…with Gary Moss

Many kids have wanted to be Superman; I was one of them.

When I graduate in 1964, with my BS in Elementary Education, I knew that I was one of the most creative and enthusiastic teachers on the planet. The staff of most elementary schools at the time was primarily made up of females. It was not difficult at that time for me to find countless offers for a job. Within a month of graduating in June, I had landed a contract to begin the 1964-65 school year in Oak Park, Michigan, with my own 5th Grade classroom at Francis Scott Key Elementary School.

Key Elementary was the home of many master teachers and educational innovators. I became a sponge when I observed the creativity and styles of the likes of David Strom and Marge Williams. I melded that which I learned into my own special style. The administration at Key was future thinking too; how special.

Less than a year passed before I made a move to become grade level chairman, which required that I attend district wide planning meetings. It was here that I learned about uniform standardization for the sake of conforming to a mission statement suitable to receive State and Federal Funding. When I offered ideas that would make education within the entire district come alive with excitement, I was shot down for reasons that my ideas did not comply with past practices.

I felt stifled. I felt disillusioned. In spite of the district’s talking points, teachers were held accountable to their teaching practices by their local principal. I felt ever thankful to my principal, Ed Cervanak. And yet there were some projects that required district approval. Unfortunately, those projects that I proposed always received a thumbs down from the higher-ups for diverging from past practices.

In the mid 1960s the US was gearing up in Viet Nam. Young men were being called upon to serve. I wouldn’t have made much of a soldier, following orders and such. So I avoided going to war by teaching. Two years at Key, two years teaching Math and Science in Detroit Public Schools, and then a year back to Key. (I received quite an education.)

In the mid 1960s Detroit Public Schools were still filled with many senior teachers and administrators left over from the 30s and 40s. Many of these people were mostly white and filled with their own personal prejudices, conditioned over years. The city had a growing black school population. The civil rights movements were responsible for providing greater opportunities to wanna-be black teachers. It was a perfect storm.

In order to bring more black teachers into the system to change the complexion of the staff, many unqualified black were hired. They stood out like sore thumbs, for their lack of teaching skills. This in turn reinforce the notion, to the already prejudice whites, that black were inferior.

A Lose-Lose situation.

The biggest loser of all were the students. White teachers generally taught down to them, not expecting very much. Many Black teachers were unprepared to teach. There were and still are many wasted years.

And all the while the boards of education and the teacher’s unions remain in self-preservation mode, protecting their own jobs and the status quo.

Change is hard. But it shouldn’t be this difficult. And they are all still waiting for Superman.

Like others before me, I became frustrated in 1967. I saw an opportunity in 1967 to create a private school. With $50 in my bank account and a spirit of endless determination I put together a business plan and opened a school in less than 9 months. My school became vital and prosperous in West Bloomfield, Michigan

I had my opportunity to be a superman and I did something. If I had to be under the thumb of committees and boards it would have never happened.

There is a small army of supermen and superwomen out there who are begging to make a difference. If we push the legislators, lobbyists, and unions aside we can save ourselves from within.

In my opinion, scrabble is one tool, that when used properly, can raise the reading scores of all students, minimally, 10 – 20 points. There needs to be a scrabble club in every school across America. CLICK

Are you all ears?

What do you hear when you walk into your local scrabble club? There are certainly an array of sounds. My experience is that most players with scrabble ratings under 1600 are very gregarious and friendly. (The upper crust usually seek out other upper crust and share stories about yesterday’s scrabble wars or the words that end with ‘eau’.)

Being the holiday season right now, the air is filled with loud renditions of Christmas Carols and other traditional holiday tunes. Scrabblers who play at venues that stream music must develop a way to tune it out or Rudolph and The Little Drummer Boy will play havoc with their scrabble performance.

When scrabblers are at play there is barely a sound beyond that of the rattling of tiles, muffled by the bags that enclose them. Years ago when I hosted scrabble gathering at my lakefront home, neighbors voted me as hosting the quietest parties ever held on the lake.

All that silence during the game stuffs the unaired sounds somewhere within. It builds up like hot air trapped in a balloon. The moment the game is over, all that sound becomes unleashed and silence is transformed into a cacophony of ‘chatty cathy’s’. Players still playing become annoyed and yell “QUIET”. Sometimes they spray others sitting close by with “Shhhhhhh”. Players who finished first are asked to leave the playing room and talk elsewhere. But they are so wrapped up in their own thoughts that they cannot hear the requests. This scene repeats itself wherever scrabblers compete.

Oh when will they ever learn?

The epitome of silence is that which occurs with regard to most losers when the game is over. There is nothing quieter than a loser. (Sometimes I sulk my way into the next game, which is usually deadly, leading to another loss.)

Oh when will I ever learn?

What’s the big deal about playing scrabble? All one has to do is move tiles around until a group of tiles from a word. Right?

Well, sort of.

You still have to find a spot where the word will fit onto the board. One of the most frustrating events during a game is when you find a 7 letter word using all your letters and it can’t be played on the board. That makes me go nuts.

The thing that makes me even crazier is when, after the game, some expert, who had been peering over my shoulder, comes and tells me that I could have played the bingo by hooking the ‘a’ in the word to the front of ‘cold’, making ‘acold’. But who knew that ‘acold’ was a word? (KNOWING HOOKS WILL OFTEN ALLOW YOU TO PLAY YOUR BINGOS.)

My LOTEM SYSTEM is a pathway to learning HOOKS. We should talk: (949) 510-1673.

Oh yeah, just putting your word down anywhere on the board doesn’t insure winning either. Some spots on the board are more valuable than other spots.

To begin with, the best scrabble players are open to seeing the game and the board differently. The average player sees ‘RED’. The better player sees ‘MAGENTA”.

It is that SIMPLE, but that isn’t always so EASY.

To get from here to there one must have the desire and a commitment. Then one must find a pathway. Some stumble along and work diligently at reinventing the wheel. Others call upon coaches like me and apply tools like The LOTEM SYSTEM.

You can always send me an email: letter.man.moss@gmail.com

Some people are dreaming about large screen TVs, others yearn for the feel of corinthian leather seats in a new Lexus, still others desire sparkling baubles in a 2 carat plus range.

As for me, I want something much less extravagant yet equally illusive.

Oh, to once again experience the thrill of victory against the ‘big guys’.

The truth is, it can happen to any of us at any given scrabble competition. And it even happened to me a few times during the past 20+ years. I can tell you that it feels ooooh so sweet. The delicious feelings stayed with me for a period of time. But like everything else, time erodes the heightened edge of the ‘thrill of victory’.

My first high was at the 1987 Nationals in New York City when I was just starting out. I played in Division 2 and had a rating of 1294. When the games began I was at the bottom of the pack. I played at championship level. Even though I finished 25th in the division, I gained 123 rating points and had the best finish for all players rated under 1400, and earned a prize of $350. (Local papers back home interviewed me and I became a local celebrity.)

To date I have played more than 283 sanctioned scrabble tournament tournaments. I have finish 1st in my divisions 19 times.

A few wins that are forged into my memory include the first time I ever beat Chuck Armstrong in a club game (1993), the day I beat Joel Wapnick at the Montreal tournament (1994), and the LA Club Championship (1997) when I beat Rita Norr in the final game to become club champion.

Another ‘thrill of victory’ would be oh so lovely. It doesn’t have to be anything as miraculous as winning a National. I could be very happy with an occasional triple/triple against Maddy Kamen, winning a challenge agains Rachel Knapp would be delightful, or having two consecutive wins against Tom Singleton could start a trend. What grand cosmic plan would be upset if this year I had all balanced racks and many fewer I’s?

What is on your wish list this year?

If you are in southern California on Sunday, December 18, come play scrabble with us at the Winter Holiday Scrabble Classic (a non-rated event). Just check out the link and RSVP.

We each have something that we choose to declare as ‘my world’. It is our passion; it is our most favorite place to be, doing what we love best.

Scrabble wasn’t always ‘my world’. There were other activities in my life that captured my every thought at different times in my life. I was an avid bowler in my 20s; from ages 26 to 46 I was so immersed in my roll as headmaster of The Bloomfield Nursery School and The Moss School that many people called me Mr. Bloomfield. In my 30s I took up racquetball and for almost 10 years I played countless hours every week, until I collided with a wall and shattered my right elbow. More recently, about 1987, I discovered the world of competitive scrabble and I’ve been hooked ever since.

Besides scrabble, two of my other passions are teaching and writing. I’ve been able to combine my favorite things by teaching and coaching scrabble in workshops and via my online class. More recently I have packaged a system that I call LOTEM. It is a process that will take you and others from wherever you are at (in you scrabble expertise) to other higher levels within the ranks. (For information call 949.510.1673)

Tomorrow is the 1st Sunday of December 2011. I will be directing The 1st Sunday Scrabble Tournament and I will be in my element. I founded the 1st Sunday Tournament more than 240 months ago; I’ve rarely missed a single month. Hundreds of different people have been in and out of my world over the years. That has afforded me to make many friends from near and far.

If you are reading this blog and live in some cold, snowy, northern clime consider visiting southern California during your winter months. I will share my world with you and introduce you to the scrabble players in clubs and tournaments from Los Angeles to San Diego. It is a place where you can play in a scheduled club most every day of the week.

This is My World

Gary’s
Highest Scrabble Rating: 248th
Highest Scrabble Rating: 1702
282 Tournaments Played
14 Tournament Wins

As an educator (BS in Education; MA in Ed. Guid & Couns.), caught up in the competitive scrabble world, I have always had one eye focused on those players with the highest WIN percentages, wondering “just how do they do that?”

But then I noticed that there are people in every discipline that move up to be a member of the ‘two-percenters’. This group includes the surgeon you’d prefer to have operating on you, the broker you’d like to have managing your portfolio, and the chef you wish you had preparing your meals.

I have always aspired to be a teacher at that same high level and since joining the scrabble world I have aspired to being that kind of scrabble player too.

Over the years I developed and marketed many tools to help myself and help others to improve their skills required to become a formidable scrabble mavin.

Each one of my tools for learning is great and greater.

Having a tool box in your closet, with the best tools, does not mean that you know how to change a hinge when the door breaks or that you can change a washer when there is a leak at the bathroom sink.

Hence: The LOTEM System

I have developed The LOTEM System to lead people like you and me from here to there.

If you are tired of losing the scrabble games at your family gatherings, if you are ready to start winning at scrabble more often, against friends and neighbors, you’ll appreciate and prosper from The LOTEM System.

The LOTEM System is a process that will move you up in the ranks. I am willing share this process with you.

Just for expressing you interest I will send you a free 2-Letter-Word List on a PDF file. This information alone will put you heads and shoulders above most casual scrabble players.

Send me your email request and begin your amazing scrabble journey.
Include you Name and Phone Number to your ‘free list’. If you wish to talk with me right away, call 949-510-1673.

EMail Me

Scrabble offers a special brand of fun with words and strategies and memory challenges. But along with all the fun of the game comes the interaction with other people who share one’s excitement with the elements of the language.

Below is a post that I received from one of my fellow language fans. Enjoy.

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to
present the present.

A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove, dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Let’s face it, English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France . Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down; you fill in a form by filling it out; an alarm goes off by going on. English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

PS. – Why doesn’t ‘Buick’ rhyme with ‘quick’ ?

You lovers of the English language might enjoy this: There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is’UP’

It’s easy to understand UP meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP ? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report? We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house, and some guys fix UP the old car. At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special. A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night. We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP! To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don’t give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP. When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP. When it doesn’t rain for awhile, things dry UP. One could go on and on, but I’ll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP, so……..it is time to shut UP!
~Anonymous

At the time when I entered the world of competitive scrabble, Jean Carol was one of the highest ranking women players in the NSA. Myself, with a much lower rating, I rarely, if ever, had an opportunity to play against Jean in a sanctioned game.

But that doesn’t mean that she and I were strangers to each other. Jean was a people person. Her circle was open to all and that set her apart from many of the other experts who didn’t give the time of day to players rated under 1600.

Jean always had a warm greeting and conversation to share when we’d cross paths at tournaments in Cleves or Dayton or Gatlinburg. She also attended a few of the tournaments which I directed in Michigan, in the early 1990s.

The only time when I was able to beat Jean Carol was in the early 1990s. I produced and directed a two day scrabble tournament at a campground at Proud Lake, in Walled Lake, Michigan. Players came from near and far. Jean came along with the contingency from southern Ohio.

In order to provide a break in the grueling scrabble competition and get people up and about, I scheduled time off, after lunch on Saturday as free time. Some people went hiking and smelled the roses; some folks went back to their scrabble boards for a pick-up game or two; and a group of us ventured out of the park to a nearby bowling alley as a diversion.

Who’d have thought that Jean Carol was an avid bowler? Jean, Paul Epstein and I, along with a few others abandoned our lexicons in favor of splits and spares and strikes. When the game was over, I had scored 194, a higher score than Jean’s 189.

For a while thereafter I shared that truth with others. But all I divulged was that I had beaten Jean Carol. I never told them that I had beaten her at bowling.

Miss you Jean.

Tis the season to play SCRABBLE. But as far as I’m concerned, it is always the right time to play some scrabble.

Consider this as your personal invitation to join in on the fun. You will need to come to Orange County, California, the location of the event will be at Laguna Woods Village in Laguna Woods, on Sunday, December 18, beginning at 9:30AM.

Oh yeah, I have room for only 50 players, so if you are serious about attending you must RSVP soon.

For all the detail about event, CLICK HERE.

There are ‘scrabble teachers’ and then there are ‘SCRABBLE TEACHERS’. There are ‘students of scrabble’ and there are ‘STUDENTS OF SCRABBLE’. As a past president once put it so clearly, “It all depends on what ‘IS’ is.”

Some teachers are bold and authoritarian. They push their students’ noses to the grindstone and demand that all students follow their syllabus (‘the RIGHT WAY’).

I use to be that kind of teacher. I used those methods when I shared the joys of scrabble with my children. (None of my children have much to do with scrabble these days.)

I have come to learn that people do things for their own reasons, not mine. Furthermore, I now understand our intention determines our successes, be it with playing scrabble, balancing our check book, or dressing for success.

When a prospective scrabble student approaches me as says, “I want to ‘TRY’ to learn the legal 2-Letter-Words,” I already know that there is a slim chance that he/she will reach that goal.

The word ‘TRY’ is a sellout, it is an escape hatch, it is an excuse. The word ‘TRY’ tells me that the person lacks commitment.

Success usually occurs when a person says, “I want to learn how to play winning scrabble. Where do I begin?”

This player has an ‘I CAN’ attitude and is open to taking direction.

As a teacher, I have learned that every person has their own style of learning. Therefore, a teacher who is sensitive to the pupil’s style will be able to help students find success. These teachers use velvet hammers and padded crowbars when forcing issues. These teachers only tell enough to set the pupil on the road to discovery. People learn things the best when it is a result of their own revelations.

If you are an ‘I CAN’ person and want to become an even better scrabble player. . . If you are an ‘I CAN’ person and want to improve your memory skills. . . Then dive into SCRABBLE 101. CLICK HERE

DO IT WITH COMMITMENT. . . YOU’LL LIKE IT!