Art: AI-generated.
After years of toying with the idea of becoming a primary school teacher, Milena has finally ripped the Band-Aid off and enrolled. She wasn't sure the timing was right, but when you've got three kids aged six and under and two full-time jobs between you, finding the right time is probably on par with a mission Indiana Jones would have to undertake. I do own an Akubra and look fantastic in it… but that’s where our similarities end.
She handed in her first assignment last night. She constantly mentioned being terrified of plagiarism because apparently, at university, that's worse than kicking an orphaned kitten. I had absolutely no idea how you don't plagiarise when everything has already been written about the bloke, and it might be hard to go interview him yourself considering he's Russian… and carked it about 90 years ago.
But anyway, Lev Vygotsky… welcome to the Coffee Otis universe, mate. I'm sure it would be the highlight of your professional career if you were here to see it.
- - -
I was two to seven beers deep when the kids finally went nigh nighs, and I got the job of sitting down, opening the laptop and proofreading Milena's academic paper, a task I'd warned her I was god-awful at.
There are still occasions when I reread articles on my own damn website, articles that I proofread myself, and still find grammatical errors and spelling mistakes.
I really need to find a way to make enough money from this website to hire an editor. This one-man band is running out of instruments real quick.
The first thing that jumped off the page to me was just how fucking impressive it was.
Here is my partner of 15 years pumping out something I couldn't even fathom how to begin writing, and doing it so fucking well that I think I might have actually learnt some shit about a bloke I'd never heard of, and would otherwise have had no interest in.
Such is the power of good writing, hey… maybe I'll get there one day.
So, this Lev bloke, right, from what I could decipher, reckoned a big part of how kids learn and develop comes from learning from others.
He basically argued that kids can learn things with help from someone who knows what they're doing, even when they can't quite manage those things themselves yet. They learn through interacting with other people, getting a chop out when they need it, and eventually figuring shit out for themselves… I think.
That does make sense in a nutshell… it might also be wrong, but thankfully this paper isn’t being graded.
After I'd read the entire paper and discussed it with Milena, I came to the academically approved conclusion that Lev was clearly just a lazy fucker. The archetypal university student who wanted to be part of a group project so everyone else could do the research, while he sat there and put his own artistic twist on the PowerPoint slide with a star-wipe introduction.
Bit of a rough scouting report for a bloke who probably dedicated his life to understanding how children learn, but here at Coffee Otis, we call them as we see them.
- - -
Unfortunately, I stupidly opened the floodgates for my thoughts to pour onto paper, and apparently can't find the fucking shut-off valve.
The paper on Lev and his theories hit me for different reasons altogether.
It was a collision of two worlds I never really expected to find in the same atmosphere.
Iggy has begun his junior sporting career in under-8s basketball.
Three games.
Holy shit, what a roller coaster three games it has been…
Being this six-year-old’s first foray into organised chaos sport, it has been a pretty fucking steep learning curve, particularly when you don’t read anything you should. I signed him up to the club, and thought the club would issue him a uniform.
The email I received telling me I actually had to order him a uniform from a third party may have been an oversight on my behalf.
I'm also in a group chat with the mums of the other eight kids on the team, where I've become the guy nobody wants to be. I've had to ask dumb shit such as:
“Is an 11AM start the game start time, or training start time?”
and
“How are you meant to order a jersey with a number if you don’t know what numbers the other players are?”
Thankfully, all the mums have husbands, so they were gentle with my dumb fuckery.
There’s definitely a sense of irony in me having to ask a group of people for answers to the most basic questions I can't figure out for myself.
Was Lev writing about me?
And now I want to consider myself Iggy’s personal sporting coach?
Good lord.
The thing is, though, I might actually be the best guy (while possibly also being the worst) to test run Lev's teachings.
As mentioned in another piece (on world renowned publication coffeeotis.com.au) I didn’t play junior basketball. I only started playing full time in my third decade on the earth. Everything I picked up about basketball I had to learn myself on the fly on a basketball court. Dribbling with my off hand was not one of those things unfortunately.
My teammates would probably argue neither was dribbling with my on-hand, but them’s the breaks.
Now, the flip side of this Lev-periment.
Just because I don't play basketball well, doesn't mean I don't know basketball. I know ball, and I know I'll be able to coach the fuck out of it.
I've always thought of myself as a coach dad. It lines up most closely with what I consider parenting to be. To me, parenting is about teaching someone who knows literally nothing. It's about letting them know the challenges they'll face, but getting them to a point where they have to be able to face those challenges by themselves.
As for basketball - we have a mantra in this family.
An assist makes two people happy.
But as I've already discovered - a mantra to a six-year-old is akin to Essendon winning a game of AFL football. The option is always there – it's just a question of how often it's taken.
- - -
Because of my aforementioned inability to organise anything, Igg rolled into his first game of basketball in his cousin's uniform, his school shorts, and his everyday runners.
He also had his dad’s sweatband on. That was a fashion collab.
On top of that, we also didn't take a basketball. I realised I had fucked up there when they started the training drill and 15 of the 16 kids were holding a basketball...
I did find the first game of red-light green-light very funny while one of the mums went to her car to get a spare ball. Igg smashed everyone while not having to dribble.
After that first game, ya boy here thought he was the second coming of Gregg Popovich.
Iggy had never played organised basketball before, yet here he was, being the first kid to run back on defence, getting set in the dunker’s spot every time. He was running out to shooters and recovering. If some little fucker dared enter his space, his arms were straight up. Roy Hibbert would have been jealous of his verticality.
He was getting the ball, lifting his head, and looking for outlets immediately.
Then, with 14 seconds left on the clock, he was ahead of the play, received the pass, and despite it being a play that has tortured his dad for so long, he finished a wide-open fast break layup and sealed the game.
It was honestly a masterclass in everything I hold dear in basketball. It was defence first, it was sharing the rock, and it was shooting when it was the right thing to do.
Again, my teammates over the years would probably question me on the latter.
It was so good the next day I ordered his uniform, and we went to buy basketball shoes and a new basketball.
Then came Week 2.
A quick rundown:
- I asked the coach, semi-jokingly, semi-seriously, to bench him.
- The coach then asked me if we had been watching rugby highlights all week. Dribbling was apparently optional this week.
- Clearly, the first bucket of his life gave him the dopamine hit for the ages, because he was chasing that high all game, much to my horror.
After the game, and I'm talking immediately after the game as he was walking off, I may have forgotten that he was a 6-year-old playing in his second game. I didn't go full Damir Dokic on him, but I definitely let him know about my feelings.
I told him he'd abandoned everything he'd done in Week 1, and hadn't played up to the standards he'd established over his entire one-game sample size.
And this might be a tad overboard, but I genuinely believed that was part of the reason we'd won Week 1 convincingly and lost Week 2 convincingly.
Look, it wasn’t my finest moment, but every coach will eventually be tested, right?
The fact my testing point was technically after 24 minutes of game time is probably not a great sign, but there we were.
I realised after this game, that leading into Week 1, I may have gone a bit full throttle on the Pop X's and O's. I gave Iggy as much information as I could before he'd played a single game. When it seemed to work in Week 1, I immediately piled on more for Week 2.
In hindsight, probably a poor decision.
And yet, he'd fucking nailed the brief in Week 1.
This fucking Lev guy was right the whole time!
Then, Week 2 went nuclear, and I found myself apoplectic about this kid when he just wanted to see ball, get ball, shoot ball with the blinders on, because, you know, he's six fucking years old in his second game of basketball.
This fucking Lev bloke didn't know shit!
- - -
Post game, after some self-reflection on the drive home, I realised there wasn't a theorist, philosophiser, or therapist that had spoken or written words I needed to hear or read.
I just needed to settle the fuck down.
We had to go to a birthday party after the game. When we got there, as I was getting Iggy out of the car, I had a quick chat with him. I apologised to him for being so harsh, and told him I’d settle down. As long as he was having fun, that’s what ultimately mattered.
Iggy is a gigantic smart arse like his old man, but he forgave me with a nod and a grunt, gave me a hug, and told me he was still enjoying basketball.
That was the bow on Week 2… and thankfully, that's where Week 3 pops up.
- - -
During that week I went back to work with Iggy, but scaled it right back. It was finding the balance of passing and shooting. I would give him the ball in a spot, and I would stand in random spots as his teammate, and then let Igg make the decision on whether to pass or shoot.
I would have him play defence, and I would just dribble left and right gently, with him having the brief that defence, at this age, is about staying between your man and his basket. I don't think we have to worry about a step back triple just yet.
But mostly? It was about making sure he was enjoying the fucking experience.
My research into this has actually informed me that this is Lev’s zone of proximal development idea, carried out without me even noticing. Lev, you sneaky dog.
Watching that third game all of four days ago, I couldn't tell whether I enjoyed it because Iggy played better, or because I'd lowered my expectations of him becoming the ultimate glue guy in an NBA rotation.
But fuck, I enjoyed it. He was back to Week 1 Igg.
He was getting the ball on defence or at half-court, taking a quick dribble and immediately looking for an outlet.
He was running back on every possession.
At one point, he was the last line of defence. Stripped the kid clean and threw a forward pass leading to a fast break.
He inbounded the perfect pass that led to a bucket. The statisticians noted that he officially assisted on 33% of the made buckets for the team.
On one occasion, he even recognised that the best play for the team was for him to shoot. He didn't hesitate to channel his old man and throw up a helluva nasty brick.
Most importantly though? He was happy.
- - -
I've got absolutely no idea what the coming weeks on the court will bring. Some weeks I imagine he'll be doing all the stuff I want him to. Other weeks, he'll be staring at the next court, watching that game because he finds it more interesting.
I might have to ask Milena to write a follow-up paper on Lev, and dumb it down specifically for me, because I'm beginning to suspect that considering myself the knowledgeable person might be a bit of a reach. After all, I did forget to take a fucking basketball to a basketball game.
While he's this young, though, very little that happens on a basketball court matters all that much.
I didn’t get to play junior basketball, and I’d fucking hate myself if Iggy stopped because he wasn’t enjoying it, all in the name of making sure he remembers which foot is his fucking pivot foot.