The Random Thoughts of Louis Schmier

Well, parties are about to begin, the corks are about to be popped, the toasts about to be made, the horns about to be tooted, the balls about to drop, the baloons about to fall, the confetti about to be thrown, the Auld Lang Syns about to be sung; the reflections are about to be reflected upon, and the resolutions about to be made resolutely. One year is about to be rung out and another about to be brought in. About time.

Like every year, this past year has been some kind of roller coaster ride. It had it’s share of twists and turns, anxieties and exhilarations. There have been doses of stomach-wrenching highs and lows. It has left a unique seismic record. And, 9/11 certainly pushed and pulled many of us more than a little more than usual.

As for me, there really is no time or space for me either to sum up or give a true accounting of what 2001 has meant me and in my teaching except to say that, more than ever, I am unashamedly proud to be a teacher.

So much for 2001. What about 2002? With the all-seeing eyes of a Nostradamus, I will make a prediction. It is perfectly clear that the coming year will be foggy. I am certain it will be filled with uncertainty. My best guess is that the year will be, at best, a best guess. And I know, it will be fraught with unknowns. Little if anything will work out the way I either want or expect. And except for myself, there will be nothing and no one I can control.

And so, while I am not sure what the coming year has in store for me, I am sure it will have a store of surprises. I am sure nothing will be routine. I am sure that however prepared I want to be and prepare myself to be prepared, I will not be prepared for everything that comes when it comes. I can’t step into a simulator and practice for every scenario. Unexpected stuff will come out from left field. It will from nowhere. It will occur whenever and from wherever. I know that on more than one occasion I will be tempted to grab for a consoling glass of wine or a relieving bottle of Execedrin muttering a “Why me?” and quietly vowing a “I will never again…”

Alas, I know “why me” and I know “I will.” I will because I do know that in a life of teaching, maybe in life itself, the future doesn’t belong to those who bemoan headaches or to those who are disconnected or to those who are discontented or to those who have given up hope or to those who mourn or to those who lay blame on others. It doesn’t belong to those, whatever their physical age or the extent of their experience or the length of their resume, who hobble along with scoliotic and arthritic spirits. The future belongs to the spiritual and emotional upright, to the spry, to the deft, to the limber, to those who are ever-young at heart. It belongs to those for whom hope forever springs eternal. It belongs to those for whom the moment of each day is the defining moment. It belongs to those who know that every moment is a chance to change things. It belongs to those who celebrate each student. It belongs to those who dream big dreams for each student. It belongs to those who are daring enough to always rethink their thinking about and their acts towards each student. It belongs to those who are always redefining and elevating “normal,” “average,” and “good.” It belongs to those who always are always bettering the “usual.”

So, no resolutions. They’re too easily said and just as easily ignored. Just a toast. Lift high your glass: May this be another year each of us is proud to be a teacher. May each of us come to know even more that our teaching is bigger than we knew. May we each come to see clearer that living the lives we lead adds to the lives of those around us. May we each realize more that every body is an important somebody. May we remain connected with the disconnected and unconnected. May we each be more exuberant about each student. May we continue to see beauty in each student. May we each remain unafraid to shine our light to bring light. May sincerity, authenticity, and love continue to pour out from our pores. May we always give off waves of caring vitality. May we have continued faith in faith, hope in hope, belief in belief. May we each continue to add value to and lift the lid of each student. May we each remain aware that we’re here to build for the future. May we each keep on being determined to change things– and discover that we just may. And may we each go on finding joy in having taken a few steps in the right direction and having a humility in knowing there are so many more steps to take. To Teaching.

Happy New Year to one and all.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

Season’s greetings to all, and to all a brrrrr! Well, almost brrrrrr. It’s beginning to feel a tad like Christmas just as Christmas is passing. I went out walking in my grubbies a bit late this Christmas morning. In the gray light of overcast dawn, a semi-bundled up runner came from the other direction. We looked like two rag bags meeting a Good Will station. He passed me with a breathless “happy holiday.” I replied with a similar greeting. It felt good. Another exercising stranger passed with a smiling exchange of “merry Christmas.” That, too, felt good. We have met before. We have passed in the twilight mornings before without a hint of greeting from their lips or eyes. Always my “hello” or “good morning” went unanswered. Not today. And suddenly I was struck the rest of my walk, by a touching message from my dear friend, Margo. She ended her message with the greeting: “I know Hanukah is over but may the light that is core to Hanukah shine brightly in your heart and the hearts of all whom you love, not only throughout the holiday season but throughout all of next year.”

“But throughout all of next year.” That phrase hung in the slightly chilled air, along with images of the seasonal greetings and smiles. And, I wondered. Why do we distinguish the holiday season from the rest of the year as if we live two lives? Why do we greet each other with smiles for a few days and then ignore each other the rest of the days of the year?

I think the true meaning of this season, the “light” of which Margo speaks, is not found in the temporary Menorah candlelights or electrified Christmas decorations. It is found in Dickens’ renewed Scrooge. It is a ethical and moral replacement of heedless into heeding. It is putting aside the dark, casual, foolish inattentiveness of busy people and replacing it with the joy of caring people paying close attention to each other. It means hark the people, not just the heralding angels. More importantly, it means to fully live out the season throughout the year long after the trees have been mulched rather than to confine it to a few basic gestures, a few simple greetings, a few bars of song, a few lighted decorations, a few cozy classic movies, a few parties, a few delicious dinners, a few wrapped gifts during a few days.

I think the essence of life is found in the nature of living. And so, too, as Claire wrote me, the essence of education is found in the nature of our teaching. Do you know that students, like most of us, yearn for good will, for respect, for being heeded. Do we harken them? Do we respond with constant and sincere glad-heartedness and glad-tidings? After all, we all have the same “title.” Professors and students, what’s the real difference. We’re all human being. So, when we enter the classrooms at the beginning of the term next year, will the real holiday spirit endure after the holiday season is over? Will we keep singing that yule tide refrain, “it’s the most wonderful time of the year?” Will the spirit of giving and kindness that catches on for a few week stay on? Will each day in the classroom witness one of those random acts of kindness that everyone writes about during the holiday season? Will we seek out the hurting eyes, fearful hearts, scared faces and replace them with smiles and thankful hearts? Will we dwell on the sorrows of “they aren’t like they used to be” or go out and make a difference? Will we do something for each student and feel that most wonderful feeling in the world? Will we make the classroom a special place? Will we make the classroom a festive experience? Will we make the classroom a better place for all of us? Each moment of teaching should be a random act of attentiveness and of kindness. Each day, from the first to the last, we should fill our cup with cheer; each day should be a cherishing of the promise of a new day; each day should be a gift of hope; each day should be greeted with an exhilarated “wow” instead of an resigned “ugh” or tired “whew.” Each day the magic of the season should be in our eyes, on our faces, and in our hearts. Each day we should go on campus, enter classrooms, meet students with love and uplifted spirits, treat students with dignity and respect and, yes, with brotherhood. Glad-heartedness is our secret weapon that too few of us wield.

Sound whimpy? Think it’s corny? Ready to pass the kleenex? Why? The feelings of this season mean the most when they are out of season. Our faith counts most when no one is counting. Why should the humbug Scrooginess before the visits of the ghosts prevail on the other days? Why don’t we follow the example of the Scrooginess of a reborn Scrooge? I don’t believe it is hokey to say we all should think and feel and act kindly about and towards students, that we should struggle to understand and be aware of and be sensitive to each of them, that we should edify each of them. I have never known of an unkind thought or statement that left a sweet taste in someone’s mouth, and I have never known of a kind thought or statement that left a sour one.

I don’t think kindness is hackneyed. I will tell you after a few heart-rendering conversations I had with a student and the student’s parents, after receiving a letter yesterday from another student, kindness is not a weakness. Kind teachers have the stronger relationships, the stronger bonds of trust, the most profound respect, the greatest love, the deepest faith, the highest hopes. They have the most happiness with themselves and others. They have the greatest pleasure of teaching–and living.

I can attest personally that the teacher who stands out most is the one who encouraged or discouraged with words, who was kind or unkind with actions. Who shall we be: nurturer or weeder? In what direction shall we push: up and forward or back and down? Each time we utter something, each time we do something, we have the power to heal or hurt, to enliven or deaden. There is nothing wrong about replacing hurtful attitudes with healing ones, discouraging words with encouraging ones, impovishing actions with enriching ones. Even if you merely go through the kindness motions, I warned you that the motions so often have a sneaky way of worming their way into your spirit, warming up your soul, and slowly are no longer mere motions. They become your being. They become true celebrations and you will feel a spiritual exuberance. And, I can personally attest that you will feel better about yourself, each student, where you are, and what you do.

And yet, so many of us make many of our classrooms seem like a world so distant from life that we use the differentiating term “real world” when we talk in our classes. We don’t see our classrooms in the “real world” or treat them as such. Maybe we each should struggle to ask what is important in the life of our classes. Maybe we live too much in regrets and anxieties. Maybe we live too much in expectations of fearlessness and perfection. We need to make time for the true complexity of celebration. We must want to know of student needs, get to know of them, and then know how to make a difference. It is our acts of kindness that can and do make the difference. And, I don’t necessarily mean grand gestures, for little acts can make great differences.

Maybe, like the great haiku poets in no more than seventeen syllables, we each should understand that the life of teaching, like life, itself resides in magnificent and palatial castles built of individual bricks of small kindnesses and events. We should define teaching in the small kindnessess and things of today’s incidental moments. We each should see the universe of teaching in small occurrences, capture that universe in one fleeting moment, and appreciate each one of them. Maybe when we bump into each other and ask how things are going, we shouldn’t try to speak of the grandiose or perfect or honors. Maybe we kindly should say it was enough to hear the students laughing as they entered class, and as they left; that it is enough that one student ventured to whisper an opinion; that it is enough that there was a momentary glint of confidence in a student’s eye; that it is enough that another student helped someone else; that it is enough that a student took one small step out from fear or despair; that it is enough that a student caught sight of hope. Our classes should be a universe of small things and we should savor the gift of small moments. I have found that in a universe of imperfect, small, and kind things, I am much more sensitive to the notion that what I do in this tucked-away room in a building on the campus of a less-than-prominent South Georgia school does matter to the world. The universe of small things allows me to heed, makes me believe in miracles, let’s me see miracles, the miracles of showing cynics that angels do dwell within each of us and among us every day.

We can take a lot for granted. And, so we do. We can’t take for granted what it is being a kind teacher.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra la….. I’m singing this in the middle of December! I walked out this morning in shorts and a cut shirt. Quickly tore off the shirt and threw it on the lawn after a few steps down the driveway. A confused amarylis stood tall about to bloom. An Azalea blossem peeked through a bush. Several Gallardia are flush from the heat with red blooms. In December? It’s supposed to be another 80 degree day today!! I’ve heard about the glowing warmth of the holiday season, but Mother Nature is taking it literally! It doesn’t feel like we’re on the right page of the calendar. It’s downright immoral that Rudolph’s nose should be red from a sun burn on the beach!!

And yet, while “Jingle Bells” seems out of place, “Joy To The World” does not. As I was walking through this unseasonal warm morning, I was warmly thinking about an event of joyful magic in one class a week ago. In fact, there has been lots of visible and vocal magic this semester. It’s sort of unusal. Maybe it’s the lingering impact of 9/11. Maybe it is just one of those semesters. Maybe it’s just this particular gathering of neat people. Maybe I just shouldn’t ask. Anyway, about this one piece of enchantment, it was the last day of the semester. It was the time we do closure. We all brought in an object symbolizing what experience each of us got out of the class and are taking with us. We went around the room, each of us standing up, introducing ourselves for the last time, and doing a show-and-tell about the object we brought in and the experience we’re taking out.

Then, it came Claire’s turn. It’s not her real name even though she has given me permission to tell her story.

She stood up, smiling. This was once shy, grim-faced, tight-lipped frightened Claire. She is a non-traditional student, mother, wife, and ed-major. When I greeted her at the classroom door that first day, it was as if she had a line from Dante branded on her spirit: “All hope abandon ye who enter here.” I watched her quickly sit in the far back corner of the classroom. I noticed she didn’t say anything to the other two students to whom I had introduced her and with whom she sat. I wormed my way though the chairs now scattered by chattering students, sat down next to her, introduced myself once again, and softly asked, “Nervous?”

She nodded her head. We small talked. I let her do all the talking. As I left, I softly and quickly tapped her the hand saying with a smile, “You’ll be fine. Smile.”

When we went on the day’s “Treasure Hunt” to find and introduce ourselves to ten people whom we didn’t know in the class to discover ten “unknown treasures,” I made sure Clair and I shook hands. When I asked her why she was a treasure, she couldn’t answeer. Each day I’d be sure to walk up to her, say hello, and engage in quick and friendly small talk. With a serious joking around, I’d always ask her kindly to smile.

Hesitantly but bravely I saw her take one small arduous, step after another: first standing up and telling us about the object she brought in to symbolize what she wanted us to know about her, then singing solo during class community building, then saying something during open class tidbit discussions, then reading to us from the community’s Dr. Seuss Book, then singing again for the Bruce Springstein Project, then donning a wig and costume and acting during the Broadway Project, then…..

I’ll just say that I read in her weekly journal and more than one occasion when she came to me to talk heard of her struggle to overcome the hidden blows that left long-lasting welts on her spirit. I read that she knew if she was going to be an elementary teacher she would have to break the mould, to become less shy, not as frightened, more studier and less fragile, more assured, less sad. All semester I had seen a growing twinkle slowly, hesitantly appear in her eyes. Ever more frequently, I noticed the appearance of an unrequested, guarded smile curl her lips and puker her cheeks. All semester I had seen a slow, struggling evolution of attitude, a shift in self-definition, a redefining of normal, a growth in self-confidence, a refocusing of faiths, beliefs, and hopes in and about and for herself.

Now she was doing closure. Standing up, in her hands she held an elongated box with a cellophane face. In the box was the cowardly lion from the Wizard of Oz on which was sewn a big red heart. Claire explained with a low, resolute tone how all her life she had been like the cowardly lion.

“You people, this class, Dr. Schmier were all my Dorothys,” her voice cracked. She hesitated. A tear appeared. She recovered, “I don’t believe I am getting so emotional.”

Water swelled in my eyes. She nervously went on. “I was like the cowardly lion when I came in here….Like the cowardly lion, I found my heart of courage here.”

My hands tightened around the chair’s desktop. Sudden everything seemed to slow down and stretch out. She told us she is still scared, still shy, still quiet, but far less then when she first entered the class. She told us that next semester she is going to carry that lion around with her in her backpack to every class so that when she falters it will be there to remind her how much courage she has within her and that she can rise to any challenge and overcome it.

“It’ll still be a long walk. But, now on I’m my yellow brick road,” she exclaimed with such quiet and triumphant joy. “I was once a scared and silent lamb. Now I know I can be a roaring lion.”

For a lengthy moment, it was like the night before Christmas and all through the classroom not a student stirred. Then, the class exploded. Everyone wildly applauded and cheered. More than one or two students rose from their seats.

Later I received a gift from Claire, a letter. I read it. I e-mailed her. We had a long electronic conversation. She agreed to let me share her letter. I do so as a reminder to us all, as I told an e-mail friend, that there’s more to each student then “student.” There isn’t one of these people who isn’t worth knowing. There isn’t one of these people who isn’t important to someone. The class should be less “class” and more important individuals. We should think less of teaching in a classroom and more of the lives in the classroom. It should be less homogenous and more a motely variety, an incredible mixture, as I often say, a gathering of “sacred ones.” It should be less a stolid olive drab and more a lively coat of many colors. Here is her letter without the confidential stuff:

——————————————————————————–

“Dr. Schmier,

I know this is not required, but I just wanted to write and let you know some things. I was sitting at my kitchen table Thursday night, thinking about closure in your class earlier. I knew your class had an affect on me, but I didn’t realize how much of one until we got into the class. As a new student who hasn’t worked or been to school in a long while until I stepped into your room, I never believed for a second at the beginning that I would be able to complete it. I believe it was a real blessing. Thanks to you, not only did I complete it, I overcame a lot of my fears. I was so shy and scared of social situations, and your class was just what I needed to open me up some. I will always remember the first time and the many times after that when you could tell I was on the verge of panic. I never understood how you knew. It was like you had some radar, but I will always remember that you came over again and again to ease my nerves. No else even cared in my family or at this school, but you did. That is really special to me because you didn’t have to. And you didn’t have to listen when I told you about……… I remember so vividly when you asked how I was I being a model for my children. Boy, did that hit home. It really went deep. Maybe that was when I began to struggle to see what you were seeing.”

“Your faith and belief and hope teaches by itself. I see that the essence of education is in your teaching. I had caged my hope a long time ago and had forgotten it even existed. It was painful to live that way; it was even more painful to try not to live that way. You made me realize that I had to breat the pattern for my sake and my children’s. I felt myself becoming alive as with your help as I came face to face with my possibilities. I have learned to be proud of myself and to never underestimate myself. I am so glad that I took this class when I did. I believe that your words and teachings have motivated me and given me the confidence to make it through school. I will take so much more with me from this course than just a history lesson. You are a true inspiration to me. I just wanted you to know that I am truly grateful for helping this cowardly lion find her heart of courage that I now see, like the lion, was always there. That loveable cowardly lion is going to be with me all the time. THANK YOU!!!! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate being treated like a human being. Thank you for seeing my humanity.”

“P.S. You will be seeing me. I’m going to take you up on that offer to be there to listen whenever I have to talk with someone.”

——————————————————————————–

That phrase, “seeing my humanity,” sums up what our educational sight should be. I recently told an e-mail friend that if we miss the sancity and dignity and humanity of each student, we’ve failed. If we try to straightjacket each person in the classroom with a single, confining, unhuman image or truth, we’ve failed. We should create an environment where any student finds possibilities in his or her self, where he or she becomes aware with those unique potentials. We should help soften the moment for each student. We should see every moment as a chance to get in, to catch it, and to change it. If we do whatever it takes to do that, we have done whatever it took for them and for ourselves. Whatever Claire now discovers is hers and as she stays the course she slowly will learn just how wonderously new she and her surroundings have become, can become, and will become.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

A very early good morning to you. They say joy to the world at this time of the year. I say, you got to be kidding. This is not a time for St. Nick. It’s the end of the semester. I have been gathering my strength this week upcoming challenge. No, I’m not talking about mountain climbing or off-trail biking or hiking in the wilderness or white water rafting. No, it’s final grades time! It is the most uneducational time of the year. Yuk! Double yuk!! For a good week, starting last Thursday for me, I will be sitting on the floor of my office, reading and re-reading almost 200 semester-long journals, pondering and repondering almost 200 detailed student evaluations of themselves and members of their communities, pouring and repouring over reams of my comments and notations, going over and over and over about sixty community portfolios filled with project stuff, thinking about, reflecting on, pondering, cursing, blessing, remembering, sneering, smiling, weighing, judging, wishing, juggling, agonizing, deciding, entering, and in more than some cases doing it all over again. No quick, get-’m-in-and-get-’m-out cold mathematical grade computation for me. My head will ache; my eyes will hurt; my muscles will stiffen. And, I don’t even give those meaningless final exams!

There is, however, salvation from these unseasonal educational Scrooges. I have Latanya’s words. Thanks goodness for Latanya. She’s like Dickens’s ghosts.

Remember Latanya? She was the graduating student, the aspiring elementary school teacher, who almost two months ago had asked me to “bless” her. Friday morning I had another chance meeting with her. I was walking away from the Student Union, passing the Library, towards my office. I was trying to coordinate the rhythm of my steps with movements of my arms so I could simultaneously walk, sip from a cup of coffee, and munch on a doughnut without toppling over. It was a balancing act worthy of the center ring.

There she was, book ladened, sitting on a bench by the fountain in front of the Library. She was taking in this early, unseasonal, summer-like, 80 degree December day.

“Dr Schmier,” she waved to me. “Come sit by me.”

“Not in the Library studying for finals next week?” I mischievously asked.

I walked over and almost before I could set my butt on the wood of the bench, she gave me a stern face. With a serious tone in her voice, an ever so slight smile revealing her feigned annoyance, “How can I? It’s all your fault. That was one strange blessing you gave me a while back. Do you know how you gave me and a bunch of people fits. Even my ed teachers didn’t think highly of it. I almost started hatin’ you.”

“Too negative for you?”

“I thought so at first. Not what I had been expecting. ‘Not exactly uplifting and encouraging,’ I said to myself as I walked away. But, coming from you, I knew better. I knew you had to have had a reason and that there was a hidden meaning somewhere. You know, a method to your madness as you always say. I kept asking, ‘Why for the life of me did this man throw so much negative stuff in my way?’ I talked about it with my room mates. They thought you were mean. Even my ed teachers didn’t think highly of it.”

“Me? Mean?” I asked with a playful smile. Maybe it was too playful.

Just as I was taking a sip, she gave me my “playful” back. I got a hard hit in my shoulder that sent splashes of steaming coffee across my face. I lurched to protect my lap and let the hot coffee drip harmlessly to the concrete. I think she deliberately timed her punch that way. “Serves you right,” she laughed. “You’re so maddening sometimes. Dang, you got me to thinking so much my head hurt, and I almost couldn’t study. Thinking about that blessing seemed at times to be so much more important than finishing a boring assignment. It got into my skin. That’s all I wanted to do. It was dang uncomfortable and troublesome. Then, I took it as a challange to figure you out. You know, it became exciting. I wanted to talk about it. My roomies almost threw me out ’cause I was annoying them so much. None of the teachers would say anything. The more I thought about it, though, the more I saw that you got me doin’ the blessing!”

“Still think it was negative?”

“No, I don’t think it was negative, although a lot of people would look at it that way. They’d think you were cursing me. It’s how you look at things.”

I smiled. “What way do you look at it?”

“Well, you left me a question mark instead of a period. If I knew what you meant, I wouldn’t have thought about it so deep and have learned so much from all that thinking.”

“What did you learn?”

“If I feel something is easy, I’ll believe I know how to do it. If I believe I know how to do it all, I’ll take it for granted and won’t be learning and growing much from doing it. It’s like what you said in the syllabus, can’t learn to climb mountains by practicing on mole hills. If I did otherwise, I’d be taking it easy, just be lazing around munching on a couch and getting fat. I won’t be bouncing up and about and staying in shape. If it isn’t uncomfortable or a struggle, I’m not doing anything. I won’t be on the edge. I’ll be dead! It’s exercising my abilities and getting muscled up. That’s what you meant when you always told me that ‘it’s being hard is what makes it important.’ Right?”

“So far.”

“Well, I figured you wanted me to see that if I’m afraid of making mistakes, how can I let the students go off on their own and try stuff. Making mistakes is part of learning. I should’ve known that right off. It’s what our class was all about, stretching tight beliefs about ourselves to get loose. If I don’t do that, I won’t try anything new and make room for new stuff. I just can’t be afraid of screwing up. I just have to believe in myself and have faith. But, I remember you saying that every day of every class is something new even if the title is the same. So, I got to try not to be afraid of trying changing around what I do to deal with every new situation and person. I just can’t stay with what the book and professor says to do with all the students all the time. That’s part of the struggling. How am I doing?”

“So far, so good,” I quietly answered as I thought to myself, “Pearls,” and furiously struggled to burn every word she was saying so eloquently into my memory banks.

“I’m gonna make mistakes. I ain’t perfect. I learned that in my short life. But, you helped me to see that I shouldn’t cry over it. Fallin’ down don’t mean I can’t walk. If I screw up doesn’t mean I’m a no good screw up. I shouldn’t let it get to me. I can’t let it stop me. Nothing wrong with messin’ up unless I don’t learn from the errors of my ways and get better. It’s like teaching myself to explore new ways and new ideas. I use them to keep myself fired up and excited and interested, not get bored and stale. I shouldn’t breakdown and cry about them. Done that too much already. I should use them to breakthrough my fears and see more of myself and what I can do and needs doing. You want me to buckle down and buckle up because teaching is one big adventure full of surprises that I shouldn’t be afraid of. How am I doin’?”

“Say all that again,” I asked her as I struggled to memorize her words, making sure she noticed the admiration in both the tone of my words and my body language. She did. “Couldn’t have said it better.”

She looked at me and smiled.

“Guess I turned out to be a good student in spite of it all like you said I would.”

“You turned out to be a good person because you lived that blessing and didn’t know it until now. That’s more important. And as you live what you just said, you’ll also be a hell of a teacher, and a blessing to each of your students.”

We both had tears in our eyes. We hugged. Wished each other season’s blessing. She left, climbed the steps to the library, and I sat there furious writing on whatever I happened to have in my pockets.

It ’tis the season to be jolly. In the quiet chaos of my office, with Latanya’s help I won’t let the grinch of grades steal that spirit. The second I feel the chill of this green grump’s joyless unchristmas-like, unchanukah-like, unramadan-like, unkawansa-like approach, I’ll read Latanya’s words. I will read them as if I was carefully unwrapping a precious gift. Then, all will be calm, all will be bright.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

A very early bird good morning to you all. It’s a gray early morning. A slight nippy mist is in the air. As I walked, up from below came a wormy issue. I started writing on the slate sky reflections of bits and pieces of a conversation I had Thursday afternoon with a colleague.

I had been sitting on a brick bench for a while, a long while, encouraging and assuring a very shy Maria (not her real name) who was scared about standing before the class during her community’s upcoming presentation.

After our talk, I walked across the street between buildings to get a cup of coffee from the Vice-President’s office. As I passed a “young” colleague–they all seem young now, and that is scary–from another department who was sitting on another bench, he said to me, “I’ve been watching you. You talked a while with that one student. Where do you find the time?”

I stopped, sat down, and said, “The same place where I find the time to stop and talk with you. I make it and take it.”

“You don’t get tenure and promotion around here talking with a student who doesn’t care or has a lot of problems.”

“So, I guess that one uncaring or problem student isn’t important enough to have the time for?”

“I didn’t say that. I don’t mind taking time with a student who cares about learning.”

“Ah, the ‘easy’ student. The one like us. Aren’t many of them around. Never were except in wishful dreams…..Aren’t all those students who need your guidance to learn about caring to learn and how to learn just as important, maybe more important, than the ones who supposedly know it already? I don’t think we should selective care about the one student who suits us. We have to care about all the students, one at a time. After all, ‘all’ is nothing but a series of ‘one at a time’s’”….

“Yeah, sure. What can I do with one student? Change the world?”

“Yes!! ……

“Sounds good. People say you’re such a romantic. Now I believe it. And if you do all that you say, which I don’t think you can, after you’ve dealt with one student, there’ll be another and another and another. With our teaching loads, it’s an endless, time-consuming line, not to mention being thankless.”

“With any teaching load……” I felt as if I was in a fencing duel: thrust and parry, thrust and parry, thrust and parry. “Sure it’s ‘always.’ The way to ‘always’ is only through today, and the way to ‘many’ is only through ‘the one.’ It’s a life job ahead of you that’s through each day. Just because you’ve worked with one student doesn’t qualify you rest on your one laurel for the rest of your career. There will always be others, and each will be different. The most important thing we do as teachers is deal with the challenges thrown out by each student.”

“Do you think that student you just talked with really appreciates you just stopping and taking the time to talk with her?”

“If you saw her eyes and read her body language, you’d know the answer is ‘Yes.’ She appreciated that I noticed her and cared to take the time to care, again. This isn’t the first time we talked. Besides, I’m not sure appreciation is a requirement for caring.”

“You see. You’ve talked with her more than once. Here’s one student and you had to talk with just her more than once. You don’t have any guarantees that you’ll do any good and not have wasted your time.”

“I did good for myself. But, if you want guarantees, buy a car. I do have a guarantee though. I will guarantee that nothing will change if I don’t struggle to help her to struggle to change herself.”

“I’m not sure anyone around here cares whether you help a student or not. They don’t even notice. It’s such a waste. I sometimes think it’s not worth either the trouble or the sacrifice.”

“I don’t believe that for a second. People may not say anything, but they notice. Anyway, you don’t it for a handshake or medals. Looking important to someone else is not a requirement for helping a student. Doing important is. You know, I think the real test of being a teacher is not the students; it’s…..”

“Louis,” he interrupted me. “Got to go to class to help all those poor students who are just standing in line asking me to be their father or preacher. Don’t take this wrong, but I’m sure glad you’re not mentoring me. I’d never get any work done.” He smiled, and while slightly shaking his head in disbelief, got up and walked off.

What I wish my young colleague would understand is that in each of us lurks the great teacher even if we don’t know it. I was going to tell him that the key to being a great teacher is to recognize that teaching comes with constant trials and challenges and tests and ordeals.

Then again, he’s young. Heck, it wasn’t until this last decade of my thirty-eight classroom years that I began to understand. Before my colleague cut me off, I was going to tell him that I think the ultimate trial, the paramount challenge, is to let go, surrender control, cut the puppeteering strings, become public and vulnerable to another, lose yourself to another. I have discovered that as I stopped thinking primarily about myself and both my personal and professional self-preservation, as I gave myself to the higher moral objective of helping another person, as I broaden my field of concern beyond my personal few acres, as I left the one parochial world I was in and went into less insular one, I came to what was missing in the world I formerly inhabited, and I slowly underwent a transformation of awareness. For so long I had been thinking one way and only with in the last decade have I slowly began thinking another way. My perceptions changed. I found out more about myself as I went on my inner journey. I found I had a higher nature than I thought I had. I found I was a different guy than I thought I was. As a quality of character I didn’t know I had appeared, I perceived what could be done. And, I found myself compelled to struggle to achieve it. And what I did slowly changed as my perceptions slowly changed. It wasn’t something I chose to undertake. I was thrown into it. I didn’t intend it, but I was in it. And, to my amazement I was ready for it and could eventually handle it, but hadn’t known it. And none of it was either instant or easy! Still isn’t!!

You know it asks somewhere in the Koran whether anyone can get into the Garden of Bliss without having experienced trials. And, somewhere in the New Testament it says great is the gate and narrow is the way to life. So, I don’t see devoting time to, encouraging, supporting, believing in, having faith in, having hope for a student such as Maria is a waste. Life evokes our character. With each student, I found and still find that I find out more about myself. Helping that one student puts me in a position to call forth my higher nature rather than my lower. It offers me the opportunity to perform great deeds rather than consigning and consoling ourselves to impotence. It energizes me to act rather than allowing me to tranquilize myself into a benign passivity. So, I think that each student potentially is both that gate and way for each of us. Each student is a trial to see if we teachers should really be teachers, if we are up to the task, if we have the perseverance and endurance and capacity that enables us to squeeze through that narrow way.

The great teachers I have known and with whom I mingle are not great by virtue of their fabulous lecturing, their vast bank of information, their inventive teaching method, the length of their resume, the height of their position and title, or the breadth of their renown. Great teachers are great by virtue of their virtue. Their greatness comes by way of and through another person. I think the ultimate measure of greatness of a great teacher is that he or she is on a visionary journey during which an urging voice always calls: “teach that one student.”

And what is it we teach? If we as teachers have any gift to offer a student, it is a transformation of how he or she thinks of him- or herself and of those around him or her. That gift is a key to unlocking his or her own treasure chest, to guide him or her to his or her uniqueness, to help a student write his or her own song, choreograph his or own dance, design his or her own structure, sculpt his or own image, brush his or own painting, to wean him or her off a lifeless life of dependency to a richer and more rewarding independent life. That means we must complicate and complex our view of ourselves and complicate and complex our view of students. We have to see vast diverse individuality and be exposed to the very guts of life, and embrace the possibilities and excitement and pleasures of that life. We have to retain the flexible poetic sense of wonder and awe of that “one student” and resist its reduction to an inflexible pedagogical prose, to a code, to a creed: this is the way you have to teach students.

And to do so, we need a fine ear, a keen eye, a sharp mind, a sensitive heart, all honed as finely as a chef’s knife to cut through the opaque stereotypes to reveal the wonder and majesty of the individual, complicated, and complex human being. Only then can we speak soul to soul and have the possibility of reaching and touching with our teaching as well as being reached and touched ourselves.

Teaching complex and teaching complicated is teaching made each day from fresh ingredients gotten by spending a lot of time roaming among the individual stands at the market, not from a box of ready mix. And if we do, I can assure you we will experience deep happiness and walk through the gate into education’s Garden of Bliss.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–