Another Random Thought Regarding John

Someone asked me if I thought about the legal liability of my interaction with students such as John. Liability is a matter that is on most people’s mind. But, I think too many people use it as an excuse or rationalization to remain disengaged. They also rely upon the confines of a narrow job description to remain distant: “That’s not my job” or “let them leave their emotions and problems at the door.”

And so, these people put a condum over their teaching. They practice self-serving, protective, safe teaching that is limited to the subject. They let the possibility of legal liability and the confines of a job description limit their options and impose restrictions on their actions that their conscience tells them should be otherwise.

At these moments, as a colleague said, however, like the one created by John, whether I like it or not, there never is a “safe” way to escape responsibility, no safe way to escape liability, whether by action or inaction. At such times I must stand before my own conscience. So, in addition to thinking of the possibility of legal liability and the confines of a job description, I also must give deep thought to the possibility of moral liability for how I respond to people like John.

The truth is that whether I chose to ignore him, send him away, patronize him, or embrace him, I would be taking a very real risk.

I prefer, out of inner strength and conviction, taking the risk of coming to the aid of a sacred, valuable fellow human being reaching out for help to fearfully casting him aside as something worthless.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

John–My Reply

Dear Professor Y:

You castigate me for “playing with fire”, of engaging in therapy and counseling for which I am not trained and which is not “our jobs as academicians.” Well, you may call our conversation therapy; I call it “wholeness” education. You may call it counseling; I call it caring. In that room, on that floor, John and I weren’t student and professor. We were just two human beings who respected each other. And, when we respect another person, we value that person; and, when we value another person, we accept the responsibility for that person’s well-being.

Why is it that we academicians so often much prefer to emotionally sterilize our workplace? Why is it that we are so quick to say and applaud that we want to illuminate or open the minds of students and then cringe and condemn if someone talks about the hearts and spirits of students? Somehow I think we forget that when anyone–ourselves included–thinks, that person feels. Sometimes I think we look upon ourselves and the students as a segmented, compartmentalize, categorize, separated being in which the body, emotions, the spirit, and the intellect are placed apart in distinct and unrelated cells. How many times to find ourselves saying, “Oh, that’s not my job” when it comes to addressing non-academic concerns of the students however much such concerns may impact on a student’s academics? How many times to we find ourselves perceiving that schools deal with a student’s intellect, the parents with the students emotions and values, the church with the student’s spirit, and the physician with his/her stomach, and that somehow one has nothing to do with the others? The fact that so many teachers/professors often want to ignore emotion and spirit in both themselves and the classroom doesn’t mean either a professor’s/teacher’s or student’s emotion or spirit is not present, is not affecting his/her performance, or is not unaffected by what goes on in the classroom.

The bottom line is whether we like it or not, know it or not, he or she has no choice than to teach what we might call the “whole person.” No, I think we all have to include, not exclude, the addressing of students emotions and spirit in their classes. We have to realize that while we’re dealing with the intellect, we’re affecting the emotion; and while we’re dealing with the emotion, we’re affecting the intellect. The “whole person” of a student is not an ideal; it’s not an abstraction. It is a description of reality.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

John

My muscles are so tight that my fingers hurt as I bounce them from key to key. I’m so emotionally drained that I almost have no energy to move my fingers. John just left my office. That’s not his real name, but he is a very real and noble person–and maybe he is starting to see that for himself for the first time. We must have talked for about two hours. I want to tell you about John, share what I feel and what I am thinking right this minute while they’re vivid because something John said as he left the office is about what we educators should be trying to do every day and with every student.

John came into the office and must have been standing by the desk for a minute or two before he quietly said as if he didn’t want to break my trance, “Dr. Schmier, you too busy to talk with me?”

I broke away from the computer screen in a jolt, saying, “Nothing is too busy for you. What’s up?” I lightly asked as I came around from my desk and invited him to sit with me on the floor among my toys. “Haven’t seen you since the summer. How are things?” I was about to pull out a Tootsie Pop and offer it to him because I didn’t catch the troubled look in his eyes and wasn’t ready for his answer.

“I don’t know. Hard. Confused. Hurt. I just don’t know anything anymore. I had to talk with someone. You’re the only one I know I can talk with. I was just wondering if you’d tell me if I belong here?”

My muscles tightened. I went on full alert. Suddenly everything around John became a blur as I focused in on him as hard and clear as a highpowered telephoto lens to catch every telltaling detail of his sound and movement. “Why do you ask?”

“Because that’s what one of my English professors just told me and I couldn’t think of anyone but you to talk with about it. She said I belonged in a special school but not here at a university. She knows I have dyslexia real bad and all I need is extra time. She didn’t say it in a nice way either. She never offered to help me like you did. I don’t think that was right what she done. Do you think that was fair of her, teating me like I was Forrest Gump and all?” he asked more with the tone of a plea than an inflection of a question.

I won’t tell you what I angrily thought to myself. I’m sure you can guess. Anyway, before I could answer, he went on.

“It was like getting a beating again. I was hearing my step-father all over again yelling and screaming as he hit and punched me saying that I ain’t worth the shit he was beating out of me. You know I told our class about my dyslexia and how my stepfather used to beat us and that I had to shoot him in the leg to stop that bastard from killing my mother. But, you never disrespected me. You always encouraged me. Not this person, and she don’t know nothin’ about that. It’s just I get the feeling that she thinks that I’m not normal like the others.”

I had a momentary flashback to that Monday “tidbit” discussion we had in class last summer on child abuse and how the discussion itself reflected the changing attitudes towards children in American society over the course of its history. I remembered how I marveled at the courage John showed by personalizing the discussion with a description of his own abuse and helping others to open up. It proved to be a turning point that brought the students together into a mutally supportive learning community. And I thought quickly of the talks John and I had throughout the rest of the summer quarter as I tried to shore up his weakened self-esteem and get him to see that he had emerged as a leader in the class.

I quickly jolted back to the present as John continued, “And, I could hear over and over and over all those teachers who said I would never be much. It really hurt when they threw me away like garbage into the slow classes that no one really cared about just to get rid of me. And now someone here wants to do the same thing.”

He talked and I listened for about an hour. As he talked of his struggles with severe dyslexia, being abused, being treated as a “worthless retard” he revealed the foreboding, rocky landscape of his soul, scarred with crags and crevices–numerous, deep, dark, and sharp. It was hard not to cry. It was hard to breathe. I was almost unable to speak.

“Why are you here, at VSU?” I struggled to asked him.

“To prove something”

“What,” I quietly continued.

“That I’m not worthless. That I’m a somebody worth noticing.”

“To whom”

A deep and long silence followed my question. “To my teachers who threw me into a dark corner and didn’t give a damn about me and wished I would go away so they wouldn’t have to look at me. One told me that she didn’t become a teacher so she’d have to trouble with the likes of me.”

More silence and I was now struggling for air.

“I’d surely like to throw a college diploma in their faces,” he continued. More silence followed. He lowered his head as if to muster strength. And then he said quietly, “To my step-father even though he isn’t around anymore. I want to scream back at him that I am worth as much as him.”

The air was now getting warmer.

“You’re worth a hell of lot more,” I assured him taking advanage of his deep silence.

“You don’t know what it’s like to get thrown around every day. No one does. It does more than bruise your body. It bloodies your soul. It put welts all over your spirit,” he moaned with painful poetry. “It hurts to move and it hurts to think and it hurts to feel. It’s hard to believe in yourself when you’re always slapped around and it’s beaten into you that you’ll never amount anything. Pretty soon you stop trying. He and a lot of people beat all the good out of me in all sorts of ways.”

“Did they? Then, how did you get here?” I asked.

He looked startled at me.

“I got me here.”

“Sounds like they screwed up and left something in you that you found and used.” He looked at me. “Tell me, if your stepfather was around, do you think he would he listen?”

“No.”

“So, to whom are you really trying to prove something? To whom should you really be proving something?”

“I guess to myself. But it’s hard, so hard. All my life that I can remember people have been beatin’ up on me by telling me that I’m a loser. Am I loser? Tell me that I’m not a loser.”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t want to be…..”

“Do…you….think….you’re….a….loser?”

“I don’t know….No.” he asserted, and then faltered, “I guess.”

“Why?”

“I guess because I’m here in school.”

“And what does that say about you?”

“That I’m a winner, I guess.”

“And don’t you ever forget that!! You’re right. You’re here on this campus because of you!! Believe that!! You’re here in this office asking encouragement because you don’t want to quit!! Believe that!! You…are…a…winner. Believe that!! What did it take to get here.”

“I guess I didn’t really want to listen to all that poormouthin’ about me.”

“What did it take?”

“It took a lot of fighting, overcoming, hard work. But, it’s so hard and I’m so tired always fighting.”

“Now one said life was either fair or easy. It’s only the worthwile stuff you fight for. What did it take you to fight for you?”

Silence. And then, a hesitant “That I believe they were lying? That I believe in myself?”

“And what does that say about you.”

“That I can do it.”

“Now say that and believe it each day. One day at a time. Don’t listen to yesterday and don’t worry about tomorrow. It’s a long, hard journey. Don’t think it won’t be without some falls. Just take small steps, one at a time.”

We talked for about another hour about all sorts of stuff. After John got up off the floor and turned towards the door to leave, I looked up from the flor and said to him, “John.” He turned. “If you don’t do anything else, BELIEVE. If you believe, you won’t listen to what anyone says, and you’ll do everything else.”

As I strained to get up head for my desk, John called out, “Doc.”

I turned. There we stood looking at each other. He stared at me with a look I don’t have the words to describe, and said, “You’re right. I can’t let yesterday cloud out today and I won’t let tomorrow squeeze out today. I can’t worry about what other people think and say. Today is all I have and I’m going to learn to put all I have into it. I’ll try to believe. No, I…will…believe. And, if I need to, can I come by just to talk?”

“Door’s always open. Phone is always nearby, here or at my home.”

He paused for a few seconds and then asked, “Why didn’t anyone else care enough to help me to get to see what you see. Why are you the first one who as ever believed in me?”

“The second one,” I could barely whisper with my clogging voice. “Don’t forget. You were the first. It was you who got you here. You fought to believe but just didn’t realize it. I only saw what you really saw.”

He smiled. “Before I leave I just want you to know that you teach like teaching is a prayer. What you do is worth a damn. You do make a difference. Don’t stop doing it.”

All I could do was offer a slight, humble nod.

He turned to the door, put his hand into the bag behind it, pulled out a Tootsie Pop, held it up like a victory sign, smiled, and disappeared into the hall.

It was only about two feet to my chair. But, it ached so much to go that short distance. And it seemed that I moved in slow motion. I just slumped in my chair, quiet, frozen, thinking, physically tired, emotionally drained, but damn if I didn’t and still feel spiritually exhilarated.

I think–no, I know–an e-mail friend of mine, Herb Rotfeld at Auburn’s College of Business, is right. What John said as he left the office was more than a compliment. It was for him a self-assurance. Maybe it was the beginnings of a self-discovery as well. For me, it was more than a compliment. It was a self-realization. Somewhere in the dark, inner recesses of my memory, I recalled Herb–at least, I think it was Herb–having said that this is what we educators should be trying to do, every day, with every student and with ourselves–helping students discover themselves, to believe, as they help us discover ourselves. Today, both John and I reminded each other and we both realized why each of us is here. I think each of us discovered a bit more of, peered a bit deeper into, and hopefully will heed more of what Socrates called our “inner oracle.” Right now, I feel that I did something worth a damn.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

Educational Theater, II

I was walking the campus late yesterday afternoon, taking my mind off the ravages tropical storm Josephine has wrought on my house, watching a bunch of neat young people playing football on the front quad, lounging near the empty library foundation, going to and from the library and classess, meandering towards the Palms, just chilling, and doing a host of things young people do.

I sat down on one of the benches under the umbrella of a tree in front of the library, images of the day’s classroom theater productions dancing across my mind and soul, wondering what Friday’s –today–productions will hold. And, I thought how we so extoll, embrace, laud over, spotlight, “brag on” and delight in the “extraordinary” students. But, you know, if we spent as much time and effort and concern with, if we devoted as much attention to, if we looked as carefully at, if we believed as much in, if we cultivated as much, if we persevered as much with, if we did not give up on, and if we caringly and lovingly embraced as much the so-called “don’t belongs” and the “ordinary” students, we would discover so much that is extraordinary in each one of them. Have I said this before? Anyway, it bears repeating and reminding over and over and over.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

Educational Theater

It’s 5:30 a.m. The air is cool. The campus is still. No walking today. I’m in the office pouring through student journals. It’s hard to keep focused on them. So, I’m taking a brief break. My mind was on yesterday’s imaginative, creative, exciting, issue-raising, substantive 5-15 minute student “theater productions” in my three history first year classes about the American Revolution and the framing of the Constitution. Each classroom was an off-Broadway stage. The floors, desks, and walls were shrewn with props: cardboard tomahawks, paper feather head dresses, cutouts of a tea-bearing ship, huge painted scenery backdrops, waterguns in lieu of muskets, farm implements, colorful placards to stage scene changes, tapes to provide musical background, even a life-sized stuffed dummy. The students were decked out in costume clothing, wigs, and make-up. In groups of three and six, to each flicker of the lights, they offered drama, musical, comedy, and satire. So far all of the productions were worthy of rave reviews in the New York _Times_ and at least nominations for a Golden Globe. They have reinforced my belief, as I recently told someone, that in the educational long run–for lasting learning–imagination is stronger than information, dreams are more powerful than realities, creativity is more important than fact, a prepared spirit is more significant than a prepared mind.

We have about another two days to go. I can’t wait.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

I Am A Teacher

Date: Sun, 6 Oct 1996 12:17:56 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Random Thought:

It was one of those lazy Sundays, read the newspaper, and watched _Sunday Morning_. By the time I got around to putting on my rag-a-muffin grubbies go out for my walk, the sun had long since come over the horizon. At least, I think it had come up. The sky was overcast, but the air was refreshingly cool and delightfully breezy. It was an interesting walk during which it was hard for me to get into a rhythm. Sometimes I sometimes I glided along on a tail breeze; sometimes I plodded head down through the resisting wall of a head wind; sometimes I was pushed aside by a glancing gust coming off a side street. Now I know how a fallen leaf feels at the mercy of the dancing autumn air.

Anyway, about three quarters through the walk, with nothing on my mind, although that anonymous poem occasionally popped into my head, a jogger appeared off to my left from a side street. I was impressed with his walking attire. It was as ratty as mine. He slowed down to join me , and together we looked like two runaways from a rag bag. We stayed side-by-side for about two blocks until he ran off another side street. During our very brief sojourn together, I introduced myself. He said to me, “You’re that fella at the University who writes letters to newspaper editor about education, aren’t you?” I told him I was.

“Like your stuff. What do you do there?”

“I’m a teacher,” I answered.

“Thought so. But, what are you doing there? I thought there were nothing but professors at that place.”

Before I could engage him, he quickly turned off and sped up. But before got me thinking for the rest of the route. I started feeling like Jean Valjean in _Les Miserables_ singing the penetrating and searching “Who Am I” and thinking about that anonymous poem.

Who am I? My answer is that I am a teacher.

I am a teacher. I do far more and far more important things than just instruct in my discipline.

I am a teacher. I am more in the people business than the information business.

I am a teacher. I have a humbling calling, a mission. I have a noble power, an influence, an authority. I have an awesome and heavy responsibility:

I am a teacher: I change the world.
I am a teacher: I cultivate visions.
I am a teacher: I weave dream catchers.
I am a teacher: I influence lives.
I am a teacher: I alter courses.
I am a teacher: I guide spirits.
I am a teahcer: I effect the future.
I am a teacher: I save souls.
I am a teacher: I develop minds.
I am a teacher: I touch hearts.
I am a teacher: I make a difference.
I am a teacher: I change things.
I am a teacher. I transform beliefs.
I am a teacher: I perform magic.
I am a teacher: I make art.
I am a teacher: to do all this is within my grasp.
I am a teacher. No day is ordinary. Everyday is different. Everyday, I ordinarily deal caringly and lovingly with the extraordinary, the exotic, the beautiful, the unique, the wonderful, the spectacular, the exciting. Everyday, I deal with another human being called the student.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

A Poem

TGIF! It’s late in the afternoon. Everyone has gone home. A rough week has come to a surprisingly serene end no thanks to me, but thanks to a couple of student one of whom I do not know. All week I had been letting what I’ll vaguely call campus “stuff” get to me and kicking myself for letting that “stuff” get to me.

Anyway, one of the non-traditional students–I’ll call him John–in one of my classes came up to me this morning and handed me a wrinkled envelop. It’s edge was ripped open. “Something’s bugging you, almost got you down, even though you’re doing a damn good job of hiding it from most of us. Well, read this. It’s what’s in here that makes you really important on this campus.

He caught me off-guard. I thanked him and put the envelop in my pocket. I forgot about it for a moment as I went back to the office. I turned on the tape to listen to _Les Miserables_, unwrapped a Tootsie Pop and put my feet on the desk. Remembering his offering, as the melodic “Empty Chairs and Empty Tables” drifted out, I non-chalantly took the envelop from my pocket, took out the few pieces of paper on which it turns out was anonymously typed an original poem written by a student in one of my summer quarter classes. As I read it, my nonchalance became a gratitude for both John and the anonymous student. I felt myself being restored, uplifted, getting back on track, my perspective rightened, my balance re-established, an inner peace overwhelming me.

You see, to get a true and honest–and meaningful–evaluation from the students about the goings-on of my classes for other students, at the end of each quarter I have each student in my classes write a sealed letter to a student in the coming quarter’s classes in which he/she can write about anything they wish about themselves, me, the class, etc.–good, bad or indifferent, signed or unsigned, win, lose, or draw. I distribute these letters on the first day of class believing that students will accept the word of their peers as truth far quicker than anything I could say or do. I never get to see the real scoop one student writes to another. This poem is the sole exception. I wish I knew who he or she was that wrote it. But, it doesn’t really matter except that I owe him or her for being my teacher, putting me in my place and back on track. I do not share it to toot my horn although I’m sure some will think so. I share to give an otherwise hidden student’s eye view of my set of values, my sense of mission, my vision, and some of what I struggle to do. Here’s what the unknown student wrote:

——————————————————————————–
Dear Student:
I’m supposed to tell you something about the Doc’s history class and him. I decided to compose a poem for you. I’ve never done this before, but Dr. Schmier has taught me the value to risk stretching. It’s not important whether the poem is good or not, just so I try to write it. By the end of the quarter you’ll understnad what I’m saying. So here goes. Good luck you’re in for one hell of a journey:

You probably said, just like me, that Dr. Schmier’s class is a breeze.
You probably said,”I hear there are no quizzes or tests or exams. I can
sit in ease.”

You probably thought, just like me, in his class you’ve got it made.
You probably said, “They say he doesn’t believe in giving a grade.”

So, we signed up for the class and found we were wrong.
Not only is it hard and demanding, stretching and challenging,
but we had to sit in a chair different ways and then sing a song.

This class was not the usual lecturing bore
There’s fun, excitement, joy, and laughter galore,

And there’s more behind this history door.

We write and act out skits
We debate and argue about issues in the tidbits
We make up games and draw.
We even scavenge for objects on every floor.

Oh, you’ll soon learn that there’s no mystery
to why you unexpectedly learned so much history

For ten years from now when one brings up a historical idea or a name,
you’ll know what or who it is from that tidbit argument, scavenger hunt,
the drawing, a short story, or the game

Oh, there’s not only you, I might add,
but you and two others in your group called a triad
The class will be mixed together in groups of threes
So many at first like me ask reluctantly and annoyingly, even protest
“Depend on someone else? Be responsible for someone else? Please!”

You’re mixed together by gender and race
So, you’ll will learn to respect the other’s place
You’re mixed together and are responsible for the others’ success
Now that’s what I call a real test.

Yet, as if by magic many wounds of our suspicions and prejudice
magically start to mend
during the quarter we each become the others’ true friend
And before you know it, it starts to begin
that many come to start feeling like a close family of helping kin.

You can get an “A”, though I’ve got one little caution
You must do you best, he won’t settle for half a portion

You’ll make yourself act and look like a jerk
if you think he or anyone will let you hang on a coatail and do no work.

You’ll find the midnight oil must burn
He ONLY wants you to stop settling for passing a test and making a grade,
He wants to start to understand and to truly learn

And the best, he says, is the only thing that you should give,
not just for this class, but that’s how you should live.

And if you try to cut a corner or take a rest,
or do less than what YOU deep-down honestly know is your best,
do you know what you’ll gain?
You’ll hear him encouragingly and patiently emote, “Do it again.”

So many of us came to college told that we really did not belong
Slowly he let us see for ourselves that they were wrong
One professor told me in so many words where I could go
when I told him, “I don’t know.”

Not Dr. Louis
All that kind of shit is just a bunch of phooey.
Once I said to him, “I tried.” Even accompanied it by crying.
He’ll just quietly answered back confidently and firmly,
“You can do it. ‘Trying is lying.'”

The classroom has no back, or front, or side
And there’s no place in this room to hide.
The Doc’s not far away behind desk doing all the talking
He always among us listening and walking
He’s always moving about and over every chair
with eyes looking everywhere
that tell you he has a care

Oh, at times I snarled, “don’t care so much.”
At times I complained, “don’t reach out to touch”
Oh, I uttered a curse, and screamed, “screw it!”
I remember him saying quietly with a supporting smile:
“if you want it, it can be done; and if it can be done,
just do what it takes to do it.”

I’ll always remember what this class in history and in life is about
Like Popeye and Schmier say, “the more youse puts in, the more youse gets out

He won’t give you from yourself any relief
He won’t allow you in yourself any disbelief

But, if you need help in learning how to study
if you need help to clear up anything that’s muddy
if you need help with how to think
don’t whine. Don’t say, “I can’t.” Instead, go to him in a wink
if you need help in learning to do any this or that
He’ll give you all of his time, any time, and that’s a fact.

And on those days when you just need someone to listen
and you just need to talk,
you can always join Schmier with a Tootsie Pop on the hall floor
or in the street on his 5:00 a.m. walk

And in the end what did I find?
That I’ve started to change as a person and develop in mind

And though this class took on my sleep a great toll
In the end, it paid off with growth in my soul

I now feel in my stomach a slight burn
No, it’s not indigestion
It’s the beginning of a yearning to learn

And do you learn!
….if you give yourself a chance and jump at your turn

To me, Dr. Schmier, is at the top,
and deserves a great big orange Tootsie Pop

——————————————————————————–
I slowly put the poem down, vainly tried to straighten out the creases and wrinkles, pulled some tape out from my desk drawer, and tenderly stuck the pages with their precious contents to the wall just below my beloved Kuumba idol where I will see them every day. You know, there is a Dakota saying that translates loosely as , “We will be known forever by the tracks we leave.” We so often think of such things only in terms of the legacy we teachers leave in the hearts of students. Today, at this moment, and for many more to come, I am indebted to this unknown student for leaving his or her tracks in my heart. Today, at this moment, and for many more to come, I am his or her student.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–