Holiness in Teaching

Waddling along the streets late, late this morning, I know what a turkey must feel like being stuffed with stuffing. And talking about stuffing, I had a lot of stuff on my mind this morning as I struggled with each step to come out from a caloric coma induced by an ODing on turkey and glorious fixin’s. I was thinking gratefully about how, when my son, Robby, got off work at 2:30 p.m. yesterday afternoon, he and his wife drove three hours, arrived late at the farm where we traditionally celebrate the Thanksgiving with friends who are family, hugged everyone, gobbled down leftovers, and left for their home at 8:00 last night to be at work early this morning. It made me realize that Thanksgiving here in the States, thankfully, still is a sacred time of the year. It s a modest holiday. It is a poignant holiday. It is a genuine holiday. It is a quiet holiday. It’s a touching holiday. The places of gathering have an unspoken aura of being sacred ground. And yet, it’s a powerful holiday. So many of us, like Robby and Beth, go through so much to get home in time to honor this feast of thanks; so many of us take the trouble, like ET, to call home when we can’t go home. Our presents for this holiday are especially our presence among family and friends..

I was also thinking about the Lilly conference on teaching from which I just returned. Actually, as I told some newly found friends, Lilly is more of a the retreat and experience than simply an academic gathering of academics.

I always try to put my finger on what it is that makes Lilly what it is. Of course, it is the people who come not as touting professors with egos and reputations aching to burst forth in a fit of presentations, but as a respectful gathering of dedicated teachers and sincere listeners and committed learners. There is something more that, and after what I fear is literally saying last “goodbyes” to a wondrous, sacred person, Beverly Firestone, who has been battling the ravages of cancer for the last five years and whose agonies I personally witnessed as I struggled to help her board her plane, and for whom I wrote a poem as a parting gift of thanks for being called her friend which I am afraid will be eulogy, I am beginning to understand what “that” is. It has to do with a word you don’t often hear in academia: holiness.

Dare I use that word? I hope you won’t sneer or jeer; I really don’t want you to be annoyed. But, if you want to throw darts like “this is not a church,” “touchy-feely,” “sappy,” “saccharine,” “preachy,” that’s is okay. I am just talking about how in the course of the last eight years I am coming to see myself and others, and what we do or are supposed to be doing. For that, I make no apology. After all, studies aside, I know me best and can best talk about me. And, more importantly I hope you think less about what I say and I get you to think about what you might have to say.

I have been in the classroom and around academics all but the first five years of my life. I have had my share of teachers and professors, and I have come to see that those unfortunately very few teachers I remember, whose voices I still hear whispering in my ear and whose presence I feel hovering over me and who occassionally tap reminders on my shoulder. For so long I had ignored them; now I struggle to heed them. They are not those teachers who were the sternest or knew the most or talked the most eloquently or were the most renown. No, in this select group were those who treated me as a person with a regrtettably rare respect and sacredness. I now know that these very few teachers were not just good teachers; they were good persons. They weren’t just making a living and getting a salary; they were making a life and giving. I remember they put a lot of caring for me into their teaching, put a lot of themselves in me, saw me as a single, complex “me.” And, now I see how they still are teaching me. They knew somehow that “there is a time for….,” when to practice soft love and when to practice hard love, when to apologize, when to admit to an “I don’t know,” when to push, when to back off, when to say something, when to be silent, when to be there to talk with, when to offer to talk and when to listen, when to challenge me, when to challenge themselves by standing aside, when to protect me from the ugliness of the world, when to let me face life’s pimples, when to make it safe for me and when to let it be risky, when to make it risky for them, when to stand firm and when to be flexible, when to offer a second and third and fourth chance, when to see that I was a a child or part adult and part child or an adult in training. They noticed; they sensed; they knew; they gave their time; they gave of themselves.

Now they didn’t always get it right; they didn’t always know where the line was drawn; occasionally, they stepped over the line or didn’t come close enough. But, they cared enough about me that they were unwilling to play it safe; they were willing to put themselves on the line for me. Actually, what they offered me felt and still feels like love. It was and is. I now realize, although I am not sure they would say it this way unless prodded, they saw in me–in each and every student–the sacred and holy that was not to be desecrated. And it was in that belief, faith if you will, that was rooted their instinct to pay attention to the little things that were so important. They had that mysterious sixth sense, a feeling for me and each of those others, and somehow leaned into me and each of them. It was from that believe which rose their genuineness and capacity to be real; and, they were comfortable with it and did what came naturally.

Anyway, that’s what I want to talk about: holiness. I think we should because I think maybe we ought to see a classroom as something of a church or synagogue or mosque, and I don’t believe holiness is reserved solely for these houses of worship restricted to the appropriate day of formal worship. Holiness is not something you pray for inn one place on one day; it is not something you preach about in one place on one day; it is something that is you, it is something you live, and it is something you do–every place, in everything, everyday.

I have come to see the classroom is a place of worship. I now see teaching as a mission; I now refuse to pass a countefeit separation of ways of thinking, ways of feeling, and ways of behaving; I refuse to neatly separate rational facts from emotional facts from character facts, thinking and doing from feeling.

I am convinced that if we looked at ourselves, at colleagues, at students, at anyone with a holiness; if we discovered such a holiness in education our eyes and minds and hearts–our wholeness–would open to discover a sense of community, what someone whom I forget calls the wondrous “hidden wholeness” in each person and in gatherings. In the absence of such an awareness, as I can personally attest, there is so often in academia a detachment, a distance, an aloofness, a coldness, a lack of community–intended or otherwise; so often there is a fear for the new and a fear to risk the new in academia–conscious or otherwise; the connective tissue is missing–acknowledged or otherwise; there is a disrespect for the dependency and hesitantcy in students and in ourselves or colleagues, for students who stumble and when we or colleagues stumble, for students who fail and when we or colleagues fail, for the student who is not perfect and when we or our colleagues make a mistake–recognized or otherwise. It is as if we are tentative, to say the least, fear or hate, at worst, that which challenges us, break through us, forces us to open. We say we are about uniqueness and diversity; and yet, there is a drive to flatten everything, to fill in the valleys, and bulldoze the mountains, rip out the lushness and dry up the streams until the landscape is so barren and uniform the slightest ant hill would not be tolerated.

But, if you excavate below the surface seek the holy, you will find community. You will find the community in which the good teacher believes and has faith, seeks, evokes, invites all, and shuts the door to no one; you will neutralize the academy’s acidic culture of fear and disrespect with a culture of respect and love; you will pacify and unify the rampant chaos, disconnection, fragmentation, categorization, anarchy.

When I faced up to my own darkness eight years ago, as I have often shared, I discovered to my amazement that in the dark, if you look upward, you see the shining light of stars. I will venture to say as my life has been transformed, academic life–the system–has even been so slightly altered. The splash from the pebble of my changing spirit has sent out an almost undetectable ripple, but a tsunami nevertheless. And that, too, taught me a great lesson: we have let institutions–the system–become to impersonal, structured, too distant, too cumbersome, too entangling to carry out holiness. I better understand Jefferson’s suspicions.

Holiness is something we each have to carry within ourselves, alone, with the faith to achieve community, one person at a time. For me, that realization holds an unyeilding hope that all of academic life would be transformed if everyone–one person at a time–practiced simple respect, acknowledged the holiness in themselves and each of us. If everyone came to see each other as holy, practiced that holiness minute-by-minute, the cataracts of arrogance would be healed and we could see anyone with other than loving and respectful eyes.

Holiness does not destroy difference; it reverently holds it up for all to see. That is the highest form of caring and love!! It says to that single person, be it yourself or someone else, “I see you. I care about you. I love you. I am here for you.” Holiness does not grind souls into the ground; it celebrates souls. Holiness does not hide a person; holiness offers smiles of hope; holiness makes the person visible. Holiness is that shining light that allows us to wonder at each individual. Holiness allows us to recover our power in and over ourselves. Holiness will never exhaust, never alienate, never torture, never fear or distrust, never regret. There is no holiness in making or leaving someone feel as what I call an “unperson:” unwanted, unknown, unimportant, unreachable, unteachable, unnoticed, unseen, unlearned, unable, untalented, uncared, unappreciated, unloved. No, I have slowly discovered that the ugly minions of hopelessness, disbelief, faithless, ridicule cannot survive in the presence of holiness.

We are commanded to be holy. That doesn’t not mean being divine; it does not mean acquiring a haloed saintliness; and it doesn’t mean being perfect. Being holy to me means striving to become the person I are capable of becoming and do the best I am capable of doing, and be that person who helps another person become what he or she is capable of becoming. It means striving to be the best teacher you can be. It means striving to be the best person you can be. That is the essence of education–and of life. It is that simple.

Unless we have respect for each and love for each person, education will be banally about memorizing, distastefully about taking a test, boringly about getting a grade, and merely about getting jobs; it will be about exclusion. It will not be about inclusion, nurturing, hope, excitment, adventure, faith, empowerment, liberation, transcendency, vitality–wholeness.

Simple it may be, hard to do it is. As I recently told a new-found friend, I have discovered that being on a mission of service may mean sacrificing my comfort and safety in order to help students learn. There are times, many times–and I have already forsaken the publish/perish rat race–I have to ask myself if I am willing to pay the price of being in community with others. That is, am I willing to obey the command to be holy.

Am I being sappy, touchy-feely, saccharine, preachy? That is for each of you to judge. I, for one, am nourished by such a sweet oozing. I will continue to be touched and felt as well as feel and reach and touch. For I have discovered that there is a mysterous gift of power–a state of grace–for each student and for me in such passion of loving and being loved, of needing and being needed.

Am I being unrealistic. Am what I asking for too hard to do or an impossible dream? That, too, is for you to decide. Until eight years ago I would have rejected the me of today with a volley of such excuses, explanations, and rationalizations. So, I stand as testimony that the hard and impossible can be achieved, and are accomplished every day.

I have discovered that any true legacy I can leave is not precious baubles; it’s not a data bank of information; it’s not in a collection of knowledge; it’s not even accumulated wisdom; it’s certainly not in a title, an award, a publication. My true legacy, if I have one to leave, is a legacy of spirit: words and deeds and feelings, faith and hope, that come from the heart which enter the heart. For the heart–and the mind–is not like a rubber band. Once they are stretched by a new feeling and idea, they will never return to their original form and size.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

What I Want Students to Say About The Class

It is nice this morning. Not hot. Not cold. Wait ’til this afternoon when it will go into the 80s. And they say the Dogs of August are leashed. Ha!! Anyway, I was just meandering across the campus back to my office from the Student Union, alternatvely sipping a cup of coffee with one hand and munching on a sinful glazed donut with the other. I wasn’t thinking about much other than how having lost 25 pounds this summer has let me indulge. Then, from off to my left I heard a voice, “Dr. Schmier.” I turned. It was Mandy. She was in class almost a year ago. She looked different, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. As she came almost running towards me, I knew what was different about her. She was smiling.

“Haven’t seen you in a while. You’re smiling.”

“Always do now. I just wanted to tell you that I decided to be a communications major!” She said. No, “said” is the wrong word. She proclaimed with such a triumphant blast of accomplishment. Then, as if clarvoyantly translating images that were flashing through my mind at hyper speed. “Remember? I always was quick to say ‘I’m shy and quiet.’ Well, I’m not afraid anymore. Getting up in front of class to sing and do projects made me I realize that I could do what I really wanted to do.” Before I could answer, she concluded, “Well, I have to run over to the Arts building for a class. I learned a lot about history, a lot more than in any class, doing those projects, but I also learned a lot about myself. I saw you and just wanted you to know that our class made a difference for me and I know now that I can make a difference, too, and I want to. Thanks.”

“Thank you. I really aprreciate that,” was all I could quietly say as she turned to run across campus.

As I danced back to my office, I exclaimed to myself, “I’ve got the answer!” To understand what I meant, I have to go back to the second day of the semester in mid-August. I was sitting in front of the Library’s fountain, relaxing, blowing bubbles from my bottle of Mr. Bubbles. A student from one of the first year history classes came up to me, sat down on the bench, and shared the ring. As each of us took turns swinging our arms arm back and forth or blowing, ignoring the curious stares, producing a string of short-lived, small bubbles that lazily floated skyward, we talked.

He said something like, “You know I read the letter from the student in your spring quarter. I won’t tell you what was in the letter. but the class sounds interesting. I never had a teacher who respected students enough to do something like that, really gives the class a blast of honesty and trust.”

“That’s the idea,” I answered with a smile. “I couldn’t think of a better way for you to know honestly about me and the class then to hear it confidentially from another student who’s gone through it.”

Then it came, “I know you don’t know what each student writes at the end of the semester or tell them what to write about. But, if you could, what would you want us to say about this class by the end of the semester?”

“Whatever you want to say that you think should be said.”

“You’re being a weasel. If you were a student, what would you write to another student. Can you do it in one sentence?”

I looked at him as if he was nuts. “One sentence?”

“I want to see if that letter was true. Take your time,” he said with a smirk. “I have class. See ya.”

I don’t how I get myself into these situations. Anyway, I’ve been struggling to come up with an answer for that student. Actually, it does me good to have to reflect and articulate such things, to go off on a fishing expedition asking, looking, listening, uncovering, seeing, hearing; to probe the darkest secrets of our feelings. I think we all have to have a touch of skepticism of our motives, of our own version of “truth,” of our own version of doing things. It is not always comfortable, but it is necessary. If we don’t, understanding will seldom join hands with intention and zeal. And that is dangerous.

All semester I’ve been thinking about what I dream they would say. But, how to put it into one sentence! As far as my subject, history, is concerned, I wish they realize that history is not as it is too often portaryed: a dull collection of meaningless facts about dead people, a series of flatten names and dates whose significance is only in memorization for a test, a collection of maps and charts and diagrams and statistics. I would hope they would begin to understand that history it is about real, flesh and blood, complicated and mysterious and unique individuals who itched, urinated, scratched, laughed, ate, had intercourse, cried, dreamed, hated and loved, and hurt; who–known or unknown–by their mere presence made a difference however supposedly slight or monumental; who had strengths and weakness; who were violent and peaceful, who dreamed and feared, who dared and cowered, who risked and played it safe, who achieved and failed, who fell and stayed down, who fell and got up to strove, who were criminal and law-abiding, who were resolute and indecisive, who led and who followed, all of whom were unique individuals. I want them to see that they are because of them. I want them to be able to relate to a lot of these people who were human beings just like they are and have learned something about themselves, starting to see how they each is a part of history, that each is an heir to the judgements and actions of these past people just as they will add a ply and bequeath their judgements and actions to posterity. I hope they will learn that you don’t have to be famous to be important and don’t have known to be historic, and that everything associated with and created by human beings, without exception–laws, values, people, outlooks, answers, questions, institutions, arts, society, language, religion, everything–changes.

Wouldn’t fit into that one sentence restriction unless I could write like Victor Hugo.

But, there would still be more I would love them to say. I would hope they would say that they have had the same experience in the classroom as you get from both a roller coaster and a church or synagogue or mosque: excitement, adventure, risk, fun, education, emotion, refection, awareness, uplift. But, more important, it’s the message I want each of them to take wherever he or she goes. I want each of them to think, to reflect, to feel, to be excited, to be happy, to be inspired; I want each of them to question, “why;” I want each of them to realize that an education is more than earning a living. It’s about empowerment and liberation. It never ends. I want each of them to care about something bigger than the particular subject matter, a grade or a degree or a job or presitge or a house or a car or a piece of jewelry or themsevles. I want each of them to do whatever he or she does because it is important, not just to be important. I want each of them to know that diminishment of yourself and others in any form is patently unacceptable, cruelty in word or deed to another is unjust, that violence against another is patently immoral, and that grinding your own soul and that of others into the ground is just not right.

Stll, a tad more than that one sentence mandate, and to add this would really be pressing even Hugo.

Now, here comes Mandy, unexpectedly out from nowhere, with the answer: “Our class made a difference for me and I know now that I can make a difference, too, and I want to.”

Her words prodded these words out from me–I punctuated it so that it would be a sentence: “I came into class; I left the class changed; the rest is details.”

I think both say it all and should be the simple but profound assessment for every class. I’m going to give the student those answers today: mine and Mandy’s.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

A Quickie Random Thought: Cans and Can’ts

It was a gorgeous morning. The air was as clear as a flawless cyrstal and crisp as the snap of a fresh potato chip. The rising sun set a lone, distant herring bone cloud afire with more shades of color than Roget has synonoms. The masters are no competition for the spectacular beauty of nature’s art work.

It was a good walk, a surprisingly refreshing walk, and I almost missed it.

I woke this morning with my legs stiff as boards from having hauled and knelt, from having gotten up and down, from bending over and nailing all day as I completed the addition of an 8′ x 8′ section to the deck by the fish pond yesterday. Orders from my angelic boss.

Anyway, I opened the door, slowly; went out and hit the street, reluctantly. From the first step I was struggling to convince myself that the effort was enough and that after a few blocks I could stop with a satisfying, “I tried,” and return home to the comfort of a freshly brewed cup of coffee.

And so, in rhythm with every step, I said to myself, “I cannot do this today.” “I cannot do this today.” “I cannot do this today.” But, with each step the decibel level of my protest lowered and the conviction waned and I ripped away that barrier I struggled to build until by the one mile post I protested no more. And, I did do it. I glided the remaining three miles, learning once again that if I took the “nots” out of my clogging “cannots” then the “cans” freely entered by spirit and the “knots” came out of my legs. That got me thinking and concluding about some magnificant stuff that happened in the classes this week:

Want to be a good teacher, a better teacher? Want to be a good learner, a better learner? Let the hooked-nosed, evil can’t lie squashed and sticking out from under the house like the Witched Witch of the East, and kick yourself in your can.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

“Leopards can change their spots”

Good morning. Today, is the morning after the day before. Has nothing to do with wild revelry or hangovers. Well, that’s not quite true. Today, is what we call in my family, “the morning after cheese cake” during which we experienced a caloric hangover. Yesterday, was All Saints’ Day. In the Middle Ages, it was the most religious day on the Western Christian calendar. It was my birthday. All of western Christendom was celebrating my birth 58 years ago even though my angelic Susan often questions my sainthood. She thinks I was born six hours too late because when my impishness and playful “nudging” are at its heights–she always brings out the childlike devil in me–she isn’t sure if I was a trick or treat. Anyway, I love that day because it is the only day of the year on which my Susan now serves up one her magnificant cheese cakes. It takes her two slavish days of fussin’ and cussin’. But, you haven’t tasted cheese cake until you’ve have one of her sinfully rich culinery delights. You don’t eat her cheesecake; you just let it flow at a glacial pace passing each applauding tastebud with savoring tintulations. Yummy!

This morning, I was also thinking about a birthday card an old–really old–student, Page Lassiter, had sent me. It wasn’t really a birthday card. He certainly didn’t intend it to be one since he didn’t know it was my birthday, but I took it that way. Page was a student way back when, fifteen years ago, when the university, then a college, was about a third its present size; when, I now see and admit, I was the talkaholic, aloof professor type except to those very few who fit the image of the “perfect student” syndrome with which too many of us are afflicted. I certainly was back in those days. Page lives around the corner from me and we talk teaching a lot. He’s a loving high school history/social studies teacher teaching in a nearby county school system.

The message came from out of the blue me. It had the subject hearding, “leopards can change their spots.” I don’t know why Page chose this particular day to send me this message. I’ll have to ask him. Something is on his heart and mind. This is what he wrote:

I’m certainly glad that today’s students have found a “kinder, gentler” Louis. Not that the gruff, antagonistic,arrogant and ego squashing Louis was all that bad. I knew bullshit when I heard it and was not bothered by your verbal attacks. Hell, you must have done somethingright because that world history class 15 years ago helped push me into a job that I love dearly….Students now flock to the Master when they once avoided Him like an ebola strain. Keep it up, Louis”

I answered him, in a couple of sentences, what I now believe is the essence of the nature of my transformation that began nine years ago: the secret formulae for going from one of the least loved professors to one of the most loved teachers–if that is what others say I am–is that you have first have to fall in love with yourself and then only can you fall in love with each student. Only if you love them will you lovingly engage with them, and will they reciprocate. As a result, where once I saw failure in the word, professor, I now find that there is no word that I revere more than “teacher.” My heart now sings when someone calls me his or her teacher, and it always will.

As I sit here, after a delightful four mile walk, with a delicious smelling cup of freshly brewed coffee at my side, a piece of cherry-capped cheese cake the size of which that rivals Everest at my other, a flow of tidbits about what I think are some, only some, of the character istics of the truly loving teacher are pouring out. They’re just random “here and there’s.” Besides, I can’t think straight when one eye is on that plate that has all the dimensions of a roman orgie:

1. it is an illusion to assume that high grades or GPAs is goodness; we shouldn’t confuse the good grade with the person who makes the grade any more than we should confuse a mistake with the person who makes a mistake

2. There are subtle differences to the waves rolling onto the beach. No two waves are alike, just like snowflakes–and students.

3. you know, it is not obligatory for a “good” class to have honors students

4. Every student is a somebody; each student is very special and worth fighting for.

5. We can respect a student more if we can see beyond his/her image into her future potential, if we understand that each student is a seed of tomorrow’s yet-to-seen flower. But, you won’t know that unless you’re looking for it and reach through doing what is “company approved.”

6. We can make majors, but the important thing is to help in the process of becoming better human beings

7. It is tragic that one student who has the capacity should be allowed to fail. The second we don’t have the time for that one student is the time when we have to make available twice the time, for every moment we spend now will earn untold years in the future. And when you believe the benefits are worth the effort and risk, you put the risks behind you and focus on the benefits.

8. We cannot suppose that some have a right to be educated and some do not

9. My heart is the student’s real classroom

10. Einstein was right when he said that the supreme art of a teacher is not the transmission of information but the awakening of joy in creative expression

11. Imagine the wonders we would discover if we entered the classroom as excited seeders and enthusiastic feeders and optimistic cultivators rather than as stern weeders and grim reapers.

12. Hug a student, don’t tug at him or her. Tug is a sign of contention, conflict, friction, disdain, disrespect; hug is a sign of embrace, partnership, community, commonality, understanding, sharing, love.

13. You always must ask you to ask yourself: if you truly do not care whether these students love you why do you obviously care if they dislike you? If you don’t want to be in community with them, why should they be with you?

14. Look around in those eyes, faces, hearts. Let’s stop abstracting, generalizing, theorizing; let’s stop drawing up impersonal diagrams, dehumanizing charts, and statistics. Who are the untouchables? Who are the unteachables? Who are the unreachables? Who are the hopeless? Who are the too dumb to learn? Who are the too stubborn to learn? Who should we lose? Tell me, who? Are they really real people except in the superficial, cold heart, distance stand, and blind eye of the beholder? Are they the result of our failures as teachers rather than their failures as students?

15. Leopards can change their spots. We are not captives of “reality.” We are not slaves of “system.” We are not imprisoned with the locked cells of “that’s not me” or “I’m not comfortable with that….” or “I can’t change the way I…..” We have choices. We make choices. Even when we choose not to choose, that is our choice. We always have the option of seeing truth, no matter how blind and prejudiced we may be; we always have the option of changing, no matter how uncomfortable and even painful that may be; we always have the option of moving on, no matter how tied up we may be.

These are not just pithy catchphrases or trite sayings for me. They are the way I now struggle, not always successfully, to live, to learn, and to teach. Someone once asked me if I practice good-feeling teaching and learning. Doggone right I do. There is unimagined strength and accomplishment in the power of positive learning and teaching.

Gotta run for another piece.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–