“Souffe-ish” Teaching

I was talking with my youngest son, Robby, today. He is a sous chef, an artist with food. I was telling him about a discussion on the internet during which one professor called the likes of my non-traditional approach to learning as “souffle teaching” and used the same term to describe community colleges.

Robby smiled. “He didn’t mean as a compliment, did he.”

“No. You know a lot of people think that when you teach differently from the traditional lecture/note taking/controlled discussion/exam/research paper you automatically lessen and weaken and lower and dumb down and water down and….

“Well, it’s true,” he interrupted. “You are a teacher whose class is a ‘souffle.'”

I looked at him with a ungrateful and silent “Gee, thanks.”

Then, he continued as he sheepishly smirked with a “gotcha” smile.

“That professor complimented you and didn’t know it. The laugh’s on him. Tell him that very few people can make a real delicious souffle. And when they do, it is some treat. It’s one of the hardest dishes to make. It’s not something you slap together. It takes years to get good at it and you have to work hard at getting it. It takes a certain technique that’s not easy to learn and master. It involves a lot of tricky steps. And, the timing of each step is critical. When it’s done right, there’s very little to match it. Remember, dad, a souffle is not fluffy. It has to have a delicate and soothing firmness. And, you need a gourmet chef, not just any cook to get that.”

So, next time anyone describes what you do or you school as souffle, just remember what Robby said and simply reply with a gracious smile, “Thanks. I appreciate that.”

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

Dead Fish

Lordy it was hot this pre-dawn morning. The heat index had to be in the eighties. I thought I’d come in with a severe moon burn. It was really beating down on me. I’m going to rewrite Ogden Nash’s ditty: “Only mad dogs and Englishmen and aging professors go out in the pre-dawn moon!” Anyway, after a dehydrating six mile walk, I came into the house, slowly took a couple of reviving glasses of cool water, poured the waiting freshly brewed coffee into a cup, and went out to sit by the koi pond to cool down. Unfortunately, there’s no cooling off in this kind of searing weather. The sweat kept pouring out from my pores faster than the water was falling over the rocks in my fishpond. As was watching the smooth sweep of the Koi, I started to think once again of a question a troubled graduate student at a Texas university posed to me over the internet with which I had trouble answering.

She said in a way I could almost see the tears in her eyes, “I want to teach and make some real difference in this world.” Her professors, however, “think I’m wasting my time and their time with such thoughts and that I won’t get anywhere in the profession unless I publish and publish a lot. One professor told me in no uncertain terms when I went to talk with her about how I feel, ‘You can’t waste your time on students. We’re not training you to do that.’ After that I feel as if this professor talked about me to the other professors and I’m being pushed to the back of the academic bus. And they say segregation is over. Not here. Not if you just want to learn to teach. Researchers to the front of the bus, teachers to the back!” Then she asked, as if fighting the urge to surrender, “Is it really so much easier and safer to go along and get along with ‘the system?'” she asked. “I feel like it’s harder because it’s making me be someone I’m not. I don’t feel as alive when I try, but that’s what a lot of people tell me to do. ‘Just go with the flow,’ they say when I grind my teeth about how I am now being treated here because I don’t want to forsake students to research and publish.”

I sat there watching the koi being mesmerized by the hypnotic rhythm of their undulations. Maybe I was in a trance. Then the answer came to me.

Ever have a sudden and unexpected flashback? Ever have a scene from your past that had lain so hidden and deeply buried in the dark, inner recesses of your memory be brought to the surface like some exploding lava in an erupting volcano? That’s what happened to me this morning. I felt like Mount St. Helens. Without warning, I suddenly heard a voice “from the other side” I hadn’t heard in over half a century, from maybe 1947 or 1948. There, suddenly before me appearing on the screen of the pond’s surface was “ole Tim” in hips boots casting for rainbow trout with little me at his side. He wasn’t really all that “ole.” He couldn’t have been more than in his late thirties. He just seemed “ole” to us seven and eight year olds. He was a dark brown-haired local fisherman of my youth who had taught me how to fly cast for rainbow trout in New York’s Beaverkill during the late 1940s when I spent my summers at my aunt’s upstate bungalow “kucherlein” where my parents sent me to get away from the deadly polio epidemics that ravaged the city.

Suddenly, in such vivid detail that I could feel the heat of the sun beating down on me, I remembered part of one of the many conversations we had while standing in the middle of the stream. Standing wasn’t the real word. Tim was standing firm. Little me was fighting against be lifted up and along by the current and struggling awkwardly keep my balance and find some traction on the slippery rocks of the steam bed while at the same time casting with a pole twice my size without getting a hook in my rubbery butt.

Wearing oversized hip boots that made me look like I was bundled in a heavy rubber gunny sack, I asked Tim with the innocence and curiosity of a seven year old, “Why do you let the fly float with the water? Don’t the fish go the same to keep from getting tired? How do the fish see it behind them?

For a minute I thought Tim didn’t hear me. He didn’t say a word. Standing downstream next to me to prevent me from either floating away or falling, he kept casting. Without turning his head, as he was casting, he answered tersely but firmly with his quiet and patient deep-throated baritone voice, “Only dead fish go with the current.”

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

It’s More Than The Subject

As I walked through dark, pre-dawn, soggy morning, I was thinking of fire storms. Maybe it’s this heat and humidity, even at the wee hours of 5 a.m. Well, it’s not, really. I’ve been engaged in a discussion in which a professor said, “We are professors of history. Let’s teach history!” I have no qualms with that statement–as far as it goes. I just think it doesn’t go far enough. I have a wholeness approach to teaching that includes and goes beyond a subject. Some would call it character education. It’s a good characterization of my educational philosophy and vision.

Recent events have made me more aware of their need. I have been reading about the less than natural causes of the raging and destructive forest fires in Colorado and Arizona. Like all of us, I’ve been reading also about the raging and devastating fire storms of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. And let’s not forget those devastating fire storms of financial corruption within some great corporations. These ecclesiastical and entrepreneurial conflagrations are racing through jobs, spirits, confidences, reputations, portfolios, devotions, pensions, homes, hopes, souls, and mutual funds. Oh, the fires will be extinguished in the forests, corporate offices, and bishoprics, but many of the hurts won’t heal, many spiritual and financial savings won’t be saved, many lives won’t recover, many careers won’t be rebuilt, and there will be scars.

These fires weren’t set and fanned by academic dropouts. They are spiritual and economic leaders, talented graduates of our colleges and universities and seminaries. The deeply disturbing revelations about these ravaging clerical and corporate fires that are shaking the very foundation of our religious and economic systems show how easy it is for supposedly educated people to come up with a bunch of very defensive and self-serving excuses, rationalizations, and explanations for some immoral, unethical, dishonorable, and illegal acts. Every day we hear of individual or institutional corruption which carry huge human and dollar costs.

Don’t think that we in the Ivory Tower are so pure of heart that we can look down our noses from the battlements on such sordidness: prominent professors plagiarizing and engaging in various other forms of academic dishonesty; academics compromising themselves, often at the expense of students, in their quest of the holy grail of tenure; university research scientists playing with results of experiments; coaches fudging resumes; faculty in cahoots to falsify grades of athletes; presidents kowtowing to alumni and engaging in face-saving and rationalizing damage control when scandalous sports programs hit the headlines; and an overwhelming majority of students on our campuses believing cheating is part of the “game.”

Everyone is moving to the tune that “everyone’s doing it, doing it, doing it.” To them it’s “no big deal.” To them it’s a resigned go-along sigh of “oh, well.” Well, it’s not well; it’s down the well. It’s not a game; it’s gamy. It not a tune; it’s a song and dance. And, it is a big deal. It’s a faustean deal with the devil, for our graduates will take, as so many obviously already have taken, with them into every facet of their working and personal lives a corrosive cynicism that expects and accepts and condones bad motives and bad behaviors.

These people are our past and future graduates. Too bad we too often train them without educating them. If we don’t frontally address these issues day in and day out in and out of our classrooms, if we don’t inoculate students with a high expectation for themselves and others to live noble and worthy lives, if we don’t assume responsibility of modeling and instilling virtue–honesty, respect, and integrity–in our students, we will keep on producing animated scandals waiting to happen, persons without character or with weakened character, persons unencumbered by scruples, persons with a compass that has no markings for true north, persons without the will or the courage to stand up and say no, persons with a willingness to look the other way.

If I teach more than my subject of history, if I promote character education as well, if I take a wholeness approach in and out of the classroom, will I be doing any good? Will I really put fire-retardant on or in front of these consuming flames? Will I make a difference? Will I have a lasting impact? I don’t really know.

What I do know is this. I have to be true to my true north. I do know that when I or anyone seeks to truly make a difference, there is always someone around who is going to tell me that I’m nuts or I can’t do it or it’s not my job or I am out of step or I’m not with the program or it’s not going to mean much. Some people are just not going to like what I do, no matter how I explain and demonstrate; some people are going to disagree with me, no matter how reasonable I am; some people are going to feel threatened even though I’m not doing any threatening thing; some people are going to ignore me; and some people are going to flat out reject what I am doing and attack. I’m not Joshua. I cannot control that anymore than I can make the sun stop in its tracks. What I can control is the realization that the actions and opinions of others have no real bearing on my worth as a person or the legitimacy of my vision. It’s not the end of the world when I experience the passive or active rejection or shunning that inevitably is going to occur. Rejection hurts only when I allow it to hurt, and there’s no reason whatsoever for me to allow it to hurt.

I also know that just because someone diminishes or ignores or rejects what I believe and what I’m doing does not mean I must diminish or ignore or reject them too. I always have to keep in mind that the opinions of others are just that– opinions. I will always listen; I will always consider; I will always reflect; I will always be teachable. I will always learn and grow. I will always change. I don’t let criticisms automatically stop me. I keep looking beyond them and focus on my “why.” In many ways it would be so much easier, more comfortable, and safer to ignore my vision, to let myself be distracted, side-tracked, stopped in my tracks, and be tossed aimlessly around by everything and everyone of those “others” who comes along. Sure, to follow a steady and positive purpose is harder, less comfortable, and maybe riskier. It demands an outer thick skin and an inner strength. It requires a deep commitment, a perseverance, and a determination. But, it’s truer. For too long, I had traveled, like most, that well-traveled road. Only a little over a decade ago did I discover that if I venture and struggle to travel that regrettably road less traveled, will I actually get somewhere and at some place valuable and and do something meaningful.

I do know that it’s great to be noticed, to be appreciated, to have support and encouragement, to know that I’ve been heard or that I’ve touched someone or that I have made a difference. But, it simply does not always happen. And if it does, many is the time I will never know it. I do know that its really none of my business to decide in advance how decisive what I do really is.

I do know that character does count as much as, if not more than, knowledge. I do know that we help students prepare themselves to make a living. I do know that it is also important that we help students prepare themselves to live rightly. I do know we urge students to attain honors. I do know it is also important that we help students become honorable people. It is important that we be concerned with preparing the whole person and not merely the one dimensional professional and wage earner. It is important that we have a combined character based and information based approach to education rather than merely an information based approach. An education without guiding character is no education at all; it is training and schooling that is in danger of producing a bunch of dangerous characters.

I do know that I have to be true to this purpose that motivates, energizes, and drives me. I do know that I don’t have any other choice but to give it all I have. I do know that I must know what must be done, go confidently forward, and just do it. And, if I discover that it’s not enough, and it probably isn’t, I’ll just have to do it harder and better. And, for me, the character of recent headlines about these characters who have little or no character makes the need for character or wholeness education even more imperative.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

This Class On This Day

It was a struggle to walk the short block and a half walk from campus to my house. The noon day is so torrid you can fry a cockroach on the sidewalk.

On the sweaty trudge, aside from praying I wouldn’t get sunstroke, I was thinking about class today. I still am. It was a class work day. I was watching the students in class today as they worked on their the “Bruce Springsteen Project.” As they’ve gotten into it, the wrinkled eyebrows have lifted, the taut cheeks have loosened, the tight lips have curled upward, the “are you nuts” stunned gaze have become excited twinkles, the sneers have become “cheers.” In scattered pockets, communities were pouring through the textbook, going through CD albums, quietly moving their fingers as if they were tickling the ivories of imaginary keyboards or strumming real guitar; they were humming, snapping fingers, writing down, scratching out, rhythmically moving their bodies, even practicing a dance step or two. It was noisy as the students talked, discussed, listened, debated, argued, exchanged, and sought consensus. The place was abuzz. It was alive with the creative sound of the music of laughter. It was awash in a cacophony of imaginative movements. It was lit up with believing smiles. Not one somber and distanced face in the room! I could hear bits and pieces of tunes as they wrote original lyrics that would explain the critical themes they felt linked the chapters on the Rise of “Big Business” and the appearance of late nineteenth century urbanization in the United States: rap, T.V. theme songs, blues, country & western, classical, Broadway tunes, nursery ditties. If this was a Geology class, as my friend Ray Beiersdorfer would say, it was rockin’! ASCAP, move over!!

Whether they were conscious of it or not, they were, as they do on all their projects, putting into action the four major operating themes of the class that we had laid down in a series of challenging exercises at the beginning of the semester: “Never Forget the Story,” “It’s Communication, Stupid,” “Remember ‘The Chair,'” and “I Sang; I Can Kick Ass!”

And, as I watched and listened, it struck me once again between the eyes. Do you know what it is about this class on this day? It’s today. This day in this class is the greatest opportunity–the only opportunity–I have. As they say, yesterday is history and tomorrow is a mystery. But, today? It’s not done and gone; it’s not yet to be will-o-the-wisp. I don’t have to wish for it; I don’t have to muse about it; I don’t have to reflect on it; I don’t have to regret it; I don’t have to expect it. It’s here! It’s now! It’s where the action is! The money’s on the table. And, it’s where I have to be focused like a lens pinpointing a beam of sunlight to start a fire.

As I always say, the present is the only present I presently have. There’s nothing ordinary about this gift. If you don’t think so, as someone said, try missing it. This day is everything I am as a person and teacher. It’s a revelation of who I am. Past and future thinking, planning, saying and intending, perspective are important. But, in the end they mean nothing unless I ante up today where my mouth and heart are. It’s that saying about streets lined with good intentions. Today is “doing” time, and what I do today is the only thing that matters. What I do today, not what I intend for tomorrow and not what I had done yesterday determines the quality of what I do.

Today is like an extraordinary one-of-a-kind original piece of art. And, I decide what to sculpt or paint or choreograph or design or score. I can chisel, weld, brush, ink, pencil, and step with purpose and with love, with joy and fulfillment. Or, I can use the misshapened and arrhythmias of disinterest, distance, resignation, grumpiness, disdain, and dissatisfaction. It’ll show either way.

That’s the point. Once again, it’s my choice today. It’s always my choice each day. Today is not a repeat of yesterday. Nothing routine about today. Today is brand new, a start-up time, a creation, an invention. Those laurels of yesterday wilt fast. It’s hard to be energetic and moving if you’re resting on those laurels. If you do rest, you’ll get out of shape and lose your edge quickly. You certainly won’t make a mark if you’re marking time.

Very little and a lot are needed for me to make today an extraordinary day. It’s that attitude thing. I will say this time after time after time because we all need this constant reminder. Talent, knowledge, and technology are overrated. There are three foundations of teaching and learning. The first is attitude; the second is attitude; the third is attitude. Without choosing the attitude I bring to the class, everything else I may do is a waste of time and everything I may have at my fingertips is a useless. Artists know this; actors know this; athletes know this; far too many academics don’t. So, I just have to decide to to make extraordinarily exciting. I just have to put my thoughts and words and feelings into action–today. I have to pick up the chisel or brush or pen or put on the dance shoes enthusiastically–today. It is all within myself, in my way of thinking, my way of seeing, my way of listening, my way of feeling, my way of behaving. I can find reasons to give to this day and these students as much or as little as I choose. I can mire myself in good sounding intentions and in planning for a future yet to be; I can find all sorts of forlorn excuses and rationalizations and regrets in times ago; or, I can put all that aside and can act. I can be positive or negative. I can feel hopeless or hopeful, believe or not believe. I can frustrate myself or encourage myself. I can feel down or feel great. I can hold myself back or I can give it and me and them all I have. I can feel I am snared in a gnarled, thorny brier patch or walking delightfully amid a forest stand of beautiful, tall, majestic, strong trees. I can make it and me and them as valuable or valueless as I decide. This ordinary day is a great opportunity for it to be as extraordinary as I wish, and to treat these supposedly ordinary people–and myself–as glorious as I wish.

Goethe and the Psalmist were right. Nothing is more highly to be prized and rejoiced in than the value of today. Guess what. I don’t need anyone’s permission to do value it and rejoice in it except mine. And, when I do give myself permission, extraordinary things ordinarily occur–like the projects being presented tomorrow.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–