The Random Thoughts of Louis Schmier

     I just back to the States after a month of teaching in China as part of VSU’s Maymester Study Abroad program. As I’ve been talking with people about my experiences, the inevitable question always pops up: “when are you going to retire? True, I’m 68 going on 69 in November, and I’ve been at VSU in the classroom since 1967. But, I’ve got the vitality, as I always say, of an “experienced teenager” by refusing to grow old as I grow older. Now, my strategy for being and staying this way is simply a matter of attitude, of following the gold rule by loving myself and knowing that it is not about my self, but all about transcending myself. I play the optimizing “today game”: I live a life balanced between working with both my hands and mind, and not being anything approaching a consumed and imbalanced workaholic; I live life intently each “today,” not worrying about any “yesterday,” and knowing from experience that tomorrow is not guaranteed to me; I get up each day with a “yes,” wondering what I will do today to make a positive difference in someone’s life; and, I focus on the quality of my professional and personal life rather than the quantity of my resume or bank account. The tactics I use to employ this strategy are to keep my body and spirit as the sacred, noble, and unique temples they are:

1. I take a refreshing, reviving, revitalizing 20 minute, near-coma inducing power nap each day.

2. I stay physically in shape by exercising with a regimen of every-other-day light weight lifting, a four mile every-other-day power walk, and keeping my weight within ten pounds of what it was when I was a collegiate athlete fifty years ago;

3. I stay mentally lean and mean by doing at least two crossword puzzles each day, as well as constantly designing and redesigning both my garden and the interior of the house;

4. I stay spiritually lean and mean by constant journeys inside myself with self-reflection and self-evaluation on my purpose and meaning in life;

5. I stay professionally lean and mean with constant thinking and writing and doing and sharing at conferences and campus workshops about classroom teaching;

6. I have a glowing inner fulfillment by doing what I love and love what I am doing, and still having a heck of a lot of fun doing it;

7. I stay socially connected with a coterie of friends who are so dear to me that they are not like family; they are family;

8. I stay professionally connected with a coterie of professional colleagues who are dear to me as close friends

9. I am an invigorated questing “let’s see what happens” dancing comrade-in-arms with fearlessness, adventure, imagination, serendipity, curiosity, creativity, and experimentation;

10. I believe in myself and am a light unto myself, and enter new worlds in order to expand my world, confidently seeing challenge as fraught with possibility rather than with barriers;

11. I am a dear friend of energizing “newness,” making sure my stone is always rolling, that I never let moss gather on it or have grass grow under my feet;

12. I welcome growing pains, for it tells me that I am growing. That is, I am constantly learning about learning that is being learned by voraciously reading on the research, attending teaching conferences, experimenting with teaching techniques, and reflecting on my both teaching experiences and my philosophy of education;

13. I am always talking with my flowers and koi fish;

14. I have a “medicinal” glass of wine and bit of cheese each day with Susan while either playing backgammon or just sitting by the koi fish pond–and always talking and listening;

15. I find meaning and purpose in my life by helping students find meaning and purpose in their lives having learned that Ghandi was right, that the best way to find myself is to lose myself in the service of others;

16. I have an inner calm and joy, and I refuse to let anyone or anything disturb me, remake me, or define me;

17. I constantly smile and laugh and joke around;

18. I joyously spoil my grandmunchkins every chance I get;

19. Having beaten cancer and being a miraculous “walking ‘5%’” survivor of a massive cerebral hemorrahage, I know what really matters and live that knowledge each day with anything but matter-of-factness;

20. I don’t smoke, and, though I love my morning coffee, I eat very well–usually chicken, fruit, nuts, vegetables, fish–with a very occasional lapse of chocolate, ice cream, steak and hamburger, donuts, and Susan’s magnificent once-a-year cheese cake;

21. And finally, and undeniably most important, I never take for granted that I luckily have had Susan by my side for 43 years each day I wake up, go about my day, and go to sleep.

      That’s enough. Yeah, it’s that simple and that complex, that easy and that challenging. I know one day the battery will run out and the pink bunny within will stop, but I will tell you this: until that day arrives, the living these twenty-one things makes each day a fun-filled, exhilarating, youthful, meaningful, purposeful, and fulfilling day.

Louis

     It’s that time of the year. Here is my one minute commencement address:

      “Okay, folks. I know you’ve got your degrees because you’re sitting there crowded together wearing those sweaty medieval robes and silly looking hats. You don’t really want to hear me, do you? You’re not really interested in reflecting, are you? And, you’ve had your fill of advice, haven’t you? You just want to go out and celebrate your survival. So, I’m going to make sure that you will have had to put up with me for about a minute. Literally! Clock me! I’m just going to say this: the most important aspect of your education is not what happened in the classroom, in the dorm or apartment, in the sorority or fraternity house, in the field house, in the theater wing, or in any campus or off-campus nook and cranny. Your education really has been all about what happened inside you. These years of getting an education are really about experiencing the growing pains of growing up. In fact, you’re about to find out that is what your life, and all life, will always be about.”

     “That’s it. Didn’t believe me, did you? Now let’s get out of here and party.”

Louis

      Whew! Aaah! The semester is over. I’m finished playing academic god. The very uneducational final grades are in. I’m tired; my eyes are bloodshot; my neck is stiff; my muscles ache, all from a week of pouring over the records of the semester-long performances of 180 students: issue papers, project participation, film watching, journals, communication logs, film study question answers, etc… Because background, outside influences, inside influences, struggle, learning from mistakes, process, and progress are the names in my games, I don’t play act at being an animated calculator. Over and over and over again I went back to notations I’ve made from journal entries, individual community project evaluations, comments on conversations I’ve had with students. A major part of those records are hard-copy, free-hand final evaluations: 180 self evaluations by the students; almost 800 evaluations of other members of students’ communities. Most students were honest. I could almost predict those who wouldn’t be. Some surprised me one way or another. Most, however, were not easy on their community members and harder on themselves, sometimes more insightful and more demanding than I would have been. Sometimes, I felt a need to go back and read portions from the nearly 14,000 individual journal entries. I’ve read of nasty parental divorce, parental pressure and ultimatum, serious family illness, major injury, major medical issues, boyfriend issues, insecurities, girlfriend issues, friend issues, marital relationships, job issues, trouble with the law, demands of sports, car accidents, demands of theater, demands of band, car breakdowns, robbery, naiveté, family pressures, peer pressures, lonliness, gender issues, racial issues, lack of self-confidence, sorority demands, demands of fraternity, sex, drugs, aloneness, alcohol, lack of discipline, pregnancy, lack of commitment, STD, roommate issues, financial pressures, home sickness, marriage, academic issues, children, extenuating circumstances, debilitating disease, abuse, –and even threats of suicide that sacred the hell out of me and led me to call in the counseling office and campus security. I don’t trivialize, dismiss, or ignored these pressures, distractions, burdens, and troubles each student feels. These hosts of slings and arrows of outrageous fortune are real to these mostly very young and inexperienced-in-life students. Other than a few “non-traditional” students, they’re kids, not adults. So, I honor each of them. But I have to figure out how each fits into the mix of things. I’m not one of those “the grades made me do it” or “that’s what the computer said” kind of guy. Sometimes I wish I was; it would be so much simpler and easier to give quizzes and tests, percentage out everything, add, divide, multiple, and let the numbers do my walking. But, that’s not me, my vision, my sense of purpose, or my philosophy of education. As I compress it all into that single letter, I struggle; I agonize; I curse; I consider; I cry; I snarl; I laugh; I weigh; I bite my lip; I stop, lean back, close my eyes, and think; I gnash my teeth; I sigh; I smile; I adjust; I reject; I accept; I have a glass of wine; I demand; I plead a “Please.” I woefully utter a “Damn;” I exclaim a “Yes!”

     While I humanize this process and season it heavily with the spices of empathy and love, and while I don’t expect perfection, I’m far from being a push over. While I introduce a lot of fun in the learning process, I define “fun” as the opposite of “boredom,” not the opposite of work. While I am a loving empath, I practice a lot of tough love. Lots of tough love!! I hold their feet to the fire; I don’t easily or quickly leave them off the hook. Except for extenuating circumstances, I brook few “I apologize” excuses, “I’m not used to” justifications, “I’m sorry” explanations, and “I tried” rationalizations. Yoda’s words are always ringing in my ears: “Try not. Do. Or, do not. There is no try.” The students knew what was expected of them; they knew they had the “A” from the first day of class; they knew what they had to do to keep that “A;” they knew that from my constant “sermonizing” to the entire class throughout the semester; they knew that as I got in their individual faces; they knew that from my constant replies to individual journal entries: give it everything you’ve got, however challenging it might be; do whatever it takes, however inconvenient and uncomfortable, to do what you had to do. I would be of little service to them if I required any less.

     Now, there’s a batch of180 evaluations I save for last. In fact, I don’t read them until I’ve entered and locked-in the grades. They’re hard-copy, free-hand evaluations of me, my performance, the structure and operations of the class, as well as suggestions for modifications, deletions, additions of class “stuff.” These are critical, for virtually everything that goes on and does not go one in class is the result of student recommendations. As I read these, I realize once more that when we think of teaching as loving, caring, creating, and adventuring, we are all functioning at a small fraction of our capacity that would allow teaching to be one of the most adventuresome experiences of our lives. That’s not touchy-feely new age stuff; that’s a firm commitment based on reason. It is because of truly caring, of living it rather than being satisfied with merely saying it, that you develop a responsibility to help each student help her/himself become the person she or he is capable of becoming. When your feelings, thoughts, and actions are guided by an unconditional caring in your heart for each and every student, when you live right inside that caring rather than admiring it from afar, when your soul is dyed with that caring, when everybody is in your eyes a somebody, when you extend to each student all the care and kindness and empathy and love you can muster–no matter how trivial the contact, no matter how small the kindness, and do it with no thought of any reward or recognition–you will never be the same again. Teaching from the heart is teaching of the heart. Do that to your fullest and you will experience the most beautiful compensation in teaching that no salary or title can match–and no economic downturn can reduce.

      I’ll read these evaluations of me a couple of times before fall semester begins. But, for now, I’m packed and in a few hours I’ll be out of here for a month of teaching in China. Have a happy summer.

Louis

      I think far, far, far too often we academics are more focused on and focus the student on the paper chase after the transcript and diploma, and not on developing the essence of the human being chasing the paper.

Louis

      I’m still in a “Susan Boyle-ish” mood; I’m getting into the groove as I get myself psyched up for a two day workshop on collegiate teaching at Lethbridge University; as a cancer survivor, I’m still feeling the warmth and humanity of all those smiling and cheering students on the front lawn of my campus last night who gave up their precious study time for upcoming final papers and exams to give their love and time for the Cancer Society’s Relay For Life; and, so, I’m about to get myself into trouble. But, I’ve been hearing and reading, as I always do at this end-of-term time, many a sighing getting-ready-for-the-end-of-the-semester-paper-reading-exam-giving-final grade-compilation-crunch comments from my head-shaking colleagues here on campus and across the internet world. So, having gotten into my protective suit of Kevlar, here goes.

     So many of us academics just love to pretend that they’re so clinically objective, that the physical and academic appearance of students don’t matter and don’t influence their thoughts, feelings, actions, or judgments. Well, the truth is that they do. We’re all human, and there isn’t an objective bone in our body. When it comes to academics far too many of us are crotchety, intellectual, and academic snobs. We turn our backs and let so many students drown in an ocean of “they’re not worth it,” “what’s the use,” “they let me down,” “they can’t,” “they don’t know how,” “they don’t want to,” “they’re disappointing,” “in my day,” “when I was a student,” etc, etc, etc. It’s always something, and I’m not sure most of it is either nonsense about appearance or a reflection of our disinclination to devote the demanding time and effort to the needs of students away from the demands of our precious research, publication, and quest for tenure or promotion. So, the academic culture is the height of ambivalence between proclaimed objectivity and lived subjectivity, from the rare adoring surprise when one minute a “don’t belong” demonstrates she or he does and turning away with disdain just as easily the next minute when so many seemingly prove that they don’t. For so many of us, struggle, overcoming, improvement, growth, progress, process, and change in a student aren’t enough; raising an F or a D to a C or low B isn’t enough; being a consistently “C student” isn’t enough.

      So many of us want academic novae; so many of us want students and their transcripts to look the intellectual part. We adore and reward the academically drop-dead-easy-to-teach-wow 10s; we ignore and shun the down-and-dirty-got-to-work-hard-at-ugh 2s, 3s, and 4s, and tell them to drop dead. Most us want students to have an academic “sizzle” that we can brag about in our annual evaluations and institutional reports. Achievement is in GPAs, titles, scholarships, and recognitions. It is not in a student’s struggle to find a way or to find her or his way. After all, isn’t that why so many of us are impressed with those students who have the adjective, “honors,” or this and that “scholar” describing them? That stuff is easy to “market” in both academic and non-academic circles. So many of us just don’t go for the challenging or resisting intellectual and academic ugly ducklings, and don’t believe there is a swan lucking inside them. So many of us aren’t inclined to nurse the fallen sparrows.

      Don’t so many of us so often make that first impression, snap judgment correlation between appearance and talent, transcript and potential, grades and learning as so many of us once did–and regrettably sometimes still do–with skin color, religion, ethnicity, and gender? Don’t so many of us find it easier and less demanding to hone accomplishment in the already accomplished than to prospect for, dig for, haul out, sweat over, cut, and polish the raw stone into a gleaming jewel? And when students don’t live up to the mythology of our correlation, when they have frumpy transcripts or shabby appearances or drab performances, we more often than not “dis-” them; we engage in ways so that they are disheartened and disillusioned; we act in ways so that they are disrespected, dismissed, disenfranchised, disregarded, disengaged, and dis-just-about-everything-else; they’re treated as academically and intellectually unworthy, unkempt, unnoticed, unwanted, unclean, unglamorous, unfashionable, unattractive, uncouth, unfortunate, unknown and un-just-about-everything-else.

     But, in all of this, who is unattractive? That struggling student? Or us? Who should be ashamed? That beseeching student? Or us? Who is breaking the promise? That promising student? Or us? Why can’t each of these students dream? Why don’t we allow them to dream? Why don’t we help them follow their dreams? Why don’t we help them achieve their dreams? Instead, too many of us engage in the academic version of abuse, derision, demeaning, laughter, smirking, mocking, weeding out, grinding into the dust; we direct energy away from our heart and soul, and too often sap theirs. Pogo was right. We are our own enemy.

      We need the courage to split the sea of smug; we need the courage to treat each and every student as a sacred some body; we need the courage to have goose bumps when we engage with each student; we need the courage to sustain our wonder of each and every student; we need the courage to maintain our euphoria for each and every student; we need the courage to draw out stirring creativity and imagination in those “don’t belongs;” we need the courage to find talent and ability in those “they’re letting anyone ins;” we need the courage to develop the raw and unique potential in the unlikeliest of people.

     It would help if each day we all read and lived John 7:24 and, my favorite biblical passage, Micah 6:8.

Louis

      Think about it. How many of us look adoringly with adulation at those who have the riches and fame and beauty and success and importance of a winner’s everything whose graceless transgressions into arrogance, self-righteousness, irresponsibility, sex, drugs, crime, and alcohol reveal they have an inner nothing, and we say, “Wasted!” We put them in the spotlight only to find out that out of light, comes darkness. How many of us look scornfully–if we notice them at all–at those who have the loser’s outward nothing and uselessness of failure and poverty and dumpiness and klutziness, and lack of education, and plainness, and, then, discover they have a graceful, inner everything, and we say, “Wow!” We put them in a dark, unnoticed corner only to discover that out of darkness, comes light.

       We academics, with all of our degrees, are not above, to paraphrase the Bard, allowing the clothes to make the person. How many of us, like so many outside academia, merely look and hear, but don’t see and listen? How many of us look at the outside and don’t see the inside? How many of us look at gender, skin color, tattoo, body piercing, color streaked hair, dress, and believe the student has nothing? How many of us merely see transcripts and decide who shall go to the academic left and who to the right? How many of us submit to and conform to a multiple of prejudicial stereotypes that replace the unique human-ism of each student with entrenched, snap judging honors-isms, scholarship-isms, GPA-isms, manner-isms, and appearance-isms? How many of us do a closing down, head nodding, and eye rolling assumption that so many students are a nobody “don’t belong” and one of the wasteful “they’re letting anyone in,” and so few students are a somebody worth the time and effort to compete with the needs of research and publication and the acquisition of tenure.

     I am an avid gardener. I know that very, very little grows in cold and darkness, and most everything grows in warmth and light. I know that when I see a rose as more than a beautiful flower, when I see it with awe and love, that rose enters my heart and stirs other forces in my soul. That is true with my beloved Susan, with our two sons and their wives, with our three grandmunchkins, and with each student.

     If we see past the outside, if see inside, we will see unheralded beauty and dignity. So, I say, “Be damned with those -isms.” We have to confound those depersonalizing and dehumanizing perceptions. We have to see each person we label “student;” we have to see the worth of each student; we have to see and admire and exalt and trumpet the uniqueness in each student. What we should see and listen to, and only see and listen to, the human being inside: the nobility, the sacredness, the uniqueness, the essence, the spirit, the soul, the potential. We should be captivated by each student and not be distracted or mesmerized by appearance, demeanor, or performance. We should always believe; we should always have faith; we should always hope; and, above all, we should always love. We always should see that each student is an extraordinary sparkling diamond in the rough, not an undistinguished lump of coal. Then, and only then, will we reach out to help each dream the dream, to touch, to make a difference, to change the world, and to alter the future.

Louis

     The light of a new day was grappling with the darkness of an old one. You know, I love both the darkness of the night and light of day. In the former, I see, am awed, and am humbled by the majestic stars and the expanse of the universe; in the latter I see the path. As the gray sky turned blue, I thought of our saying at Chapel Hill that God is a Tarheel who made the sky Carolina Blue. Well, Monday, I had proof God is a Tarheel. Our cable, which had been out for five days because of the flooding, miraculously came back on ten minutes–ten minutes!!!–before the NCAA Championship game to let me watch my beloved Tarheels wallop the Spartans. Back to less serious stuff.

      Education should be awed by the stars and follow the path. It should deal with knowledge, critical thinking, and behavior, creating a web of who we are and what we know and what we feel and what we think with the purpose of what we do. They are what I call the “four ‘yeses.’” Yes, we should offer them the essential knowledge in their field of endeavor; yes, we should certainly help students acquire what we call “critical thinking skills;” yes, we help student learn to apply the knowledge and thinking skills in resourceful ways; and, yes, we also should help students express themselves, be in touch with their emotions, deeply reflect on their values, articulate a vision, acquire an authenticity, develop self-discipline and self-control, nurture responsibility, promote empathy, build cooperation, speak honestly to themselves and to others, maintain personal integrity, respect others, stick by principles in all they do, and to smile during the heaviest of weather.

      You see, contrary to what some have accused me of advocating, I’m not an “either/or” guy; I’m an “and” guy. My courses are overflowing with what most academics would call “information and skill content,” that is, the “know” and “think” of the classroom. My courses are replete with “inventive content,” that is, student ownership, autonomy, creativity, and imagination. My courses are also overflowing with what I call “character content,” the “who” and “who can become” of each student, as well as the “why” and “what should be done rightly done with” that professional, intellectual stuff of knowledge and skill. I would be the last to say that teaching students the skills and offering the information associated with their proposed profession should take a back seat. The intellectual, emotional, personal, and social aspects of an education all belong crowded in the old styled bench front seat like a bunch of Saturday night cruising teenagers. I have come to believe it is vital to help students use the knowledge and skill they acquire in a right way, for the enduring impact of what we educators do should be who the students become as persons as well as what they will know and what they will earn as professionals.

      We should help them understand that living by pretense is not living, uttering and passing on values are nowhere near as important as living values, merely surviving is not living, living a life without principles is not fulfilled living, seeking to only fit in is not standing out, sitting down is not standing up, trying only to get by won’t get much, measuring life by net worth is not a gauge of worthiness, and trying to be perfect is a futile and frustrating venture for any imperfect human being. Above all, we should help them feel and let explode into every nook and cranny in their personal and professional lives the white-hot energy, the special beauty, and the uniqueness that is each of theirs, that the best-paying job any of them can ever have is the job of just being an excellent example of being human and living a life overflowing with self-respect and respect for others. We should help them understand that their education should both benefit them and others as a whole, that virtue is a philosophy of living life all the time and everywhere rather than merely a strategy or tactic for getting ahead, that if they act with genuine love and authentic purpose in whatever it is they do, no obstacle will have the power to stop them; that if they are truly thankful for the smallest of things, they will experience the most magnificent of blessings; that if they walk through this world giving the care and attention each precious moment deserves, they will have untold riches in their lives; and, if they do what is right for both them and others, they will be a living expression of the sacredness they are.

      This way we have a shot at helping them acquire the greatest amount of knowledge and skill, the deepest sense of their own unique value and beauty, and apply all of who they are and what they know according to the highest morality and fullest of life. We should want our students at the time of graduation to want to paint their self-portraits with the rich, deep oils of honesty, enjoyment, fulfillment, authenticity, respect, purpose, and peace of mind rather than with the pale, pastel watercolors of isolating selfishness, restrictive anxiety, racing for material success, and being satisfied with temporary temporal pleasures; we should want them to be far better persons than they are professionals. If they are, they will become superb professionals who each day will be driven by the purpose and passion of the empowering perspective of making a positive difference, who will crush all excuses and rationales under the weight of their purpose and meet a challenge as an opportunity to improve their way through it rather than as a barrier to stop them in their tracks.

     After all, there is always another creative horizon only when there is an open mind, joyful heart, accepting soul, and a helping hand.

Louis

      I remember from my childhood summer days of the late 1940s, when I was learning to fly fish in New York’s Beaver Kill near Livingston Manor and Roscoe. “Ole Tim,” as everyone called him, kept chiding me, “Do you want to be a fish catcher or a fisherman?” He kept telling me over and over and over again that fly fishing takes more than rods and flies and casting. I remember him saying something like, “Be here, in the stream. You can’t be in a hurry. You got to pay attention to the details of nature. You got to see the stream and listen to it, and open your eyes and heart to it.” He also told me over and over and over again that if I didn’t have passion, practice, persistence, patience, and, above all, peace of mind, all the rods and flies will be useless. He was talking about something deeper, higher, and greater than merely holding up a fish for a trophy picture. I didn’t understand him. I was only eight or nine. I just wanted to catch a fish. Now, I haven’t had a casting rod in my hands for nearly sixty years. Yet, I remember Ole Tim’s words. I don’t know why, but I do. And, now, as I seek to be an educational fisherman, I know what he meant. I know because what he said about fly fishing, what I now call “my five ‘Ps,’” I now see are essential for my teaching, maybe for everything in my life: passion, practice, persistence, patience, and, above all, peace of mind.

      Too many of us think there is only one “P” in teaching: pedagogy. But, now always hearing Old Tim’s rebuke in my heart and soul, saying, “Do you want to be a fish catcher or a fisherman,” I say, “Have all the pedagogical techniques and technologies you want, but if you don’t have those five ‘Ps’–passion, practice, persistence, patience, peace of mind–you’ll not touch the essence of teaching and learning, and make a difference.” Those “Ps,” not the techniques or technologies, work on us and are omens of our teaching. We’ve got to be there, focused intently and intensely on the “now” of each day, in the classroom. We’ve got to pay attention to the details of each student, see each of them, listen to each of them, understand each of them, and open our eyes and hearts to each of them. As I just told some colleagues, if spirituality is something that enriches the soul, teaches someone something about themselves and how they fit into the world around them, as well as hopefully making them a better person, then teaching and learning are forms of spirituality no less than Ole Tim was saying about fly fishing. These “Ps” are not chameleons; they’re not conditional; they don’t blow-in-the-wind or change-with-the-weather or change their color according to their surroundings. They steady us in the classroom no less than they do in the stream. They make the difference because what we take the time to understand makes a difference, because what we understand makes the difference in what we feel, what we think, what we say, and what we do. The more we tell ourselves to exercise those five “Ps” and commit to them, the more we move beyond our complaints and attempts to garner sympathy from others toward our vision, the more our labors become less laborious, the more we will smile, the more we reach out to embrace and touch each student, and, then, the nobler our future is likely to be. On the other hand, if we don’t tell ourselves “love it,” “be patient,” “it’s worth it,” “it takes practice,” “keep going,” “cool it,” “smile,” we give our ideals permission to corrode and erode into ordeals; and, as we do, out of resignation and/or frustration–maybe even anger–we’ll believe we need or deserve new deals. Then, we will become little more than educational fish catchers rather than accomplished and fulfilled fishermen.

Louis

“Everybody is a somebody; never–never–treat anybody as a nobody.” I told a couple of professors at the closing wine and dine schmooze session of my two days workshop on teaching at Central Michigan. Unexpectedly I found myself going into a deeper “why” as they probed the “why” of my vision.

“Everybody is a somebody; never–never–treat anybody as a nobody” says it all about what I have learned is the essence of being in the people business of teaching. And, on that bedrock foundation rests my driving vision, my guiding purpose, my focusing intention, my unrelenting responsibility in which I invest my awareness, attention, thoughts, emotions, time, effort, and commitment: to be that person who always is there to help each person help her/himself become the person she or he is capable of becoming. My vision, purpose, intention, and responsibility make me a futurist who confidently sees each student through the clear and dynamic lens of “is becoming” rather than the pessimistic, clouded, and stasis pane of “is,”.

And so, for me, every moment is a golden opportunity blessed with new possibilities, and I “merely” have the challenge of filling it with life; of finding the magnificence in the seemingly mundane, the extraordinary in the apparent ordinary, and the something in the alleged “nothing much.” And, each time I do that, each time I go that too often seldom walked extra mile, I’ll love, live, and make each supposed wasteful “ho hum” moment I teach into the purposeful, magnificent, joyful, satisfying, rewarding, and fulfilling moment it was meant to be.

Before any of you wave me off with a “posh” because you think I am dreamy, remember what Helen Keller said, “No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.”

Yeah, everybody is a somebody, and never–never–treat anybody as a nobody!

Louis

In spite of this morning’s South Georgia billowing pollen storms that are gold plating my recovering lungs, I thought how lucky another day belongs to me. How lucky I am to have been so close to death and now to be able to so celebrate life. With so many things to complain about nowadays, it isn’t easy to be in a thankfulness mode, but for me it is always time to think about and appreciate the many things I am grateful for: Susan, my sons, their wives, my grandmunchkins, all the members of my extended family, my dear friends. Foremost among that for which I am grateful is just having today. I know I must welcome each moment and live the treasure that comes with it. Like with my angelic Susan, I consciously fall in love with life all over again and again and again; I caress each minute of each day again and again and again. For me each day is a fresh, unique, wonderful, joyous, and rich opportunity of a lifetime to trade limitations for limitless inspiration. Death, for me, was probably the single-best invention of life. It was another brake that slowed me down further to see and hear people and things around me still more sharper than had my epiphany or my cancer.

You know life is such a grand adventure. You have to live it consciously and sincerely with passion, purpose, and resolve, or you waste it. True, it doesn’t come easy, but you don’t back away from it just because it is tough. You see challenges as opportunities to keep you up rather than as barriers to get you down; you stay energized rather than depleted; you don’t slow down and moan just because the road becomes steep or rocky.

Like my Susan, each day is a one-of-a-kind miracle in which I feel obligated to bring my beauty and to give my goodness. Just to be here in this moment, to be in this place, to feel the energy of life, to model how good the world can be, demands I live and do and love and know just because I can. I’m not going to apologize for being so dramatic. I have become acutely aware that my time is limited and it is the ultimate of sins to waste it by not making the world around me sparkle, by not filling each moment with meaning, by not using the awesome power of purpose, by not focusing on bringing to life every unique possibility life offers, by not living the miracle that is me, and by not leaving this world a better place than I found it.

All this is the meaning of an answer I gave to a question a professor threw at me last Wednesday night at the end of an intense, grueling, and inspiring two day workshop on collegiate teaching I gave at Central Michigan University to a bunch of neat, dedicated, and committed people. “If you could reduce all of these two days of workshop sessions you presented down to one question I must always ask myself,” she asked, “what would it be?”

I thought for a few seconds and answered, “Why do I get up in the morning?” But, I couldn’t stop there. “Sure, it’s critical to ask that question, but,” I continued, “it’s means nothing if you don’t live the answer. And, that answer has to be at the most personal and deepest level of a spirituality if you are going to have the commitment, dedication, strength, endurance, perseverance, and resilience to be a true teacher, especially in this day and age.”

“Spirituality?”

“No, I’m not turning my collar around,” I assured her. “By spirituality I mean vision, intention, meaningfulness, significance, purposefulness, mindfulness, awareness, nowness, otherness, connectedness to some thing or someone beyond the material academic stuff that you see on a resume.”

Louis