In the last two days, The Moth – the preeminent storytelling organization in the world – has oddly brought me in contact with two of my former students in fairly bizarre ways.
Yesterday, a former student who was in my class 15 years ago texted me this photo, which was sent to her by another former student of 15 years ago who spotted it on the NYC Snapchat feed. It’s a photograph of me performing at The Moth Ball on Tuesday night. The NYC Snapchat feed was handed over to The Moth for the evening, so it was full of photos from the event. As my former student said, “That’s going to be seen by a lot of people!”
I can’t imagine what it would be like to see Mrs. Laverne or Mrs. Shultz on some public social media feed, performing at an event alongside celebrities like Carrie Brownstein.
Yes, kids. I’m still alive and still doing stuff.
Earlier in the week, Elysha ran into a former student who was in my very first class 18 years ago. She lives in Australia but was in town visiting family. She told Elysha that recently, she met a guy in Australia and the two got talking. In the midst of the conversation, he brought up a show about storytelling that he had just been listening to and said, “I heard this great story by an American named Matthew Dicks.”
My former student, who is now a 24 year-old woman, said, “Matthew Dicks? He was my second grade teacher.”
On the other side of the world, a man heard my story on the radio and mentioned it to a girl who I once taught when she was seven years old.
Only The Moth could make something like this happen.
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Here’s another example, though less dramatic: I am always listening to The Moth while I am driving, and yesterday I heard them announce the next story by "Matthew Dicks", and I felt excited and proud :-). I heard your Bee Sting story for the first time and absolutely love it. When you cried, I cried – it really got to me.
Another thing only The Moth could make happen? You wearing a jacket with no hat.
So glad you liked the story!
And I go to school every day without a hat. I’m not wearing a hat right now.
As for the jacket, yes. That is a much less common situation.
Well I hear from former students often through the magic(?) of face book. I taught kindergarten for many years i Rocky Hill CT a pretty small town and live in an much smaller one now on Cape cod, imagine one of my early students lives in the same samll town now and has been very very hospitable, incredible to me although not as dramatic as yours. I also heard you on Moth this week on our local NPR station and always love it!! Congratulations to you, Matthew.
Thanks, Sally. Facebook has been a great place for me to reconnect as well. I actually set up a Facebook page for former students to visit and reconnect with me and each other. It’s been great.