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The Real GOOD Loser, A Story That Could…
Chapter 8: The Bull
“The world is changing. You’ll have to decide who you’re loyal to.”
—from the film Divergent
*
Future civilizations will study how entertainment and the internet transformed our world. They will be able to look at our behavior differently with an understanding we cannot comprehend today. They will use what is happening now to improve future life on this planet…
The district has announced that In-Person-Learning will begin next week, but right now me and my students are still doing lessons remotely. Minimizing this quote on screen, I see their faces in their boxes. “So,” I ask them, “what did you think?”
I had given them this quote at the end of the day yesterday to read and reflect on in their journals for homework. “In just a sentence or two,” I told them, “Tell me what this might mean for the future.”
With no one volunteering I force them to. “Pras,” I say, “what did you write.”
Looking down, Pras reads from his journal. “Classes are taught to kids about the Industrial Revolution and how that changed everything. Someday a class will be taught about the Internet Revolution and how that changed everything too.” —Pras looks up from his journal— “That’s pretty much what you were looking for, right Mr. J?”
“I like it Pras,” I answer with a confirming nod. “What did you write Lauryn?”
“Honestly…” Lauryn says straightening up to look at me from her box on screen. “I found the assignment annoying. Just some words to push hope at us. I knew you wouldn’t want to hear that, so I didn’t write anything.”
Like she often does Lauryn is challenging me—honestly. Her use of the that word before offering a critical opinion makes me think of my mother, who, like Lauryn, likes to push buttons with her honesty from time to time. I think Lauryn didn’t do my assignment and is just deflecting at the moment. Of course, I know better than to say that to her.
“Fair enough Lauryn,” I say trying to sound sympathetic. “Nel, how about you? What do you write?”
Nel’s eyes look down and then up and then shift to something as he prepares to respond. “I agree with Lauryn,” he says after a moment.
On the top left of my screen Lauryn smiles and I see Nel smile from his box on the other side. They don’t smile to each other but instead to the camera in front of them; making me, Pras, and Candace feel like a third wheel on a date.
“Try thinking as an individual Nel and not as a boyfriend,” I say to his smiling face. “I’m sure Lauryn can take an honest opinion from you.”
Nel’s face turns immediately serious. “She’s right Mr. J,” he says. “The assignment didn’t make sense. I just wrote some crap to say I did it.”
The tone in which Nel speaks irritates me but him sticking with his girlfriend has me wondering if maybe he’s just a bit smarter than I give him credit for. Not wanting to put Candace in the awkward position of answering next, I decide to start the day’s lesson.
All week I have been working with them on something I titled The Sprinkle Scale. Introducing the lesson, I defined the word as we would use it: Sprinkle (a verb): to tell a story using pieces of truth.
The scale I created for this lesson is a horizonal ten-point scale with the number zero on the far left, next the word REAL, and the number ten on the far right, next to the word FICTION.
We’ve been using this scale all week to rate television shows, movies, and single scenes of entertainment. The objective is simple: How much of what we are being fed is based on real life stuff, and how much of if it is sprinkled with fiction to make it more entertaining to its audience?
I didn’t tell these students, but the word sprinkle was a word I stole from councilor John at the halfway house. When I was there my wife began dating our landscaper and so he told me to consider her a “sprinkler of truth”. While I stole that word from him, the idea for this lesson was born out of a conversation with my twins back at the end of last school year.
We had started watching scary movies together and flipping through the channels one day the movie Seven was on. We didn’t watch it long but in the few minutes we did, I explained to them that the movie was called Seven because this killer was choosing one victim for each of the seven deadly sins. I was then asked if the movie was based on a true story. I said it wasn’t.
“Dad,” one of them then said after just a minute of inner contemplation, “I’m thinking so hard right now…someone could really do this.”
My son “thinking so hard” had me laughing that day. But him believing someone could really pull off such a tactful and methodical series of murders was in no way funny to me. Thinking on it later was when I came up with this Sprinkle Scale lesson for this class. It’s also when I realized my life could be a warning about what happens when a person commits those seven deadly sins.
Introducing this lesson to my students I told them about that conversation with my twins and played a clip from that movie Seven for them: “Wanting people to listen you can’t just tap them on the shoulder anymore.” —The killer in that movie spoke from the back of a police vehicle— “You need to hit them in the head with a sledgehammer. Then you’ll notice you’ve got their strict attention.”
I used that quote, and a few others from this show Westworld, to illustrate how writers insert lines into their stories that speak to how they see the world. “There are secrets hiding everywhere writers want you to find,” I said. “Most don’t hear it, but conversations of relevance are snuck into what we watch all the time.”
That day I also had us listen to the entrance song to the show Sopranos: “Woke up this morning,” that catchy jingle sings, “Got yourself a gun.” I then required them to write a one-page reflection in their journals in reference to this writing prompt I provided:
If someone were to binge-watch the show Sopranos they’d anticipate something awful happening at each suspenseful pause. Screenwriters are trained to ramp up drama whenever possible, and that show is a masterpiece in how it’s done. Do you think that feeling stays with a person in real life? Do you think the entertainment we are consuming is twisting our perception of reality? Why or why not?
Each day a student has picked a show of their choosing and ranked it using our scale. As a class we discussed it and agreed with the ranking or offered a different one of our own. Today is Lauryn’s day to share. She’s chosen the show 13 Reasons Why.
“I ranked the show a two on The Sprinkle Scale,” Lauryn says after reviewing her choice.
Lauryn’s ranking suggests this show is very accurate to how things are in real life. The show Lauryn has chosen is a high school drama: a “soap opera for kids” I call it. A child in the show committed suicide and left a video outlining the 13 Reasons Why she felt compelled to do it.
Lauryn was required to inform me of the show she would be discussing today and so I watched two episodes last night. The premise is one I’ve seen many times. Someone gets treated poorly, so that person treats another person poorly, and so on. This cycle continues until no one is to blame but everyone. While I haven’t seen the entire show, I’m rather certain that’s where its headed.
So far I have mostly agreed with rankings and kept conversations on track when needed. I am about to step out of this passive observer role with Lauryn however; knowing I’m destined to get myself in trouble by doing so.
“What if I told you I rank the show an eight on our scale Lauryn…honestly.”
I say the word honestly in a sarcastic tone, making sure Lauryn catches the sarcasm. My ranking suggests I feel this show is more fiction than real.
Lauryn does not need to defend her ranking of the show as Pras jumps in instead. “Mr. J,” he says, “Bullying is real. You can’t say this stuff isn’t really happening.”
“Yes, Pras, bullying is real,” I reply calmly. “But to make shows like this entertaining they bundle the worst of the worst and feed it to us like it’s normal. Truly mean people aren’t everywhere like these shows we watch make us believe…I’ve told you that already.”
“But this show isn’t a bunch of kids doing Karate on each other Mr. J.” Lauryn says.
“Yeah,” adds Nel, “This shit happens all the time. It’s everywhere. You’re lying to yourself if you think it isn’t.”
“Alright Nel,” I say trying to remain calm, “give me an example then.”
At my request these students do what I ask; they start sharing stories. Not with me, but with each other. It’s Thursday now and this is the third straight day of listening to them talk like this to one another and I can’t help but feel drained by it.
To practice using this scale on Monday, I had us watch a collection of YouTube videos I selected over the summer. I had us break for five minutes, watch them individually, and then come back to discuss them as a group.
Part of my original assignment required them to: “Count the number of negative behaviors and/or not nice or difficult people you see in the first five minutes of the show you review”.
We practiced doing this with those short YouTube videos. Arguing over what behavior I considered “negative” and what behavior they considered “joking” became too much of a battle, and so I scrapped that part of the assignment.
That discussion with them had me thinking of the show Impractical Jokers my boys like watching. I watch it with them, but they know I don’t much like it. I think seeing me be annoyed makes it funnier to them. I grew up a part of the Jackass Generation, so I get why they like it, but those shows are becoming harder and harder for me to watch with how I think they’re impacting life in the real world.
The students on this computer in front of me continue sharing stories with each other. Things that have happened to their friends—Things that have happened to people they know—Things they’ve seen on the news and on social media. All of it intended to get me, their teacher, to see the light: To see the cruelty that childhood seems to require these days.
I’m not blind to the behaviors these students are describing. When I take my boys to Doyle Field to watch our high school football team play, I see how crappy kids treat one another most of the time. Kids do this thinking it’s cool or funny, because—in my opinion—at some point all that “joking” on screen became our reality.
I also know that kids have been treating other kids poorly forever. And that we will forever turn that behavior into good entertainment. I simply refuse to let myself believe that things can’t get better…in the real world.
“When your little you learn how to see things that aren’t there, and when you grow up you learn how to make them real.”
This quote from a show called The Haunting of Hill House will be what these students reflect on tonight. Not telling them the name of the show, the question they must answer in their journals will be this: What could a person take this quote to mean?
I chose that quote from my entertainment journal after listening to Pras discuss the show Euphoria yesterday; another high school soap opera but one much darker than Lauryn’s 13 Reasons Why. After the discussion we had about that show yesterday, I could have predicted where this conversation today would go.
These students have no clue how hard it is to be the positive voice here. To watch all these shows, I pay for God knows how many streaming services. One of them started playing commercials recently. If I don’t want commercials all I need to do is pay an additional $2.99 per month.
Interested to see why this company had done this, I Googled it. According to the company’s official statement they want to: invest more money in compelling content.
“Camouflaging greed with words, one of the few well-paying jobs for those willing to sell their souls to do it.”
I wrote that in my journal after reading that company’s explanation of adding commercials. That’s why I keep a journal. I can write my frustrations down and not say them out loud.
Sampling an episode of Pras’s show Euphoria was painful in many ways but enlightening in others. It had me thinking about pornography; and how that is yet another thing that needs to be addressed in schools. “Heaven help the poor soul that attempts tackling that subject,” I wrote in my journal.
The list of entertainment I’m finding unwatchable is getting longer and longer. These students, like most everyone I encounter, just don’t see things like me though. And trying to get them to is starting to feel more and more impossible every day.
Candace reviewed the show Cobra Kai the first day we did this on Tuesday. Me and my boys love this spinoff of The Karate Kid movies. Making sure everyone in this class had seen it, I suggested Candace review it to get us going and get her involved. That show is number one on Netflix now. Before that I think it was Tiger King—what an entertainingly shallow show that was.
Entertainment is produced to make money. With a ton of people in the world, entertainment does not need to speak to everyone to be profitable. Feed enough people what they want, and you’ll make your money…damn the consequences.
“The Sprinkle Scale is not a scientific instrument. There are no right or wrong numbers to assign a piece of entertainment using the scale.” —I explained this when I first introduced the lesson— “It’s simply a tool to get you to acknowledge the entertainment value of the food you are feeding your minds.”
Remembering these words, I decide now is a good time to put an end to this gossip session happening in my mind and on this computer screen in front of me.
“Are any of you as mean to each other as these kids you’re talking about are?”
Blank faces look back at me.
I’m asking them to admit to acting like jerks and know they won’t to a teacher. One by one I make each of them tell me they’re not as mean as these people and characters we’ve been talking about.
“Would any of you want to be friends with someone so mean?” —Blank faces look back at me again— “So, if you’re not this mean, and you wouldn’t be friends with someone so mean, then where are all these mean people hiding?”
For a short second I think I might have won, until Lauryn speaks. “Everywhere Mr. J,” she says eying me seriously through the computer screen.
I watch heads nod in agreement and feel the exhaustion and frustration consume me. It’s entertainment Lauryn, I feel myself want to lecture her, how do you not recognize that?
People often tell me to “focus on the positive” when I’m feeling low. Its moments like this that make me hate hearing that— How can I focus on the positive when the negative is so damn loud?
The deeper message in every show these students have reviewed this week is that whatever bad behavior exists, it exists because we all feel alone in some way. With our attention spans getting shorter, that lesson is often overlooked, but much else sticks…and it’s not just these kids it’s happening to.
People are not as mean or entertaining as these shows make us believe. Some might want to be, and try hard to be, but they’ll most always let you and themselves down by trying. Despite our deepest desires, and our most fabulous fantasies…life in the real world is nothing like what we see on screen.
But—What if it could be?
My mind interrupts this internal monologue with a question: If we make the world appear better on screen, could that happen in real life? … Could changing the world really be so simple?
*
Article Title: The Bull
Dated: Friday, October 9th, 2020
“People are starting to lose hope. It’s hard for many to believe there are extraordinary things inside themselves as well as others.”
—from the movie Unbreakable
In the Star Wars movie Empire Strikes Back, Yoda is teaching young Luke Skywalker how to be a Jedi and says this famous line: “You must unlearn what you have learned.”
Why would a teacher tell their student to unlearn what they have learned?
After the flack you all gave me this past week I’m smart enough not to try and answer that question here. I will however give you all a chance to answer it yourselves in just a little bit. First though I’ll be forcing you to listen to me again. (Sorry/not sorry.)
Humans created this thing we call entertainment thousands of years ago. Television has been around for about one hundred years and social media and the internet have been around for much less. While many of us appreciate these distractions in our lives, we must address the effect they are having on how we think and how we feel. That’s kind of why I’m here, my young padawans.
What is our concept of reality and what has helped create that concept of reality?
Today there are enough reality televisions shows and true crime series to keep a person comfortably sedated on their couch for weeks and months on end. MTV’s Real World began in 1992. In the thirty years that show has been on television, has that show become more real or has humanity become more fake?
Other entertainment we enjoy uses misperception and deception to keep us engaged. If we are to assume humans are a product of their environment, what affect is this having on us? These are not rhetorical questions. I’d like you to really think about them as next week I’ll be requiring you to write a one-page reflection—lucky you.
“I believe there is a hero inside all of us that keeps us honest, gives us strength, and keeps us noble.”
I wrote that in the proposal that would eventually get this class funded. It’s a line I had pirated from a Spiderman movie. I then wrote: Humanity faces a crises: To protect, maintain, and evolve their Emotional Intelligence.
Those weren’t just words I used to get people’s attention then. It’s how I really feel. Please keep that in mind when I share silly stories like this next one with you….
“Did you know they put an elastic string around a bull’s testicles to make it go crazy like that?”
Me, my two cousins, and my three siblings were watching a bull riding competition at one of our regular Sunday dinners at my grandparents’ house when my cousin said this to us.
He was the oldest of the bunch. Was my all-knowing big cousin correct—Was there really an elastic string tied around this bull’s testicles?
Watching this bull riding competition together, when the bull kicked its legs us kids would jump up and stare into the television attempting to see a string in that millisecond. It wasn’t just us kids entertained by this. Aunts, uncles, even my grandparents pondered the validity of my cousin’s statement that day.
There would be no proof though unless one of us actually saw it: “You have to see it to believe it.” So, we all watched that day, and we all laughed together trying to “see it”.
Those were simpler times back then. Before we could pause live television and before someone could have just Googled an answer; like I’m sure many of you will later. My uncle would play a joke on my dad shortly after that, telling him he’d won the chance to ride a bull at a bull-riding event coming to the Worcester Centrum.
My uncle told my dad he had submitted him into a drawing and provided a professional looking letter saying he had won. If I get my gullibility from anyone it might be my dad; who showed up to that bull-riding event wearing a cowboy hat and looking much more excited than he probably should have.
I can’t go back and experience that happy moment from my childhood, but a moment like that isn’t lost forever. Sharing that story with you now makes it live on. That’s why entertainment—despite its drawbacks—is so valuable: because it gives us humans a tool to keep memories like those alive and keep us connected in ways that might not always be obvious.
How many apocalyptic endings to this world have you been fed as entertainment over the years? … How is this real-world Covid situation comparing to what you’ve seen on screen?
Those—My Young Padawans—are rhetorical questions. Meaning, I don’t want you to answer them. I only use them here to get you thinking. Harass me later if you’d like but let me finish here first.
Life isn’t always wonderful. Life can be hard, unsatisfying, and sometimes feel too long. Life might feel overwhelming and boring at the same time. Again, I’m not here to telling you anything you didn’t know already.
Some days we are sad. Some days we are angry. Some days we are annoyed, worried, anxious, stressed, etc.——“Momma said there’d be days like this.”
But then there are those wonderful few days and moments in the middle when we are happy. And that’s the goal…Right?
In a world where life seems to be getting harder and harder year after year for the majority of us, and tragedy strikes everywhere you look, surviving another day is more often than not the goal for many of us. Not happiness. I wish this were not the case but there is simply too much evidence to support this statement.
Maybe that’s why Hollywood makes so much money showing us these apocalyptic events? … Maybe some of us find hope in believing the end of days is near?
The pursuit of happiness is not something to be ashamed of. Like many of you I think my well-being lies at the center of the universe also. It’s how the human brain is wired and there is nothing wrong with that necessarily. It has something to do with self-preservation I think.
That said, try and be grateful for simply being alive today if you can——Because trying to stay happy in this life is like riding a bull.
Life will kick you around. Life will punish you. Life will test you. Life will make you hold on while you wait for it to get tired and give up before you do. Unfortunately, the bull always wins. And we all eventually fall off. At that point the question is always the same: Will you get back on?
I hope you will always get back on because there is no way to “Google” what the future holds. Maybe all the turmoil and struggle we have endured is one long commercial the universe is playing before it releases its grand final act?
Which reminds me—Did you know that in some religions the word apocalypse represents an awakening period for all of humanity? That’s quite different than what Hollywood has us believing it means. Which version do you think will come to be?
Regardless of what Lauryn tells me, only time will answer this question. Whatever happens it promises to be one hell of a show though. So, gather your friends and sit up close, you won’t want to miss it. Maybe you could go and buy yourself a cowboy hat and watch it with me and my dad?
In case you were wondering, no one was able to see that string tied around the bull’s testicles that day. As an adult I have often felt like that bull though: thinking maybe I had a string down there myself.
Only recently have I discovered the truth: that I am nothing like that bull. Instead, I am more like that string… Do you see it?
WEEKLY QUESTION FOR REFLECTION:
Why would a teacher tell his students to unlearn what they have learned? Have fun answering this question in your journals. Don’t worry I won’t judge you for your opinions until next week.
The Teacher’s Playlist:
Levitating (feat. Dababy) by Dua Lipa
“I could take you for a ride.”
(End of Chapter 8)
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Recovery High School 