Just Some Very Random Thoughts

Went out early this morning. Brrrrrr!! 50 degrees. Rushed back in to put on my grubbies before I got frostbite. Anyway, as I passed the snow-capped fire ant hills, lots of small thoughts started whirling through my head like snow crystals in a blizzard. I guess they were generated by a whole bunch of things: an electric conference of the International Society for Exploring Teaching Alternatives, a host of discussions about different things on the internet, stuff on campus and in the classroom. Thought I’d share the thoughts I remember. They’re kinda disconnected:

My problem as a teacher will begin when I stop being amazed and surprised.

I don’t think you can boil good teaching down to a science, but it is governed by the incontrovertible “law of struggle.”

I am convinced that good teachers are need more than intelligence and information and method. I just told an e-mail colleague that I firmly believe that teachers are very special people. They are what I call “glory people.” They don’t get that luster from what they know and they don’t get that grandeur from their teaching technique. No, that majesty comes from their spirit. They are care-givers, very special people caring for other very special people–people who are the future. And in so being, they are people of hope.

As I told a colleague, I do my best teaching outside the classroom.

We cannot separate being a good teacher from being a good person, and we cannot confuse the quality of being a person with the quality of being a student.

As I told a “virtual” colleague, “when you focus on the test, the score, the grade it kinda paralyzes both you and the student.”

When we focus on promotion and tenure, on those evaluations, we’re kinda paralyzed.

We should enter class knowing we are doing something we love, not just doing something; knowing we are where we truly want to be, not thinking of other places we wish to be; knowing it is important to be there and that we are doing something important, not thinking there is a more important place where we can do more important things.

Before you bring ridicule and diminishment and denigration upon students, bring it on yourself first, and see how it feels. Before you are quick to lable students whom you don’t know and separate them from each other and yourself, see if you like being stereotpyed, classified, depersonalized, shut out, judged, distanced, and misunderstood.

Students use a lot of silence when they talk, and it is so easy to misunderstand their silence. So, I must get to know them, to see things their way, and read the space between their words and thoughts.

Teaching and learning is a human drama far more than it is an intellectual exercise and practice of a technique.

As I told a colleague, “it is easy to write “TEACHER” on a label and stick it to your chest for all to see. But, it is not enough to merely wear the label. We have to be the label. No, it’s not enough to be the label, we have to live it. And, we must take care to protect ourselves against the confusion of the wearing of the label with the living of the label.”

Education is not just to help you become a successful person, but to help you become a valued person and a person of value

We shouldn’t just go through a life of teaching, we should grow through a life of teaching.

We should notice the deep beauty in each student beneath the thin skin of a grade or GPA or test score, and see his or her capacity to add beauty to the world

Students shouldn’t just go through an academic experience, they should grow through an academic experience.

I think I grow most from problems and challenges I face when I teach, from the things that don’t work out the way I want, from the discomforts I experience. On those occasions, I am a real learner far more than a teacher.

I don’t think you can really improve academia by taking popular positions, by going along to get along and blaming things on the system.

You can’t have kindness–much less faith, belief, and hope–for each student in your face, in your eyes, on your lips, in your body until and unless it is in your soul.

I work very hard not to let any student leave the classroom feeling less happy and lesser.

I agree with Einstein, especially after this week: creativity and imagination is far more important than information.

Is there a difference between being schooled and getting educated, between having gotten a grade or score and having learned?

When we close the door to the classroom, we should be opening ourselves to untold possibilities

My enthusiasm, my love, for each student will kindle a fire far more likely, quicker, and brighter than will my enthusiasm and love for the subject.

I truly believe we should leave every class feeling “what a wonderful couple of minutes I just spent with…..”

We look at the sweeping glide of a hawk high above and we are stilled by wonder; we gaze out at the undulating ocean and our emotions are stirred; We walk among the trees in a wood and our soul is awed; we feel the power of the wind and we are humbled; we stare at the mountains and feel spiritually inspired. The true teacher feels those same stirring each time he or she enters the classroom. The true teacher never is indifferent to the very human qualities that illuminate the classroom. The true teacher walks into the classroom with a wonder at life, never takes the classroom world for granted, never stares blankly at it from an unnoticed distance, is always, to paraphrase John Muir, of the class not just in it, a part of the students rather than apart from them.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

My Commandments For My Teaching

Here I am with a freshly brewed cup of coffee at my side. It’s a little before 5:00 a.m. I went out real early. The air had a nip of a refreshing and invigorating chill in it, but not enough to give me pause about putting on a shirt.

As I glided through the quiet and enveloping darkness, I was thinking about that voice at the other end of the telephone last Friday afternoon. I hadn’t heard that voice in a long time. As soon she started talking with a “Hi doc, I guess who this is.” I didin’t have to. I jumped up from my slouch as if jolted by a shot of electricity. My heart started racing. As we talked, tears came to my eyes. There was a time or two my voice would have cracked had I had to say something at that moment.

I will only say that she had called me to tell me all was getting well. At the end of the conversation, she said, “I want you to know again how such a little thing as that Tootsie Pop you handed me in class and gave me another chance when you said, ‘Let’s make this Day One,’–and meant it– was such a big thing to me. Don’t ever forget that what you may think is not a big deal, is.” And she hung up with a “I’ll keep in touch.”

I slowly put the receiver down. I could barely move. Everything was so quiet and seemed to move so slowly. I just closed my eyes and took slow, deep breaths. I felt a bright and burning after glow that has yet to wane. It is such a joyous feeling that I almost wish it proves to be an eternal flame.

I know I am being secretive. Sorry about that. Only six people know the story about this particular student. None are on campus. For the present, let’s leave it that way. Enough to say, that her final words burned into my spirit with a demand that took away from me the option of being resigned, that eliminated the choice of becoming a cynic, that forbade the appearance of a feeling a hopelessness, that prohibited I lose faith and belief, that did allow me to become burnt out. She demanded that I not focus only on information and method. She demanded, no commanded, I sharply focus as well on that oft ignored dimension of teaching–the human dimension. She has made the choice for me to be an incurable “hopeholic.”

Slowly, as I was reliving that conversation as I have been all weekend, desperately fanning the flames of that inner glow, at about the two mile mark of my route, I began to hear a voice from on high emerging from the heights of my inner spirit. As that voice spoke, I began feeling like Charleston Heston turning his face into the rock as divine, flaming fingers etched words in the stone. As I heard my inner voice, I realized I was forming a moral framework, a set of concepts that give me clarity, direction, purpose, satisfaction, fulfillment, and, ultimately, joy. I picked up my pace. I was afraid I would forget what I was hearing. I ran the last mile, slammed open the door hoping against hope I wouldn’t stir my sleeping angel (thankfully I didn’t wake her), grabbed a cup of coffee, and surrendered control of my fingers at the keyboard:

TEACH TO THAT ONE STUDENT:
always be there for that one person. Each student is an American treasure, an invaluable piece of the future. Each is as valuable as our national parks, as stirring as any bird’s melody, as towering as any redwood, as majestic as any snow-capped summit, as glorious as any landscape, as beautiful as any flower, as entrancing as any seascape, as moving as any sunrise. Each is a noble and scared human being

TEACH WITH AN UNSHAKABLE FAITH IN THAT ONE STUDENT
Stay the committment. Focus on the journey, on the “ing” of thing, not on the “wished for”or “prayed for” goal; focus on today’s learning, not on the prayer wishing they would learn

TEACH TO THAT ONE STUDENT WITH A UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
Nurture that struggling soul reaching out for acceptance. Love brings meaning to teaching that particles of information and the movement of method cannot.

TEACH TO THAT ONE STUDENT WITH A BOLD COURAGE
Stay in the light, be at home in your inner light and shut out those around you who would turn off the light

TEACH TO THAT ONE STUDENT WITH BOUNDLESS EXPECTATIONS
Each moment in a classroom is a moment of power, a moment of change, a moment that can make a difference. Big events and great ideas can happen in small spaces like a classroom.

TEACH TO THAT ONE STUDENT WITH YOUR SPIRIT FIRMLY SECURED IN AN UNSWERVING BELIEF
Don’t just look for a miracle every day; find one and see it and celebrate it. Be that busy bee that always will find sweet nectar in the most unlikely and unexpected places

TEACH TO THAT ONE STUDENT WITH YOUR SPIRIT SECURELY ANCHORED IN UNENDING HOPE.
Never surrender your hope. Hope won’t let you expire. It will drive you to aspire and inspire. A teacher can’t be a complete teacher without hope.

TEACH TO THAT ONE STUDENT WITH AN UNRELENTING AND UNCOMPROMISING TENACITY
When there is a setback, when there is a disappointment, look for the flower budding among the jagged rocks, that single bloom in the supposedly lifeless desert. It’s there

TEACH TO THAT ONE STUDENT WITH AN EXCITED “WOW!!” NOT A TIRED “YUK.”
Celebrate each step as a milestone even if others don’t know about it or think its only an inch and a pebble. Whatever little part you do is far better than doing nothing.

TEACH TO THAT ONE STUDENT WITH AN ETERNAL SMILE IN YOUR SOUL AND ON YOUR FACE, AND A TOOTSIE POP IN YOUR HAND
Exercise, utilize, build up those tiny muscles around your eyes, cheeks, and lips. Tiny they may be, but powerful they are. They can lift up a heavy heart and weighty spirit, and release goodness from the body and soul. A smile is a flashlight that shines your spirit, enthusiasm, and optimism for each student, on each student.

Ten. Interesting. Anyway, I know that to the extent I can follow these commandments, make myself answerable to them every day for every thought and action, I just may help sweeten an otherwise sourness in someone’s spirit. Do that, and who knows, I might do something important along the way. Do that, and who knows, I might help make a life–or save a life.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–