Joe Paterno and being human

In my opinion, the entire story of Joe Paterno is nothing less than a Greek Tragedy. The kind of trap the ancient Greeks were always warning against-- too much hubris. The reason that the warnings came was because the Greeks knew how easy it was to become enamored of oneself. The ideal was to keep things in perspective and maintain some kind of balance. Most of us do not have to worry about this on any grand scale. Who is subsescible to this? Any celebrity whether they be in the arts, sports, politics, et. al. A public figure! What happened to Joe Pa was almost predictable. He stayed at the helm too long, despite being asked to stop coaching at Penn State. The request to step down was early in the 2000's when he had built a reputation of a great coach and model for keeping a program clean. He had one of the highest rates of graduating football players throughout the country. He cared about his players. However, time had caught up with him. He did not recruit as well as he had previously and his teams were generally not ranked in the top 20 for a few years. However Joe refused the reasonable request claiming, quite rightly, that he brought more money into Penn State than anyone else. Besides , he said, what was he going to do on Saturday afternoons. Now that is all hubris. Yet it is understandable. He had taken for granted his status and his importance. In my opinion this is a gift; i.e. his great coaching and his great teams. He , in the end, viewed himself as indispensable and this gift had become a right and not something to be claimed as only his for all time. When you stick around too long something tragic is bound to happen. It just catches up with in some way, either directly or otherwise. A tragic figure and someone who may be remembered for the horrible events of the early 2000's rather than his great successes.

Teaching and Humor

It is difficult to daw the line in teaching between humor, surprise, playing the trickster, et. al. Most of the good teachers I know use humor in the classroom somehow. This requires some distance between the teacher and the students, a kind of objectivity. Further, they have to decide how to respond to students when they say weird and sometimes hurtful things. After all students come to class with plenty of baggage: Their boyfriend or girlfriend said something to them they did not like, or their Mom yelled at them that day, or they are just in a rotten mood. Who knows? Regardless, one has to approach class with a kind of lightness of being ; a kind of zen place where what students say or discuss is important and of value but not necessarily an earth shattering idea nor is it directed at the teacher. The teacher has to decide who and what to praise and appraise. But getting back to my major point on developing some distance in the classroom I have an example. I had a student who was a very funny wise guy. He was very smart; so my job was to listen to what he said carefully but not to get excited if he said something that had a personal twist to it. Further he was popular and respected in class. During One class I showed the class a picture of Golda Meir and asked them if they knew who this was . The wise guy said, "Oh what a nice picture of your Mom." Anyone who has ever seen Prime minister Meir knows that she borders on being ugly. I paused in my response and said, "Oh no this is not a picture of my mother. She was not nearly as good looking as Meir." Everyone laughed.

HUmor and surprise are often mixed in together, intentionally or not. When I was teaching new teachers at SF State I required them to keep a weekly journal of at least five mistakes they made during each week for the first six weeks of their teaching stint. Their mouths dropped about a thousand feet. I had to somehow punch a hole in their idea that they had to be perfect. It had a wonderful effect with them. They were to share with each other, in small groups, their imperfections. It made their work easier to deal with and easier to accept who they were.

Whatever ideas or "methods" one uses, the idea is to lighten the load for everyone. Nobody has to repeat that teaching is a huge and important task. It is a kind of spiritual stewardship where you have to lead by example. Perhaps the greatest complement I have ever received as a teacher was one where one of my students, representing the rest of the class, said, "As for Dr. Beren he is the silliest teacher we have ever experienced."