st vincent de paul regional seminary

On the importance of celebrating victories

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Giving thanks and celebrating the team
With captain, assistant coach, rector and dean...
With Captain and Assistant Coach
Feels good!

Victories, in life as in sport, are rare, so celebrate them! Our team recently beat our archrivals by the narrowest of margins, 0-1, and the school was wise enough to give the team a shout-out at our Thursday community dinner. I was invited to a delicious BBQ dinner and to speak. I thanked the players and the school and made some bad jokes (our competitor wanted to build a website for their team but couldn’t because they couldn’t put three Ws together; you get the idea…) After dinner and my speech we took a few pictures with the captain of the team, the assistant coach (also a student) and the bosses.

It was really rewarding to see the house bask in the brief glory of victory, even a small, impermanent one like ours (the trophy goes to the winner after each of our two games, Fall in Miami and Spring at home), so we never know how long the trophy will stay…

Life is similar; it feels like a lacrimarum valle (valley of tears) filled with bills and drama every day. And we get up and do it all over, day after day. So when you score a victory, whether big or small, celebrate appropriately—and proportionately! (You don’t want to splurge thousands of dollars on a ’96 bottle of Krug when your tax refund is a couple of hundred bucks.) But acknowledge your win and enjoy it. You have earned it!

The human aspect of coaching

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Coaching soccer is one of my favorite things to do after school. You go out and work with the students outside the classroom. I love it so much, I have been coaching for about 20 years on and off. Although I have also coached tennis and even a season of fencing! Soccer, with its team dynamics, is the most difficult but also the most rewarding to coach.

The technical aspects are fairly easy; players have a “natural position” that they subconsciously tend to. Seeing players find this position is very fulfilling. Game plans and strategies are all easy enough. As usual, the human aspect is the most difficult, dealing with upset players who are not on the starting lineup, players who you pull off the field in a substitution, etc.

On game day, the players wear their jerseys to build up their confidence and feel proud of being on the team. Then we have lunch together to talk soccer, joke, and enjoy a meal together. I also make sure they are on the field to warm up at least 45 minutes before the game, so we are not rushing through the pre-game rituals, warm-ups, photos, chats, etc.

At the beginning of the season, we spend a lot of time building the team, making sure everybody knows everybody, making sure they are bonding through games, scrimmaging, and activities. I am convinced that the time spent doing these bonding activities pays off handsomely later in the season.

The most challenging bit is motivating a team after a loss. I find that talking individually to each of the players, encouraging them, supporting them, and talking through the game is an effective way of being there for them, of letting them vent and process the loss. Yes, it is time-consuming, but the players really appreciate your involvement and commitment. Remember, it is up to us to model behavior, to be fair and honest, to be frank, to explain things honestly but diplomatically. This was the case recently when we lost 0-1 to our archrival in Miami.

Dunning–Kruger Effect, a lecture on Art History

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It is a Thursday morning in Florida, while a whopper snowstorm is expected to wallop the rest of the US. Flights are already getting cancelled in anticipation of the storm. Your school is hosting a nationwide conference on Monday morning. As you casually chat with the event coordinator, she is stressed out because she had to reschedule the keynote speaker’s flight to Monday afternoon. She asks you to fill in on Monday morning to give a two-hour lecture on Art History. Of course, you say yes.

Yes, I have been giving tours of Madrid since I was in university; tours of Boston and Miami came later. Yes, I have been going to the Prado museum since I was a child and have spent many hours in other museums since then, especially the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Ackland Museum in Chapel Hill, the Baker in Naples, and nowadays the Norton. Yes, I have read and continue to read about art, art history, and history, and have attended many lectures, etc. Yes, we talk a lot about art history in my literature classes, but no, I am not an art historian, just an amateur, a lover of art and art history.

I spent the weekend preparing a two-hour lecture. Starting in Mesopotamia with the Assyrians, Ancient Greece and Rome (same sentence, very different material), the Middle Ages (Pre-Romanesque, Romanesque, and Gothic), the Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassic, Romantic, Realism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and Surrealism, then we ran out of time.

This was exhausting, the preparation and the delivery. After the conference, I was wasted. Good thing I had a quiz scheduled for my class; I would not have done a good job teaching!

The audience, a group of Catholic priests from across the country, was very generous and inquisitive; they asked insightful questions and seemed interested.

This is a full–on Dunning–Kruger Effect case. I know enough to know that I know nothing. I have a very superficial knowledge of Art History, but enough to look like I know what I am talking about, I don’t.

On the importance of discipline and practice. Our Fall soccer game

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A couple of times a year, I write about soccer. This coincides with my school team’s games. This year, our game in Miami was cancelled due to lightning, and the Palm Beach Young Adult tournament was also cancelled due to scheduling issues. Fortunately, we finally had a chance to play against a local group, the Amori Christi campus of the Jesus Youth.

After twenty years of coaching, I mostly value two things in soccer nowadays: the discipline you bring to practice and the player’s psychology. Today, let’s focus on discipline.

We have all seen great players who have wasted their careers to partying. While we do not play in any competitive conference, you can still see the players who commit to improving and those who just want to have fun.

At the end of the day, discipline in whatever you decide to do in life will set you free from the slavery of your worst self, the “I don’t feel like studying/practicing/showering/etc, worst self. So start slow, but be mindful and purposeful to develop routines that will improve your soccer game or whatever craft you wish to improve at. You are welcome

The takeaway for me this year is the importance of staying focused, of constant practice, to prepare for a game, the game, every game, is important. The men did not disappoint, earning a resounding win (8-2), but the score is not important; the preparation, the mindset, and showing up are what I appreciate.

Teaching beyond the classroom; a night at the opera.

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If you are a teacher, you are not only teaching your subject matter: you are teaching your behavior, your attitude, your presentation. More importantly, you are teaching your whole field. So, if you are teaching a science, then you are teaching the whole scientific method. In my case, I am not only teaching language, but I am also teaching culture, diversity, and the humanities.

With this excuse, the Philosophy faculty and I recently arranged a field trip to the Palm Beach Opera’s Marriage of Figaro. It was fantastic. For most of the students (if not all), this was their first time at the opera, and they were pleasantly surprised. The key takeaway is that the students appreciate a new art form for them, understanding the beauty of art. Especially an art where the artist is the instrument, so no two can ever be the same!

Unlike, say, The Magic Flute, Mozart does not have any blockbuster songs in this opera, but the whole thing is very melodious and easy to enjoy. The story is funny but moralistic -this is the Enlightenment after all! So the students were never bored; they were able to enjoy the story and the music. Coincidentally, we had just studied the Enlightenment in class, reading Benito Jeronimo Feijoo, so to see the students making connections is extremely rewarding. Mission accomplished.

If you have a chance to have your students make connections outside the classroom, across different fields, let them rip! You are welcome.

Here are two of my favorites, Cecilia Bartoli and Renée Fleming, doing one of the more famous duets:

Once a tour guide, always a tour guide; a Tonxo Tours update

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Although nowadays I am terribly busy teaching, I still enjoy giving tours on my spare time, and I even gave a couple of tours of my school!

Now that I investigate it, I have not given a Tonxo Tours update in a long time (check out the last one here).

Since that update, I have given tours of the Everglades, which I love, and I have gained a lot of depth and confidence as I learn more about South Florida and Miami in general. This is normal for every destination; each tour is better than the previous one (usually…) as one learns more and more.

This Summer I had a few tours of Madrid, and I had a lovely multi day tour with a fantastic couple that included my happy place: El Escorial, as well as Toledo and Segovia, where we started by visiting the last Hieronymite monastery of Santa María del Parral led by my old friend Hermano Martín.

At some point the Development office at school connected the dots when they needed to show the school to a visiting high school and to a group of visitors, and they contacted me to do it! I was in between classes, and after some reviewing of history and other tidbits, I did it. It is not Toledo, with its labyrinth of narrow streets, or Madrid with its overwhelming history, or Miami, where your main concern is that your customers do not get run over, but it was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it!

So, if you need a tour in South Florida, Spain, or even St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary, give me a holler!

Advantages of teaching in a small school, coaching and Podcasts

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Next year will be my professional Platinum anniversary, my 20th year teaching. During that time, I have instructed little kids from 7- to 10-year-olds -exhausting- to university. Basically, I have taught 10 years in secondary (high school) and 10 in university (those little kids were my boss’ and she asked me to go to their school to teach the Spanish classes, it was an amazing experience but I don’t have the patience). Each type of school has different pros and cons.

St. Vincent de Paul is a small school and I love many the advantages that brings:

Something I would never be able to do at a bigger school would be to teach and coach at the same time (other than at secondary schools, where many times you are required to coach), but I have already written about this (for example: here)

Every month we have a special birthday lunch when everyone that has a birthday that month, students, faculty, staff, is celebrated. The kitchen staff prepares a great lunch, and the Student Council prepares a video. I was recently cast in the birthday video, the last of the year, where the theme has been fighting the many iguanas we have on campus. (if you want to skip to my Oscar winning performance, go to minute 4:24 but you would miss a hilarious film and a great tour of school)

Another thing going on is that the students have started a podcast, and they recently invited me to participate. It is called In-Formation, and while it is an easy pun, it is very informative. You can listen to it here. It is an honor to follow an illustrious list of guests including the rector, a couple of students about to graduate, a bishop, etc. To listen to the podcast click below:

https://www.svdp.edu/information-podcast

So, while there are drawbacks to working in small schools such as lack of diversity of students, fewer courses to teach, etc. I really enjoy the benefits of teaching at such a special small school.

Libraries (continued)

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I have the privilege of working on a beautiful campus. There is a pond smack in the middle, there are a couple of gazebos for meditating, there is a beautiful chapel (arguably the most beautiful building in Boynton Beach), there is even a tree swing! There is also a beautiful library. It is not a massive library, it is rather quaint by university standards but still, it is a lovely library.

This is where it gets interesting: In order to get to my office, you have to go through or around the library, through is the much faster route.

So not only do I walk by the periodicals section where I can -at a glance- look at the new magazines coming in, then I lower my blood pressure by walking through the peaceful, quiet stacks, and right before getting to my office, there is a shelf with free books that the library no longer wants. This is my perdition.

I wrote about libraries and bookstores recently (ok, a year and a half is recently for dinosaurs like me), but that was before I had to work next to the goodie room that is the “Free books” shelves outside my office!

Over the months I have collected many varied books. My most recent find – and the detonator for this blog – was a first edition 1944 Divine Comedy with drawings by William Blake. Last year a retired history professor went into an assisted living facility, and he donated his whole library! It was chock-full of great books of which I got a good number of. And since my office is next door to these books, I always have first choice. In fact, sometimes I have even help the librarian stack the free books as he rolls them out!