Random Thoughts: Those Pithy Quotes

Have you noticed how so many of us do love our high sounding quotes about education and teaching? We page through Bartlette’s to find them. We underline them in books and articles. We excise them from speeches. We throw them out. We paste them on our doors. We mount them on our walls. We write them into our syllabi. We cite them on our web sites. We configure them into our e-signatures. And then, too often, too many of us fundamentally ignore them, thinking, to paraphrase the Bard, the quote doth make the educator.

Does it? Really? There is a risk, a threat, a danger, a challenge to embracing these snappy phrases and sentences. We offer up these quotes as examples. Examples of what? Of what we are? Of what we aspired to be? Of what we wish we were? We have to be careful that these quotes don’t come back to bite us, that they do not reveal too much or too little of us. We obviously want others to read them, but do we really read and re-read them ourselves once we’ve cut and pasted? We wouldn’t want to create an apparent contradiction between utterance and deed that drags such quoted eloquence from the depths of the profound into the shallows of sloganeering, that so emptys the words by empty action that they become rhetorical gloss, or, as Macbeth might say, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

Do we live them? We should. The guide is there in those words. We have only to think about the advice and the direction they offer, and then have the humility to see if we are following them ourselves. They should be the lyrics for our soul’s song, the rhythm of our body’s energy, the panorama of our true vision. Do we use really them as catalysts, stimulants, guides, magnets, road maps, beacons? Do we use them to set the mood, create the climate, choreograph steps, deepen understanding, do good works?

Do we live them? We should. Do we really give thought to them beyond their rythmic and melodious sound? Do we hear their beckoning call? Do we use them to initiate those critical and crucial inner conversations with ourselves? Do we use them to resonate?

Do we live them? We should. I have this strong feeling that these quotes so often are glimmers of shadow beliefs, hidden hopes, our secret “if only,” our muffled “I wish” on which we too often are afraid to shine our light and on whose path we dare not risk be seen walking.

Do we live them? We should. Do we let them get under our skin and itch our spirit? Do we feel challenged by them and struggle to rise to their occasion? Do we use them to focus. Do we really understand, want to understand, ponder, search, reflect, for example, when we quote someone like Mark Twain who said “I never let school get in the way of my education?”

Do we live them? We should. Do we use them as a catalyst for giving thought, a lot of thought, beyond the snappiness, to the questions, “who am I?” “what is an education?” Or, do we get our high-sounding quote first and then interpret it as we please to certify the validity of what we are already doing? Sometimes, I wonder if we merely post and inscribe these quotes as the false certainty and security of a Linneaus blanket, as masks behind which we hide ourselves, and as costumes in which we dress ourselves.

Do we live them? We should. Think of what Abigail Adams wrote her husband during the American Revolution. She said something to the effect that we need active participants, not inactive spectators. There are too many high sounding words, she wrote, and too few actions to correspond with them.

Do we live them? We should. There is so much power in a quote for someone who cares to look and hear, to see and listen. When you read the words, you should exclaim, “Ah, this is my story. This is something I always wanted to say but didn’t have the right words.” The quote should bring forth something that is waiting to be brought forth. It’s purpose is spiritual instruction and emotional direction. The quote speaks of potential. The quote doesn’t render the experience; it suggests it. You have to experience the words to catch the message. Otherwise, you’re not hearing what is said.

Do we live them? We should. We shouldn’t just mount a guote. That’s not reflection. Thinking about why you mounted the quote is reflection. Thinking about how you live or can live or will struggle to live the quote is reflection. After all, we carry our quality in our manner, not in our posted words. Our character is revealed in doing the right things, not saying the right things.

Oh, don’t forget to read the quote in my signature below.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

What Is Commitment?

I came in from my chilly pre-dawn morning walk to read a short but warming message from a student about whom I had been thinking for the past couple of days: “I’m home now. It turned out okay. Wanted you to know that I’m okay now. Thanks for being only one there to listen. And thanks for your commitment to people like me……” She wasn’t okay a few days ago. I’ll just say when she called not too long after the sun rose. It was a call out of the proverbial “blue.” She isn’t even in one of my classes this semester. I hadn’t heard from her for a while. As I remember, we hadn’t talked all that much when she was in class a year ago. Now, she was hysterical. She had been crying all night. I don’t think I was the “only there” for her, but at this moment she thought so and that made it so, and I was there. I mostly listened, occasionally consoled, calmed, helped her to believe there were others for her, and ever-struggled to gently guide her to a counselor and futilely to overcome her resistance. After what seemed like days but was only a little more than an hour, she finally said she could handle her situation now, thanked me for listening and for the few words of support and encouragement I could muster. After I hung up the phone, I grabbed a cup of coffee, walked outside, and sat quietly by the fish pond listening to the waterfalls.

As the soothing sounds and melodic movements of the Koi gently massaged my muscles and soul, I suppose I could have said, “I don’t need this.” Before I could think such disavowing, her mention of commitment started to haunt me. I realized that the biggest challenge any of us as teachers face is to maintain a sense of urgency, to pursue each day as if there is no tomorrow, to create and seize every opportunity, to be constantly on alert, almost taut, while being patient and calm enough to stick with it through the thick and thin for however many tomorrows it may take. Each of us, without exception, has within us the power and ability to meet every challenge teaching throws at us. It’s called our heart, spirit, soul, whatever. If we focus it, aim it, we can stick it out rather than get stuck; we can keep it up rather than get down; we can continue to breathe deeply rather than run out of breath; we can keep control of our lives rather and lose control over them. Our heart is a tool, and powerful and essential tool. It becomes our reality. It envelopes; it visulaizes; it shapes; it guides; it directs; it keeps our balance; it will take you anywhere we want to go; it works every day to find a way to make for us a world of teaching that we want. That takes a constant belief in what we’re doing, a constant faith in the value of what we’re doing, a vision of where we’re going, a sincere confidence that we’re doing whatever it takes to help as many others help themselves as we can, and a deep-seated trust in and a knowledge that anything worthwhile takes time and more time and still more time. All–and that is a heck of an “all”–it takes is commitment to an other.

What’s commitment? Well, if I was a dictionary I would list: attention, focus, vigilance, persistence, responsible, responsibility, inconvenience, perseverance, endurance, belief, believable, integrity, appreciate, capable, faith, faithful, uncomfortable, hope, respect, respectful, expectation, meaningful, valuable, enthusiasm, fearless, confidence, determination, gutsy, sweat, forgiving, hopeful, will, willing, possibility, opportunity, responsible, responsibility, dream, courage, desire, understanding, trusting, trust-worthiness, promise, authentic, care, love, intentional, action, strong, determination, searching, powerful, effort, sacrifice, painful, joy, time. And, after having received this message, worth it.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

A Few Lessons From the Garden

I was listening to an National Public Radio program yesterday. The discussion was how gardening is an “aerating filter” and a “lens sharpener” about life and all its fascets. Maybe that’s why, as an avid amateur gardener, I like to use my garden as analogy and metaphor of my teaching. I can borrow from my garden to help my teaching grow.

I was grounded by the boss these past few mornings. Too cold. It was back down into the high twenties. Not today. Goosebumby low forties! I was out as fast as whatever comes to mind. Four miles in forty-four chilly minutes. After my return, as the sky grayed, I went on my usual morning “garden patrol” to see what I had successfully protected against the icy air blanket that has been coming and going over my yard this past week. I know what one of the writers meant when he said that if you focus on one area of the garden, you can see what has changed overnight. I’ve been watching my newly planted roses. Along the driveway, I have been desparately covering them with black garbage bags at night to protect them against our late freeze’s attempted death blow and uncovering them so they won’t roast in a hot house effect. A white plastic tent, taped to the dogwood trunk, looks like a Mothra like tent catipillar cocoon, as I struggled to protect the amarylis field from this freeze’s last swipe. In the back yard, the wrapped huge phildenrons look like something out from the Invasion Of The Body Snatchers.

Ah, now that winter is coming to an end, it is beginning to feel and look like winter. Runny, stuffy noses, reddened eyes adorn the classrooms. Hacking coughs resound across the campus. Chilly. Windy. The cold snap has left the ground bare. Everywhere my gardens look like they are in ruins. The early Azalea flowers have the look of tiny balls of crumpled crepe paper. A white powdery frost covers the line of rabbit’s ear. The stalks of individual blooming amarylis, deceived by the early warmth and lulled out from their slumber, now are sadly deflowered. Blackened and colorless spider plant hang limp and lifeless. Twiggy grape vines strangle the uprights of the percola. Frost-bitten regal lillies leaves are draped in drooping, mushy clusters. Shriveled and browned African daisies sag defeated. Leafless woody sticks of old echinea and Autumn rudibeckea stems topped by empty starburst seedpod protrude from undug beds. The bare, stick-like branches of the dogwoods are distant from the time they were blossoming with south Georgia “snow. The dazzling leafs of Persian Shield are crumbled. All are memories of last spring and summer’s glorious color.

They may be memories. They are also promises of next spring and summer. And so,I have to honor the heart of heartless winter. It is not, as a poet reminded me, a seasonal shank. It is not a period of death. It is not a period of darkness. It is not a somber season. It is not a season that doesn’t belong. It isn’t a dormant season. There is beauty in the sublime and subtle. A dark, cold winter day can be just as beautiful as a warm, sunny, summer day.

We told that this is a time of rest. And yet, there is restlessness; it is a time of preparation; it is a time of anticipation. Beneath the surface, it is a time of life. As an avid gardener, in the midst of this cold I have to have warm visions. With a faith, hope, and belief in the coming Spring and Summer, I am rooting, tilling, nurturing, toiling, trimming, planting, transplanting, seeding, culling, and crafting.

In the midst of the colorless, I have to see that priceless, special colorful magic is occuring. My patrols are exercises in noticing. I look around in awe and can see, if I look for it, all of the possible colors that will soon explode. In the midst of the shriveled, I see a swelled engagement in life. I can see slight evidence of seedlings poking out from the ground. I had a feeling of being overjoyed this morning at the goosebumps peppered my skin. At first glance everything seems in discouraging stasis. And yet, everything is moving joyfully forward. I walked through what I saw was a vast field of an unimaginable amount of potential, of hidden becoming, of secret process, of silent opportunity, of subtle growth, of sublime change.

I suppose I could complain about the freeze and feel sorry about myself that my garden wouldn’t be as glorious as it could have been. Of what value would that be. The freeze reminds me that if I want magic to occur every day in my garden, I have to work at working magic. The freeze doesn’t matter. It is how I deal with it that does. Running from the challenge of the freeze would only yield excuses, blames, and regrets. I suppose I could have stayed in the comfort of the fire that blazed in the den and merely bought some replacement plants. I am not sure I really would have been comfortable with doing that. I don’t think that would have lasted too long. Too much comfort can smother my life as a gardner. And, there are many times, as this freeze reminded me that I have to unwrap myself in order to wrap the plants, that I have to step up to commitment, that I have to help make it happen, and not merely plan or dream or wish about or watch or look forward to or look backward at or talk about or criticize.

Yeah, I suppose I could have been annoyed at having to cover the newly planted rose bushes in the chilling darkness with cold, wet hands that began to numb, to bag individual amaryllis stalks, to struggle to decide how to protect seedlings, to fashion those plastic cocoons. But, why waste all that energy being annoyed and feeling unpleasant when I can see how all that effort will give me a fuller, genuine experience of gardening that is much more valuable and fulfilling than the empty pleasures and temorary comforts of buying fully grown plants from some garden shop. The freeze in a way made gardening this year more exciting. The freeze merely strengthens my commitment and perseverence to the garden. It won’t be an empty trinket this season. The garden, I assure you, will be more rewarding. The sense of accomplishment will be greater. The sense of gain larger. How do I know? In the midst of this dreariness, as I unwrapped the protective covering there are about me signs of coming magnificance if I look for them: the Gallaridia and Echinechea seedlings in my cold frame, a cluster or two of green leaves of a peeking Asian lilly tightly hugging the ground, new spines forming on the rose bushes, the clumps of Daylillies. They all tell me that in the midst of the winter’s chill, I should not dismay.

All this demands that in this chill I be warmly optimistic about summer’s coming warmth. These are for me a few lessons from the garden. I can’t only focus on the garden I desire. I have to focus on the efforts necessary to make it a reality. So many of us cringe and shiver and complain in the chilling, dead of colorless winter in each student rather than see the vibrant potential of colorful birthing spring in each of them.

I just got hit with a thought as I thought I finished. It’s not the beautiful garden I want. That I can get by hiring a landscape architect. That’s like getting something for nothing. Emptiness. What I want is to be a good gardener. After all, the garden can be taken away by a freeze, a dry spell, a fungus, an insect, a critter. But, my efforts to be that good garden does not depend on them. My strength, confidence, belief, hope, faith, commitment, perserverance and love to be a gardener will always be with me. Maybe that’s the true lesson of the garden this freeze has for my teaching.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

It’s Supposed To Be Hard

It was one of those off-the-scale Richter 9+ seismic weeks. Even the weather had it’s tidal ups and downs. Walking one warm morning when we were talking about air conditioning the roach hotels. The next morning we’re installing heat in them, deicing mosquito wings, and picking peach melba off the trees. Freezing and overcast one day, sunny and delightful brisk the next, rainy and stormy the third.

So, how do I describe one of those proverbial weeks “that was.” The Olympics! We just finished watching the Olympics. I especially like the speed skaters and figure skaters. and ice dancers. They were something to behold. So gracefully melodic and flowing, gliding along over the ice making every thing look so deceiving easy. As Susan and I watched them, we wondered if it was as easy as it looked, why isn’t everyone a speed or figure skater. Of course, the answer is easy. It isn’t easy. It’s hard. It took a lot of hard work, a lot of effort, many long hours, lots of trial and error, to look easy.

Deep down we all know that. That’s why we appreciate them and other atheletes at their level. And yet, so many of us in the classroom don’t want to know that. We decieve ourselves saying and thinking, “That looks easy. It must is easy. All we have to do is put on a pair shoes to which are attached glorified razor blades, don our ice tutus or skin suits, and gracefully skate on the rinks of the classroom and come out with gold every time.” Well, looks are deceiving and so many of us deceive ourselves. And, then we wonder why their medals prove to be made out of pyrite.

Well, those practioners of easy teaching wouldn’t have lasted a minute last week. Until ten years ago, having been one of them, I know I wouldn’t have. I would have run away with a “I don’t need or want this.” Yeah, it was a week of highs as the communities sung their Bruce Springsteen Project and worked on sculpting the new forthcoming Rodin Project. If it was a high week of ecstacy, it was also a low week of agony. It was also a week which reminded me, as someone once said, that just because you bury things deep inside you, it doesn’t mean they decompose. I can’t and won’t say much more than this past week students dug up a lot of that stuff in themselves. It was a week of early morning and late night calls at home and long conversations after class and between classes. It was like taking a one-a-day crisi pill. Was the full moon out this week?It seemed so. It was a week of a lot of sitting by the fish pond meditating, sipping wine, being held by my Susan. It was a week of tears and heavy breaths, deep thoughts, and long sighs. It was a hard week, a heart-wrenching week, a “took a lot of effort” week. In the end, however, I got an e-mail message and a telephone call that said it was a high value week, and, above all, one hell of a worth it week.

For me it was a reminder that “hard,” “effort,” “value,” and “worth it” go hand in hand. When it comes to research and preparing conference papers and publication we all would agree. When it comes to teaching, however, I’m not sure the same unanimity is there. Too many of us want a life of easy teaching. The practioners of easy teaching are too quick with their “it’s not my job,” “I don’t want to know about the studnets,” “I’m not priest or parent or councilor.” Maybe they wish upon the easy star so they can devote more time, energy, and effort to their “more important” scholarship. Nevertheless, when it comes to teaching, they violate what I assert are the three distinct but inseprable natural laws governing achievement that they studiously obey in pursuing their scholarship. The first is the Law of Hard. The second is the Law of Effort. The last is the Law of Value.

You know why so many k-12 teachers are treated as amateurs instead of the hard-working professionals most of them are? You know why teaching is placed at the back of the bus on higher education campuses? It is the prevailing false assumption that teaching easy. It is the delusion that everyone does it and anyone can do it. Expect teaching to be easy, you’ll look for ease and you’ll do easy. Believe that teaching is effortless, you’ll put in little real effort. Believe that the ability to teach is common as pebbles, you’ll not see the gems and you’ll treat it as valueless. Since nothing that is valuable is easy to create much less to do, to think that teaching is easy and that anyone can, therefore, do it, is to devalue and deprecitate teaching and those who engage in it. And so, k-12 teachers who “only” teach are so often unappreciated and maligned by so many “know-it-alls.” We higher education academics, however, are “lucky” enough to have an outlet and be able to engage in respectable and appreciated research and publication, and identify ourselves as professors and scholars.

To think that teaching is easy is succumbing to a seductive Lola. You hear her whispers and you are convinced you can turn lead into gold like some alchemist; you think you can get something for nothing; you think you create something timeless by putting in little time; you think you can train with little if any training; you think you can teach without having been taught; you think you can do a lot with little preparation; you think teaching one of these “all you have to do” snap of the fingers; you think all you need are some lines in a resume or some letters before and after your name; you think all you have to do is walk into a room, stare blankly from a detached distance, talk–and poof in a cloud of mystical smoke, you’re teaching.

Not this week, or any other week for that matter. But, especially this week.

There is a difference between appearing to do it and actually doing it. Easy teaching is mouthing; hard teaching is putting your money there. Easy teaching is going through the motions and being a distanced animated piece of technology; hard teaching is being human and humane. Easy teaching is being deaf and blind; hard teaching is seeing and listening. Easy teaching is tight control; hard teaching is providing freedom to students. Easy doesn’t come from the heart and it hardens your heart; hard does come from the heart and it softens your heart.

If teaching, like anything else, is worth what you put into it, then easy teaching makes it all seems so worthless; if teaching is fulfilling by what you pour into it, then easy teachimg seems all so empty. You teach easy only if you’re doing just enough; it’s hard if that is not enough. Teaching is easy if you’re a hamburger-flipping fast food cook, it’s hard if you want to be a five star chef. Teaching is easy only if you’re accepting average; it’s hard if you want to excel. Easy teaching is almost like conditional commitment to do only to what is convenient and comfortable. In one place, never-moving teaching is easy; traveling from here to there teaching is hard. Most of us in higher education were just thrown into the classroom without have to do anything to get there. Little wonder collegiate teachers are unappreciated and teaching at colleges and universities is depreciated. Going into the classroom, not getting involved with the students, presenting a lecture, leaving the classroom, giving computer generated tests is not teaching. It does, however, make room for that all important scholarship.

“On our campus,” someone recently told me as we discuss the tenuring criteria of his institution, “teaching is separate but equal to research and publication.” Separate but equal. Where have I heard that before.

Want to know a secret? Easy teaching is hard on those who think teaching is easy. I have yet to see anyone who thinks teaching is easy really think teaching is truly worthwhile and worth it, much less worth their time and effort. Teaching is for them joyless, empty, meaningless, valueless, purposeless, visionless. To them it’s a job, routine, dull, inanimate. For them it really doesn’t make a difference; it’s ho-hum; it’s drudgery. Maybe it’s an absence of sincerety and commitment. They probably won’t admit it, but their eyes, body language, and vocal tones speak otherwise. They chronically moan and groan, rant and rave, accuse and blame, and envelop themselves in dark mists of doom and gloom when they come face to face with the challenges of teaching. They degrade those who don’t make the grade, lower their lights because the students aren’t the brightest, judge people they so often misjudge, and dishonor anyone who doesn’t have honors. They laugh at others’ dreams to rationalize their own nightmares.

It’s not that the teachers who know teaching is hard have any fewer disappointments or frustrations or distractions or interruptions than anyone else. They don’t. Maybe more because it hurts only when you care and are involved. The difference is that they expect teaching to be hard. They are perseverers; they are overcomers; they are excuse busters. They know those downs sides are going to come their way, but they aren’t going to slide all the way down them. They know, however, those frustrations don’t make teaching any less magnificent. To the contrary, they don’t lose the lesson of the moment when they “lose.” They know that the value of teaching, like anything, is based directly on the effort it takes to do it. What good is teaching without true effort? It’s of no value. The value of teaching is in the effort to do it. To have value without effort is impossible because the effort is the value. It’s like trying to get to a summit without training for the climb much less making the climb, and being unwilling to endure both the rigors of the training and of the arduousness of the trek. It’s tht journey thing/

Easy teaching, hard teaching, are far more a matter of attitude than of skill and knowledge. It’s a matter of choosing to be unwillingness or willingness to do whatever is necessary to be in a position to help. It’s easy to slide the down side; it’s takes effort to soar up the upside. Of course there are obstacles, problems, challenges. It’s easy to bounce off of them and be stopped. It’s hard to find and decide which to use of the countless ways around those obstacles, to solve those problems, to meet and overcome those challenges. Easy or hard: discouragement can discourage; it also can encourage. Easy or hard: setbacks can set you back; they also can set you on your way. Easy or hard: things can go wrong, but there are the possibilies in them that they can set them rigtht. Easy or hard: be boxed in the safe box or step out of the comfortable box. Most easy answers are traps that demand serious compromises, disengagements, retreats, and surrenders. Now, easy may be okay over the short run. The problem with that is that the run is short.

The Laws of Hard, Value, and Effort say that the more you teach, the harder it is; the harder it is, the more effort is required; the more effort you put it, the more value you get out; and the more value you get out the more important it is. These laws say judge your success by what you had to give up and put in in order to get it. Violate any of those laws, ignore or deny any of them, and paradoxically teaching will be weightier. No secret; no technological contraption, no cleaverly designed pedagogy. Just hard work and lots of effort. Hard means it’s important to you. It means you care. Hard can hurt; you will stretch. It can be painful; you will grow. It can be uncomfortable; you will change. It can demand some sacrifice; you will be transformed. It you’re not growing, you’re not teaching hard. You just stuck in the mud and atrophying.

Too big a price to pay? Well, you don’t get quality in bargain basements. If there was little or no price to pay, where is teaching’s value? I find, especially having gone through a week such as this last, it’s worth whatever price. If you take the difficulties as they come, build on that by seeing past the pain of the difficulty, you’ll see the affirmation of purpose and beauty teaching can bring. A lot of hard work–and that include faith, belief, hope, and love– goes in between the planting of seed and the reaping of a rich havest, between the first putting on of skates and competing at Olympic levels. It’s the working harder and putting in more effort that makes it look easier. No, different with teaching. We all should expect and demand of ourselves and others that teaching should be no different.

I just don’t think value is determined by salary or title or renown. It’s not determined by a promotion or granting of tenure, both of which usually don’t have much to do with quality of teaching anyway. What’s the reward? Well, I don’t think teaching is about taking. Teaching is about giving. I don’t think teaching is about myself. Teaching is about something larger and beyond myself. It is in the giving to something beyond myself that I create the value from which to reap. Teaching is about making a difference in someone’s life. The real and lasting wealth of teaching comes from enriching the lives of others, from making the world better place because you are around whether anyone realizes it or not. This week it came home that the more I can make a difference, the more I can create joy and confidence and beauty, the more I can comfort and provide meaning to others, the more joy and beauty and meaning there is in what I do and in my life, professionally, personally, materially, and spiritually. Now, that is hard teaching, effort teaching, value teaching.

You want teaching to be valuable? Obey the laws. Look for ways to make a difference. Bring some grace into the world. Look for ways to give. Act on them. Then, the obstacles aren’t monumental. Heck, they aren’t even obstacles. They become the moments that stay with you and live in you. They will last deep inside you where it really matters. They will be an affirmation that though teaching maybe hard and demand effort is very much worth teaching.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–