Is it okay to lie? Should you ever say 'I don't know'? Am I a good parent? Want to hear my ‘expert’ analysis of Christmas music?

We take a break from book talk (and the frustrations of formatting)

“We all have a circle of competence – an area in which we have a lot of earned knowledge.

The size of that circle is not important. What is important is knowing when you are approaching the perimeter.

Within your circle of competence, you operate with an advantage. As you approach the perimeter (the limitations of your knowledge), your advantage starts to reduce. As you cross the perimeter, not only does your advantage vanish, but it transfers to other people. Suddenly, you find yourself playing in an area where others have an edge.

Just because you are good at something doesn’t mean you are good at everything.”

Farnam Street, ‘Mastering Success: Navigating Within Your Circle of Competence’

At the start of the COVID pandemic – remember that? – Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp was asked by a journalist about his thoughts on the virus.

“My opinion is really not important,” he said. “I’m a football manager, I don’t understand politics, coronavirus, why me? I wear a baseball cap and have a bad shave. People like me with no knowledge shouldn’t be talking about it.”

Around the same time, a 12-year old in class asked me what I thought was going to happen with the virus. And I quoted Klopp and told them the same thing: “What the hell do I know about viruses? Now shut up, and open your books to page 31 and do grammar exercise 3.”

In my previous post, I discussed those without the expertise trying to answer questions about stuff they know nothing about. Or something like that – that’s my general/in a nutshell reminder about the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Why not just admit when you don’t know the answer?

Let’s face it – we all know people who are very opinionated. They have an opinion or explanation for everything. Perhaps they’re afraid of being seen as weak or unknowledgeable. It’s okay: be humble, accept defeat. How about, “I don’t know, that’s an interesting question, hmmm” instead of “Well, the reason for this is because [blah blah blah]”. There’s nothing wrong with not knowing the answer to everything.

Take the advice of one of the wisest (and wittiest) figures of the past century, the legendary physicist Richard Feynman: “I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.”

Within our own circles of competence there are limits to what we know. The world’s greatest lawyer will surely have a question or two about some law or regulation. So what do they do? They find out. Every great scientist is in search of answers and solutions, but the more unanswered questions there are, the greater the curiosity and the greater the quest for the answers.

One of the best doctors I’ve ever had I visited just twice. I had a minor issue and he wasn’t sure what was wrong with me. I had done my own research and told him what I thought it was. He still wasn’t sure, but he said, let’s wait for the results.

A few days later when I came back, he told me, yeah, you were right, I wasn’t really familiar with that, but I think that’s what it is.

Some might say that he wasn’t a good doctor, he should’ve known what the problem was. I say that he was a good doctor, honest, and open to admitting when he didn’t know and willing to listen to his patient’s ideas. For any profession, it’s hard to stay on top of developments and changes.

He could’ve have tried to be overconfident and said, “no, no, this is what it is, you do what I say!” to avoid looking weak and lacking in knowledge. Surely that would be worse?

Everyone has limits to their expertise.

Even teachers. Especially teachers.

Lying to my students

“Can’t you see? Before you knew the truth, we were happy. What’s the good in ferreting out the truth all the time? It’s always unpleasant.”
“Is it only lies that are pleasant?”
“Usually. That’s why people tell them. To make life bearable.”
The Pumpkin Eater, Penelope Mortimer

I’ve been asked plenty of questions over the years to which I didn’t know the answer. Early in my career, I never wanted to admit I didn’t know, so terrified was I that I would lose the respect and trust of my students. I couldn’t possibly say, “Hell, beats me!” (“I have no idea!”). So sometimes – shame on me – I made things up.

Most of the time, thankfully, it was done as a joke, and my answers were so absurd that I figured people would realise I wasn’t serious. But remember, we can’t assume anything, right? Remember the old saying about assuming things?¹

In 2005, during my first teaching job at a summer school outside London, I was on an excursion in Piccadilly Circus, central London, with a large group of Spanish teenagers. One of them asked me why it was called Piccadilly Circus. They didn’t understand the ‘Circus’ part. My answer, from what I can remember: “Well, back in the 1960s, there was a circus here from russia [not sure why I said russia at the time, but I did] and all the animals escaped and ran all over the place and they eventually captured most of them, but a few elephants and bears were never found, and everyone felt like they were in a circus when they saw the animals running around, and that’s why it’s called a circus.”

The kids found that fascinating. One of their teachers, however, was dubious.

“Really?” she asked me. “Are you sure? I’ve never heard of that.”

You’ve really got to be careful. People fall for things. Many of us are gullible.

I should’ve just said, “Great question, kids, I don’t know. What do you think?”

In the early 2010s, just after I started my job in Kyiv, in an Upper Intermediate class, a student asked me what the opposite of deciduous was. That’s in, a deciduous tree, a tree which loses its leaves every autumn and grows them back in spring.

I was stumped. My mind went blank. I didn’t know the answer.

In cases like this, you can’t lie. I can’t say, “Oh, the opposite is cantankerous.” That would be dishonest, obviously, and I would probably be caught out. What if someone checked and exposed me as a liar? As a fraud?

So I told the truth: I didn’t know.

This student was incredulous. She couldn’t believe it. She asked how I, a native speaker, didn’t know the answer to this. And it wasn’t funny for her. She was angry.

And I felt ashamed.

But I shouldn’t have. She should have felt ashamed.

Any good professional’s job is to be prepared to answer any and all questions. To be prepared for what you’re doing. To anticipate any problems that arise. We all have gaps in our knowledge, but if a teacher has to teach a specific thing, then it’s their job to know what they’re talking about. No one knows everything. All we can do is be prepared to the best of our ability.

Why should she have been ashamed?

Our classes at the time were two hours. This was during a 5-minute break and she was looking at something else. Something completely unrelated to our lesson. We weren’t talking about trees or leaves or anything like that. This was totally off topic and there’s no way I could’ve been expected to know that answer.

Still, that didn’t matter. After her reaction, I was worried that the other students would question my competence.

But that doesn’t mean I should’ve lied. I did the right thing, I thought.

A few years later, when I had much more confidence in my abilities (it takes time and experience), during a Proficiency class, a similar thing happened during the break. A student, a very inquisitive and demanding student, asked me what a word meant. I had no idea and said so, confidently. It was nothing to do with our lesson. My knowledge of the English language is pretty damn good (I think, but I’m no expert – with the tree question, I simply had a brain fart and my mind went blank. The answer, by the way, is coniferous or evergreen). But even I had my limits.

Readers, you might know the answer to this question. The word she asked about was Bazinga!

Bazinga! I didn’t even think it was a real word. I’m still not sure it is.

It was often said, apparently, by a character in the Big Bang Theory, which I had never seen, and have still never seen, except for a slightly amusing two-minute clip that I’ve showed in some classes over the years to illustrate good v bad listening skills.

C’mon, lady, how the hell should I know that? Teachers can’t be expected to know everything about the English language (although in my book, I do share an example of someone I once knew who did).

If you don’t know, just say so.

I’ve got tons of other stories like this from over the years. I’ll start compiling them all for a chapter in a future book.

Am I a bad father?

As any parent knows, kids are liars. Compulsive liars.

Where do they get it from?

My daughter is 5 and she has a fantastic terrible habit of lying. I’ve told her the story about the boy who cried wolf again and again, and we’ve watched Pinocchio, but it hasn’t worked so far.

The occasional fib or porky is fine, and kind of cute, but at other times it’s worrying.

During the summer I asked her whether her kindergarten class had gone out to the park that day, and she told me they didn’t go out at all anymore. Why not? I asked. Because one day, one of the kids had got lost for a few hours and they were worried it would happen again, so now they stayed inside and never went out.

Silly me, I believed her for a while. I don’t think I’m too gullible, but she told me convincingly, and reassured me that it was no big deal and the lost kid was fine.

This was concerning. What kind of kindergarten loses track of its kids?

Thankfully, she was fibbing.

The other day, as we were leaving for kindergarten, we saw a box of old Christmas ornaments someone had thrown out. She asked if we could take them. I said no, and she protested. She really wanted them. I should have been firm and said, “No, we don’t need more crap around the flat”, but instead said this:

“We’re going to be late for kindergarten, I’ll take them when I get back from dropping you off, okay?”

When I went to pick her up that afternoon, she asked me if I had taken them.

“Oh sweetie, I’m so sorry, they were gone when I got back, someone took them.”

She was mildly disappointed, thankfully. No tears and no drama.

But when we returned home that evening, my not-so-innocent porky had slipped my mind and the ornaments were still sitting there.

“Daddy, you lied, no one took them, they’re still there!”

Oops.

Where do kids get this from, I wonder?

Am I a REALLY bad father?

The other day my daughter and I were on our way home, after I had picked her up from her grandmother’s. I had been to the supermarket earlier and there was a big sale on beer, and I had stocked up on lots of it. Most of it was for gifts and for a holiday get-together we’re having (I swear! Believe me!). I had the beer in two big bags and my rucksack was jam-packed and it was all really heavy. The metro was crowded and we were jammed into the corner opposite the doors we needed, with my bags on the floor. As our stop approached, I was struggling to pick up the bags and get everything together and it was tricky maneuvering my way through the crowd as the doors opened. People did their best to move out of our way.

My daughter groaned and sighed loudly: “Daddy, did you have to buy so much beer?!”

That prompted uproarious laughter from the passengers, a couple of whom shouted “Cheers!” as we were exiting. I called back, “They’re presents for people!” and one guy responded, “Yeah, sure!”

Christmas songs are divisive

In other words, they divide opinions. We all have our favourites, the ones we love, the ones we hate.

People get very opinionated about this.

I don’t have a lot of ‘expert analysis’ to add here, other than to share my thoughts on the best and worst examples of festive cheer.

Those who know me well are aware of how much I utterly despise ‘Last Christmas’. And I’m not the only one. Lots of people in the UK and US hate it as much as I do. But plenty adore it. I can’t stand it and want to run a mile anytime I hear it. I feel physically sick.

(And do you know what? Medically, believe it or not, there’s a perfectly valid reason for this. I kid you not, feeling nauseous and anxious over certain songs has a medical explanation. I’ll tell you all about this next year.)

There are a handful of other songs I loathe (paying attention to all these synonyms for hate?), including Paul McCartney’s ‘Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime’ and ‘Santa Baby’ (original version 1953), which I find creepy. There are a couple others I also abhor, but I can’t quite recall them now.

I’m an old fart at heart and mostly love the classics. I especially cherish the old traditional Christmas carols and this time of year I enjoy listening to the choir from Kings College Cambridge and old crooners like Bing Crosby. (After finishing this post, go to Youtube and listen to some of what I’m talking about.)

If we’re talking more modern classics, I also have my preferences. Though I’ve never been a Beatles fan, I like John Lennon’s ‘Happy Christmas (War is Over)’. And even though in the UK this is a clichéd favourite (it’s much less well known in the US), ‘Fairytale of New York’ by the Pogues (and Kirsty MacColl) is a classic. I used to play this in my classes as a holiday ‘treat’, and even though the language is a bit politically incorrect, there is some ‘interesting’ vocabulary in it (this is how teachers think).²

Over a decade starting in 2006, The Killers did an annual Christmas song, and for really modern classics, check out ‘Don’t Shoot Me Santa’ and ‘Joel the Lump of Coal.’ If you like this, have a listen to all ten of their tunes (and the videos, which are highly entertaining).

Final words from Jürgen Klopp (we’re coming full circle)

“I live on this planet and I want the planet to be safe, healthy, I wish everybody the best, absolutely, but my opinion about corona is not important.”

The world isn’t a very nice place at the moment, it’s pretty shitty frankly, so let’s take some comfort in Klopp’s words and if you celebrate it, a Merry Christmas (or Happy Festivus) and Happy New Year. I’ll be back in 2024 though I might post something small just before the end of this year.

1. Never assume anything – you’ll make an ASS out of U and ME.

2. There’s a nice message in the song too: “I can see a better time when all our dreams come true…”. Sadly, the lead singer of the Pogues is no longer with us, having recently passed away: RIP Shane MacGowan (25 December 1967 - 30 November 2023)