The Random Thoughts of Louis Schmier

      I just received a message from an old student reminding me that it’s not enough to have faith in, hope for, and love of a student. It’s something I think about every day. Is it enough to have faith, belief and hope for each student? My answer to that question is a resounding, “No!” But, they are not trivial. The ability to have unconditional faith in, belief in, and hope for myself and each student is what gives teaching and learning their deepest meaning. It’s not inconsequential to be inspired to awaken each morning with a “yes,” to want to do something for someone else, to inspire someone else to want to get up and to do something, to want to make a positive difference in someone’s life other than your own. So, I never forget that the greatest importance of faith, hope, and love is not to utter words, but to live by them. Living my faith, belief, hope, and love can make a difference in someone’s life as well as my own. And when all is said and done, a century from now what’s going to be important? That I earned so many degrees, that I had acquired tenure, that I had so many publications, that I had reached a certain salary scale and standard of living? Or, that the world is different because I was somehow important in a student’s life?

Louis

      Last week Susan and I went off to a restaurant on a romantic date to forget that we’ll be apart for the month I will be teaching in China. She ordered a glass of red Zin we had never before tasted. I watched as she held up the goblet against the light to gaze at the clarity and color, swirled the wine in the glass, put her nose delicately into the goblet for a sniff of the bouquet of aromas and scents, took a sip and swished the wine in her mouth. She closed her eyes for a moment as she tried to distinguish the olfactory, papillae and tactile nuances. I could see her briefly thinking about its lesson in history, geography, anthropology, botany, culture, and so much more. I followed her lead, but only with a slight dip of my tongue since I never drink when I drive. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught some people staring at us with that “they look foolish” gaze. We didn’t care how we looked. We were sipping wine; we were having fun; we were in a loving mood; we were in a festive and celebrating spirit; we were having flights of fancy; we were tasting the stars, as Dom Pierre Perignon might have said; and, we were enjoying the moment with the wine and so much more with each other.

      You know, there is a vast difference between just drinking wine on one hand, and tasting and savoring it on the other. Wine should glide, not glug. Wine isn’t the result of some efficient factory bottling production line. When you eyeball, swirl, sniff, and swish wine, you’re pausing for a moment to stop and to be aware; you’re lingering about to think, see, feel, and sense; you’re slowing down to pay attention to and appreciate the ways that wine is impacting on all your senses from sight to scent to taste to feel to aftertaste, as well as the feelings it leaves behind after you’ve finished. The time that you take to enjoy the wine celebrates the time and art that went into the making of it, as well as the time for the fruit, spice, tannin, and acidity to attain their full harmony. To savor wine is to feel its texture, to see its rich and brilliant colors, to touch its elegance, to smell its bouquet. To delight in a wine is to let it come alive. If you do that, the wine conjures up a feeling of respect and awe. The whole idea is to slow down, relax, be attentive to, have fun with, reflect on, feel what you’re tasting, and to understand that the wine in that glass at that particular time in that particular place is but one of an infinite variety of possible winery colors, aromas, flavors, textures, and weights. Wine is more than just grape juice and yeast. It’s mysterious. It’s intriguing. It’s complex. It’s fascinating. It evolves into complex new characteristics as it decants. Over time, as it ages, it shows new dimensions. It summons images. How the wine is handled can make the difference between a sublime nectar of the gods and a bottle of flat pop that has stood open. No one can really tell how a wine will age, but you never give up on a wine. Wine, then, should appeal to the intellect, the physical senses, the emotion, and the spirit. You put it all together in your heart and head, and in your thoughts and feelings. As we do that, we should follow several rules: think about wine; feel the wine; know that no two bottles are identical; and, keep opening bottles as a way of learning about wine and its enormous diversity.  Commercials not withstanding, you won’t get all this out of a mere thirst quenching soda, even if Coke “is the real thing” and you’re part of the “Pepsi generation!”

      All this is a good metaphor for teaching. We should enter the classroom as if we were vintners and sommeliers rather than some gin mill bar tenders or soda bottlers. We should use all of our physical senses, our soul, our spiritual senses of awareness and otherness, rather than only our mouths. We should enter the classroom as if we were savoring and tasting rather than drinking, guzzling, or chugging. We should be aware of and sensitive to the subtleties, for there is rarely anything obvious, simple, and straightforward about a student anymore than there is about a wine. Yet, each fine detail, each nuance, adds a small but significant element to a larger pattern, as a single colored thread that highlights a woven cloth or a single note from a violin that might add texture to an orchestral piece.

       And, like any good wine, teaching and learning should have a fluttering foretaste, a delicious nuance, a unique experience, a lingering sweet aftertaste, and both a satisfying and fulfilling feeling when all is done.

Louis

      I wanted to walk in the depressing doldrums of darkness this morning after my beloved Tarheels got unexpectedly whupped by Kansas last night in the Final Four. But, I really couldn’t. Pushing the image of that loss out of the forefront of my mind was a powerful message I had received Friday from a first year student and about which I haven’t been able to stop thinking and feeling. It just wouldn’t let my spirit be darkened and my heart be dulled by anything. It put me on such a joyful high that nothing could really drag me down. And, more importantly, it reminds me of what really is important in this world and how important it is what we teachers do in the classroom:

“Untie the knots in your ‘cannot’ and kick yourself in your ‘can’!” Wow! Did those Words for the Day suddenly hit me in my can’t and can yesterday. It started a couple of weeks ago, I think, when you talked about the Words for the Day you wrote on the board:  “Don’t let can’t stagnate into a won’t and paralyze into a don’t.” I always thought your every day writings on the board were so sappy. Not now!! You know from my journal that I’ve been feeling sorry for myself because of my ADHD. I read closely what you wrote back to one entry. Remember? You told me that there was nothing to feel inferior about. You said if I had a broken leg, there is nothing wrong with going to a doctor to get it reset and so there nothing wrong with going to a doctor to help reset the chemical imbalance in my brain. There’s no difference. No one ever put it in that simple way before. I really started to think about what you said that I shouldn’t think of myself as a loser because of my ADHD and because I’m on medication since I’m in college in spite of it and how others, including teachers, treated me. When I read that Thursday, I realized for the first time, really, for the first time, for the first time, FOR THE FIRST TIME (!!!!) how far I came. I am smelling and hearing and feeling my dream, but until now I haven’t really realized it. I mean, coming from the fourth grader who was pulled out of advanced level and plopped into the remedial grades was almost certain she wouldn’t ever be anything worth while. She was told over and over again that she was always going to be behind and would never be able to catch up. Who was made to think she was a slave to a medicine that seemed like no one else had to take. Then, you come along with your beliefs in me. Wow! Double wow!! It was like a flash of light. What the heck to [sic] I have to feel sorry about? I see that now I am a college student with a 3.0 GPA that will be better after this semester and I am anything but behind. I’m not the loser like one teacher told me in high school I should accept being because I would always be. I am here and I am now. I am ahead of where I never thought I and that shit of a supposed teacher would be and I am not going to stop. I am going to reach and make my arms stretch and reach when they ache and it feels like they can’t. My new world doesn’t have can’ts and don’ts only cans and dos. Why shouldn’t it. I said can’t to the Dr. Seuss book and did it. I said can’t to writing the song lyrics and singing in front of the class and did them. I said can’t to the sculpture and the film and did them, too. You told the class that was important was not that we did the projects and learned the material by doing them, but what doing the projects said to us about us. It says to me that I CAN DO anything I want. I’ve done a ton of things in this class I thought I can’t do and did. I wanna go to law school. I wanna be a justice on the supreme court! I will stop at nothing to get it. My friends always laugh at that. My parents always laugh at me. My high school teachers would snicker when they thought I wasn’t looking. I know you’re not doing any of that, and now neither am I. I am as serious as can be. After all didn’t you also write on the board, “If you want to do it, it can be done; and, since it can be done, do whatever it legally and morally takes to do it?” I AM NOT SETTLING ANY MORE! I am not going to settle for second best. I am going only settle for my giving every thing everything I’ve got, whatever that is. I am making a check list of things I have to do to get to what I want to go and won’t stop until everything is checked off and I am there. I don’t have to prove anything to anyone except myself. I think I realized all this yesterday after I was talking to Jane (not her real name) about doing the film and she settles because she, too, is ADHD and is still listening to the same kind of limiting voices I was. You know, I thought I was looking in a mirror and thought I was talking with myself. And I see so much potential in her….I KNOW she CAN DO anything she wants! I’ve got to help her see in her what I see just as you helped me see in me what you see. Seeing is believing and having faith and hope in yourself–and finally loving yourself–isn’t it?

     W. Edwards Deming once said, “We here to make another world.” With that clear vision planted in a firm commitment and dedication to living that purpose every day, we each can do that in the world of the classroom. Don’t ever forget that each moment in that classroom contains a vast array of possibilities; each moment contains innumerable opportunities to be a difference; each moment contains untold chances to touch someone, to change the world, to alter the future, and to make another world. What could be more magical, more exquisite, more profound, more fulfilling, more inspiring, more satisfying, more humbling, and more miraculous than that when it happens?

Louis

     After a week of suffering a cold my grand-daughters gave me with their hugs and kisses, I was ready to hit the pre-dawn streets. It was about 4:30 am. I had brewed some coffee, had read about UNC’s victory over Arkansas, and had done a crossword puzzle on line. As I was finishing my coffee, I decided to take a passing peek at yesterday’s e-mail. As I was deleting a host of uninteresting messages, one heading caught my eye. It read, “Damn You.” I almost deleted it thinking it was a useless spam or a student complaint for having to prepare an issue paper over the weekend for today, but curiosity got the best of me. How wrong I would have been to have sent it off unopened into the abyss of cyberspace. As I read it, I could feel time slowing down. I read and reread and reread the words. Time stopped. I never did get to the streets. Here is a part of it:

Damn, I hate you. All those words for the day on the board have had me thinking in spite of myself. Those words for the day on the board last week especially, ‘You are condemned to a life of making choices,’ have gotten to me. You were sick as a dog last week but boy were those healthy words. I’ve been doing nothing but thinking about them and all the others and feeling them work their curing magic. They are words for an entire life. They built up like a storm that hit while in church during Easter services. I wasn’t listening to the pastor say his usual stuff. I was hearing myself say, ‘Damn, I hate him.’ I said that to myself knowing I shouldn’t swear in church, especially on this day. But, I had to because when I leave this class, if there is one thing I will have learned is that I make my own choices and I have to take responsibility for those choices. I am beginning to see that no one makes me drink or do drugs or not study. I choose. No one gets me into a bed or spreads my legs. I choose to do that. No sense blaming anyone else. I chose always to say yes. This stuff has been on my mind because I’ve been thinking of the things I let some guys do to me and because of what I have been doing to myself. No more. NO MORE! Those words have stuck I am sick of hearing me blame someone else for getting me upset, on my back, smoking weed, in a bar, away from my books. It is about time I realize I am worth something. I don’t have to do those things to show anyone I am their friend or love them. I shouldn’t have to be pressured into doing things I guess I see deep down I don’t want to just to get along and be friendly and because others expect those things of me just to make them feel good. I am good enough and I am tired of choosing to think I am inferior and worth shit. I have to listen to someone, don’t I? Why shouldn’t I listen to you instead of some of my friends who want me to drink and smoke with them or to some guy who sees me only as a one night stand? You were the only one who kept after me, talking with me after and before class, telling me how I was disrespecting myself and how much more able I was than I thought and how I was better than I believed I was. But, you always said that I had to believe all that and have faith in myself, not you. So, here I am locked away in my room with tearing and mascara running down my eyes listening to you so I can hear myself. They’re happy tears. I’m telling not just you, but more importantly, me. I am starting to believe and have faith. I am no longer taking any shit from anyone else, especially me. I don’t care how lonely it gets. I am starting to choose from this moment on to know I am worth something valuable and to act like it, not to some guy and not to some ditzy friends, not to you, not even to people in my life who care about me. Most of all I am worth something to myself and it’s me who has to be proud of me. That is what counts. Yeah. That’s what really counts. Damn, I hate you for getting me finally to look at myself. Damn, I love you for doing that…..

     I share some of this message not to trumpet myself, but to tell you that our power as classroom leaders is greatest when we realize the huge opportunities that may lay in small opportunities present in each moment that are otherwise ignored and wasted, when we notice rather than ignore, when we labor to transform rather than overwhelm and nourish rather than starve and walk with rather than walk over and cultivate rather than weed out, when we have a strong sense of purpose to spotlight those potentially little-big opportunities, when we see how the small ways can make a large difference, and when global warming prevails defines classroom climate instead of an arctic chill. I’ll repeat something I told a colleague earlier: inspiration is far more powerful than intimidation; self-confidence, pride, enthusiasm reaps higher yields than insecurity, disbelief, and fear; aspiration will seldom occur in a hell hole of desperation; a smile is more powerful than a sneer; a tap of kindness will get you more than a slap of sarcasm; spotlighting strengths and talents is far more uplifting than focusing on weaknesses and shortcomings; fortifying a student’s self-worth will get better results than tearing down a student; and, caring is far more invigorating than not giving a damn.

      I have a quote from e. e. cummings over my computer that I gaze at every day as a reminder of my vision to be the person who is there to help a student help her/himself become the person she or he is capable of becoming: “We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.” That is especially true for one so young, inexperienced, and especially powerless as a first year teenage student.

Louis

      Whom do we remember most from the days we were students? Who made the most difference in our lives? Who left the most indelible imprint on our soul? Really! Who? The brilliant lecturer? I doubt it. The great tester and grader? That I really doubt! The scholarship of renown scholar? You think? Or, do we always–always–remember most that teacher who truly cared about us as a sacred individual too valuable to let fall through the cracks, who noticed us, who understood us, who was patient with us, who tended to us, who believed in us when we didn’t, who supported us when we staggered, who uplifted us when we were low, who had faith in us when we faltered, who never gave up on us, who offered us hope, who enriched our lives when we felt poorly, who fired our spirit with such an intensity that the impurities of impossibilities were burned away, whose humanity touched our humanity? I had one such teacher, a history professor at Adelphi, Birdsal Viault. In the long run, I wouldn’t be where I am, and even who I am, if it weren’t for him.

      Don’t forget your Maya Angelou. She said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Oh, how right she is. We never forget our most supporting, encouraging, edifying, and inspiring teachers–or the ones who discouraged and humiliated us. Don’t ever forget that your passing words and small gestures can have a lifelong impact on students as those of your teachers had on you. We sometimes, too often, forget the depth of this impact unless we consciously reflect upon our own experiences as students and the memories we still carry of our teachers years later.

       So, I ask you, as each day I ask myself, “Do you use your own indelible school memories to guide your attitude toward students and what you do with your students?” “Do you inject into your attitude towards students and into what you do in the classroom those experiences you had with a teacher that enhanced your self-esteem, self-confidence, and motivation as a student?” “Are you sensitive to those unkind and negative experiences you had with a teacher and use your memory of them to be careful not to say or do things with your students that were hurtful to you when you were a student?”

        Education’s greatest need is for a lot more teachers who live rather than merely mouth their care for and faith in each student. Education’s greatest need is for a lot more heroic teachers. What do I mean by “heroic teachers?” Someone once said that the measure of a hero is not only in her or his achievements, but in the size of her or his heart. So, it is in academics. The measure of a “heroic teacher” is not only in the length of her or his resume, but in the size of her or his heart; not only in her or his dedication to her or his discipline, but to each and every student as well. The more each of us can focus on the wonders of each student, the less taste we have to weed them out. Don’t ever–ever–underestimate the staying power of a kindly attitude, a compassionate spirit, and an empathetic heart. They are the best teaching tools you have at your disposal. It’s at the heart of a true heartfelt teacher, for when a teacher puts her or his voice close to her or his heart, it’s hard for anyone not to listen.

Louis

      I fear I am about to get myself into trouble with a compendium to my latest reflection on what students need. It’s about what so many faculty need. Perhaps, desperately need. Why trouble? It’s because while so many of us academics are so quick to talk about students, we are so hesitant, to say the least, to talk about ourselves. Nevertheless, here goes.

       After a month, I still have a “Lily hangover.” I guess it’s because Lily-South was my first outing, since my cerebral hemorrahage, reminding me “gratio ergo sum,” that is–if my Latin is correct–loosely, “I am thankful, therefore I am.” That is, how grateful I am for each breath I still take. Anyway, being a Lily old timer, a professor e-mailed me asking, why I talk so much about the Lily conferences and what was the one thing that stands out most from my years of engaging in the national and regional Lily conferences on college and university teaching that makes them stand out. I’ve been pondering an answer for days. Actually, there are two things that stand out. The first is the creation of an uplifting and empowering environment for information, affirmation, education, and especially for edification that is the beauty of the Lily regional and main conferences. Over the years, they have done so much for me. Magically and miraculously, there’s no need for entry signs to read, “No egos allowed.” Uplifting is the name of one Lily game. Nourishment is the name of another Lily game. At these gatherings, you can see all around you, whether in formal sessions or schmoozing in the halls or talking around the meal tables, in the early morning and late into the night, the people offering positive support and encouragement for each other to engage themselves as strangers quickly become colleagues and friends.

       At Lily so many people feel it’s a safe place to let their guard down a bit, momentarily come out from behind their pretenses, and let their inner selfs briefly rise to the surface. So few of these often surprisingly open and honesty after-session, over-the-table conversations center around classroom teaching methods and techniques. And, those which did, were always peppered with such hesitating and even fearful utterances “Oh, I’d be scared to death to try that” or “I don’t have the confidence for that” or “Oh, I couldn’t do that” or “They wouldn’t let me” or “I don’t have tenure” or “I’m too shy” or “That’s not me” or “I have a family” or “I’d die” or “I don’t believe” or “Do you know that they would say?” All this brings me to the second thing about Lily. I had had a quick, few seconds exchange with Stewart Ross of Minnesota State at this past Lily-South conference during a plenary presentation by Ed Neal of UNC. I whispered to Stewart, “A lot of what he’s saying is so spiritual.”

      Stewart quickly replied, “Maybe people need spirituality to fill the vacuum.”

      I’ve been thinking ever since about that comment and some things said by Todd Zakrajsek of Central Michigan during his presentation on classroom apathy and motivation, as well as by Bill Johnson during his presentation on dreaming. It’s the heretical thought that we academics are just as human, just as fallible, just as suffering the sling and arrows of outrageous fortune, as the students. So many academics come to Lily looking for methods and techniques and technologies, and so many find, often to their amazement, that they want something more. They’re seeking something beyond themselves because they’re feeling forced to settle for something that is less than themselves as they get caught up in the trappings of assessment, accreditation, tenure, research, publication, promotion, and a host of other academic rites that give at best lip-service to classroom teaching. The “got to” chase for academic recognition and security seems to instill so little joy in so many of them. It’s like, as it is said in Ecclesiastes, chasing the wind. In conversation after conversation, people whispered, almost as if they were afraid others would hear them, that they have a “clone-ish” feeling, that they are losing that war e.e.cummings described against others who are fighting to make them into people those others want them to be.

      Empty and meaningless institutional mission statements aside, in often fearful resignation that embodied Thoreau”s “quiet desperation,” they sighed that they are void of an inner happiness and serenity, that they are being “forced” to compromise themselves, that they’re looking over their shoulder when they enter the classroom, that they really did not want or want to do what the academic tradition and values were dictating to them what to want and to do, that they really didn’t want to focus on what the academic world was spotlighting, that the quest for the demanded generic academic achievement of degrees, tenure, and promotion–and even mandatory scholarship–did not really bring very much lasting fulfillment, that in reality most institutions aren’t as open minded as their mission statements state and are too often inhospitable to those who challenge old ways of thinking and doing things, that the stress has made them impatient with students–and others, that the pursuit of those off-the-shelf achievements and recognitions left so many of them hopelessly frustrated and/or even fearful. There was a realization that standard definitions of academic accomplishment that satisfied recruitment committees, tenure and promotion committees, administrators, as well as accrediting agencies, were not truly all that personally satisfying.

      I have heard so many people say in so many words that even if they successfully had struggled academically to survive, they really didn’t know what they had survived for other than a guarantee of a job, a title, a salary level, a publication, a bit of reputation. So many people realized that though they may have acquired the means to live academically, they lacked a meaning to live for. In many ways, they are reflective of what was reported by PBS’ in its indicting “Declining By Degrees”: life without living, means without meaning, having while having not, being owned without owning. They forlornly revealed that inner vacuum they themselves had created by surrendering their selfs and their responsibility, often at the expense of students, with blaming accusation that the devilish “system made me do it.” And, perhaps worst of all, they sadly and haplessly had convinced themselves that they could not do anything about it.

      Vision! Difference! Integrity! Purpose! Meaning! That’s what so many who attend Lily, and those who don’t, find themselves looking for. They have a yearning for a clear personal vision, an almost desperate hunger for meaning, an inner burning desire to make a difference, a thirst for authenticity, and a search for a connection with a real, meaningful purpose that would yield joy, excitement, satisfaction, and fulfillment.

Louis

      I have been reading about 150 daily student journal entries for the past two months, through the anxiety, fatigue, elation, distraction, forgetfulness, fear, sadness, anticipation, sickness, and a host of other expressed up and down issues, one thing struck hard. It wasn’t a new revelation, but it really hit home. Maybe it was more graphic this semester because of a semester off from reading during my medical leave.

      Do you know what is fundamentally holding back most students? Lack of study skills? No. Lack of critical thinking skills? No. Lack of self-discipline? No. Lack of dedication? No. Lack of time management? No. No, though so many students display these deficiencies, they are symptomatic of a much deeper and inner lack. The one thing that most of them lack and is their greatest need is: self-confidence. They need it in their personal lives, in their academic lives, in their social lives, in their jobs. They need the belief in their power to deal with and overcome circumstances; they need it for a freedom from uncertainty; they need it to lift the burdens; they need it to deal with personal and academic crises; they need it to come out from the corner and the shadows; they need it to be authentic and honest; they need it to vanquish debilitating fear; they need it to overcome adversity; they need it to become their own person. They need it to convert challenges from barriers into opportunities. They need it to keep them from shriveling and sniveling deeper into the corner and into darker shadows. They need it to assume responsibility rather than hurling blame. They need it to imagine, create, innovate, and achieve. They need it to perceive problems, tackle problems, wrestle with problems, and solve them. They need it to believe in themselves, have faith in themselves, have hope for themselves, and love themselves.

      Without confidence, they are stoppable. Without confidence, they give control over themselves to others. Without confidence, there’s no hunger to explore, thirst for adventure, boldness to seize the moment, courage to make a mistake, daring to take risks, and reaching for the proverbial stars. Without confidence, they don’t aspire and perspire. Without confidence, discouragement and fear and ugliness rule the day. Without confidence, it’s easier to take the easy road than the right one. Without confidence, there’s no focus, no endurance, and no perseverance. Without confidence, a student cannot climb, build, dance, or sing.

     The essence of teaching, then, is to help students acquire an “I’m better than that” attitude that can convert “I am not” into “I am,” “I can’t” into “I can,” “I don’t” into “I do,” “don’t want to” into “I want to,” “I won’t” into “I will,” “it’s impossible” into “it’s possible,” “I hate” into “I love,” and “I don’t believe” into “I believe.” It is our mission to help them tap their inner power to look at themselves and things around them differently, to be whatever they want to be, and to become the persons they are capable of becoming.

     But, and it is a huge but, before we can offer such support, inspiration, aspiration, and encouragement to be big souled and big hearted, we have to do all that to and for ourselves.

Louis 

            A while back, my friend, Alan Bender at IU, asked me to make a priority list of the most important roles of education.  Before I could reply, I got hit with that cerebral hemorrhage, went on medical leave, and I admittedly forgot to answer him.  Then, a few days ago I read a message from a student whom I’ll call Gloria.  Here is some of what she wrote:              

At first when I came into the class I was not crazy about meeting the   White students, shaking their hands, and introducing myself during those “treasure hunts”on the first days of class.  I thought you were crazy.  And I sure did not like your idea to divide the class into communities where we had to be strangers and that had to be gender and racially mixed, especially because there would not be another African-American person in my community with me. To be honest I had never stepped outside the box and made any attempt to be friends with a caucasian even here at VSU.  I went to school with 90% African Americans this was so different and frightening.  After working nearly half of a semester with three non-African-Americans, I have realized how wrong we all are.  They’re nice.  We (Blacks and Whites) are not as different as I thought  we were and I now am beginning to understand Dr. King’s dreams and I realize  now that it is up to each of us Blacks and Whites to make his dream that we judge each other by our character rather than by our skin color come true.  I think because of all that I feel myself feeling more confident about myself and less self-conscious.  I’m more willing to give anything a try and worrying less about screwing things up and what others think about me.  I am surprising myself more and more each day, and that is all because of YOU! …. I’ve heard the same thing fom other African-Americans and even from some Whites.  The “madness” of your  methods are not crazy.  They are as sane as can be.  You are really making a difference dividing the class up like this. You know the saying:  as long as you effect one person you have done your job….well you have had such a positive effect on me and all my views. I just want to say thank you for doing your job…            

       Her message stirred my memory.  So, with apologies to Alan for my belatedness, here is my reply to him.  I don’t like lists.  I don’t think a list tells the story.  It’s like asking me to list the order of importance of the liver, stomach, intestines, brain, lungs, adrenal gland, skin, and heart in my body.  They each have a significant role to play without which the others can’t function.  Now, I have never played an either/or or a most important game in education.  I’d be the last one to play down the importance of acquiring information or the development of thinking skills or the use of these skills in applying the information.  I do believe, however, that there is much more to the body of education if it is to function in a healthy manner.  After all, we are talking about people.  So, the intellectual skills must be fused with people skills.              

      Academic well-being, if it is to lead to economic well-being and personal well-being, must be partnered, if not driven by, as Daniel Goleman would say, emotional and social intelligence as well.  I think about that a lot when I call myself a “wholeness teacher” or a “character educator.”  I see myself not only as a professor of history, but as a life coach as well.  I work hard to help students break down barriers, build bridges, and forge community in each classroom.  I help students learn not only history and its importance, but I find ways to daily address such characteristics as self-discipline, self-esteem, honesty, self-confidence, integrity, faith, love, hope, perseverance, commitment, endurance, empathy, resilience, fun-loving, humility, compassion, respect, fairness, daring, courage.  I am more convinced than ever that the quality of our lives and the level of our performance and the depth of our learning and extent of our caring are determined more by our attitudes than our bank of information and skills.   If students can learn more than information and thinking skills, if they can acquire social and emotional skills, if they can learn people and communication skills, if they can learn to care about and believe in themselves and for one another, if they can appreciate their own and each other’s uniqueness, if they can respect the importance of each other; if they can accept different opinions and beliefs, if they acquire the courage to fail and the daring to make mistakes, if they leave our campuses with bachelors ofexperiences rather than with bachelors of grades, if they graduate as innovators rather than merely as test takers, if they start on the road to becoming true life-long self learners and visionaries, today’s classroom just may lead to a better society tomorrow.  If we can find ways to weave all this into the fabric of each of our classes we will make a difference and help each student help her/himself become the person she or he is capable of becoming.

             My answer to Alan, then, is that education is all about helping the mind create and the heart both guide and control. 

Make it a good day.      

Louis

     A chilly good morning. I just got a message from Kenny “demanding” another word from “My Dictionary of Good Teaching.” That’s curious since I had been thinking about him on my walk this pre-dawn morning and had realized I hadn’t sent him a word in quite a while. This morning I sent him the word, “power.” Let me explain as I did to him. Actually, I sent him two words. “Play-Doh” was the other one.

      Before I got side-tracked by Play-Doh, however, during the interminable waits in the Greensboro and Atlanta airports, between bouts of studying my Chinese, I thought of all those conversations I had at the conference, Bill “Shoes” Johnson’s session, of being one of the “lucky” three to accept the dare to do an interpretive dance of my educational philosophy in front of a couple of hundred people (Nureyev, eat your heart out), of later hearing a number of academics saying, like so many students would, “I would have been mortified” and “I’d be afraid of embarrassing myself” and “I could never do that” and “I would have died if….”

      I was thinking how nearly seventeen years ago, before my epiphany, I would have felt the same way, though I would not have shown it. I realize now that all those advanced degrees, all that professional training, all those appointments, all those resumes don’t make a lot of people happy, don’t stop so many of them from feeling so insecure, don’t stop so many of them from telling themselves what they couldn’t do, don’t stop so many of them from focusing on what could go wrong, don’t stop so many of them from looking over their shoulders and worrying what others thought. And, they don’t stop so many people from building protective walls without realizing those same walls imprison them. Not surprisingly, in sessions and conversations many shied away from putting themselves on the line, avoided challenge and controversy, preferred to hedge their bets, deployed defensive arguments of “if only” or “they expect” or “the system demands” that seem to absolve them from the responsibilities of making decisions or taking action, laid blame on others, and gave over control of themselves to others by allowing those others to create their future.

       I looked out the airport waiting area windows and realized that the planes taxing and taking off needed fuel to power them if they were to do what they were designed to do. It’s no different with us. We need fuel to power us. Now, you’ve heard that knowledge is that power. If that is true, why do so many academics feel so powerless? I certainly am not talking about the kind of knowledge so many are. I am not talking about knowing information or knowing the technology or knowing the teaching methods and techniques however important they are. I am talking about knowing of the power we each have to shape our attitudes and actions, to forge and guide our values, to maintain our integrity and authenticity, to defeat our fears and doubts, to influence our choices, to make those choices, and to live them. I am talking about the fuel in our tanks; I am talking about inner personal strength; I am talking about the fuel that allows us to take off and raise our expectations; I am talking about the power that drives commitment, perseverance and endurance; I am talking about the power that gives us courage to take risks and the daring to make mistakes; I am talking about the fuel of self-confidence and self-esteem and self-respect. I am talking about the power of unlearning learned helplessness. I am talking about the power of personal control. It is the power of self-efficacy. Without that kind of power, we’re like a very expensive car sitting in the driveway with a dead battery.

       Yeah, “power,” my kind of power, is a word I’ll send to Kenny from “My Dictionary of Good Teaching.”

Louis

       So, there I was, in the waiting area of the Atlanta airport, waiting–and waiting–and waiting.  I was futilely struggling to concentrate on my Chinese language lessons.  I felt like a Jekyll and Hyde, exhilarated and, though I kept my promise to Susan not to over do it, emotionally drained and physically dog-tired.  I had just spent what for me were three intense days in Greensboro, NC, at the Lily-South Conference on College and University Teaching.  Susan had every right to be nervous and ask that I check in with her every day.  It was the first time since my cerebral hemorrhage that I’ve gone off on my own.  I was biting at the bit to get there.  You see, for me Lily-South was both a coming out and a coming home party.  There were hardy hand-shakes, tight hugs, toasts, and some kisses.  A couple of people, hearing I would be there, brought “glad you’re still with us” presents.  It was a humbling time that brought tears to my eyes and chokes in my throat on more than one occasion.  Aside from my Susan’s arms and the classroom, the Lily gatherings are one of the most comfortable places for me.  It’s when and where I’m doing what I’m supposed to do.  It’s very natural to me, and I am extraordinarily grateful. 

       At Lily, I did not see one person, not one, who was there to impress anyone with any credentials however so impressive so many were.  We all were there as learners.  No one was there regretting that she or he should be somewhere else doing something else.  We each were there to help others learn with all the fullness and richness we could imagine, with all the creativity and imagination we could muster.  It was a time of a lot of listening.  It was a time of making new friends.  Maybe the most important thing was in a session on getting students to dream where I was once again reminded that through thick and thin, ups and downs, sickness and health, I know one thing for sure.  Just to be alive is a magnificent thing that is not to be wasted for one moment;  that whatever we focus on grows more influential in our lives; that far too many of us define ourselves by the difficulties that come our way and how others define us rather than by the possibilities and our own true selves, that this conference and other Lily conferences, and the supporting and encouraging networks we consequently weave, help us to focus on possibilities and our potential rather than on those problems and limits.  There are lots of reasons to surrender; there are lots of reasons not to surrender.  The question is which we each choose to focus on is our choice and our choice alone.   But, I also left Greensboro with all sorts of new ideas bouncing around in my head on how to improve in the classroom.  I’m now figuring out how to incorporate You Tube into my classes.  I learned about things to tweak and improve my “getting to know you” classroom community building exercises.  And, I learned to improve my syllabus.  You see, you can always teach this young dog new tricks.     

       Anyway, sitting next to me in the airport was a mother reading a book. Her little boy was playing with a batch of differently shaped and colored Play-Doh.  Getting nowhere with Chinese, I put down my textbook and watched, and watched, and watched.  He pressed his finger into a small square of a blue piece and left a hole.  He rolled a cigar shaped yellow piece on the less-than-clean carpeted floor.  Bits and pieces of all kinds of what was once invisible yucky stuff became embedded that was impossible to remove.  I asked the mother for permission to play with the boy.  When she agreed, the child in me came out.  I told the boy to take a green piece, flatten it, and press it against a comic strip of a newspaper that was lying on a near-by seat.  To his amazement, when he pulled the piece back, it mirrored the pictures.  Then, we took a red piece and rolled it against my skin.  I showed him that every hair left its mark.  Finally, just before my boarding call, he pulled away another piece and pressed it hard against my sweater.  When he pulled it away, he showed me every impression of the fibers as well as the embedded fibers themselves.  As a present, he gave me a few pieces. 

      On the plane to Valdosta, thinking about that upcoming glass of wine with Susan, I started to unthinkingly play with the Play-Doh.  I impishly squished it on the tray, rolled it, flattened it, twisted it, and made it into a bagel and pretzel shape.  I almost asked what the person sitting next to me was thinking as I noticed his furtive glances.  Yet, the longer I played with the Play-Doh, the more serious I became, the more I began to study it, and something began stirring within me.  As in the airport, I pressed it against a magazine, against my sweater, against my skin.  I stared at the images, the impressions, the marks, the stuff sticking to it.

       It suddenly hit me.  Play-Doh, like those people in the classroom with me, comes in a variety of different shapes and colors; no two pieces are identical; each has limitless potential to become the infinite number of unique shapes, colors, and sizes.  That’s what makes teaching is so important, so complicated, so demanding, so humbling, so exciting, and so fulfilling.  Everything about a teacher, her or his attitude, perception, assumption, emotion, demeanor, and action touches a student and makes an impression. 

Louis