Finding the Magic to teach our students 21st century skills

This is what my classroom is starting to look like during IS.

Like most people, I take a sort of guilty pleasure in watching the videos on social media of people so engrossed in their cell phones that they walk into street posts, glass doors, and off steps. I draw the line at videos of people actually getting hurt, like the one I saw yesterday of a woman walking off of a curb and getting sideswiped by a van while engrossed in her phone. Normal people shouldn’t really want to see people getting hurt and things like that make me cringe. There is no doubt that technology, for all of its positives, certainly has some drawbacks that are affecting us culturally. The Internet, once seen as a place where the playing field is leveled and everyone has a voice has become a cesspool of fake news, half truths, poorly reasoned opinion, and cat videos.

So naturally, as a teacher in a school district trying to prepare students with the skills they need to compete in this information age, I was thrilled when our school decided to issue a MacBook Air to every student in grades 7-12. No signing up for trashed computer labs! No reserving a cart of maybe-charged laptops and rolling it all the way across the school and up two floors! Obviously this endeavor came with a whole host of problems we have had to deal with, such as students who want to listen to music at inappropriate times in class or binge watch their favorite Netflix episodes over the course of the day. For all the positives our school-issued computers provide, there is a negative that must be managed. The lure of constant entertainment or FOMO (fear of missing out) often proves too much for our students to handle.

An amazing thing has been happening in my Independent Study period at the end of the school day, though. One of my students, Tim, has been attempting to form a Magic: The Gathering community at the school for his Civics class. The directive is to identify a need or problem in your community and work through the appropriate channels to meet the need or fix the problem. Students have been trying to form a Magic club at school for a few years with varying degrees of success, but Tim has one thing going for him that is proving beneficial: An atypical group of people who are interested in the game. A pair of “jocks” along with a student who enjoys hunting, fishing, and motorized recreation have a raucous good time while playing the game. Other students see that and want to see what is happening and they want to be a part of it. The cries of exultation and the moans of lamentation are so over the top that it makes me grin and appreciate the enthusiasm and fun they are having with their poorly-conceived decks. The number of players has grown and students from other rooms now ask to come over and play.

What does this all have to do with technology? Two of my students bought Planeswalker decks and have been bringing them to IS. I mentioned that I have been playing MTG Arena lately, and both of these students asked if I wanted their codes so that I could have their Planeswalker deck online. Of course I do, but I encouraged them to install the free MTG Arena client and keep their deck for themselves, but they assured me that they have no interest in doing that. I told them they might want it in the future, but they instead insisted that I take the code and use it because they won’t.

Students, who grew up with a cell phone in their back pocket and with school-issued computers do not want to play a game they so clearly enjoy on their computers at home? Students who could pretend to be doing schoolwork while instead playing one of the countless web-based video games do not even open their computers. With Magic, they are, however:

• Doing quick math (am I going to win this damage race at this rate?)
• Learning new vocabulary (sophic, scion, pulmonic, basal, ophidian, etc)
• Problem-solving (How will I squeeze this last point of damage through all these blockers?)
• Collaborating (I once took on two students at once and they squeaked out a win by working together)

All the benefits of the game aside, the students WANT to play it together, in person, and interact with each other. I think it is because these students crave interaction and have found something that scratches an itch that they probably didn’t even know they have. Instead of chastising students who are playing Magic during this Independent Study time, I encourage them as long as they are caught up in their classes. I believe they are learning important things that we talk about as 21st century skills but sometimes struggle to teach, not the least of which is how to put down their phones and interact with real, live people.

Mora coach detracts from his team's 7-0 start

As the PA announcer for Aitkin football, I get to see a lot of things over the course of the season. I see the Gobblers fighting hard to make their mark. I see The Best Student Section in the State make each game a rocking good time. I see (and taste) the excellent pregame food that Peter Lowe cooks at every home game before watching Aitkin’s players and coaching staff work hard to be successful both on and off the field.

I have never seen anything like last Friday, when the Mora coach deliberately walked through the Aitkin football team’s entrance onto the field.

I didn’t actually see this happen as I am all the way across the field while announcing games. However, I heard people talking about it after the game and saw some posts on Facebook, but I didn’t think too much of it. After all, looking at the preview picture on Facebook it seemed like the coach was near the players, not walking through them. Our football fans at Aitkin can be fiercely proud and supportive of our student-athletes. In the news and social media, seeing outraged people is so typical that it doesn’t even warrant a raised eyebrow, so my initial reaction was that maybe we had some salty fans who were embellishing this to make it sound worse than it is.

However, after watching the cell phone footage on Facebook, two things became abundantly clear: The Mora coach deliberately walked through the Aitkin entrance and he is going to be famous, though not in a good way.

Just a week ago a St. Cloud Cathedral player came off the sidelines to tackle a Zimmerman player on what looked to be a late touchdown run. Apparently, the player was frustrated that his team was being shut out and that Zimmerman had just broken another run for a late touchdown.

We expect students to make poor decisions at times and hopefully learn from them. We do not expect a coach, the one who is supposed to be setting a good example, to act like this.

Mora is having an excellent season, rolling out a perfect 7-0 record and No. 3 rank in Class 3A. After watching them play, it is clear that they have a good team. That’s what makes this even more perplexing. Why would a coach get in the way of all the excellent things his team has accomplished so far this year? These actions take the focus off of all that has been achieved by this team and instead creates a distraction.

Full disclosure: As a player and as a coach, there have been times when I have done and said things that I am not particularly proud of. My announcing partner and fellow junior high coach Rob Williams can tell you stories about coaching from our earlier years, but none of those stories involve anything like this that takes the focus from the athletes. Away from where it should be.

This behavior can’t be excused for being “in the heat of the moment” as it was before the game even started. There is literally nothing that can be said to justify this coach, who saw our team entering the field through the tunnel, deliberately walking into and through the stream of players coming onto the field.

“They should have sacked his ass,” one Facebook user commented on the posted video. Almost miraculously, the Aitkin players dodged around him and avoided any collision with the coach. The coach will not be able to dodge his Facebook fame along with calls for his head on a platter. That is sure to continue.

The only thing for this coach to do is apologize profusely for his poor choice and turn the focus back onto his team’s excellent season, which is where it should be.

Hammonds wins state tournament by taking third

Former Aitkin High School colleague Dan Stifter told me that often the third and fifth-place matches at the state wrestling tournament are more exciting than the championship matches. He would know since he was the head wrestling coach at Aitkin for many years before moving on to become an assistant principal at Pierz.

He was correct as one of the most impressive and exciting matches of the tournament was for third place at 195 pounds in Class AAA. Sure, there were the usual noteworthy stories about wrestlers in search of multiple state championships along with family dynasties continuing on the tradition, but none of those had anything on Anoka’s Richie Hammonds.

Richie Hammonds was the most entertaining match
of the 2018 Minnesota State Wrestling Tournament.
(Photo stolen from The Guillotine)

Hammonds is an unassuming wrestler who probably doesn’t strike terror in the hearts of his opponents. He is 5-foot-4 with a shock of black hair and a bit of a paunch on a physique that does not seem like a typical state tournament wrestler’s. In fact, I may have raised my eyebrows when I saw him enter the mat to take on his opponent from Bemidji, who was at least a head taller.

Then the magic happened.

Hammonds’ opponent tried a throw, but Hammonds slipped it and scored two. After going off the mat, he presented the universal symbol that he was going to let his opponent escape: Thumbs and forefingers of both hands making the shape of a diamond. It would show up again and again as Hammonds continued to take his opponent down and let him go, only to do it all over again.

He took his opponent down on the edge of the mat, but managed to keep his toes in bounds to score the takedown. That’s not an easy feat when you are 5-foot-4. He kept his opponent off balance by relentlessly hand checking him, snapping his head down and constantly moving and attacking him until the Bemidji wrestler didn’t know what to do. Hammonds continued to take his opponent down, only to let him up and do it all over again.

As the match wore on, it became clear that more and more people in the XCel Energy Center were watching until finally, in the third period after a takedown and a stoppage of action, fans all across the arena held up the diamond symbol Hammonds had shown several times before. When Hammonds gave the fans what they were waiting for and showed he was going to let his opponent go, nearly all of the 10,000 people in attendance roared their approval. Hammonds did not disappoint and gave the crowd another chance to call for him to let his opponent go. Of course they did and, of course, he did. Nine times he took his opponent down en route to a 24-11 win, but it wasn’t even that close. The Bemidji kid didn’t have a chance.

There were grins on everyone’s faces, but not because some kid from Anoka took third in state. Something else was going on there. Maybe it was because he didn’t look like the typica l wrestler. Maybe it was the fact that he relentlessly and fearlessly attacked his opponent, throwing him off-guard in a weight class where wrestlers sometimes lean on each other more than attack. Maybe it was because he won through sheer willpower.

Whatever it was, when Hammonds’ hand was raised he received a standing ovation from 10,000 grinning spectators who had been won over by his tenacious approach to high school wrestling that was some of the most exciting I have seen in a long time. He responded by blowing kisses to his 10,000 fans.

Hammonds is aware that others don’t often take him seriously.

“I’ve been underestimated all my life,” Hammonds said in a Star Tribune interview. “One kid said to his dad, ‘Hold my milkshake while I go pin this kid.’ I’ve had dads and sons look at me and laugh, like this is gonna be easy. But I get the last laugh.

“It’s all a mind-set. I’m going out there and I’m going to win.”

If anyone didn’t believe it before he stepped out onto the mat for that match, they do now. My only regret is that Hammonds is a senior so I won’t be able to watch him at the state tournament next year.