Communications Basics: Be Seeing (A story of Refereeing)

When I became a referee after having been a player and a coach previously, it opened my eyes to how difficult being a referee was.  But I didn't realize then how important a job the referee had, when it came to dealing with anger.  I'm not talking player anger, I'm talking about fan anger.

It was at a tournament of some kind when I first ran into a fan who tried his best to frazzle me by berating my knowledge of the game of basketball.  I remember at one point taking out the officiating manual and pointing out to him that the rules had changed.  Anyway, the angry shouts over every supposed mistake I made in the game got to the point that others were telling me I had every right to remove him from the gym.

I felt instead I should give him some slack since I too at one time had been harder on officials than they deserved, so I gave this gentlemen a break.  I know, he wasn't behaving like a gentleman.

A few years later, I was no longer wearing my officials uniform and was in a new position as a program director at a camp, when you might guess came in the door with a large young contingent.  I recognized him. I never asked him, if he recognized me.  He probably did.

But you know we became very good friends.  I guess using a soft answer to turn away wrath really does work.  I kept my peace and for not throwing him out on an occasion, I made a friend.

We've all probably been there at some time.  Really angry at someone.  And what did we do?  Well, at least some of the time we probably made ourselves look rather unintelligent.  We weren't seeing our anger or someone else's anger.  And in the end the emotion of peace is linked to the logic of things.  But in the end where these two meet, it comes down to us seeing things from another significant person's point of view.

If I had not seen how that man could be so angry, then I think we would not have become friends.  I would have instead likely raised his anger to a whole new level.  I'm glad I was able to see, to keep my peace, and to keep a friend.  Unfortunately, I have not always done as well as I did that time.  Take care and watch your seeing.  Make sure you see what you ought to see.


Sincerely,

Jon

Communication Basics: Making it Silly Proof

There was a saying when I was in school that a teacher or a coach needed to make things "moron-proof". This type of language doesn't pass the grade any longer.  But I do think that it is important to make things "silly proof".  We should simplify things (not too far to the point of being naive) in most cases down to a level where silly mistakes can be avoided.

You can have a PhD from Harvard or Yale or even Stanford and still fail the silly proof test  If I were to ask you right now the big five kinds of categories and the big five emotions, you would likely fail the test.  [Take a moment and write them down].   If you look elsewhere into this blog you will find all ten.  What was your score out of 10?  Unless you cheated, I know you did not score well.  That goes for those with PhDs.

This is purely silly.  Shouldn't every speaker of English know the basic 5 of each and possess the ability to add the next five as well.  But we don't.

We continue to practice education that is not silly proof. We tolerate silly answers to silly questions.  My question is not silly.  I am asking you, "What are your basics in intelligence?"  What is silly is that you can go through 5 levels of education (each about 4 years long) and so put in nearly 20 years of school education and still make silly intellectual errors.

Let's start producing silly-proof intellects in the United States at least and watch the silly mistakes melt before the mind's ability to do its job.


Sincerely,

Jon

P.S. The Dummy and Idiot series of books proves my point, if nothing else does.  They are insulting titles that people still need at the PhD level.  That's silly.

first noted probably around April 2014