Think “Mosquito!”

This morning I learned what it is to have your entire life flash before your eyes. On my walk, as the black, pre-dawn, heavy humid-filled air filled my lungs, and I thought I was drowning. Getting caught on the back leg of walk in a soaking downpour that had flash flood written on every teeming drop didn’t help. All of this impending doom was also threatening to get in the ways of some reflections I was having of an extended e-conversation with a distraught “virtual” Australian friend during which up came the ole problem of the ole “system.” Seeking solace, she felt overwhelmed by the complexity and vastness of “the system.” She expressed an undermined confidence: “It’s too complex for me…..There’s nothing I can do….I have no choice….I have to act in a certain way….I feel outnumbered….The ‘system’ is too big.” She ended her description of her situation with a resigned, “What can I do? I’m just a very small, insignificant cog in a vast system.”

Then she asked, “How do you not let the ‘system’ overwhelm you?”

“I know exactly how you feel. I once felt that way and let the system get to me,” I admitted to her. “But, now, I think ‘mosquito,’ especially when I feel that tingling of the ‘system’ breathing down my neck.”

Before she could wrinkle her virtual nose in bewilderment, I continued. “Whenever I think I’m insignificant and can’t make a difference, I remember that I’m in south Georgia. I go have a talk with a tiny mosquito.”

I explained that a lot of us talk nobly about being part of something that is larger than ourselves, of following a sincere higher mission or having an authentic higher vision or having a genuine commitment of serving others. And yet, when it comes to “the system” of which we are a part, we talk of this largeness in ignoble terms of being trapped, threatened, isolated, devalued, unappreciated, controlled, and diminished into impersonal, servile and compliant submission.

That was me, too. For over a quarter of a century, I had looked at the challenge posed by imposing “the system” and used it as a bank in which I deposited and from which I withdrew excuses, rationales, and explanations. I accepted it rather than challenged it and filled my life with silent regrets. I blamed it when things went wrong and filled my secret thoughts with resentment. I used it as a reason to stop and to hold myself back, and filled my spirit with hidden feelings of failure. I always bragged how I used the system and ignored how it was really pushed me around, used me, misused me, abused me. I looked at “the system” in a way that defeated me, or, at least, limited me. It was convenient. I could look at it and not at me. I could blame it and I didn’t have to take any responsibility.

A tad over a decade ago, without realizing it, I began to “think ‘mosquito,'” although I didn’t verbalize it that way. I began to change my focus. I slowly began to look closely at myself rather than survey “the system.” At first, what I saw was not a pretty sight. I began to point fingers of responsibility at myself rather than fingers of blame at “the system.” And, that was not a comfortable thing to do. I discovered that when I had been talking about the system, I was so often really talking about myself. I was not a victim of “the system.” I had victimized myself. The system didn’t dictate my behavior. I did. Or, at least, I gave “the system” permission to dictate to me. I was a prisoner of my own perceptions and thoughts. As I peered deeper inside me, I began to see a prettiness. I slowly realized that my success, achievement, happiness and fulfillment all depended not so much on “the system” and “others” out there, but rather on how I chose to view both myself and them. I saw that the most powerful and important control I have is over my own thoughts and actions. And, when I exercise that control, nothing has much control over me. I found, like all artists, it is through that self-control, from which emanates self-expression, that my greatest possibilities can be realized. So, I began writing a covenant with myself to “think ‘mosquito.'”

Paradoxically, when I think of that tiny, insignificant, pesky pest, I find myself thinking significant and big–and maybe pesky–instead of thinking of the big system and feeling puny. I slowly realized, as I told my students yesterday, that the source of all possibilities laid within me, in my mind and heart, not in “others” or in the “system.” I stop feeling surrounded, outnumbered or overpowered. I “just” let go of that feeling, leave it behind, grab hold to new feelings, and get started. As I took one small step after another, one day another, I began to understand that I have a very important role to play; I started valuing my worth and uniqueness; I began appreciating me; I slowly knew that I can rise about the annoyances and frustrations; I got that feeling that I can deal with the difficulties and get around the obstacles; I gained confidence that I can make it happen, and that nothing and no one has to stand in my way; and, I cut myself away from the herd.

It’s not easy, but nothing worthwhile is easy; and, it’s well worth getting that feeling of worthiness. It makes a difference and allows me to make sure I make a difference.

So, I think ‘mosquito.’

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

Say, Do, Feel

As my feet rowed through the heavily humid morning air, I felt a tinge of poignancy. I won’t tell you what triggered these thoughts other than say that unexpectedly I had an extremely heart-rendering and highly confidential telephone conversation with an ex-student. And, then, something happened in class yesterday. At that moment, the two touched like wires on a hot line. There was a proverbial spark. A jolt of juice went sizzling through my soul. I was reminded of how time after time after time students so often will forget what you have said. They will so often forget what you’ve done. They never forget how you’ve said something or how you’ve done something. They never forget how you’ve made them feel. How you’ve treated them is burned into the emotional memory of their souls.

That’s the foundation of education. For better or worse, positively or negatively, the fundamentals of teaching and learning rest on relationships. Most students don’t really care about what you know; they do care about who you are.

We cannot live only for ourselves. Like a spider’s web, a thousand fibers connect us with each student. And, on those threads our actions vibrate one way and revirberate as effects and impacts. In one way or another, we must realize that each of us makes a difference with our life. Each of us impacts the world around us every single day. We have a choice to use or not to bother to use the gift of our life; we have the choice to make someone around us and hence the world better or worse.

Nevertheless, those relationships are pivotal to the climate and culture of every classroom and are by their very nature profoundly emotional. I’ll go out on the a limb and say that, like it or not, know it or now, in this human space we call the classroom or campus, we teachers are emotionally “significant others” to students in a variety of ways. We so often are looked to by students to set the tone, create the mood, to be honest, to be open minded, to be fair, to be trustworthy, and to be concerned. We have an obligation not only to know and to do and to say, but also to feel. It’s the kind of thing that makes the classroom skies stormy, cloudy, or clear.

Let’s be real. To the distanced and disinterested, the climate isn’t always apparent to the naked eye. It takes a discerning observer to detect the real conditions in the air. Whether seen or unseen, the emotions are at the foundation of the way we each experience our individual realities. Why shouldn’t it be as true in the classroom as it is elsewhere. It is. Teaching is a part of life. It’s not apart from it. Even if we pretend emotions are as wanted in the classroom as foraging south Georgia mosquitos, they aren’t pesky interlopers. They’re imbedded at the heart of teaching just as they are at the heart of any and all human relationships.

The emotional qualities of these relationships make a great deal of difference. In evaluation after evaluation after evaluation students say they did or learned to do whatever it took to accomplish when they felt “wanted,” “respected,” “noticed,” “valued” “cared about,” “listened to,” “comfortable,” “belong,” “empowered,” “at ease,” “heard,” “hopeful,” “appreciated,” “acknowledged,” “respected,” “good about myself,” “understood,” “worthy,” “trusted,” “happy,” “proud,” “satisfied,” “secure,” “unafraid,” “noticed,” “encouraged,” “believed in,” “part of a community,” and so on. These interpretations of the interaction between me and them, as well as among them, as they said, affected their confidence, creativity, imagination, motivation, passion, enjoyment, appreciation, enthusiasm, outlook, expectations, growth, change, commitment, perseverance, dedication, self-esteem, self-confidence, willingness to do whatever it takes, willingness to take risks, striving for excellences, and ability to achieve.

There is something very personal in being devalued or values Teaching is not just a technical or technological or intellectual practice. It is an emotional practice. It is a human practice. Students and their future careers are vulnerable to the attitudes and approaches of their teachers. When we are disbelieving, dispirited, cynical, pervasively suspicious, distrusting we dim the chances for confidence and optimism in students. It bad enough that most students come to us in higher education with the experience of little more than a manipulative “power over” style of teaching and learning. It bad enough that they already have deprivating educational battle scars and open wounds from which ooze their self-confidence. And, then, we professors so often increase their angst; we freshen up their stale memories and experiences; we continue their torture of a thousand cuts; we open new wounds with addition discomfort, unfairness, favoritism, control, manipulation, disinterest, hurt, humiliation, threat, disrespect, invalidation.

When teachers harm students’ belief in their personal selves, there is fallout. Some dropout; some change their trajectory; some go to other institutions; most play the game by hankering down, silencing their voice, keeping their heads down, resignly surrendering their hopes for an exciting and inviting classroom experience, seeking identity elsewhere outside the classroom. Too often the music of the educational spheres resounds with dissonant primal notes of fear and resignation. And, the entire institution is consequently impovished.

When we balkanize knowledge and technique and technology and emotion, when we separate student from student, when we build chasms between us and students, we create an emotional disconnection. It is what Neitzche spoke of as the “horror of the unobserved life.” It is the pernicious appearance of what I call a hobbling “threatened and pressured self” that encourages students to hold back, not to take any chances, and to play it safe. That is, when a student thinks his or hers is the is “unobserved life”–alone, invisible, unheard, and unappreciated–a debilitating culture of fear, distance, disconnection, isolation, and mistrust appears. It can be subtle, masked, overt. However it is manifested, students begin to act like threatened prey. The eyes start stealthily moving back and forth searching for way to lessen the threat, the muscles go taut ready to evade a predator, the senses go on alert to minimize the danger, body movements are camouflaged to blend in with the scenery and avoid attention, and there emerges a negative, constricting, and restricting “what will they think” and “what does the prof want” self-surveillance. You know, word travels fast on the student grapevine and “emotional vine.” The student who says something in a discussion with which the teacher disagrees, or asks a question to the dislike of the teacher, or does an assignment that doesn’t meet the expectation of the teacher and is rewarded with words and gestures of displeasure, censure and even humiliation, quickly learns a painful and paralyzing lesson from others and from personal experience: “Don’t try anything ‘too imaginative,’ don’t be ‘too creative,’ don’t take the risk because if it fails, you will be sorry. Just find out what the prof wants and give it to him or her.”

But, in a climate of closeness, authenticity, personal interest, appreciation, belief, faith, hope, encouragement where a web of connections comes from above and beside, where a student knows he or she is in a friendly community where he or she is seen, heard, approved of, and appreciated, the bolstering what I call the “blessing of the observed life”–a culture of courage and creativity– appears that leads to better practice and more creative risk-taking based on the expectation that the student is safe, no matter how what the student does turns out. Where there are kept at arm’s length, where there is what I call an “emotional embracing,” a self-generating, a thriving and boundless emotional energy “flow” has a better chance of appearing and doing its marvelous work.

Emotion, I have found time and time and time again does matter. It matters to students. It matters because it should be a matter of concern to our understanding of learning. The will, the spirit, the desire to do it, to go on, the personal power to do whatever it takes is first and last a fundamentally emotion driven phenomenon. The wise teachers knows this and respects the powerful potential that lies therein.

Students so often will forget what you have said. They will so often forget what you’ve done. They never forget how you’ve said something or how you’ve done something. They never forget how you’ve made them feel. How you’ve treated them is burned into the emotional memory of their souls.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

Three-humped Camels

Yesterday afternoon, as I was subconsciously still going over a series of serious conversations I have had this past week, I found myself momentarily watching the U.S. Open. I don’t know why I stopped at that channel. I am neither a golfer nor a particular golf fan. As an ex- collegiate soccer player, the World Cup is more my cup of tea than is the President’s Cup. As good luck would have it, I caught some commentators and interviewees. Something they were saying struck me. They were talking about how the “best” were not being devoured by the “beast” of the Bethpage’s Black Course. The difficult challenges and the daunting obstacles led them to adjust and adapt, to reach deeper and higher, to become–in my words–a club-wielding St. George.

Because of my discussions, those observations took me back to a Thomas Friedman op-ed piece that ran in the New York Times a few months ago. In it, Friedman had made a spoof comparison of golfers and the key players in the Middle East tragedy. No one in the sport of golf, he observed, is afraid of compromise or change. On the contrary, golf is a game where the very best players engage in never-ending self-criticism, self-reflection and self-correction, constantly adapting to changing conditions on a course, constantly adjusting to different conditions on different courses. That’s all they talk about. Friedman observed that even the best golfers remain teachable. I would add that they are the best because they never lose that teachableness. There is a great haughty-eroding humility in that. They spend a lot of time looking at themselves in the mirror. They are always checking their swings, are constantly being coached, are constantly learning, are constantly practicing, unlike in the Middle East, where self-reflection and self-criticism are as common, in Friedman’s words, as a three-hump camel.

When it comes to teaching, I wonder how we academics would fare if Friedman wrote a similar op-ed piece comparing golfers playing a course and us teaching a course. Just putt-ering around with a thought or two this dog-day of June.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

We All Need

This weekend I was reading a short book called FISH. About half way through it a passage jumped out and grabbed me: “….the needs of the organization and our needs as workers are the same….” After I had underlined those words, I closed the book, leaned back, and then closed my eyes. After a few minutes, I opened my eyes, sat up, grabbed my pen, and scribbled all over the margins.

That line is a true statement, I wrote. Why do we each have the same needs? The answer is so simple and obvious. Yet, it is so ignored so often. Because contrary to all too common perverse and pervasive beliefs, all faculty are human, all administrators are human, all students are human, and all staff are human. Because contrary to all too common beliefs, without the flowing vibrancy of human spirit and activity our campuses are empty and lifeless shells no more meaningful than vacant conches lying on a beach that had had their lives sucked out of them. Because contrary to common belief, the our campuses are not the things of buildings or lawns or labs or fountains or libraries or technological gadgets. Our campuses are people.

And, while each of us are distinct individuals, we each have something overriding in common with each other: human needs. We are not separated from each other as much as we think however we haughtily or deferentially restrict ourselves to and allow ourselves to be placed by others into separating and constricting categories. The needs of our campus as an institution is the same as the needs of each faculty member, as the needs of each staff member, as the needs of each student, as the needs of each administrator: to be heard, to be noticed, to be appreciated, to be understood, to be respected, to be loved, to be valued. We all–each and every one of us as well as each and every one of them–need energy, enthusiasm, purpose, meaning, creativity, belief, commitment, perseverance, strength, confidence, dreams, hope, kindness, imagination, flexibility, wholeheartedness, passion, compassion, authenticity, and integrity.

What would it be like if we ignored the artificial, man-made chasms and barriers separating us, if we bridged and overcame them by concentrating on the seminal kindredness of our human needs, if we spiritedly took our whole human selves onto our campuses and into our offices and into our classrooms and into our relationships with each other, and humbly saw ourselves in each other?

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

A Professional Curse

Well, I am 61. I really don’t feel it or believe it, or even act it, except when I get that blasted senior citizen discount. My body is no a longer trim, firm, solid, defined, muscular 148 pounds of my collegiate athletic days. I walk my six miles every other day, daily lift very light ten pound weights, do a about twenty inclined sit-ups, and stay away from the caloric and artery clogging goodies to keep mentally, spiritually and a physically healthy 163 pounds. See you, I have found that my true youthfulness is in my attitude, my spirit, not in my physique. The weight of my weights no longer weigh on my mind. What does this have to do with teaching and academics? A lot.

Last October was the tenth anniversary of my epiphany. Since that milestone I have come to appreciate that the great wonders, the most beautiful things to behold, are not tangibles. That is especially true in the classroom. Lately, as a result of a message from a student that I will keep to myself and more because of a series of stirring sharing from a dear friend who had–hopefully it is a “had”–breast cancer but wouldn’t let the cancer have her in spite of a masectomy, I have found myself thinking a lot about purpose and meaning, about the purpose and meaning of my inner journey that was launched on that fateful October morning, about purpose and meaning in my profession, about purpose and meaning in life in general. In fact, contrary to what too many of us attempt to do, they are inseparable.

At the moment of that inner revelation, I was the country’s authority in my field of historical research and publication. I was the most published professor on my campus. I had received more grants than the entire college faculty combined. I had a scholarly resume that was longer than any other on campus. Year after year, until we graduated to become a University, the President specifically cited it throughout his annual reports. None of that is important now. It’s not me, although at the time I thought such professional objects were me.

I often reflect on the real meaning of my continuing journey. At first, I defined it simply as “I changed” as if I was either a chameleon or had metamorposed. That is partly true. Then, two years ago I came to a realization. It wasn’t me that was changing. The real me had always been there, buried and ignored. The journey was really a matter of discovering and uncovering the real me that lay hidden, that motherlode laying beneath the barren surface. That, too, is true. Then, last year, I realized it wasn’t me that was changing, it was my perceptions of myself that was changing, that I had been seeing I was worth mining for, and that I had been acquiring a faith, belief that I possessed undreamed of and untapped talents and abilites and worth. And, that also is true. All are true. Lately, as I read Margo’s reflections as she handled her cancer, I began to think that the real journey was and still is about a transition from trappings to essence, from feeding my ego to feeding my soul, from it being about getting what I wanted to it being about who I needed to be, from a executing “what” and “how” to an energizing and directional “why,” from thinking it’s important to be important to thinking it’s important to being significant, from being served to serving, from receiving to giving, from measuring my accomplishments in terms of things I had acquired to measuring them in term of impact on others, from prestigous to honorable, from strategy and tactic and ploy to life choice.

It is a journey from achievement to significance.

Understand, I am not talking about a journey of sacrifice and selflessness. To the contrary, I am talking about no longer sacrficing and no longer being selfless, for that is exactly what I had done questioningly and willingly, and maybe unwittingly, until that fateful moment. I had surrendered by worrying about what others thought and I did what they expected–or thought they expected. I sacrificed my “self” and had become “self-less.” No, I am talking about a journey to the center of my “self.” I get the feeling, though I can’t prove it, that the unhappy and unsatisfied among my colleagues were once like me. If they could muster the couage of admission, they are those who deep down, statements to the contrary, feel they’ve never done anything worthwhile in their careers, worry that they will leave no mark on the world, worry that their lives are insignificant, and worry that they will not be missed. Quite simply, it feels good, really, really good, to be valued and feel valuable, to help others help themselves, to provide opportunities for others, to stimulate personal growth, to make a difference. When I do that there is an enormous sense of almost indescrible meaning, worth, purpose, gratification, and contentment that comes along with it. I make no bones about that. It is, as Emerson said, one of the most beautiful compensations of life is that no one can sincerely help someone else without helping himself.

I had once gone into the classroom, pronouncements to the contrary, distracted by worries about tenure, promotion, salary increase, a research grant, a committee assignment, a publication, a conference paper. I was so preoccupied with the tedium of our profession believing that these matters would get me personal and professional success. In my rush, a rush that bordered on a fifteen year scholarly binge, to pass such profesisonal milestones I was unwittingly creating obstructions that limited the potential I really didn’t believe I possessed. Yes, I had acquired the trappings of position, status, renown, title, security. And, so many said that these markers marked the heights of my profession. I now know that to talk about “heights” or “summit,” or even to strive for them as if they were a reality, is a professional curse. It’s a curse because once the summit, then what? What’s next? How can you go higher than a pinnacle? Do you coast and rest on your proverbial laurels? Do you slide? It’s a curse because like Tevye, singing “If I Were A Rich Man,” I easily thought that my professional resume equaled happiness. It’s a curse because it says that to pursue other things in academia, such as teaching, is to either stumble forelornly in the shadows of the valley or never had the abiity to have made the climb successfully. It’s a curse because I, like too many of us, tended to overvalue these milestone, wanted them too much, was willing to sacrifice too many and too much, and thought falsely they could do so much for me. It is a curse because it allowed me, like too many of us, to be satisfied with success, and never reach for and know significance. It’s a curse because it’s a narcotic. To paraphrase a Talmudic saying, as we think these things will get us happiness and success, we are too willing to do anything to get them. It’s a curse because I rationalized succumbing to tempation with an acceptable enslaving “I had no choice” or “everyone’s doing it” or “I’m pressured.” Of course, if I was honest at the time, I used the words “choice” and “pressure” to get off the hook. To have resisted cost more at the time then I wanted to pay. It is so much more socially acceptable to give into choice and pressure than to be be led into and succumb to temptation. I guess it that Sermon on the Mount thing. I have to admit such choices or pressures or temptations came because I had sought them out and the choice and presssure wasn’t exactly unwelcomed. It’s a curse because I “red zoned” myself. Ignoring Aristotle’s golden rule, I could easily say I didn’t have time for all the students and so easily found all the time I wanted for all the scholarly stuff. I moved my needle into the dangerous area of imbalance and turned myself into something of a, but thankfully not a total, researchaholic and publishaholic. I rationalized that the quest for professional recognition was a never-satisfied devouring monster. Part of my epiphany was the difficult admission that the monster wasn’t in me; it was me. Others in that red zone don’t allow themselves the time or energy to enjoy, and/or they cripple themselves with fear and paranoia making themselves overly cautious and turning away from opportunities, or, perhaps worst of all, they engaged in ethical and moral flexibility, however subtle, that opens and increases the hole in their moral ozone and makes them unworthy despite their professional worth. It is a curse because too many of us pay such a large price for little return.

Am I less the professional or have I become a non-professional because I am focusing all my energies on teaching, because I am not totally concerned with each student, because I give workshops and make keynote addresses at conferences and on campuses only on teaching, because I have decided to concentrate my energies on the all-important, if not most important, first year survey courses that most faculty deride, because I don’t go after those grants? Most of my colleagues secretly think so. Some think I have experienced a form of reverse Darwinism and should go over to the School of Education instead of remaining in the Department of History.

So many of us, in our rush for tenure or promotion or salary incrase rush to please others. Do you know that the entire campus, with one exception, is populated by others. They are so many of them with so many differences exhorting so many different demands. There is too much to cater to, too many to please, too many to displease, too many who disagree, too many who want you to do it their way, too many who want things done differently, too many who are doing their best, night and day, to make you everybody else. You can’t please them all. If you try, you’ll spend all your moments either fighting battles, taking on windmills, or surrendering before a battle is waged. The trick is not to please any of those others. If you do, you’ll get what you accept or don’t accept. All of our excuses to feel pain, sorrow, and not to live are in “what will other’s think.” These complaints and excuses may be elaborate and well reasoned, yet they give you no fulfillment or satisfaction. We fritter away our days worrying about what others will think. We die and our teaching whithers from fear and doubt.

You know, tenure and promotion and salary increase is about what others think. Fame is about what others think. A ticker tape parade is about what others think. Getting a building named after you is about what others think. A momument is about what others think. An award is about what others think. But, it’s not about what others think; it’s about what I feel. It’s about what’s going on in my heart and being true to it. It’s about being a force rather than being forced. It’s about putting my whole heart into making a difference, and knowing the joy of teaching by piling difference on difference on difference. Belieive me, there will be pain and consequence of being true to it, but the pain of not being true to it is far, far greater.

As I now see it, we paint the self-portrait that we call our character, personal and professional, with our actions, not will our words. Too many of us, caught up in the daily quest of professional achievement timidly dab with pale colors of short lived accomplishments, and shallow successes. Too few of us boldly stroke with the deep, rich colors of lasting purpose, meaning, and significance. So the question for each of us is whether our souls will be hungry for prestige or meaning. Will we be satisfied with the “things” of our professions or whether we will reach beyond those things for the possibility of making a difference, changing things, touching lives, and making the world a better place.

Somewhere I read that none of us should forget that the importance of what I do and goes well beyond what it gets me; it determines what and who I am. And what and who I am is infinitely more important than what I have.

Ain’t that the truth. And, that is the meaning of my journey.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–