Teaching & Learning

I had an argument about D&D on twitter today, that went about as well as arguments on twitter go.  I don't tell people I have a blog or a book, or even a patreon; I don't tell them I've been playing or running for 40 years ... so they naturally assume I'm just another punk on the internet, whose name they don't recognize and whose credibility is zero.  No one ever googles my name to find out if I know anything.

It always starts the same way.  I field a question like, "If your players do not go through one of the doors in your dungeon, do you tell them afterwards what was there?"  I'll answer, "No, they've got to pay the fee if they want the prize."

This sort of blithe, pithy answer gets a like, and if I'm smart, I'll leave it there.  I don't give a shit about likes, I want a real conversation, and sometimes when I'm bored I'll stupidly decide to say more about the subject ... as in, "Every time you reveal something, you train your players to expect you to reveal it -- that dimishes the mystery of what's behind the door, eventually turning your game into garbage, from which it will never recover."

Now, a normal, unimaginative reader will see only one word in that reply: "garbage."  And a common, tetchy twitter-reader will immediately assume, as they ALWAYS do, that I'm speaking specifically of them, calling them 'garbage' to their face ... and they will remind me that I don't know them, that I don't have a right to call them garbage, that they're a perfectly fine DM and anyway, "Such and such a website that tells DMs how to play says that all DMs are different so you don't know what the fuck you're talking about."

Sensitive much?  Oh yeah.  You know: twitter.

My fave is the call-out to authority.  It is never the same authority.  I've had everyone quoted at me at some point ... but the quote is always the same.  On some level, it is a quote that gives every DM, ever, permission to be whatever sort of DM they want to be, because there's no right way or wrong way, period.

Teaching as a profession is going straight into the gutter because of this thinking.  Teaching anyone begins with the assumption, I know how to do something, and you don't, so listen, and I'll tell you.  On the other hand, marketing works on the assumption that the more people you prop up with bullshit, the more followers, likes and money you'll collect, so never, ever, tell people anything except that they already know everything they need to know.

This includes people who come forward and say, "I don't know something; can you please tell me?"  Because this mostly includes only people who are really saying, "My ego needs boosting; can you stroke me?"

Again: twitter.

I met my grandson yesterday for the first time.  Three weeks old, born a month ahead of schedule and of course there are covid concerns and such, because the boy is still vulnerable.  I'm the sort of personality that lives in the future rather than the present or the past; my daughter also and my partner, because I can barely stand people who think otherwise.  Today is okay, but the purpose of today is to be doing something that will make tomorrow better.  As such, much of the conversation about my grandson is about deciding how to set things up so that the boy will be in a good position to choose what he wants to do, when he decides that.  Some parents and grandparents who talk about the future will talk about getting them into a good school and how they're going to be educated; but our conversation was more along the lines of how we'll support him if he wants to do this, or that, or this other thing.  We have absolutely no idea what that will be, but its possible to speak in large swaths of human experience: maybe he'll get interested in athletics, art, politics, the military, NASCAR, science ... who the hell knows, really.  We don't and we're not exactly playing for favorites.  Yes, some of those will be harder than others, but the main point is that so long as its not illegal or self-destructive, we will bend before we ask the boy to do so.

That's pretty alien to some folks.  This is not my first rodeo: it is how I approached my daughter's upbringing and it worked out just fine: I educated the living shit out of her and she is a terrifyingly assertive, responsible, no-nonsense force of nature and believe you me, you better think it over four times before you tell her she can't do something.

She's ready to do it my way and I am far more certain about the approach this time that I was last time.  What's more, honesty, it isn't in my hands.  I'm just the back-up here as a grandparent; I'm here to give perspective, explain the boy's mother and father to him when he asks me someday and not to be the blasted asshole my grandfather was when I was a boy.

[part of the reason why I'm so comfortable being an asshole is because I was raised by so many of them]

The first half and the second half of this post come together thusly.  One day, my grandson is going to get interested in something.  Really, really interested.  So interested, that he'll spend every waking minute they can reading and studying that thing.  And one day, he'll know more about it than I do, or his parents do, or his friends at school do or pretty much anyone in his life, because it will matter so much to him that he'll want to be an expert.

When he reaches that stage, he'll want to talk about it.  And because he'll be the expert, so that any of us will be able to follow along, he'll have to teach us what he knows.

This is the critical moment.  This is the moment in every child's life that determines what sort of person they'll grow up to be.  Problem is, there are too many parents in the world who, met with an 8 year old who thinks he knows everything, and wants to talk about it, don't care and won't listen.  Most of us should know exactly what that's like, because there came a time when we tried to explain to our parents how an RPG worked ... and oh, did it go badly.

As a result, a great many of us failed to learn how to teach something to someone.  Arguably, the most important student that any child will have should be their parents: who, recognizing how much this thing matters, should supportively and interestingly listen and learn what it is that has their child passionately fired up.  Even if that thing doesn't make sense, and even if that thing seems "wrong" somehow.  We can literally point at people around us all day long who didn't receive that.  Who got interested, got rebuffed -- were even told they weren't allowed to continue doing that thing -- and have since become people so desperate for approval that they only thing they can do is wander onto twitter with sad faces begging for approval from total strangers.

And so, rather than being able to learn from others, they are so sensitive to the disapproval inposed by their parents, they displace that disapproval on every person -- even on the internet -- that doesn't immediately pat them on the head and give them a doggie treat.

When marketers see this, they know just how to make a sale.  Give that punk a doggie treat and watch him wag his tail.  Watch him repeat our bullshit verbatim as though the words, "Everyone DMs their own way" actually means a blessed thing.

It is my role as a grandfather to let my grandson teach me what he cares about.  And then it is my role to care about that thing enough that I'll add to his store of knowledge in a way that matters to him.  In that way, I'll build up a symbiosis that lets my grandson teach me, and lets me teach him, and we'll BOTH get smarter.

We can point out these kids, too.  That one there is Kamala Harris.  And that one there is Anthony Fauci.  People who became experts because the adults behind them listened.  Because the adults behind them learned.

People who need us to be "polite and decent" because it makes the world a friendlier place are walking around with a big sign on their backs that says, "Fuck me over, because I want to trust people so bad that if you're nice to me, I'll open my wallet."  The absolute worst people in the world know just how to be so nice that butter wouldn't melt in their mouths. 

Give me readers and listeners who don't care if I'm a nice, decent guy or not.  Give me readers who care about what I have to say, not how nicely I say it.  Give me readers that want to teach me what they know, and are rude enough to get in my face and make me learn it.

There are not enough readers like that in the world.