That being said, I have recently begun to have a greater understanding of what may have happened and what may have led to that terrible day and many others like it that have ravaged communities and ruined lives. In her novel Nineteen Minutes, Jodi Picoult explores the tragedy of a school shooting from many different angles and perspectives. This novel, more than anything else, has given me a window into the world of teenagers, bullying, violence, and popularity that I hadn’t had up to this point in my life. After reading it, I’m convinced that it carries lessons that need to be taught to all who deal regularly with teenagers: teachers, coaches, parents, mentors, friends, and teenagers themselves.

Picoult’s novel begins with Peter Houghton, a social outcast who has been maliciously bullied throughout his whole school life, setting a car bomb off as a distraction and entering his small New Hampshire high school with two pistols and two sawed-off shotguns.  In the 19 minutes that follow, Peter goes through the school, shooting all who get in his path.  The shooting ends in the locker room where Peter is stopped by Detective Patrick Ducharme, who talks Peter out of killing himself and promptly arrests him.

The rest of the novel follows the lead up to the trial.  Woven throughout the narrative of the aftermath are vignettes that describe Peter’s formative years and the many events that lead up to the shooting.  The vignettes make Peter an extremely sympathetic character.  They paint a picture of years of torture at the hands of his classmates and the stinging rejection of his best friend who leaves him to become part of the “in” crowd.  These years of bullying go essentially unchecked by parents, teachers, and coaches, and are egged on by students who basically see Peter’s peril as a reprieve from their own suffering at the hands of these teenage mercenaries.

By the time the trial begins in the novel, the reader finds him/herself (well, at least I did) rooting for Peter to be shown leniency by the jury.  At times, I even found myself hoping that he would be acquitted.  I won’t give away the ending by telling what happens, but I will say that the climax of the novel has a wicked twist that I didn’t anticipate at all.  I knew that a wrinkle was coming (it is foreshadowed throughout the novel), but I was completely shocked by what that wrinkle was.

Overall, the theme of the novel is that school shootings and other types of teenage tragedies fall at the feet of all of us.  We all have a stake in how these kids grow up, and therefore, we must all shoulder some of the blame when things happen.  It doesn’t give all of the answers–indeed, I doubt if there are a lot of answers–but it does open the window on the issue.  It reminds me of a song by Jack Johnson called “Cookie Jar”:

It was you. It was me. It was everyman.

We’ve all got the blood on our hands.

We only receive what we demand,

And if we want hell, then hell’s what we’ll have.

Jack, who was writing about Columbine, saw the issue clearly as does Picoult.  The problem is that most of us are unwilling or unable to make serious change and help the teenagers in our lives.  As a teacher, this book made me recommit to helping kids, not just by teaching them curriculum, but also by being a mentor, a friend, and an example.

The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?

Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an ‘x’ after those you have read.
2) Star (*) those you plan on reading.
3) Tally your total at the bottom.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (x)
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (x)
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (x)
4. The Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (x)
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (x)
6. The Bible (x)
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte ( )
8. 1984 - George Orwell (x)
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (x)
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens ( )
11. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott ( )
12. Tess of the D’Ubervilles - Thomas Hardy ( )
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (*)
14. The Complete Works of Shakespeare ( ) –This one is dumb. I’ve read a lot of Shakespeare, but not his complete works
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier ( )
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (x)
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk ( )
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (x)
19. The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger ( )
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot ( )
21. Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell ( )
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (x)
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens ( )
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (*) –I’m still trying to talk myself into this one
25. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (x)
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh ( )
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (*) –of all the insanely long Russian novels, this is the one that I’m most interested in reading
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (x)
29. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (x)
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame ( )
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy ( )
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens ( )
33. The Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (x)
34. Emma - Jane Austen ( )
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen ( )
36. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis (x) –kind of covered under 33, wasn’t it?
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini (x)
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres ( )
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden (*)
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (x)
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell (x)
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (x)
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (x)
44. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving ( )
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins ( )
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery ( )
47. Far from the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy ( )
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood ( )
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding (x)
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan ( )
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel (*)
52. Dune - Frank Herbert (*)
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons ( )
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen ( )
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth ( )
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon ( )
57. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (x)
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (x)
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon (x)
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (x)
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (x)
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov ( )
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt ( )
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold (x)
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas ( )
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac (x)
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy ( )
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding ( )
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie (*)
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville ( )
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens ( )
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker (x)
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (x)
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson ( )
75. Ulysses - James Joyce ( )
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath ( )
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome ( )
78. Germinal - Emile Zola ( )
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray ( )
80. Possession - AS Byatt ( )
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (x)
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell ( )
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker (*)
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro ( )
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (x)
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry (x)
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White (x)
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (x)
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (x)
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton ( )
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (x)
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery ( )
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks ( )
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams ( )
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole ( )
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute ( )
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas ( )
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare (x)
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (x)
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo ( )

I’ve read 40 out of 100 and 8 more that are now on my reading list. That’s not too bad, I guess.

I have a real problem with this list, however, because of the obvious bias toward British authors, especially Dickens and Austen (neither of which I’m inclined to read unless I have to) and the exclusion of great American authors like Twain, Vonnegut, Hemingway, Faulkner, and Toni Morrison. So, for what it’s worth, there’s my list, but I’m protesting the bias. Enjoy.

Rules:
Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you. (To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people [in the right hand corner of the app] then click publish.)

Here goes nothing:

1. I’ve been engaged twice, and married once.  I’m glad that I got it right the second time.
2. I was pretty sure that I didn’t want kids until I had one.  Now I can’t imagine life without them.
3. I’m an insomniac.  I usually only sleep 4-5 hours a night, and I love it.  Most of the good work that I have done in my life has happened after midnight.
4. For 29 1/2 years, I was the most unorganized person on earth.  That changed when I read David Allen’s book Getting Things Done.  Now I’m at least functionally organized.
5. Allen’s book was about the 15th book on personal management that I’ve read.  It’s the only one that stuck.
6. I love to write music, but rarely share it with anyone other than Carmella.
7. I taught myself to play the guitar in my 20s.
8. I love to play chess and have a hard time finding anyone (not online) that can compete with me, except for my dad.
9. I’m fascinated by religion even though I don’t have much use for it in my personal life.
10. I read 40-50 books a year and would love to read more.
11. I wrote a song for Mrs. Wakefield’s English class in 10th grade called “We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ English.”  Now I’m an English teacher.  Life is full of sweet little ironies.
12. I started writing a novel 5 years ago and plan to finish it someday.
13. I love hanging out with people, but generally prefer to stay home.
14. I honestly think that I’m the only driver on the road who actually knows how to drive, especially if I’m in Utah County.
15. I believe that using swear words is an acceptable use of the language, especially if they’re used in creative ways.
16. My favorite swear word is “shit,” but I have a few others that I use too damn much.
17. Carmella and I give each other the finger several times a day.  I think that it now means “I love you.”
18. I prefer that people be honest rather than nice.
19. I own and ride a maxi-scooter (which is a large scooter made for traveling long distances on highways).  I’ve been all over southern Utah on mine.
20. I wish my family wouldn’t worry about my soul so much, but I’m flattered that they do.
21. I love music, and my taste varies from classical to heavy metal and everything in between.  The only music that I don’t really care for is rap.
22. My daughter is the smartest kindergartner in the world.  It’s true.
23. I’m very interested in politics, but loathe the hypocrisy that I see there.
24. I believe that the worst thing to ever happen to America was that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and Ann Coulter were ever given an audience.  It’s even worse that they’re allowed to call themselves conservatives.
25. I agonize over anything that I write and share.  I’ve spent three days thinking about this list.

There they are, enjoy!

Both of these personalities were on display last night during their home loss to the Bulls.  In the first half, the Jazz shot a ton of jump shots and were consistently beaten down the court by a young, talented Bulls team, led by Derrick Rose.  What amazed me in the half was the refusal of the Jazz to pound the ball inside.  With Memo playing well and Millsap working the paint as usual, the Jazz avoided the paint like the plague, shooting isolation jumpshots.  This refusal to work the paint led to a lot of quick possessions and long rebounds that translated into quick points for the Bulls.  After this abysmal performance, the Jazz were down 53-45 at the half.

In the third quarter, the other personality of the Jazz showed up.  The third quarter was a dunk fest.  The Jazz were active on defense, got steals and deflections, and ran the floor for dunks in fast break situations.  The best of these, a Ronnie Brewer special, made the “Dunk of the Night” on ESPN:

After an exciting third quarter, the Jazz led 75-72 and apparently felt pretty good about themselves because the no-defense personality returned, and they basically traded baskets with the Bulls for the final quarter.  The last two minutes were especially bad as the lead went back and forth, each team taking a 1-point lead after each possession.  The problem with trading baskets in this manner is that whoever has the last possession is going to win.  The Bulls had the last possession.  In the final seconds and up by one, the Jazz forced Derrick Rose to take a difficult shot from 18 feet, but failed to secure the rebound.  The ball bounced hard off the back of the rim and right to Larry Hughes, who dribbled once and hit a shot over the outstretched hand of CJ Miles, handing the Jazz their first home loss.

This game is typical of the Jazz this year, who have played very well at times and terribly at others.  I honestly think that the problem is selfishness.  When they play as a team and buy into what Sloan is trying to do, they are almost unbeatable (especially when they get all their stars back), but all too often, they get a case of the “me, myself, and I” bug, and the team concept falls apart, leaving the team very vulnerable.  I’m not sure what they need to do to beat this trend, but if they don’t, it could be a frustrating season for a very talented team.

As a side note on this game, Derrick Rose is a very good player.  I want to see him play against a healthy Deron Williams.  If he continues to improve, he could quickly find himself in the same conversation as Williams and Paul as the elite point guards in the NBA.

This week’s song comes from their Unplugged album. It’s called “Lake of Fire” (it’s a cover of the Meat Puppets):

As a side note, I’ve changed the look of the blog to be in harmony with my homepage. However, I’m not really Wordpress savvy quite yet, so it’s quite likely that there will be a glitch or two in the system. If you find a glitch or just something that you don’t like, please let me know either in the comments or via email: jeff at wingets dot net. Thanks.

After fielding a few questions from students about their reading assignment (I assigned the first 40 pages to be read by Monday), I went and talked to the student, who told me that I couldn’t expect so much of him because he couldn’t do it.  I tried to explain to him that he was more than capable of reading the book, which he is, and that I thought that he would like it.  He loved the book Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, and I told him that London’s classic had some similar themes that he might enjoy.

“It’s too hard; I can’t do it” was his reply again as he returned his head to his desk.  I’ll try again tomorrow.

It seems like I’m having this conversation with students a lot this year, like students are giving up before even trying.  Another one of my students swears up and down that he can’t do any homework because I give too much.  When I ask why he can’t at least do some, he replies that it stresses him out too badly.  I’m not sure how to counter that one.

My question then as I push forward is this: have we as a society become apathetic as life has become easier?  Have modern conveniences made us lazy and almost afraid of hard work?

I’m not sure that there’s an easy answer to this question, but I do think that it has happened to some degree.  In the age of easy information, easy entertainment, and easy gratification, it is harder to find intrinsic motivations for learning and other types of self improvement.  Most people don’t believe that school has value beyond the economic (educated people get better jobs), and that outlook has been detrimental to an already dysfunctional school system.

Now, I’m not the type of person that just likes to whine about the ills of society.  I would much rather propose solutions or alternatives than just complain that things aren’t right.  For the problem of apathy, I think that it begins at home.  Parents need to install a love of work and of learning in their children at an early age.  They need to give their kids responsibilities when they are young, and they need to expect that those responsibilities will be met.  Parents need to turn off the TV and read with their kids, and they need to take an active role in the education of their children.  If they don’t, this apathy is only going to get worse.

For those parents who do these things, I thank you.  As a father and an educator, I am truly grateful for the difference that you are helping to make in our country and our world.

/end of soapbox

Here is the video.  It’s absolutely hilarious:

While he probably will be fined by the FCC, I don’t think that anything else should happen to Joe.  It was an accident, an absolutely hilarious accident, but just an accident.  I can feel Joe’s pain to some degree since last week I slipped and said “shit” in front of one of my classes after I spilled coffee on all of their papers, so it happens to the best of us.  Of course, by “the best of us,” I mean me.

(verse 1)

well, hell, i just turned 30, and i’ve got a lot to do

it seems life’s more complicated than when i was 2

i’ve got 2 kids, a wife, and job

i’ve thought about the death of god

i’ve seen the sky a perfect shade of blue

(verse 2)

i’ve been a republican, became a democrat

now i don’t think any of them can wear the statesman’s cap

should i run for office, then?

and tell them all what fools they’ve been?

just march right in and take our country back?

(chorus)

and i believe that if there is a god,

she’s out wondering where no other boots have trod

she’s not in church or in that temple there

she’s in my daughter’s smile and my son’s curly hair

this i believe

(verse 3)

i’d like to write a novel and walk the streets of Prague

sometimes i wish i’d understand about that iron rod

but if those things i never see

i still have my family

and it’s through them that i’ll live on

(chorus)

and i believe that if there is a god,

she’s out wondering where no other boots have trod

she’s not in church or in that temple there

she’s in my daughter’s smile and my son’s curly hair

this i believe

As a coach, Jerry is hardnosed, demanding, and disciplined.  He expects the same out of his players.  While I’m not sure that he’s a great game manager (he’s good, not great), I think his biggest strength as a coach, in my opinion, is his ability to develop players, especially young players.

This ability to develop players has been a great asset to Jerry over the past three years as he has coached one of the youngest, most talented teams in the NBA.  They are also probably the deepest, most athletic team that has ever suited up for the Jazz.  Players like Deron Williams, CJ Miles, Andrei Kirilenko, Paul Millsap, DeShawn Stevenson, Bryan Russell, Donyell Marshall, and many others have grown and developed under the tutelage of Sloan.  The Jazz are championship contenders because of Sloan’s coaching and his players’ belief in his system.

The outlook for the Jazz is bright.  At 5-0, they are at the top of their division and playing well without Deron Williams, their best player.  They are 9 players deep, and their core group of guys have all embraced the roles that they have been assigned, giving Jerry all kinds of lineup options.  Need defense?  Play Millsap, AK, Brewer, Memo, and Deron (or Knight).  Need offense?  Play CJ, Korver, Boozer, Memo, and Deron (or Price).  There are many combinations to be had that can be successful in certain situations.

A couple of changes that Jerry has made this year that I never thought he’d make are to play small, athletic lineups and play a lot of zone defense.  Both have made the team more dangerous and more dynamic.  Sloan is often seen as an old-fashioned coach; however, with this young, athletic team, he has shown the ability to change things up and play a more modern style.  For this he deserves a lot of credit.

I know Jerry doesn’t want the credit, but I want to thank him for what he’s done for the Jazz.  Here’s to many more victories, Jerry…many, many more.