Uncharacteristic Sunday posting

But it is snowing, and I'm addressing odds and ends. And you look pretty odd around the end, so here we go.

And, Jeez, I toss out the mildest insult and everyone seems to go ballistic. (I was first going to say postal, and then I started thinking about various coaches going postal and was going to say something like, going Menickistic, except I wasn't going to say Menick, if you get my driftwood, but I decided that the libel/slander laws may not provide all the protection I would like to have, so I decided on ballistic.) All right. I give up. You've all read Swift in the original Greek. You've all read Huck in the original Latin. And you've all read Aristotle in the original Position. I'll never insult you in this blog again. (I'll wait till we're together, when it's more fun.)

So here's the message I just sent to the powers the pow in NY, NJ and Ma. I trust I didn't forget any...

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A NOVICE PROPOSAL

This came up in a discussion a few weeks ago at
Lexington, and it seemed almost immediately to be a
great and workable idea.

One of the problems we always face with new novices is
that not only must we train them for LD in general,
but we also have to start them on the Sept-Oct topic,
whatever it is, followed almost immediately by the
Nov-Dec topic, whatever that is. The likelihood that
the way we train the novices will somehow be congruent
with the content of these topics is pretty small (at
least it always has been for me), and worse, you
barely have time for one before you’re onto another. I
don’t know about you, but I don’t like to even begin
talking topic to the novices until October, which
means that I’m talking Sept-Oct to them while trying
to brainstorm Nov-Dec with them and everyone else at
the same time. It’s a bad system.

The suggestion is that we pick a topic, and
henceforth, that topic is always the novice topic from
September through the end of November. This would
apply to the MHL area, the MFL area, NYC, and New
Jersey. And while I don’t think we cross paths that
early in the year, it would be great if the closer
parts of Long Island also joined in.

By doing this, we allow ourselves to develop a starter
curriculum about a topic that we know is good for
starting. We get to use that curriculum year after
year. We get to concentrate on whatever we believe we
should be concentrating on with our newcomers, without
the distraction of not one but two random topics.
Meanwhile, according to the natural evolution of
topics, the novices will certainly be involved in
discussions of the real Nov-Dec. And they will have
their chance to write and present cases for it in
December events. (We had originally thought of simply
having a novice topic through the end of December, but
there is a point at which we are stepping beyond the
bounds we can set ourselves—i.e., lots of us send
novices to Princeton, which would of necessity run the
national topic—and the novices do have to get into the
swing of things sooner or later, and the end of
November was “later” enough.)

Realistically speaking, we can do this if we all agree
to it. I can set this as the novice topic at MHLs,
Eric can set it throughout Manhattan. Lynne has the
ability to set it throughout Massachusetts (which is
important for the few but crucial crossover events in
November), Bill and Dario and co. can set it in
Jersey, and Bro John can implement on the Island.

At this point, we would like to get your thoughts on
this. I am very strongly in favor of it. If you like
the idea, suggestions for which topic, and exact
wording, would be welcome. Personally, I like
“Oppressive government is more desirable than no
government,” because I get to work out all the social
contract stuff that I like to give novices at the
beginning of the year. In conversations, other topics
have been suggested, but I don’t remember the exact
wordings (this is called selective memory; the only
one I remember is the one I like). If we all agree to
this, and if there’s no fly in the ointment that I’m
missing, and we can agree to a topic in the next month
or two, I see no reason why we couldn't begin this in
2006-7.