach, while maintaining their supposed subject matter in name only.

A more pressing problem is the study habits expected of students.  When a conscientious American parent wants the student to master a subject, and is willing to sacrifice grades if necessary, all is well and good.  When a lazy parent (to say nothing of the student or teachers) with "high expectations" wants the student to have an "A" but could care less about the subject, there is a problem - and the Asian parent determined that his child will have an A and prepared to expect that and make him work for it creates an advantage.  (I dislike relying on overplayed stereotypes, and can say from personal experience that - which should be obvious to any observer of human nature - not every Asian parent is in this regard an "Asian parent".  Some of them are quite prepared to look the other way on instance of, for instance, cheating; or even to berate teachers who attempt to discipline that behavior.  On a general comparison, however, the stereotype does hold true for fairly clear cultural reasons.  The comparison is therefore useful.  Also, I know next to nothing of European education, which is the other reasonable comparison point.)

So much for the problem.  What about a solution?  One obvious comment is that the best method of improvement must be increased expectations, even demands, on the part of parents and schools.  The effect of this simple change can be most clearly seen in modern America within the home- and classical-schooling community, where concerned parents created a demand - and have often been part of creating a supply - of improved, or at least diverse, curricula for language study both in English and the Classics.  Contrast this with mathematics education, especially in the public schools, where the number of available curricula in print has been steadily decreasing.  I believe there is a total of two courses remaining put out by large publishers, and one has much greater presence as best as I can ascertain.  My knee-jerk reaction is to blame Federal government meddling with standards, together with a human inclination to follow the Next Greatest Thing, but I could be wrong - the point is that with no serious competition and a largely captive market, innovation and diversity seems to be quickly becoming a matter of who has prettier pictures.

My own suggestions are limited by unfamiliarity with lower elementary curricula.  A makeshift solution I would propose as an upper school teacher would be to spend seventh (and maybe eighth?) grade focusing on practical math, starting wherever necessary and working up to whatever difficulty level is needed for scraping by (and hopefully more than scraping by) in life but without particular emphasis on unifying principles of "subjects"; the unifying principle of mathematics generally is (in my opinion - this would require an entire other essay) description and problem-solving.  With that foundation in place, you have a fourteen-year-old student who is capable of doing things like working out a simple budget (say, not overspending his allowance), working out basic problems in compound interest, calculating the price of a room's carpet, or not drawing to an inside straight (for reasons other than every book ever written with a card game in it saying so, not that that is a bad reason).

A high school can then teach those subjects which will be either necessary to a future career (as an engineer, architect, or the like) as electives, and require those useful to the formation of a thoughtful citizen ("Let no one ignorant of geometry...").  The question "how much math?" is a fascinating one I am not prepared to answer in the general case.  I am prepared to say that it would be easier to teach algebra thoroughly if a text did not interrupt - and perhaps need to interrupt - the fairly logical progression through the various variable functions with silliness about translations which should have been learned earlier, and bits of a trigonometry (for instance) which could either be learned later or cheerfully ignored.  Every calculus textbook I ever remember seeing not only confined itself politely to a strictly logical presentation of the calculus, but made assumptions of what the student knows.  If we imagine a calculus textbook written on the same principles as the average "Algebra 2", it would start by presenting methods to solve equations in one variable and would reteach the quadratic formula; in between types of derivatives there would be a discussion on graphing complex numbers.  An actual calculus text teaches a subject; I am not sure what the algebra book is trying to do.

To Be Written on a Students' Paper, Should He Fail

The teacher teached, the preacher praught,
But clearly it was all forgot.

Thoughts on The Hobbit Trailer

I have things to say (or else why write?), but I suppose you might want to see the trailer, in case you have not yet done so:

Are we ready? Set? Good.

I was initially tempted to call this a review, but that would be too grandiose for the reality of blathering about a two and a half minute series of scenes, some of which may not make the actual movie.  On the other hand, there is more than enough material here to blather about, in some detail.

My major concern is that Peter Jackson simply does not appear to be able to leave well enough alone.  I have written on this subject before in discussing his films of The Lord of the Rings, though in that post I focused on his understanding of character.  Here the problem seems to be a misconception of plot and genre.  He intends, clearly, to tie this film into his previous Lord of the Rings project.  Tolkien, you may remember, did the reverse, and without particularly bothering to make the connections formal in the later work.  True, The Lord of the Rings is clearer for having read The Hobbit: clearer, but the story seems to me perfectly clear without it.  In fairness I should probably say that I did read The Hobbit first, so I could be wrong.  At any rate, there are these two facts: the stories are independent as books; and The Hobbit is first.  Jackson is thus incidentally approaching the project backwards, and in approaching it backwards seems to have fallen into an error of regarding The Hobbit not as a prologue but instead as what we of recent years have dubbed a prequel.  This leads, probably, to two further errors.

In the first place, The Hobbit is not epic in scale.  It is, obviously, something Bilbo would tell Frodo about.  It is equally a story which might, if we can imagine Middle Earth for a moment without the genius of Tolkien to tell its stories in full glory, have been told years later in embellished summary and in simple sentences, with the rain pouring down outside and the children wrapped up in an afghan by the fire.  Or if we allow for Bilbo the novelist (or here autobiographer), a book read in similar circumstance.  It is a novel, an adventure story, even a fairy tale.  Jackson either does not realize this, or is not content with this, and instead appears to be bringing in all the elements which Gandalf, when questioned, left out, as if Tolkien were pointedly reminding us of the nature of this story.  There indeed – and back again.

Which has, in fact, somewhat neatly touched on my second objection.  If the plot of The Hobbit is self-contained, and (but for the Ring) connected only tangentially to anything within the wider world of Arda, the characters drawn in the book are, in comparison to The Lord of the Rings at least, simply and brightly drawn.  The Hobbit is filled with characters which are in places more nearly caricatures.  Bombur does not particularly have Character: he is The Fat Man.  Thorin is the King – or the Exile.  Balin as counselor, or wise man.  Gandalf is a wizard: wizardry is his thing, I am tempted to say his hat.  Even the orcs of the later longer book receive names and characterizations: in The Hobbit they are cut-rate stage-prop villains (except possibly not cut-rate, since Tolkien was, after all, a great author) with two names given between the horde of them.  Yes: at the end of the quest we see a glimpse of greater depth and the wider world – and Bilbo is neatly removed from it, except for the scene of Thorin's death (which provides the moral of the story, if there is one besides that of any adventure), so as not to spoil the tone.  In this I am in fact somewhat encouraged: Jackson is at least capable of understanding levity and humor and the value of breaking an overloaded chair.  At the same time, by dragging in, as he seems to intend, the events of the White Council, he will be unable to retain the simple characterization at least of Gandalf: and the heavy tone of Gandalf's lines given here about the result of the adventure seem to lack the underlying humor found in Tolkien's few similar lines – and to be emphasized in a way almost directly opposed to how Tolkien downplayed that element.

As I noted at the beginning, it is a bit early and a bit silly to say anything purportedly conclusive about the movie, so I think for now I will end.  The score does at least give me one good sign: I think I will say that for now I remain hopefully pessimistic about the final result.

Thought Experiment: Country Singers and Politics

So ESPN dumped Hank Williams Jr. from his Monday Night Football intro music video spot thing because the singer said that President Obama inviting Rep. Boehner golfing was like Hitler going out with Israeli president Netanyahu.

It was a dumb thing to say.  At the very least it was a farcical exaggeration (which also happened to break Godwin's Law in style).  At worst it was indefensible disrespect to the sitting President.  I lean towards the latter, although I think there was no disrespect intended toward the office, which means I'm not comfortable with just hammering the guy, no matter how much I can't think of a time it would be appropriate to say.

Of course it created a small furor on the mainstream news and on the interwebs.

So I want to take a step back and pose a question.

Suppose some liberal (or African-American, or both) highly public entertainment figure, say somebody on Glee, had said something like:

"It's ridiculous, Obama inviting Boehner to go out for a round of golf is like Sarkozy inviting Hitler to hit the links."

That's almost equally indefensible, and only less so in that Boehner's a Congressman, not our head of state.  Still, you don't compare people to Hitler unless they're actually people like Hitler - looking at you, Joe.  Stalin, that is, not Biden.  In case that wasn't clear.

Would the reaction have been the same?  I'd like to think so, but I'm not comfortable actually predicting it – mainly because we have way too many loonies running around saying almost equally dumb things about the last president without a mass reaction calling them to account.

Medium and Maturity

One of the chief differences between the okay sci-fi and fantasy authors and the good ones is that the good ones have learned to spell.  As a sometimes-but-not-really aspiring author myself, I can attest that for almost anyone there is a desire to distinguish yourself, to be unique.  Not that this applies only to writing, of course, but in writing, and especially in SF/F, everyone wants to be Tolkien.  Unfortunately, most of us aren't, so the result tends to be mediocre authors naming things.  Badly.

Although I read the novel years ago, I finally read Orson Scott Card's short story Ender's Game last night.  The first thing that struck me was how young Card's style is in the story.  While it is recognizably Card's work, much of the later polish is missing. Many sentences are awkward by themselves, and the story does not flow very well.  And as I alluded to, Card couldn't spell.  Mazer Rackham is stuck with 'Maezr' – overly awkward-looking, just for the sake of uniqueness.

Compared to the novel, the focus is very different.  In the novel, Card focuses on Ender: in this original story, the focus is more abstract.  It feels as though the attempted orienting focuses what is happening to Ender – but not as Ender, more as "the one" of the story.  The story is almost more about the teachers.  The result, though, is a little unfocused: again evidence of a younger author.

If I had encountered the short story first, rather than the novel, I don't know if I would have the respect for Card that I do.  Fair?  Maybe not, but still an interesting thing to note.

On Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings

When the recent Lord of the Rings movies first came out, I was a dyed-in-the-wool Tolkien purist who wanted nothing to do with them. My parents read The Hobbit out loud to me and my siblings when I was very young: I want to say seven years old but that might be early. By 6th grade at the latest I was reading Lord of the Rings at least once a year and had found The Silmarillion on our family bookshelves (along with the complete Sherlock Holmes in two volumes: big books hold a mysterious attraction for me). Persuaded eventually to watch the first two films, I spent more time making fun of inconsistencies – both between the book and the film, and in the internal characterization – than I did considering their actual artistic value. I particularly remember an impassioned objection to Jackson's representation of the Elvish arming, based on wild extrapolations from vaguely worldview-based artistic principles I thought I had divined from Tolkien's writing. (I still think I had a little bit of a point, but I also think now that I was overly impressed then by G.K. Chesterton's approach to symbolism.) My ardor had cooled off enough that I actually went to see The Return of the King in the theater, but Blazing Denethor was enough to put me off again for a good long while. Even now, watching the movies with similarly minded friends tends to dissolve into criticisms and arguments.

My acceptance, and even appreciation, for what Jackson did has grown over the years. I am prepared to accept that different artists working in different mediums will tell a story differently – even have to present it differently. But I still believe that Jackson's films are not, in spirit, true to the point of the story as Tolkien told it. In a simple metaphor, I might say that Tolkien presented a story perhaps with some gray, but told mainly in black and white. Jackson retells the story in shades of gray, which does happen to maintain some white and black at the ends of the spectrum. Tolkien created a tale of heroes, although one with a realism of characterization not found in lesser imitators; Jackson is fascinated by – and expands on – the imperfections implicit in the humanity even of the Elvish and Dwarvish characters.

Jackson's vision increases Aragorn's doubt, and this is the most excusable fault. After all, Tolkien at least wrote that into the original story. Less palatable is his presentation of Elrond as a pessimist, if not a defeatist, a far cry from Tolkien's vision of a kingly Elven prince. But where Jackson really loses a handle on the story is in his portrayal of Tolkien's most heroic characters. Frodo and Sam's unshakeable trust in each other – which even the Ring fails to subdue until the very end – is replaced by an object lesson in trusting your friends, for the sake of which the bond of friendship is disrupted by Gollum, of all people. The same thing happens to Faramir – in Tolkien's hands, a most perfect gentle knight if there ever was one – who falls to temptation, again in order to teach the lesson of trust, or honesty, or something.

In short, all that is left of Tolkien's struggle between good and evil is the struggle against evil. Gandalf, in The Hobbit, questions Bilbo's loose use of "Good morning!", but I do not think he would be much happier with Jackson's idea of 'Good', which seems to be defined merely by an opposition to 'Bad'. Lest I seem to be faulting Jackson too much, I should say that this tends to be a common fault of modern fantasy. The taste for 'realism' has lowered our expectations for artistic heroes, even when it doesn't degenerate altogether – as in much of George R.R. Martin's or Alan Moore's work – into dystopian nihilism. To paraphrase whoever you've decided to attribute the quotation to today, all it takes for evil to triumph is for 'good men' to be merely 'decent', to be nothing in particular.

Tolkien wrote that The Lord of the Rings was not to be seen as paralleling the events of the Second World War, and noted that if it were the Western alliance would have taken much more pragmatic measures. Tolkien was perhaps himself more influenced by earlier wars in his own life, primarily the First World War, where it seemed that some idealistic spirit still endured, even if the nature of the fighting and the new technology with which it was conducted was horrific in fact. But to us now – and I think to Jackson – the idea of the hero, of the good man, has been deeply influenced by the wars fought over the last century, with a nod perhaps to the "Great War", but really beginning with the 'Greatest Generation' that left ordinary jobs and lives to fight totalitarian expansion, and continuing through the sometimes pointless wars and interventions in Asia, in the Middle East, in Latin America...

If I seem to be wandering far afield from mere film criticism, forgive me. If I might be so bold as to pretend to look inside Peter Jackson's mind, he has seen all of these historical events unfold, and to him what rings most true in Tolkien's work is the narrative of the simple man doing what is necessary, because someone has to. Where I see the story as a heroic saga, with Aragorn, Faramir, and the rest as noble examples to emulate, Jackson hears most strongly the sentiments of desirable normality and to him the untouchable heights of Tolkien's Galadriel, Faramir or Imrahil are the artistic inconsistency. I do not think his narrative allows properly for the way in which even Sam – the most 'common man' of the Company – has as an ideal "the brave things in the old tales": praising the people who did the deeds (whom again even, or especially, Sam recognizes as being not that unusual) not exactly for being innately heros, but more for performing heroism: recognizing them not for innate goodness but for the deeds themselves, the Good done. We culturally are used to idealizing the Normal Person in all his humanity and calling that, good and bad together, "good" (or at least good enough), and I think Jackson's understanding of the story is diminished for lacking a view towards anything much higher.