Mr. Drix is one of IHS’s most experienced and most beloved teachers. Students at IHS know and admire him for many different reasons: for his wonderful teaching in math, for showing up as a student in their Spanish classes, for his legendary tiddlywinks skills, and more.
Last year, James Yoon ’17 sat down with Mr. Drix for a long and fascinating interview about his life. The first part of the interview was published in The Tattler’s April 2017 issue. In this first section, Mr. Drix briefly discussed his childhood, his parents’ experience surviving concentration camps in World War II, his entry into teaching, and his retirement plans. He also reflected on the sources of support and forces of resistance that he encountered throughout his career.
However, a large portion of the interview remained unpublished. This article is the continuation of last year’s interview, in which Mr. Drix discusses tiddlywinks, hobbies, family, plans and preoccupations, and advice to students.
James Yoon ’17: How did you become interested in tiddlywinks?
Severin Drix: Well, part of it was being an immigrant and moving around a lot. I was doing a lot of entertaining myself, because I was alone a lot. I was the new kid, I often didn’t know anybody, I wasn’t part of the social scene at all, and by the time I started getting into it, bam, we moved again. In Brooklyn, we lived in a place called Sea Beach. We moved in with a family that my parents knew from Europe. A lot of Jewish families got together after the war because they had this horrible shared experience. Anyway, they had moved to America years before us, and they had a four-year-old daughter. I was eight. She had been born in this country, so she knew American games, and tiddlywinks—which I’d never heard of—is a children’s game in America, England, and a little bit in France and Germany, but not in Poland. I hadn’t seen any. Nothing my parents knew about. And it’s a children’s game, you know, you flick them into the cup. Well, somehow, when we moved out of the apartment, her tiddlywinks ended up in my stuff, and I didn’t remember anything about a cup, and maybe she didn’t have that either. I just remembered that you flicked them, and I would have different colors represent different countries, different armies. And I could re-enact wars. This was my equivalent of video games.
Anyway, by the time I started growing out of it because I had my friends at Bronx Science, they knew about it and they thought it was funny. And then in my junior year of high school, there were all these articles in Time magazine and Life magazine about tiddlywinks because in England, in 1954 or 955, Cambridge University had changed the game to the tournament version, where you deliberately cover another to keep it down. So, there were lots of colleges playing it at first, and Oxford (which was Cambridge’s rival, of course) had the best team. Oxford had managed to put together a tour of America. They came forward to seed a team in the colonies. They played against all sorts of Ivy League teams sprung up on the moment to play against them. They challenged President Kennedy, but his physical fitness advisor declined for him. They went to the West Coast, but it was mostly the Northeast, and all these teams sprung up, and then most of them disappeared right after. The team that did the best of them was made up of randomly selected people from the hotel where they were staying. Anyway, most of the teams disappeared afterward, but a few stayed on. There was a Life magazine article in December about the Harvard team and their games, and they actually had cheerleaders: “Hold that squop! hold that squop!” and “Use effective strategy!” [laughs]. So anyway, I saw these articles, and my friend said, “Hey, you know, you’d be good at that.” I didn’t even know about the felt mat, but I thought, yeah, that’s what I did—have one wink cover another. And I’d never have been able to join any sports team, but I could join the tiddlywinks team! So, when I got to Cornell I looked around and found out there wasn’t a team, and I decided to wait another year because one of my close friends was coming up to Cornell, and the two of us founded the team. We still had no idea what the real sets looked like. We were playing on a Trix cereal set with my friend’s scarf as the surface. But we knew there was a team from Harvard still around. I had my very closest friend at MIT look and he eventually found the Harvard team, got what the actual sets looked like, and bought some real sets and rule books and sent them to me. And my friend started an MIT team, my other friend and I started the Cornell team, and we played against Harvard, and pretty soon Cornell was the best team around. And we had to play against Waterloo, the North American champion from Canada, and we beat them, so that was really big.
So, what’s kept me going with it all these years? First of all, I just love the game. It’s a lot of fun. It’s got the three things that I think are important in any game or sport: skill, luck, and strategy. And I think that tiddlywinks has the best blend of all three. But it’s also been a great group of people that I enjoy getting together with. Our first official tournament was a week after the founding of the North American Tiddlywinks association. And 2016 was our 50th anniversary, and we had big celebrations. During these celebrations, we had two big events: one in Massachusetts, and one in Washington. In Washington, we had the North American pairs championship, and I was playing with a guy from MIT. Ferd, my good friend from MIT, was playing with a guy from England, who had coincidentally started in the same year. All four of us had 50 years of experience, so when our pair played their pair, we called it the “200-year game” because there were collectively 200 years of tiddlywinks experience at that table.
JY: What other hobbies do you have at the moment?
SD: I love bicycling. Now, I’m not like Mr. Heurich. He is a real master. I don’t bike nearly as often, but I do like bicycling. When my kids were growing up, it was one of the things that we did together: the two boys and I would go on a three-day trip around Seneca Lake. Real serious bikers do it one day, but my youngest boy was still just on a three-gear bike.
I also love gardening: I’ve got a 40-foot by 40-foot garden. I grow 360 heads of garlic, which I share with friends, family, and neighbors, and I have enough to last me almost for the year. And I grow a lot of other things.
And obviously, math—recreational math. I took the AMC, not under the time constraints, but I went through all the questions, and I really enjoy things like that. I go to workshops, and I love that a lot.
And I enjoy watching movies, and the usual stuff.
JY: How do you spend your time at home? Do you have any passions?
SD: In the summer, I do gardening. I read the New York Times avidly online. This is something I got from my father. He credits his survival [during World War II] to the fact that he was so well aware. He was interested in politics a lot, and he feels it really helped him. I don’t expect to have that degree of life endanger from the political scene, but I think it is very important, and when I have the opportunity I try to attend some events for that.
JY: I saw you walking downtown over break. I think you were right in front of Gimme Coffee.
SD: Well, that’s one of my favorites. Gimme Coffee, and Sarah’s Patisserie, which is no longer. I love pastry. That’s my favorite thing, oh my god. I grew up with that. My parents were European. People don’t know this, but Poland is a real center for elegant pastry. They called Warsaw the “Paris of the East.” I like traveling, too. I’ve been to Europe a few times with my parents back in the day, and then with my family since. I’ve actually stayed in contact with the family that saved my father’s life. Those people are no longer alive, but they have children and grandchildren.
I love spending time with my family. I’ve got two boys. The older boy, Julian, graduated from IHS in 2002. I live out on Lake Seneca. It’s a 30–35 minute commute every day. It’s a very nice drive, and we have a very nice house that overlooks the lake a bit, and it has plenty of room for my 40-foot by 40-foot garden, so it’s worth it. But, bringing them to IHS, I had to pay the tuition, though I had a break because I was a teacher. So, Julian graduated in 2002, and Nathaniel graduated in 2006. Julian is now in Providence, Rhode Island, and Nathaniel’s in Dallas. Thank god for Facetime and things like that. I only wish it had been around for my parents, when my kids were little and my parents lived in New York City. I didn’t feel like we got to see them nearly enough. My wife is a twin, so we talk to her twin sister, and that’s part of every weekend—having moderately lengthy video chats. I also have two grandchildren in Providence. The older one, Xiomana, is five years old, and the younger one, Alessandro, is two. And I’m looking forward to when they get older, getting them to play tiddlywinks. Yes, indeed. I was just interviewed by two people who were doing a project for English, and they were asking about tiddlywinks. They asked what was my biggest accomplishment in tiddlywinks. And yes, I was world singles champion for two years or three years, but what I was most proud of was with my older boy Julian. We were the first father-son pair to win the North American pairs championship. He then dropped playing after a while, but my aim is to be the first grandparent-grandchild pair winners.
JY: Nowadays, what thoughts are preoccupying you either at school or outside of school?
SD: Well, as you get older, your body has issues. Now, being a nerd, I never paid much attention to my body when I was young, which is something I definitely regret. I had years of back issues. Oh gosh, there were times when I was lying on the floor in the math workroom trying to straighten my back out. But knock on wood, I’ve become much better. So that’s another thing, I try to go to the gym two times a week. I like to go for walks too. I love the waterfront trail.
I very much worry about the political situation. And it’s not just in this country, although that’s what’s closest to us. All over the world, it’s right-wing, authoritarian, intolerant. Israel—oh my god. I grew up adoring Israel. I was a Jew and Israel was the place you could go to escape after having been wiped out in Europe. This was a safe haven for Jews in the world. And I look at Israel today and I can’t recognize what I’m looking at. Netanyahu was awful, and there’s no hope for peace there. It’s not just because people have seized power; it’s because populations have moved toward being accepting of intolerance and authoritarianism and stigmatizing people and scapegoating people. I’m very afraid for which direction the world is going in. The day after the [2016 presidential] election, my first thought was thank god that my father and mother had passed away, that they didn’t have to see this. We live in an area where there’s a lot of resistance, and thank god for that. I could not live in parts of the country where that was not happening.
JY: Is that part of the reason that you’ve stayed in Ithaca for so long?
SD: Gosh, when I moved to Ithaca, I was pining to go back to New York City. To me, the city was the place. Anything else was the boondocks. But I’m happy living in Ithaca, which I think has the best of everything. You have the cosmopolitan and intellectual advantages of the city, the real culture and all the possibilities. So there are the cultural advantages, but also the natural beauty, which is amazing. And it’s also the school here. It’s an amazing school, and I think people take it for granted. They just don’t understand. I wish there were more schools in this country that were like this.
JY: What about it so good?
SD: Well, a combination of things. You’ve got everything from top to bottom. You’re going to have people who are very bright, and people who are totally disinterested in school. But you have a much bigger collection of people who are academically inclined and motivated here. You can get two sections of BC Calc, and one of AB. Roughly a quarter to a fifth of the graduating class is taking some kind of AP Calculus. There are some schools that don’t offer that at all! Watkins Glen has one section, and it just does AB. And the orchestra here—there’s talent in so many different ways. So that’s special, the student body. And because of that, you get a lot of teachers who are attracted to coming here. Not because of the money—the wages here are not that good—but because of the educational atmosphere that’s here. And they come with great ideas. Really, I’m so proud of my colleagues. And sure, not everybody’s the best, but I know there’s some really, really good ones. I’m sitting in on Lana Craig’s class, and I’m just so amazed at the kind of teacher she is. How many schools can claim that they generated three AP review books? AP Computer Science was done by one of the teachers here, and Calculus, and Ms. Craig contributed to the AP Spanish review. So, that’s pretty astonishing in one school—one little school. And of course you develop friendships here. At some point, I’ll probably move to be near my grandchildren. At some point, we will leave here, but if I had enough money to have two homes, I would love to do that—have a second home here.
JY: How do you think people become great at something?
SD: Well, there’s an ancient argument that you need talent that you develop, and you do need some talent and interest to begin with. I think the main thing is that you need to care about it, because if you care about it, you will continue to develop your abilities. I’m not a research mathematician, so some things go over my head. But on the other thing, I think I’ve honed my teaching pretty well. Again, I’ve seen some teachers who I’d consider better teachers than myself, especially Dave Bock (the guy who wrote our review book). But I think you become really great at something by caring about it and working at it, and that’ll certainly take you further than where you started.
JY: How do you go about helping people who don’t believe in themselves?
SD: Okay, I’m going to start with a generalization that is a bit of a stereotype, but it has some truth to it, which is that guys generally think they know more than they do, and girls generally think they know less than they do. And that’s clearly a way that our society has inculcated these things. And both are a problem. A person who is too self-confident is very hard to work with. If I’m dealing with a kid who rushes through, I say, “No, no, take your time. Read the question. Make sure you’ve answered it. Show your work,” and that kind of thing. But not having faith in yourself is just as bad. Showing that you believe in them helps up to a point. But some people deal with self issues all their lives. Like with anything else, it’s something that you hope to improve and make better, but you shouldn’t assume that it can just be whisked away. So just getting a person to believe more in themselves, and try more things, and take more chances, and see success in some way. And that means of course that you can’t do it for them, because then they’re not seeing the success. You have to show them enough to see what they can do themselves, but you also have to give them the space to do it themselves. One of the things I believe in very strongly, and not just in terms of school, is complimenting the things that are well done. We are so quick to criticize when we see something badly done, but it would be the greatest thing if everyone made it their mission to show appreciation for something that is done well. It’s the same in teaching too. When someone is getting something, don’t take it for granted. That’s not giving praise for nothing, but when you see progress, note it as progress.
JY: What has been most rewarding in your life?
SD: There are several things that have given me the greatest satisfaction. One of the top is having helped my father write his book. Not that he was reluctant to say anything, but because he was too busy. That effort, which took two years, was definitely one of the most rewarding things. The book got completed and published in 1994, and we went that summer to Poland for the first time with my wife and children. My parents were with us, and it was my second time. The second rewarding thing, is absolutely my family. My wife, who is amazing, and my two boys, who I’m so proud of, and my grandchildren. That’s tremendously rewarding. Teaching, tremendously so. I look forward to it, I’m excited. Sometimes I wake up with no energy, but when I get to the classroom, the energy is there. Mathematics, too. Mathematics was my first love. Sure, tiddlywinks has been rewarding, but there are many things i find rewarding. Those are the biggest ones.
JY: How have students changed over the years?
SD: A lot less than you would think. I absolutely don’t think, “Oh, back in the good old days, students now they just…”—no. Certainly, technology has been both a blessing and a curse. People are way too dependent on calculators, but they weren’t too good at arithmetic back in the day either. That is one thing that has probably gotten worse—the arithmetic skills. But in terms of attitudes toward work, it’s actually better. I started teaching in the early 70s, which was a still a hangover from the 60s. In many ways, the 60s was very, very good. But it also brought with it drugs, and we’re still paying the price for that. And in the 70s, a lot more people were being affected by drugs. It still happens, but there’s been enough train wrecks with that that people are more aware of the dangers than maybe they were then. But there was a lot less interest in school, maybe, in general. The flip side is that now it’s maybe for the wrong reasons—“Oh, I gotta get into a good college.” But there’s still a lot of good learning going on. There’s no golden age that I’m aware of, but on the whole, from top to bottom, it’s shifted up from what it was. Now, one of the downsides to Ithaca High School is that students feel like they can’t be a top student because there are too many outstanding, incredible stories around them. But a student who’s a “B” student here can easily find that they’re the go-to student in the dorm that people go to with questions in college.
JY: What advice would you give to students?
SD: First, find out what you really want to do and do it. Follow your passion. Number two, keep a balance in things. Don’t get obsessed about college, especially. There are many colleges where you can get a good education. Enjoy the learning as much for its own sake as you can. Third, try different things, especially in college. Try things that you’ve never done before. If you get a chance to do something like a student exchange or volunteering for a national service organization in a different community, do those things and broaden yourself as much as you can, and always have a positive attitude towards people.
JY: What gives you hope?
SD: Well, I certainly see a lot of students who have good ideals. I’m seeing hope in the fact that people are standing up to resist what’s happening politically now—that people are wanting to have sanctuary cities and prevent the forceful deportation of people. I definitely see some idealism there, and some hope. I have a very deep belief spiritually that things are for a purpose, and that we get tested. I can’t imagine what it was like for my parents, watching the world darken as Nazis took over. But I have some hope that things are ultimately for a purpose, and that it’s part of our spiritual growth as we go through the ages.
JY: What are your plans for after retirement?
SD: I don’t know yet. Spending a lot more time with family, for sure. Obviously, more time in the garden, and things like that. I think I would probably want to do some tutoring. I might do some subbing, but only the types of things I’d really want to do. Then, there’s my Spanish—working on that. I definitely want to do more with that.
JY: When did you get started with Spanish?
SD: The very first year that I was part-time. Starting in the fall of 2013. The immediate reason I wanted to learn Spanish was because my son married a woman who’s bilingual and speaks Spanish and they’re raising their children bilingual. So, I want to want to be able to speak to my grandchildren in both languages. And there are a lot of places in the world to travel, and this summer, we’re going to Costa Rica for a week. It’s also good to keep your mind active, and learning other languages is a really good way to keep alert. Sometimes, I find myself too busy with other things, so I’m going to repeat a class of Spanish next year, because I feel like I haven’t done enough. And I’m just doing it to learn, not worry about graduating on time or getting into college [laughs].
JY: Last year, when I was a junior, when I signed up to take Calc BC, I was scared to take it because of the rumor that it was a tough class of the highest level in our school. But very soon into the year, being your student, I realized that I have zero regrets.
SD: Yeah, and I’ve talked to people in Precalc BC now, who ask me how hard Calc BC is. And I try to tell them that when you’re in Precalc BC and doing decently—a good solid B or better—you’re going to be fine in Calc BC. Maybe we didn’t just hear about it from people before, and a couple people cornered me in the hall. Maybe in previous years, people were too scared to ask. I feel terrible that people might not be going to BC because they think it’s going to be too hard for them. It’s a hard course, but not beyond what you’ve been prepared for.
JY: In class, you’re always very enthusiastic, and it’s somehow contagious. When I go home, I can visualize what was going on in class, and it can sometimes be a very healthy challenge at home when I’m doing my homework. What was the biggest factor that played into the almost youthful curiosity and fascination with math that you display in class?
SD: Well, as I said, math was my first love. For my dad, math was always a tool toward something else and he hoped I would go into medicine. But when I fainted when getting my finger pricked by the doctor, he was so embarrassed. One day, when I was in high school, we went downtown to a Barnes and Noble—not a chain yet—and he went to look for something, and there I was: I had seen a book on group theory, and I was looking through it, and he was amazed that I was fascinated by this book.
You know, the day after the presidential election, I saw so depressed. I didn’t feel like I wanted to do anything. But coming here, being with the students, that was something. I thought, no matter what they do politically, they can’t ruin mathematics. Math is something that has a truth doesn’t depend on opinion, or spin, or fake news, and it makes sense. It connects things. To me, the connection between math and science is strong, but the connection between math and philosophy and art is even stronger. The amazing thing about math is that it turns out to be at the heart of the real physical world that we live in. I’m a strong believe in in Platonism—the philosophy of Plato—that the world is an image of ideal truths playing out. Why that happened to me, I don’t know, but when I say I’ve got these spiritual beliefs, they’re very closely related to my mathematics.
JY: What do you think is your greatest legacy at IHS?
SD: I think I’ve given the school back plenty during my post-retirement contract. Part of the legacy is teachers coming to me with questions, so I’ve been a resource in the department. I would say Fractals and Chaos, but Dave Bock created the course, and I refined it, and Mr. Kirk is doing the same now. And Tiddlywinks Club, which I fear won’t continue after I’m gone. I can’t take too much credit in terms of the legacy here, because the whole department has created an ongoing legacy.
Fun Facts about Mr. Drix:
- He is a hardcore pun addict who can “hardly hear an expression without coming up with some variant of it.”
- He loves to watch comedy, whether it’s Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, or Lewis Black.
- He is a vegetarian.
- Favorite food: High quality, really refined pastry
- Favorite films: Hidden Figures, Moonlight, Hell or High Water, Lion, Manchester by the Sea, North by Northwest, Rio Bravo, Gandhi, Bringing Up Baby, Lone Star
- Favorite books: The Lord of the Rings changed his life (though he hates the movies)