I received a message from a professor at a southwetern university who took exception to my final teaching “MUST”: to prime good feeling in each student. “Higher education is be brain-based. There is no place for emotion. That’s New Age, feel good, touchy-feely nonsense.” I have to admit to ignorance. I never did really understand what “brain-based” meant unless it was an exclusion of the autonomic system in our body. I hope it does not mean to exclude the emotional curcuitry of the prefontal-limbic area and amygdala of our brain which makes our emotion just as “brain-based” as our intellect.

I never have thought it was an “either-or” situation. It’s a case of “and.” While the intellect and emotional neural systems are separate, they have intimately woven connections. And while academics place a high premium on the intellect, while most academics see emotions as too personal or measurable or “unassessable” to talk about in a meaningful way, emotion plays a powerful role in both the teaching and learning processes. Einstein once said or wrote a warming: we should be very careful not to worship our intellect. However powerful it may be, and however important it may be, it can only serve. It cannot lead.

Of course, we need analytical and conceptual thinking. Sure, we need technical expertise. If, however, we rely on purely cognitive abilities, we’ll never have the whole formula. Einstein’s caution tells us about missing a critical part of the equation. If you’re only in your “head,” you will not inspire, motivate, guide, and persuade. You cannot empathizing. You will not be in touch with other people’s feelings. It’s the “heart” that empathizes and moves people. It’s the “heart” that dreams, has faith and hope. It’s the heart that loves. It’s the heart that generates excitement, creativity, imagination, courage, enthusiasm, commitment, perseverance, and passion, as well as creating an atmosphere of trust, respect, and worth.

Of course, the flip side is that relying solely on “heart,” too much of too nice, that touchy-feely stuff everyone throws out, can make the teacher just as clueless as being totally in his or her “head.”

I’m not talking about extremes, for anything carried to its extreme, head or heart, is dangerous and/or ineffective. No, it’s a matter of meeting and joining and balancing “head” and “heart,” intellect with emotion, thinking with feeling, knowledge and mood.

The truth is: no teacher can soar on one wing. Neither can any student. No one can.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

I went for a walk this pre-dawn spring morning. It is spring, you know. Know how I know? No, it’s not the surge of color emerging from the ground. No, it’s not the fact that not too long ago we interfered with Mother Nature and made that artificial chronological earthquaking lunge forward. No, it’s not that the winter darkness is slowly receding. Our south Georgia spring alarm clocks have gone off with the jolt of a loud, awakening buzz. It the mosquitos. The place is already abuzz with these bat-size buzzing suckers.

I am a morning person, a very early morning person. For me, like birds and bushes, one early morning hour is worth two during the rest of the day. With every step in the murky darkness, I see see crystal clear. My spirit has a sharpness that cuts through the south Georgia mugginess. I can step back and experience the joy of who I truly am. In the serene darkness of the morning I can see so clearly that it defies the shapelessness of the night. It’s a place where I can quiet my mind and stir by soul, where the cluttering distractions which seem so overwhelming in the light are so insignificant and trivial and silly, where I can go deeper into the awareness of being here in this moment, where I can step away from the worries, the fears and the doubts. It is a powerful, refreshing, energizing place–this dark stillness–where, free from the frenzy chatter and clatter of the day. I can see that most of the day’s frenzy and distractions are there because I let them swirl around me and distract me and prey on me. On the dark street, I can focus my awareness on what is truly important to me. I especially needed that this morning. The last fews days have been a lesson for me that the more tumultuous and uncertain the world around me is, the more important it is to nurture a real and abiding peace within me. When there is trouble outside me, it is more important than ever to have peace within. Misery serves no one, accomplishes nothing, creates no value. It is saddening, souring, weakening, ineffective, painful, and useless. Negativity adds to the darkness and makes the world a lesser place. Serenity adds to the light and makes the world a better place. It is effective, joyful, empowering, helpful, compassionate, sweet, kindly, creative and positively positive.

And, as I power walked my six miles at about eleven “clicks” (bragging time), it came to me that all this is at the core of my formula of “MUSTS” for teaching and learning that I been hunting the last few days. A student mistook the table at the Union where I was devouring a glazed doughnut for the fountain. Without going into details, she wanted “no more than ten SHORT (her emphasis) parts” of my formula for teaching. I asked her if I could give her a formula “for student learning.” She agreed. This is what I am going to e-mail her today. My formula has little to do with the practicing. It has everything to do with the practitioner out from whom comes the nature and form of the practicing. My formula for learning has eight components:

First, each day I MUST create opportunity, and never lose an opportunity handed to me, to get to know these students and let them get to know me. I must be real, a real person. I must be genuine. I must enter into a personal encounter with students without presenting a facade or a front or a role. I can’t be mere animated curriculum. I must be myself. I must not deny or hide myself. I must meet the student on a person-to-person basis.

Second, I MUST care and love. I must value each student’s humanity. I must do so not so that I step in and own and control, but so I step back, release and provide freedom.

Third, each day I MUST go into class wanting to make a difference. I must make it my choice to do it, not because someone says I must, not because someone says I should. I do it bcause I feel an inner “must.” Nothing I do will ever happen unless I give it a shot: nothing wanted, nothing attempted, no “dirtied hands,” nothing achieved.

Fourth, I MUST believe I am going to make a difference, to make what I’ll call “a positive” difference. What I see is what I get. When I look any students as a problem, I will get them. When, with those powerful four words of belief and faith and hope and love, I see a person filled with possibilities and opportunities, I will get them.

Fifth, each day I MUST look for and seize any opportunity to make a difference. I must invest my precious time in connecting, not distancing; in creating value, not devaluing; in trusting, not distrusting; in respecting, not disrespecting; in accepting, not rejecting; in praising, not condemning.

Sixth, I MUST pay close attention, intense attention, to students’ feelings. It is vital to have an empathic understanding, to be aware of the processes of education and learning as they seem to a student. I must accept the legitimacy of his/her fears and hesitations, of his/her personals feelings and desires and motives, of the outside and distracting “noise” that mixes in and contends with the “music” of the classroom.

Seventh, I MUST be patient. Making a difference takes time and continue effort. There are no quick fixes, magic wands, miraculous puffs of smoke. Things come in time when you give the time and make the effort. It is tough to begin, I tell the students. I also tell them that it is just as tough to continue. Patience is strength at rest. It is high energy without high tension. It settles the turmoil. It turns the ugly into something beautiful. It gives meaning to the apparent meaningless. An artist knows all about this.

And finally, and most important, I MUST create a climate to make the student and myself feel good. The prime purpose of a teacher is to prime good feeling in each student. The weather of a classroom will largely determine whether anything else will work.

Must I always hit the mark with everyone? I’d like to, but I know the answer is “no.” Nothing is a 100% formula. If, however, I want guarantees that my “musts” will become “wills,” I’ll be standing on the corner forever, doing nothing but waiting, and nothing will come my way. Falling short of the mark is always possible any time I take aim. Yet failing to hit the mark is a guarantee if I never take aim at all. A successfully businessman, whom I highly respect, once told me, those who achieve the most are those who attempt the most. Those who are told “yes” most often are those also who have been told “no” most often. It’s a lesson a lot of us on our campuses need learn.

Gotta get ready to hit my garden. Putting in almost a thousand caladiums today. Colorful yummy!!

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

I am going to play pop-psychiatrist. I often wonder why people lose it on the highway. After talking once again with a colleague yesterday, I think I may have an idea. My colleague practices what I am going to call “class rage.” Maybe in broader terms I should call it “campus rage.” She doesn’t think she is very effective and powerful in “the system.” She thinks the system is too large and complicated for her to influence. She doesn’t think she can make any difference. She thinks it is extraordinarily impersonal. She doesn’t feel the system trusts, values, or respects her. And, she reciprocates the feelings with disbelief, deep suspicion, lack of faith, even a sense of forelorn hopelessness. She feels the system is running roughshod over her. She sees herself, maybe victimizes herself, as an unappreciated, tired, overworked victim. She thinks of herself as a voiceless and invisible and lifeless “unit” in the system. She let’s every little setback in and outside the classroom get to her and drag her down. Her attitude is one of frustration and resignation. She’s calm on the surface, but beneath she quietly stews and seethes. She is confident on the surface, but I get the feeling that is only a mask. She takes stands safely sitting down and out of sight and earshot. She is void of sincere bubbling enthusiasm, excitement, and energy. She feigns enjoyment. She doesn’t have fun. Her eyes don’t sparkle. Her steps don’t dance. It’s rare to see her smile. She goes through many a motion. She does just what she feels she has to do. She sees no reason to go beyond the proverbial call of duty. Her eyes are on retiring and “getting out of here.” She goes into the classroom with a “let’s get it over and done” feeling very much like many students. Every now and then, she throws a “how can you…” or a “don’t you know…” at me. She buries herself in her research, in what she calls a “commitment to the discipline,” to find solace and meaning. She thinks the world of academia is unfair. Her quiet anger is a powerful messenger of her sense of powerlessness that pushes aside all others and has a voice so loud and a light so bright it drowns out and blinds all others. And, in word and deed, she silently–and sometimes not so silently–bangs on the steering wheel, blowing her horn at the students to let off steam. In various ways, to various degrees, she is taking her frustration and anger out on the students. Her attitudes and actions toward the students are symbolic curses she is actually hurling at colleagues and administrators–and maybe herself. It’s the students she is wildly honking at, cutting off, and running off the road. They are the only ones she feels she has control over and give her a sense of control. In the process, she is doing to them what she condemns the system for doing to her.

She dosn’t admit to any of this. It’s sad. It’s painful to hear and watch her. It is something that is difficult to contend with. She is so talented. She is so caring. She has so much to offer. She can make so much of a positive difference in the lives of others. Don’t judge her. There’s a little bit, and sometimes more than a little bit, of her in each of us.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

I want to talk this morning about miracles, miracles of life, large miracles, great miracles, profound miracles, mysterious miracles. It was a miraculous week last week, wasn’t it. Two great religions last week each celebrated holidays of great miracles of life that are at their cornerstone: the Passover and Easter. Last week, my angelic Susan and I celebrated a third miracle of life that though more common than the parting of the Red Sea is no less worthy of trumpeting celebration. For an entire week, we cradled in our arms our first grandchild: one week old Natalie Virginia.

I didn’t want to tear myself away from her and return to campus. When I did return and poured though a heap of piled up e-messages, I noticed something strange. Scattered through the three hundred or so messages, and for reasons unknown to me, as if there was a secret conspiracy, a much of people independently asked me virtually the same question: “When do we hear about the polish on your pinky nail?” I haven’t mention my pinky nail is quite a while. I don’t know what prompted these peole to ask. Maybe it’s time. That nail, too, is a story of the miracle of life. It is a story of the resurrection of a valuable life. And, I am not embarrassed to say that I get up tight everytime I think about it or tell it.

You know, as teachers, though we may be powerless to stop life from unfolding the way it does, we are not powerless to help each other go through whatever happens and provide a listening ear, a timely touch, a gentle hug, a soothing word or a kind and thoughtful act. And, we are not powerless to choose how to react to life’s whims. Maybe, in the long run that’s the lesson of “my story,” of the story of my painted pinky nail.

But, I am getting ahead of my story. I suppose I better start at the beginning. The beginning is January 6th, 1995, the first day of the winter quarter. We were in my 9:00 a.m. first year American history class. I was beginning to experiment with techniques to forge classroom community. The first exercise I had at that time was to group the students into clusters of five or six and have them engage in a biographical interview. The interview was the first step of a then week-long process of breaking barriers among students, building bridge among them, and forging a classroom community. It was what I called “getting to know ya.” Believing that the process included shattering the wall that often existed between me, the professor, and them, the students, I had to be a part of the class rather than stand apart from it. As the interviews began, I sat down with one cluster, and began interviewing and being interviewed. This group of students decided to pair off. I was paired with Kim. She was an eighteen year old, first-year, African-American, “developmental studies,” student.

In those day, “Developmental Studies” was a nice way, a jargon way, a politically correct way, of saying “remedial.” At that time, in spite of my many protestations, it really meant that no one truly gave a damn about students like Kim, that we had no confidence that they were woven of college material, that we were bowing to the political pressures that demanded every student have access to a college education, that we really didn’t take any responsibility for their success, that we’d go through the motions of overcoming their deficiencies by putting them in a remedial math or English course or two while we threw them to the academic wolves in other courses, that we’d take their checks for a year, that we would then suspend them, and that we’d then blame them for the failure of our self-proclaimed “herculean effort.”

So, there was Kim and I asking each other usually conversation provoking questions. I asked her, “If you were a plant, which one would you say you are and why?” She answered, “A weed because I can’t never be a pretty flower.” I asked her, “If you were a material, what would you say you are and why?” She shot back, “Rough sandpaper, real rough, because I always rub people the wrong way. I asked her, “What’s your most memorable childhood experience.” She replied, “Ain’t got none.” I asked her, “What is your biggest regret?” And she sadly answered, “Bein’ a mistake.” With each heavy answer to these light questions, my antennae shot up higher and higher, and my detector went on full alert. Then, we came to the next question.

At the time, I didn’t know it was THE question:, “What is something you would like to stop doing.” Kim hesitated. Then, in a near whisper, she leaned over and said, “I’d like to stop drinking.”

This time I struck up a conversation, “Why do you drink?”

“To have friends….and to get rid of the stress. But, I’m no alcoholic. It just started in high school.”

“How long you been doing it?”

“About three years. Started in when I was in ninth grade. No one knew because no one in my family cottons to drinkin’, but no one would really have cared if they knowd no how..”

“Will you take a drink today?”

“Already did. I’m stressin’ about being here in college. I’m the first one in my family. Everyone is so supposedly proud of me. First, time anyone has really noticed me. I can’t let anyone down.”

“Going to take any more drinks?”

“Probably.”

“Well, don’t,” I said, not knowing at the time I was doing an Al-anon approach with a tone that I didn’t at the time realize was smart-aleckly. “Don’t take another drink today. Don’t worry about yesterday; don’t think about tomorrow; just think about today. Tomorrow, when you come to class, I’ll quietly ask you if you’re clean. Just take it one day at a time.”

She looked at me. Her surprised stared was quickly followed by a giggle as you giggle when you feel a combination of fear, hope and embarrassment. Then, it came her turn to ask me the same question.

“Dr. Schmier, what is something you would like to stop doing.”

Without thinking, for no reason I can to this day offer–sometimes you just don’t ask a why– I blurted out, “I’d like to stop biting my nails!” And, I stretched out my hands, palms down, fingers stiffly spread apart.

Now to understand what I was saying, you have to understand that unlike Kim, I admit I was an addict. I wasn’t just a ferocious nail biter. I was a nail-oholic. I was like a hyaena gnawing on a dead carcass! When the nails were gone, I went after the cuticles. My fingers looked like a war zone, so ravaged they would have qualified for Marshall Plan aid. Without exaggeration, I couldn’t remember a day in my life of fifty-five years that I hadn’t bitten my nails. A day never had passed that I could remember when one or usually more of my fingers wasn’t hurting, bleeding, or infected.

“Why do you bite your nails,” Kim asked.

“I don’t know, but there must be a reason. Just a bad habit, I guess” I quietly answered.

“You gonna bite your nails some more today?”

“Sure.”

“Well,” Kim went on with a seriousness I didn’t really hear. “Why don’t you just not do it. Don’t worry about all them years before you bit you nails and don’t think about that you’ll bite them tomorrow. Just don’t bite your nails today. And tomorrow, when we come to class, I’ll asked you if you’re clean. Just take it one day at a time.”

I put my hand to my face, squeezed my cheeks together and covered my mouth so I wouldn’t utter the not so nice thoughts about Kim and her proposal that flashed through my mind. Now it was my turn to giggle as you giggle when you feel a combination of fear, hope and embarrassment.

I thought at that moment that neither one of us thought much of our mutual challenge or offer of assistance. I thought neither one of us thought the other serious. I knew I didn’t. As was my practice, after another interviewing question or two, I excused myself and moved on to another cluster.

In those days we had bells to announce the end of the class period. Kim’s cluster was by the doorway. I was on the other side of the room in the far corner. My back was to the door. The bell rang. The students jumped up to rush out of the classroom. Kim was among the first to the door. She stopped dead in her tracks, causing a thirty-five student piled up, turned, and yelled so loud you could have heard her over the din in Atlanta.

“Dr. Schmier. Dr. Schmier.”

I turned. She looked right at me with a desperate seriousness.

“If you stop biting your nails, I’ll stop drinking.”

Thirty-five pairs of eyes turned towards me. I could feel the heat of their laser stared. Damn! Trapped! I could feel the sweat oozing from my palms. My lips tightened. My stomach went into a sudden spasm of my stomach muscles. A wave of nausea. It was “one of those put your money where your mouth is” times. I answered a quieter and nervous, “Okay.”

Kim smiled. No, she beamed. Her eyes lit up. “Good, we’re clean.” With that affirmation, she turned and rush out the door.

That night I learned what withdrawal is. I went through the DTs There were stubble marks on the bathroom walls. They would have been claw marks if I had nails. I took so many cold showers, I looked like a bleached prune. I had not so nice thoughts of Kim. I dug my finger stubbles deep into my cold, sweaty palms. I bit my lower lip until I almost drew blood. I grimaced with achy desires to nibble at the stubble. How many packs of gum I went through I don’t know. I paced. I cursed Kim. I went to the computer to distract myself, but I was up and down like a proverbial yo-yo. I went to bed wearing gloves. I tossed and turned and sweated. I had not so nice thoughts of Kim. I only hoped she was having the same agonies. It would be sweet revenge and justice, I thought to myself. Through the entire night my angelic Susan lovingly held me, talked with me, stayed up and played backgammon with me. I got through the night–barely.

The next morning, Kim walked into class with a “You clean Dr. Schmier?”

“I had a sleepless night, but I’m clean,” I proudly answered through my tired fog. “You clean?”

“Sure ‘nuf. I didn’t sleep much either,” Kim replied with equal pride.

Both Kim and I went cold turkey that day. For six weeks, day after day after day, we asked each other at the beginning of the class, “You clean?” For six weeks, day after day after day, we each answered with an increasing sense of accomplishment, “Yep.” For six weeks, day after day after day, we exchanged stories of our agonies, challenges, near-slip ups, need to support each other. Sometimes I called Kim; sometimes she called me.

Heck, I couldn’t cheat even if I wanted. The entire class knew. Kim had spies everywhere. Students in others classes somehow found out and they’d ask if I was clean as I walked the hall or entered the classroom. I couldn’t walk campus without hearing a “You clean, Dr. Schmier?” coming from somewhere uttered by a strange voice. I’d be munching on a sinful doughnut in the Student Union and a student, a stranger whom I had never seen, would pass me with a warning, “Only the doughnut, Dr. Schmier, not the nails.” I’d be in a store or walking in the mall and someone would come up to me with a warning, “Don’t cheat on Kim.” Even my Susan would check up on me nightly like some warden.

My nails were so thin they’d flap in the wind like wings and nearly lift me off the ground. Not being accustomed to any length or to hanging in free space, they’d droop over the tips of my fingers. They’d break, crack, crumble under the slightest pressure. They were always ragged. The temptation to sin, to nibble, to rationalize that I could use my teeth like an emery board to smooth out the jaggered edge, to break my promise to Kin was always there. But, the constant image of Kim with her struggle not to secret a nip meant I had to take an emery board to the ever- ragged nails rather than my incisors.

After four weeks of being cold turkey clean, after four weeks of agony, I decided to give myself a present. I went to my wife’s manicurist. Christa took one look at my war-torn, scarred fingers, and nearly fainted. Out came the heavy duty stuff. I think she would have used a jackhammer if she had one. The Himalayas were nothing compared to height and granite-hard scar tissue. As she worked on my cuticle scar tissue, she commented she felt she was carving a marble statue. With every sweep of her file on my nails, she said it was like working with wet tissue paper. After about an hour and a half, she surrendered and said, “That’s all I can do for now. It’ll take six months to get your nails decent.”

Then an impish impulse overcame me. “Paint my right pinky with that ‘whoreish- looking’ purple polish.”

“Why?”

“I have my reasons.”

“I know why,” Christa slyly smiled. “Susan told me yesterday you guys argued about you wanting a tatoo and she not letting you get one. Now you’re getting even.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I smiled back. She was right. That evening, in spite of my Susan’s obvious displeasure at the sight of my pinky, I felt so proud of myself. Then, just before I hit the bed I heard a devilish voice in my ear. “Why don’t you celebrate, Louis. You deserve it. What will one little nibble do? No one will know. You really deserve a reward for all that you’ve gone through. It won’t hurt.” I resisted that tempting voice for about an hour. Then, I surrendered to that satanic whisper. I raised my right hand to my mouth.

Now, before I go farther in this story let me stop so you’ll understand was immediately happened. I am totally right-brained. I am total left-handed. I would gladly give you my right hand. If I did, contrary to biblical implication, I wouldn’t be making any great sacrifice because I’d never miss it. Everything I do begins and ends with my left hand, and that included biting my nails. I always, I always, I ALWAYS first bit the nails on my left hand. This time, however, for whatever reason–I don’t ask–I first went to my right hand. Just as I was about to sin, I saw that pinky painted in that “whoreish” color, thought of Kim, thought of how I would feel betrayed if she was doing the same sort of celebration. I hesitated. And, I put my hand down. That night was a night of cold showers, gloves, sweat, nails digging into my palms, tossing and turning, and of more backgammon.

The next day Kim came into class, grabbed my hands, looked and said, “Dr. Schmier, you…..” She interrupted herself, leaned over almost putting her nose to my pinky, quickly asked in amazement, “what’s that shit on your nail?”

I told her the story. Her eyes filled with tears. “You need me, don’t you.”

“I guess I do. We need each other to do this.”

“Nobody has ever needed me before.”

And so it went until the end of the quarter. Kim’s confidence grew. So did her self- esteem. So did her performance. She slowly became a leader in her “triad.” She slowly came out from her shadows. She slowly silenced her silence. She slowly dared to go to the heart of her heart. A faint glow appeared and slowly brightened. A few of the students appeared in class with painted pinky’s, asking Kim and me to help them break their habits, some were very bad habits.

On the last day of class, we do closure. It is the day each of us, myself included, in every class reflect and share on where each of us has been, how far we’ve come, and, hopefully, where we’re going. We share what the class meant and what we are taking from it. As it turned out, the last person to stand up was Kim. She arose, tears streaming down her cheeks, and silently held up an empty shot glass in one hand and a bottle of nail polish in the other. The class went wild. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room. We all applauded, cheered, hugged.

On April 6th, three months to the day, since I last had my fingers in my mouth, I found a simple handwritten letter lying matter-of-factly — almost camouflaged — amidst the cluttered landfill of my desk. I almost didn’t notice it. That would have been tragic. I picked it up nonchalantly and started reading it. With every passing word, I realized that this was a letter not to be read casually. It was from Kim. I slowed down. I stopped halfway through, took a deep breath, wiped away a tear or two, unwrapped a Tootsie Pop, and finished reading, grabbing at every word through the haze of my glassy eyes.

In my wallet is a typed copy of that letter. Actually, it’s about the twentieth copy. The original is in the safety deposit box at the bank. I always carry it with me. It is not a letter that I read casually. I read it frequently to myself and to others. I usually read the letter as the coda to my story of Kim and me when students and other people invariably ask me about the nail polish on my right pinky nail.

I saw Kim a few days a week during the spring quarter. We’d always greet each other with a “You clean?” And, we’d both answer with a proud, “Yes!” Contrary to expectations, Kim “hung around” the college after that semester. We saw less and less of each other as the quarters passed. She left the remedial program, became an ed major, and graduated with a high GPA. I like to think I had something to do with that.

Since that term, my pinky is always painted. I change the color every week or so. It has become a symbol of “my story.” It has become more than a bond between Kim and me. It has become a symbol of my commitment to be that person who is there to help each student help him/ herself to become the person he or she is capable of becoming. And when I falter, I look at that painted pinky nail and think of Kim. That nail, every day is my “maintenance check-up.”

Make it a good day.

–Louis–