When Losing is Winning

I was reading Boys Adrift (by Leonard Sax, a physician and psychologist). It is a very well written and academically supported work that tries to explain why young men are failing to live up to their potential in modern society.

(It does NOT name me specifically, probably because I am far too old to be considered to be a young man -- although maybe I will one day be acknowledged by historians for starting this trend of under-achieving?)

So, anyway, I thought I would share some interesting information that I got from the book. The following quote is an abridgment of an article from the Washington Post:

Why Johnny Won't Read

By Mark Bauerlein and Sandra Stotsky
Tuesday, January 25, 2005; Page A15

"From 1992 to 2002, the gender gap in reading by young adults widened considerably. In overall book reading, young women slipped from 63 percent to 59 percent, while young men plummeted from 55 percent to 43 percent.

"Placed in historical perspective, these findings fit with a gap that has existed in the United States since the spread of mass publishing in the mid-19th century. But for the gap to have grown so much in so short a time suggests that what was formerly a moderate difference is fast becoming a decided marker of gender identity: Girls read; boys don't."




SO, my point is this: I vividly remember being in the kitchen of our house in Davenport, Iowa where I was locked into a battle of wills with my Dad about education generally, and vocabulary specifically.

• [The kitchen was a place of many great debates in the profound tradition, I imagine, of Socrates and his students/peers/victims. Yeah, I often felt like a victim when arguing with my Dad, as it seemed like an entirely futile exercise 'cuz he would inevitably win.]
  
• [By win I mean that not only would he not change his mind to your way of thinking
  
• (that was just so not even a possibility that it was not even considered to be a possible outcome),
  
• but inevitably I would change my mind to his way of thinking. And worse than that, I would even feel better about myself after having lost the argument and changed my mind to think like my Dad! Ugh :-) ]

BUT, my point is this: I remember arguing the ridiculous point that reading doesn't make you smarter and that trying to do well in school is not important, or some such tripe. My Dad gave me the "Eskimos have 37 different words for snow" lecture before the whole thing was through and by the end I was smiling in spite of myself and appreciating that maybe I could be smart.

To top off the whole experience my parents gave me a dictionary for my birthday shortly after this great debate. "A dictionary? What kind of a present is this?" was the first thought that went through my young, cement-filled head. Upon investigation I discovered tables, pictures, graphs, and explanations of things that I just knew nobody else in the house (including Dad!) would know. Through the gentle promptings of Ella I learned to look up the meaning of words that I heard or used but did not understand, and developed for myself what I considered to be a better vocabulary than my peers.

My REAL point is this: Often in my life it is when I have lost at something that I have really learned the most important lessons. Losing the argument in that case really improved my life. I mean, jeez, I'm enough of an idiot as it is, now. I cannot even imagine how bad I might be if I didn't have a love of words in my life.

What I want to say is THANKS, DAD (pictured on the right, in full Willy Nelson disguise), for being willing to battle wills with me to argue the point and teach me what is right.

By the way, I still have the Webster's Dictionary that I got as a birthday present. It is in kinda bad shape, with a partially torn cover, some loose pages, dog-eared page corners, and missing tab-markers. The content is not up-to-date as it does not include newly made words like "fax " and "fo-shizzle." Yeah, I have other dictionaries that are bigger, newer, and in better shape, but none that will ever mean as much to me as that one.