Trompetron Brings the Hammer
So, as y’all know, last night Annie covered the Mock Trial practice for me while I was at the library. Today I got what I chose to interpret as a rather disturbing email from Annie:
Hey Pat...
Meeting from 5-9 is totally useless...these kids have the attention spans of goldfish and 4 hours is just WAY too much time to expect them to concentrate on anything except for "cokemusic.com" and whatever game Sam plays where he kills lots of people.
Anyways, I know you don't set the times, but I just thought I'd let you know how lame it is. The greater amount of time ends up being counter productive. I'll be there Thursday at 5.
Annie
Now this upset me. Of course the kids are maniacs, but you wouldn’t believe how much trouble I have convincing other law school students to help coach: as you’ve probably gathered it’s a massive time commitment and law school students (or most of them anyway) generally have more pressing things to do with their time. And this message, which I interpreted as Annie feeling like she had wasted her time last night, I thought warranted immediate action. Plus, as things have been a little out of control lately, I figured it was as good an excuse as any to express my displeasure with their riotous behavior.
Switching to Present Tense:
So I show up, deliberately, between 5-10 minutes late so I know everyone else would already be screwing around in the computer room when I get there. And I walk into my usual corus of “Hi Patrick! Hi Pat!” etc. To which I respond very quietly, ”Hi everybody.” Then I ask Sasha--my faithful team captain--to get everyone’s attention for me. My intent, of course, is not to speak above a whisper at any time. And she does. And I say to the now strangely quiet computer lab.
“I need everyone to print out whatever material they need today and meet me in the classroom next door. Five minutes--no more.”
David rus up to me (exactly what I would expect from the guilty): “Did Annie tell you how I worked all day yesterday?”
“No,” I say. “She did not tell me that. Go print your stuff.”
Then Sam comes up: “Are you pissed?”
“Yes,” I say. “I am pissed. Go print your stuff.”--In addition to the quiet tone, I give him a perfectly flat stare. But I think the reason he suspects I’m about ready to pull out my AK is because I don’t use a contraction: I always use contractions--even when I’m writing. I have to go back and proofread all my papers to get rid of them. Then I turn and leave. I go out into the hall to talk with Dawn--another actual attorney coach--to see if she had noticed any especially poor behavior on the part of my team yesterday. She says she’d popped in just a couple of times to ask if anybody needed her help (no one took her up on it--they’re all convinced she hates them); she saw the usual raucousness but nothing out of the ordinary. I can certainly imagine that anyone not as intimately acquainted with and accustomed to the usual raucousness as I am the level of chaos would be almost unendurable. Without me to scream and bully, Annie must have been pretty close to at her wits end by the end of the evening. I really know all the kids and their misbehavior I find rather amusing--I get to yell at them and berate them, then summon them, make them perform, and then berate them again for screwing around when they were supposed to be working and thusly producing inferior work product. It’s fun. Then I tell them what they’re doing right, teach them what they’re doing wrong, and have them rewrite it under my careful observation and the threat of physical violence.
It’s my system, and with the exception of Arthur and Shaffer (Arthur missed a week, Shaffer is coming along but I still don’t get the sense I’ve connected with him at any kind of theoretical level), it works pretty well. “Bullshit,” you say? My father says it’s the strongest B team he’s seen in a decade--and I’m not sure the school has ever seen a B team this young. Annie, however, probably didn’t know what to do. She does fine following my lead, and she’s a great coach, and if this was her team she, I’m sure, wouldn’t have let things get to this level of disorder, but I’d already set the tone of team (loud, fun, lenient, irreverent, with unpredictable flashes of madness and violence), and it must be a hair pulling experience for anyone not as enamored with the antics of my team as I am.
Back to the narrative: So I watch the kids, one by one, go from the computer lab to the adjoining classroom. Anyone who leaves the classroom I ask, pointedly, “Where do you think you’re going?”--the someone is either Shaffer or Arthur, who forgot to print something in the lab. To Alex (girl), who isn’t a screw-off, I ask “Alex, could you wait in the classroom for a minute?”
Alex looks surprised--I can’t tell if it’s the quiet tone or the grim voice. Probably both. She says “Sure…uh…I was just going to fill up my water battle.”
I reply, politely but with the semi-psychotic quiet tone I’m dead set on employing (in contrast to my usual boisterousness) “Could you wait on that for a few minutes?”
“Sure,” she says and scurries back into the classroom. I turn and pop back into the computer lab. Arthur and Shaffer are still in there. “Guys,” I say, “This is taking to long. Hurry up.”
Moments later they’re out the door and in the class room. With my team now waiting for me, I take a few minutes to prepare for my entrance--give them just a few more moments of discomfort.
When I walk in, I’m pleased to see they’re all perfectly silent. I’m also glad to see they’ve naturally gravitated towards the seating I’ve prepared for them: I’ve moved an office chair [about three feet] into the center of a loose semicircle of desks. It’s backwards: the back of the chair faces the desks. The kids have all taken seats around it--if they were lawschool students they would have all taken seats at the back of the room and left the first 2-3 rows of desks (rows in the loosest sense of the word; these desks seem almost randomly placed) empty. They don’t, however. To me, this is a sign that they trust me.
They have left my seat empty. Good.
They are silent--they’ve never been silent before, ever.
I look at each of them. They are afraid. Good.
I straddle the chair, so that the back is still between me a them--a natural barrier. It’s distancing. I take a moment to look at each member of my audience. I am silent, like the room. They don’t know it, but they’re getting a lesson in how to give a closing argument. They are awake and waiting for me to speak. I begin:
“Today I got a rather troubling email from Annie. She was actually quite kind to you; she didn’t blame you--she said the meetings were too long. She said she didn’t think you were capable of focusing for four hours. She blamed the schedule.”
I allow that to linger in the air. This is a second lesson in closing argument, though they don’t it. I half-think about what I’m going to way. Mostly I just wait, taking my time, enjoying the silence. And the fear.
“But what was clear from her email was that she felt like she wasted her time. She said the meeting was counterproductive.”--that’s a misquote, but I didn’t realize it at the time.
I take some more time to let that sink in.
“I don’t like that she said that. Not just for me, but for you. For me: I feel embarrassed.” This is a third lesson in closing argument--or any legal argument--my students are always inclined to use modifiers in their writing: very, extremely, critically. I tell them not to do this over and over again: be intense, but be direct. Frills are unnecessary--in fact, they take from your credibility. Understate with passion and your audience will fill in those words for you in their heads. I am passionate. I am cold. I am severe. I am direct. They are ashamed. And afraid. Even the ones I know aren’t responsible. I can see how upset Sasha and Lillian are; I know they work their pants off every practice. This does not phase me in the slightest.
“Me,” I say, “I lead this team, and you’re my responsibility. It’s my responsibility to kick the crap out of you when I see you screwing around.” This is kind of funny, and the kind of thing I might say if I wasn’t lecturing, so David laughs at this--I silence him with a look. “But Annie’s volunteering, and I feel like it’s a personal favor to me each and every time she shows up. It shames me when she feels like she’s wasted her time.”
I linger on this--I own the silence. Looking back on this, I pray they had some sense of what I was doing and will employ it in their own arguments. I suspect they didn’t. Back t to the narrative:
“For you,” I say--still in a hushed, serious tone, “Annie’s a great coach. She knows what’s up. She’s a real asset to you. What’s more, she’s in her second year of law school and I’m in my third. I don’t have a job yet--I could very well be hired by someone outside the state. I hope I don’t, but it could. If I was, I’d hope there would be someone competent to take over next year, and I think Annie might do it. But if she feels like she’s wasting her time--“
Arthur and David have started whispering to each other. This is the first breach of absolute silence. I’m on them instantly:
“Arthur, David, shut up.”
“But we’re making a pact,” pleads David--I can see he’s extended his hand to Arthur.
“No cocks, penises, nothing,” chimes in Arthur, taking his arm at the wrist.
“Fine,” I say, still grim, “No cocks. Great. Do it after I’m done talking.”
They again fall into silence. I continue.
“If she feels like she’s wasting her time, she won’t. So look, if you’re going to be jackasses to me that’s one thing, but take it easy on Annie, okay? I expect you to behave with a certain level of decorum when it’s just you and her. You got that?”
Stony silence.
“Good,” I say, “That’s all I had to say.”
They stare at me. I stare at them. All is silent.
“No wait, one more thing,” They look terrified. “When we started I told you my goal for this team wasn’t just to make it to state--it was to be in the final round at the district competition against the A team. That’s because I know there’s amazing potential on this team.”
I again let this sink in. Then I drop the bomb.
“But you’re not there. No way. And if you want to be there you’re going to have to work your asses off for the next two weeks. Even if Franklin high is as bad as the rumors I head about them a few months ago made them out to be--and they won’t--you know how I know?”
“Because they’re moths old?” Chimed in Sasha.
“Because they’re always good,” I reply. “They have been since before I was in high school. But even if they’re as bad as they say, to be in the finals you’re still going to have to beat Seattle Prep--they’re very good, and they’ve only been at this, what, three years?”
“They went to nationals last year” says Sasha.
“They did not,” I say, “It was Franklin; Franklin always goes to nationals.”
“I don’t know,” says Sasha, “I remember we agreed to settle our differences with one if they beat the other one, but I can’t remember who won.”
“Let me make this very clear,” I said to my team, “Nobody on my team ever settles his differences with anyone.”
From here we degenerated into a pep rally about the relative merits of the other teams, and what it would take to beat them, which was exactly what we needed then to turn this motley crew into a team for a few hours. The amazing part was that you wouldn’t believe how well the team focused after this--they actually worked the entire hour. And even when I let down my guard and started having fun again, they kept plugging. Way to go team.
Well, I’m too tired now to conclude this passage, except to say that I still need to inform Annie that for my trick to work she needs to come into class tomorrow at least 20% more pissed off than she actually is.
I’m tired.
Peace: I’m out.
Hey Pat...
Meeting from 5-9 is totally useless...these kids have the attention spans of goldfish and 4 hours is just WAY too much time to expect them to concentrate on anything except for "cokemusic.com" and whatever game Sam plays where he kills lots of people.
Anyways, I know you don't set the times, but I just thought I'd let you know how lame it is. The greater amount of time ends up being counter productive. I'll be there Thursday at 5.
Annie
Now this upset me. Of course the kids are maniacs, but you wouldn’t believe how much trouble I have convincing other law school students to help coach: as you’ve probably gathered it’s a massive time commitment and law school students (or most of them anyway) generally have more pressing things to do with their time. And this message, which I interpreted as Annie feeling like she had wasted her time last night, I thought warranted immediate action. Plus, as things have been a little out of control lately, I figured it was as good an excuse as any to express my displeasure with their riotous behavior.
Switching to Present Tense:
So I show up, deliberately, between 5-10 minutes late so I know everyone else would already be screwing around in the computer room when I get there. And I walk into my usual corus of “Hi Patrick! Hi Pat!” etc. To which I respond very quietly, ”Hi everybody.” Then I ask Sasha--my faithful team captain--to get everyone’s attention for me. My intent, of course, is not to speak above a whisper at any time. And she does. And I say to the now strangely quiet computer lab.
“I need everyone to print out whatever material they need today and meet me in the classroom next door. Five minutes--no more.”
David rus up to me (exactly what I would expect from the guilty): “Did Annie tell you how I worked all day yesterday?”
“No,” I say. “She did not tell me that. Go print your stuff.”
Then Sam comes up: “Are you pissed?”
“Yes,” I say. “I am pissed. Go print your stuff.”--In addition to the quiet tone, I give him a perfectly flat stare. But I think the reason he suspects I’m about ready to pull out my AK is because I don’t use a contraction: I always use contractions--even when I’m writing. I have to go back and proofread all my papers to get rid of them. Then I turn and leave. I go out into the hall to talk with Dawn--another actual attorney coach--to see if she had noticed any especially poor behavior on the part of my team yesterday. She says she’d popped in just a couple of times to ask if anybody needed her help (no one took her up on it--they’re all convinced she hates them); she saw the usual raucousness but nothing out of the ordinary. I can certainly imagine that anyone not as intimately acquainted with and accustomed to the usual raucousness as I am the level of chaos would be almost unendurable. Without me to scream and bully, Annie must have been pretty close to at her wits end by the end of the evening. I really know all the kids and their misbehavior I find rather amusing--I get to yell at them and berate them, then summon them, make them perform, and then berate them again for screwing around when they were supposed to be working and thusly producing inferior work product. It’s fun. Then I tell them what they’re doing right, teach them what they’re doing wrong, and have them rewrite it under my careful observation and the threat of physical violence.
It’s my system, and with the exception of Arthur and Shaffer (Arthur missed a week, Shaffer is coming along but I still don’t get the sense I’ve connected with him at any kind of theoretical level), it works pretty well. “Bullshit,” you say? My father says it’s the strongest B team he’s seen in a decade--and I’m not sure the school has ever seen a B team this young. Annie, however, probably didn’t know what to do. She does fine following my lead, and she’s a great coach, and if this was her team she, I’m sure, wouldn’t have let things get to this level of disorder, but I’d already set the tone of team (loud, fun, lenient, irreverent, with unpredictable flashes of madness and violence), and it must be a hair pulling experience for anyone not as enamored with the antics of my team as I am.
Back to the narrative: So I watch the kids, one by one, go from the computer lab to the adjoining classroom. Anyone who leaves the classroom I ask, pointedly, “Where do you think you’re going?”--the someone is either Shaffer or Arthur, who forgot to print something in the lab. To Alex (girl), who isn’t a screw-off, I ask “Alex, could you wait in the classroom for a minute?”
Alex looks surprised--I can’t tell if it’s the quiet tone or the grim voice. Probably both. She says “Sure…uh…I was just going to fill up my water battle.”
I reply, politely but with the semi-psychotic quiet tone I’m dead set on employing (in contrast to my usual boisterousness) “Could you wait on that for a few minutes?”
“Sure,” she says and scurries back into the classroom. I turn and pop back into the computer lab. Arthur and Shaffer are still in there. “Guys,” I say, “This is taking to long. Hurry up.”
Moments later they’re out the door and in the class room. With my team now waiting for me, I take a few minutes to prepare for my entrance--give them just a few more moments of discomfort.
When I walk in, I’m pleased to see they’re all perfectly silent. I’m also glad to see they’ve naturally gravitated towards the seating I’ve prepared for them: I’ve moved an office chair [about three feet] into the center of a loose semicircle of desks. It’s backwards: the back of the chair faces the desks. The kids have all taken seats around it--if they were lawschool students they would have all taken seats at the back of the room and left the first 2-3 rows of desks (rows in the loosest sense of the word; these desks seem almost randomly placed) empty. They don’t, however. To me, this is a sign that they trust me.
They have left my seat empty. Good.
They are silent--they’ve never been silent before, ever.
I look at each of them. They are afraid. Good.
I straddle the chair, so that the back is still between me a them--a natural barrier. It’s distancing. I take a moment to look at each member of my audience. I am silent, like the room. They don’t know it, but they’re getting a lesson in how to give a closing argument. They are awake and waiting for me to speak. I begin:
“Today I got a rather troubling email from Annie. She was actually quite kind to you; she didn’t blame you--she said the meetings were too long. She said she didn’t think you were capable of focusing for four hours. She blamed the schedule.”
I allow that to linger in the air. This is a second lesson in closing argument, though they don’t it. I half-think about what I’m going to way. Mostly I just wait, taking my time, enjoying the silence. And the fear.
“But what was clear from her email was that she felt like she wasted her time. She said the meeting was counterproductive.”--that’s a misquote, but I didn’t realize it at the time.
I take some more time to let that sink in.
“I don’t like that she said that. Not just for me, but for you. For me: I feel embarrassed.” This is a third lesson in closing argument--or any legal argument--my students are always inclined to use modifiers in their writing: very, extremely, critically. I tell them not to do this over and over again: be intense, but be direct. Frills are unnecessary--in fact, they take from your credibility. Understate with passion and your audience will fill in those words for you in their heads. I am passionate. I am cold. I am severe. I am direct. They are ashamed. And afraid. Even the ones I know aren’t responsible. I can see how upset Sasha and Lillian are; I know they work their pants off every practice. This does not phase me in the slightest.
“Me,” I say, “I lead this team, and you’re my responsibility. It’s my responsibility to kick the crap out of you when I see you screwing around.” This is kind of funny, and the kind of thing I might say if I wasn’t lecturing, so David laughs at this--I silence him with a look. “But Annie’s volunteering, and I feel like it’s a personal favor to me each and every time she shows up. It shames me when she feels like she’s wasted her time.”
I linger on this--I own the silence. Looking back on this, I pray they had some sense of what I was doing and will employ it in their own arguments. I suspect they didn’t. Back t to the narrative:
“For you,” I say--still in a hushed, serious tone, “Annie’s a great coach. She knows what’s up. She’s a real asset to you. What’s more, she’s in her second year of law school and I’m in my third. I don’t have a job yet--I could very well be hired by someone outside the state. I hope I don’t, but it could. If I was, I’d hope there would be someone competent to take over next year, and I think Annie might do it. But if she feels like she’s wasting her time--“
Arthur and David have started whispering to each other. This is the first breach of absolute silence. I’m on them instantly:
“Arthur, David, shut up.”
“But we’re making a pact,” pleads David--I can see he’s extended his hand to Arthur.
“No cocks, penises, nothing,” chimes in Arthur, taking his arm at the wrist.
“Fine,” I say, still grim, “No cocks. Great. Do it after I’m done talking.”
They again fall into silence. I continue.
“If she feels like she’s wasting her time, she won’t. So look, if you’re going to be jackasses to me that’s one thing, but take it easy on Annie, okay? I expect you to behave with a certain level of decorum when it’s just you and her. You got that?”
Stony silence.
“Good,” I say, “That’s all I had to say.”
They stare at me. I stare at them. All is silent.
“No wait, one more thing,” They look terrified. “When we started I told you my goal for this team wasn’t just to make it to state--it was to be in the final round at the district competition against the A team. That’s because I know there’s amazing potential on this team.”
I again let this sink in. Then I drop the bomb.
“But you’re not there. No way. And if you want to be there you’re going to have to work your asses off for the next two weeks. Even if Franklin high is as bad as the rumors I head about them a few months ago made them out to be--and they won’t--you know how I know?”
“Because they’re moths old?” Chimed in Sasha.
“Because they’re always good,” I reply. “They have been since before I was in high school. But even if they’re as bad as they say, to be in the finals you’re still going to have to beat Seattle Prep--they’re very good, and they’ve only been at this, what, three years?”
“They went to nationals last year” says Sasha.
“They did not,” I say, “It was Franklin; Franklin always goes to nationals.”
“I don’t know,” says Sasha, “I remember we agreed to settle our differences with one if they beat the other one, but I can’t remember who won.”
“Let me make this very clear,” I said to my team, “Nobody on my team ever settles his differences with anyone.”
From here we degenerated into a pep rally about the relative merits of the other teams, and what it would take to beat them, which was exactly what we needed then to turn this motley crew into a team for a few hours. The amazing part was that you wouldn’t believe how well the team focused after this--they actually worked the entire hour. And even when I let down my guard and started having fun again, they kept plugging. Way to go team.
Well, I’m too tired now to conclude this passage, except to say that I still need to inform Annie that for my trick to work she needs to come into class tomorrow at least 20% more pissed off than she actually is.
I’m tired.
Peace: I’m out.