The Random Thoughts of Louis Schmier

It’s Sunday afternoon. Here I am. In the Atlanta airport on the way back to Valdosta, again. This time coming from Boston. As ever, waiting. This is getting very old. There’s a saying in Georgia: when you die, your soul goes to Atlanta and has to wait three hours before continuing its journey. Sitting here on the floor in the Atlanta airport already for almost three hours, I can appreciate that. And, while I am not yet dead, my feet are entering rigor mortis and my butt is already deadened. I guess that counts.

NOw, I just am waiting to see if my puddle-hopper flight will be cancelled due to “maintenance.” I finished both my crossword puzzle and book. So, I may as well jot down some stuff that’s been mulling around in my head for the last day or two.

I was at a family get-together Friday night. When someone asked why I was in Boston, I told them that the next day I was giving a leadership workshop at M.I.T. to freshmen enrolled in an internship program. Boy, were they impressed. You should have seen eyes open wide and have heard the excited tonal “oohs,” “aahs” in their responses. “M.I.T!!! Wow!!!” I had the same reaction among my colleagues on campus when I told them specifically where I was going this weekend. And, you know something? When I told them that I had given both a keynote address and a teaching workshop at a conference of faculty teaching remedial students, all I got was little more than yawning, disinterested, polite “that’s nice,” ho-hum, sedated “oh’s.”

In the same breath my relatives were starry-eyed by some “halo effect” about M.I.T., they were telling me how the people in their town of Newton “look down on UMass,” and students who were going there were embarrassed to publically admit it as if it would be a sing of inferiority and an admission of failure. So, why do they get entranced by young people attending M.I.T. on one hand and look down upon those going to UMass on the other? Why do they hold up the M.I.T. students as if they are of a higher order of being set far apart from and more than a notch above mere mortal, “ordinary,” inferior UMass students?

I’ll just say without going into detail that in the few minutes I small talked with the M.I.T. students, I found they were a neat, diverse, down-to-earth bunch young adults whose humanity was not much different from any other person. They were experiencing the same slings and arrows of life’s outrageous fortune no less than any other person their age. Some were homesick, some weren’t used to the big city, some were here because of the big city, some were unsure of their future, some were unsure if they really belonged and could “cut it,” some were here because of parental expectation and demand, some had romantic issues, some had financial distractions, etc, etc, etc. If anything, I quickly heard that after only a few months at their institution, how more than a few of them were already experiencing the imposed and self-imposed pressure of having to live up to the enormous expectations of their top billing.

There is a tiny spider a few feet from me walking along the carpet unaware of the danger to its existence by the “splat potential” of the parade of hurried human feet. As I watched that tiny, nearly invisible arachnid scurry about, it comes to me. Here is a crowd of towering, self-proclaimed centers of creation mingling with this supposed intruding, insignificant lower order creature. Of which does Nature take most notice? Whom does Mother Nature nurture the most?

I don’t think Nature imposes limiting and segreating labels. She is not prejudiced by size or longevity. She doesn’t disdain what lives only for a day and glorifies what lives for a millenia. She gives the whole of herself into the tiniest no less than into the elephantine. Nothing is invisible to her; nothing is inferior to her; nothing is insignificant to her; nothing doesn’t belong; nothing is ordinary to her; nothing is ugly to her. She is a lover of all life. For Mother Nature, every living creature is sacred. She pours the whole of herself into each and every creature.

Why don’t we academics do to the same as Nature with each and every student? Why don’t we break the modern day man-made and man-impose chain of being, break the habit of unnatural limitation, compartmentalization, separation, segregation, fragmentation, disconnection, categorization, gradation, and evaluation. Why don’t we see each and every student as a sacred human being? Why don’t we give everything we have to each and every one of those human beings? Why don’t we do whatever it takes for each student? Why don’t we treat each and every one of them as a special and extraordinary human being? Why don’t we be lovers of life, of all life, of the lives of each and every student?

If we realize that the ordinary straw within us and strewn around us is potential gold we will struggle to learn how to work the spinning wheel.

Did I say I finished my book? It’s Jack Kornfield’s A PATH WITH HEART. I don’t think it’s finished with me.

There’s the boarding call.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

I’m somewhere over Colorado or Kansas or wherever. Don’t know what time it is 39,000 feet below me. My watch says 12:23 am, but that is Pacific Coast Time. I’m here on the red-eye flying back from a weekend of cuddling and spoiling my grand-daughter in San Francisco. I’ve discovered that it is true: being a grandpa is God’s reward for not having strangled the kids. I also know why they call these late night flights “the red-eye.” Can’t sleep. I don’t know why. Airplane coach seats are so plushy, roomy and comfortable. So, while I’m wide-eyed getting red-eyed and my legs are entering rigor mortis, I may as well think of answering a prodding “haven’t heard from you in a while” message I got from Kenny last week. He wanted another off-the-wall word for teaching. He wants off-the-wall, I’ll give it to him. I’ll give him a single letter instead of a word. I’ll give him an “I.” I’m going to tell him the same thing I’m going to have a bunch of students at M.I.T. experience for themselves in a workshop next weekend: the “I’s” have it!

Almost every artist, photographer, musician, sculptor, writer, actor, philosopher, architect, scientist, and even athlete proclaim that the “I’s” have it hand and foot over anything else, including knowledge, technology, and technique. The “I’s” are keys to seizing the day. They’re the ignition key that turns over the creative engine. They create a “let’s see” environment of experimentation, playfulness, flexibility, spontaneity, curiosity, and unorthodoxy. It’s the “I’s” that draw from that great storehouse of talent, knowledge, and experience. The “I’s” have it in a studio; they have it on a stage; they have it in a lab; they have it in a study. Why shouldn’t they have it in the classroom as well.

Oh, I almost forgot. What are the “I’s?” They are: Imagination, Involvement, Imagery, Innovation, Ideas, Invention, Intensity, Incongruity, Inspiration, Interest, Inclusion, Intrigue, Intuition, Invisible, Insatiable, Insight, Individual, Investigation, Integrity.

Now, before Kenny or anyone asks, I wish I knew was how these “I’s” do what they do when they do. I know I can’t turn them on and off like a faucet. I know I can’t call them forth at will like some sorcerer. Sometimes I think these “I’s” are sneaky little critters that come out of nowhere and surprise us with a startling, staccato “boo!” Sometimes, I think they’re sleepy messages that call out between thoughts like a singing telegram from somewhere to awaken us. Sometimes they’re like a Parmenidian “self evident” toast that “pop up” when we’re doing something mundane; at other times, they seem to go off like a loud alarm clock give us a “eureka” jolt when we’re in the darndest places and least expect them; and still at other times they slowly peeked out from behind globules of “sweat.”

I will tell Kenny that whatever these “I’s” are, whenever they come, from wherever they come, however they come, if he weaves them into the fiber of his being, they balance work, commitment, determination and perseverance on one end of the seesaw with joy, love, wonder, humility, and gratitude on the other end. They insure that hard labor is not laborious. They surprise, encourage dreaming, draw out an awareness, forge a courage to do something unique, take dizzying leaps, unleash a daring, open the mind and heart, visualize with richness and intensity, change the way to look at things, compel an asking of “why,” create a keen attentiveness, create a capacity for growth, welcome newness, keep him moving, re-choreograph, instill a spirit of adventure, enhance the ability to go beyond the norm, endow freedom, educate, offer possibilities, uncover potential, develop a thirst, sharpen listening, unbox the box, fill the place with opportunities, polish each sparkling classroom jewel, generate a joy, keep him constantly searching, place him on the edge, excite a sense of wonder, stimulate a desire to explore, stir “the juices,” spark a curiosity, admire the beauty, point to the unseen, find exciting new roads on which to journey, provide the vision, summon the passion, and have him ride on thermals that soar to a higher heights of teaching and learning.

And what better place for the “I’s” to have it than in a classroom. In there, as I just was reminded by the students’ presentation of their sculptures for the “Rodin Project,” there is so much extraordinary in the taken-for-granted ordinary, so much to notice in the often unnoticed everyday goings-on, so much to look at in the overlooked around us, such a loud drum roll to hear in the silent hum-drum, so much that’s all right in the too often seen solely as all wrong.

I was listening to my rabbi say last week that holiness occurs when the ordinary becomes extraordinary, when a common moment is elevated to the unique and celebrated, when the mundane is given value, when the everyday become “the” day. It’s the “I’s” that’s turn an ordinary classroom into a revered piece of territory. They make it one of those sacred places where all that can happen. They consecrate it as one of those holy sites where you can make a difference and change some lives.

So, I’ll tell Kenny that it’s the “I’s” that make teaching and learning less of a struggle and more of a joy. A lot of people are in motion, but the “I’s” will give him direction as well. They’ll give him a kaleidoscope approach to a kaleidoscope of people. They’ll take him to places no one has ever been before. They’ll draw water from his deep well of strength and potential. They’ll stomp on his toes and keep him hopping. They’ll give him new eyes and ears, and fresh legs. They’ll constantly put him in an altered state. They’ll kill the “idea killers.” They’ll make sense out of the “it doesn’t make sense.” And, as Einstein said, they’ll force him to attempt the absurd so he can achieve the impossible.

Then, Kenny will see that the “I’s” won’t let rigor mortis set in. They won’t let him get stuck. They won’t let him tire before he retires. They won’t let him die years before he’s buried. They won’t let him sit in boredom, nor laze back in security, nor just stand around in complacency, nor grimace in scorn, nor wallow in despair, nor freeze in fear. They won’t let him repeat yesterday. They won’t let him follow the crowd.

I’ll tell Kenny that it’s the “I’s” that will help him help himself and each student to help him- or herself find the greatness in his or her own “I’s.” And, I will tell him that if he trusts himself deeply enough to heed his “I’s,” they’ll make him so rich he’ll have to spell “rich” with five or six “i’s.”

No masterpiece, to paraphrase Salvador Dali, was ever created any other way.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

Did you ever interrupt your own lecture and said something to the feverishly note-taking students like, “Put down your pen and pencils. Just stop writing and listen.” I did that on more than one occasion in the days when I lectured. Ever wonder why you said that?

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

Yesterday, I was on the way to class carrying a heavy box full of weekly journals. Mac (not his real name) was coming towards me down the hall. He saw me, sped up, and opened the glass doors. Chivalry still prevails. As I went lumbered through the doorway with a “thanks,” he turned and walked with me for a few yards.

“Doc, I’ve been thinking about you. I’ve decided I want to become a college teacher. Think it’s worth it?”

“You’re asking that question?”

“Well, if it’s worth it, what do you make?”

I deliberately hesitated as if I had to think about it. Then, I shot back, “A difference!”

“I know, but…..”

I cut him off. “No ‘buts.’ Go to class.” I mischievously smirked as I baited the hook and turned into the stairwell and lumbered up the stairs.

I was hoping it wasn’t the end of our conversation. It wasn’t. He took the bait. A couple of hours later, as he came into my office, he shot at me, “Your answer is not what I meant.”

“It’s what I meant.”

“I want to be a success, too.”

“Be significant first.”

“What’s the difference?”

I spread out my right hand. “My painted pinky nail, and Kim’s letter in my wallet, is the difference.” Then, I picked up an envelope from my landfill of a desk. “See this letter? I got it Monday from a student. I’ve read the ink off of it. And, I my eyes tear up every time. It’s going up there on that wall of my ’sacred objects of my teaching.’”

We talked.

“Now, I’m going to keep you up all night with a question or two. This is your assignment. Which is the best measure of having made a difference and being a significance, trophies or testimonials? Is it being important or doing what is important whether anyone knows or recognizes it or not? Is it a long resume listing your degrees, titles, positions, publications, awards, grants, and presentations; or is it a collection of poems, paintings, letters, and objects from grateful and affectionate students testifying to the difference you have made in their lives?”

“All this sounds too simple and easy.”

“You’ve got it. It is never simple and easy even if it sounds that way. The ’simple’ is always complicated and the ‘easy’ is always challenging. It’s always a conflict between being successful and being significant. Believe me, I know. That conflict is almost inevitable. And far too many people succumb to the pressures to win at almost any cost. You see it in todays headlines in athletics, business, and you see it in academia. You have to always stay on the edge; you always have to be alert; and you never can get complacent. Otherwise, you’ll loose the battle. And, if you do cede defeat, you’ll become preoccupied with getting those trophies as any cost. They will become the most important things in your life, and your educational integrity–not to mention students–will be sacrificed. You want to remain the captain of your ship. Being a teacher is too important to be merely a passenger.”

“Why can’t you be both a success and significant.”

“You can. It’s easy for people to proclaim they have; it’s something else to actually do it. The ones that have done it are rare. I know and know of a few of those humble people who have put their money where their mouth is. They have been able to reconcile the time- and energy-demanding pressure and desire to be a professorial winner with the heavy and equally demanding teaching responsibilities of helping people. They are able to remember, always remember, which is first and foremost no matter what anyone else thinks or says. When I was tutoring the UNC basketball team, I saw how Dean Smith never let records and championships go to his head. For him, it was far more about developing life skills and character than it was merely about winning basketball games. For him it was always about people instead of basketball players. He saw his players as sacred individuals, not just tall, hunks of meat. His players saw him as a coach, father, friend to each of them, even the ones who warmed the bench.”

“Damn, Dr. Schmier, you’re a dreamer. Be real!”

“I am real. I’m a real dreamer. Don’t ever underestimate the power of a dream! A dream is the Draino that keeps your spirit free of clogging sludge. Someone once said that one positive dream is more powerful than a hundred realities. If you don’t dream, if you don’t have a vision, you’ll find that it will be so easy to drift off course from wanting to make a lasting difference and be significant to accepting passing and quickly forgotten success. You will live on and having significance beyond the classroom in the lives and memories of people, not in resumes.”

We talked some more.

I hope Mac didn’t sleep much last night.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

Here I am a motel in Conway, Arkansas, thinking I might wind up in Munchkinland. It’s Friday, October 4. It’s 2:30 am. I’m wired. Can’t sleep. Part of the reason for my insomnia is wondering whether we’ll be blown about like Dorothy by the hurricane Lili and I’ll be stranded at the Little Rock airport condemned to eating airport food. Another part of the reason for this sleepless is that I can’t a bunch of neat, dedicated, devoted people out of my mind. Yesterday, I gave a day-long teaching workshop for the annual conference of the Arkansas Association of Developmental Education. For an entire day I worked with these people, ate with them, smoozed with them, and they put me on a high from which I have yet to come down.

So, with Morpheus no where to be found, I think I’ll wile away the time and put down on paper some thoughts and feelings about them I’d like to share.

They were a little group of about fifty, but there was nothing little about them, and little can be mighty. Some of you might even call them small fry. There was no one attending from the state’s prestigious flagship institution. Most did not have Ph.D.s. I doubt if any had extensive scholarly resumes. Those at the conference teach in the development programs at such schools as Mississippi County Community College, Harding University, Black River Technical College, Garland County Community College, Arkansas Tech, Ozarka College, University of the Ozarks, East Arkansas Community College, Phillips Community College, University of Central Arkansas, etc. Nevertheless, I call them large fry, and I want you to know about these gallant unknowns who are too often ignored or demeaned or unappreciated in academia. They deserve that much. And, I wish I had applauded them more often during the day and more forcefully edified them. That may have been preaching to the choir, but even the choir needs to know when it has sung heavenly.

You know what I’ve learned, and have come to admire, and yes, have come to love, about these people in these few short hours I’ve been with them? They are in love with their world, a world so many elitist academics arrogantly shun! They’re in love with people, people so many academics condemn. Like academic Maria Teresas, they work among the supposed academic downtrodden. They teach “developmental students.”

You know what a developmental student is, don’t you? If you don’t, let me give you the definition of most academics: a don’t belong, a they let anyone in, a remedial student, a waste of precious resources, not worth the effort, proof that higher education is being watered down and dumbed down; a scholastic leper, an invasive weed; evidence of the interference of meddling amateurish politicians; the result of the inane idea that access to a higher education is an American birthright; a well, we’ll go through the motions although we don’t believe in them, take their money for a term or two, flunk them out, blame them, and brag on having save the purity of the academic world.

In academia’s caste system, these people at the conference are treated as the lowest of the low, looked down by the academic Brahmans because they work with the untouchables, often looked at by administrators as pests to be tolerated. Often they are beleaguered and unsupported and condemned by faculty and administration who are not committed to the success of developmental students. Sometimes it is hard to carry on. Sometimes the burden is almost too heavy to bear. The fact that they persevere in the face of academic adversity tells me who they are.

Unlike most academics who make condemning statements about the need to weed out these developmental students, this group of neat people ask positive questions about nurturing these students. This conference is all about those questions: how can I make a difference in these students’ lives; what do I have to do to make a difference; what do I need to make a difference; who do I need to get together with to make a difference. These powerful questions are what the stuff of teaching is made.

These noble people are lovers. They love each student; they love what they do. I think they know they’re each in “their place” and know they’re doing what they’re meant to be doing. They are listeners. They listen to the cry in the night, the moan in the shadows, the groan from people who are in trouble. They are committed to battling the odds thrown against them by complacency and obstruction and objection without considering the odds. These people can only put a smile on your face. They take the supposed valueless student and value him or her. Those whom other academics curse, they package as a blessing. They focus on what others disdain as the common and they somehow wind up spotlighting the uncommon. Their institutions may only be complying, offering lip service, going through the motions, but they are committed. They are imaginers; they imagine who these students can be and what they can do. They are the likes of gardeners who know you plant seed in the bare spots; they see the seeds and imagine magnificent blossoms; they work with radiant conviction in the academic darkness; they hold in their hand an invitation to the transforming power of compassion; their work is never puny and insignificant because their inner workings are never puny; they are tolerant of weakness; they have tender hearts. They know of the power of nice and kind. Their belief in and faith in and hope for each student is revealed in their tender concern, caring acts, and loving embraces. For those who think it is a waste of precious resources, they would rebutt by saying that each student is too precious of a resource to waste and not to love.

Beauty is all they see in these supposed ugly developmental students; they see challenges and opportunities where others see halting barriers. Where others see impossibility, they see possibility. Where others see not worth the while, they see worthwhile. Where others are repulsed by the presence of such academic untouchables, they reach out to touch. Where others see what’s wrong with these students, they see what’s right with them. And, when you see what’s right, you find the energy and perseverance to “fix” what’s wrong. Where others could care less about these students, they care about each and every one of these students. And that is so very important, for without the seeing, without the passion, without the excitement, everything would be a drudge, a struggle and labor rather than a joy. They have the passion, and passion is what makes it happen. It’s the energy, resilence, creativity, persistence, commitment. It goes beyond motivation and inspiration. It goes to getting things done. And so, they work to improve the tomorrow of these students who don’t’ matter for most of their colleagues. No matter, they know what they do today will matter tomorrow. They refuse to give up on those whom others would throw away. They see treasure where others see trash. They are the stuff of teaching.

I can see each of them each day passionately whispering in the ear of these supposed don’t belongs, “You’ve made it this far. You here; you’re not a loser. I’ll help you keep going a little longer, and together we’ll see the sun rise on a beautiful day,” hoping that the whispers are loud enough to drown out the damning shouts of “You don’t belong here!”

These noble people don’t want to be the best in anything; they just want to be the best for each student. To them the word “remedial” means, as it says in the dictionary, “to bring back to health.”

In the end, I was supposed to refresh, and I have had a refreshing. I was supposed to impress, and I was impressed–deeply impressed. I was supposed to affirm, and I received affirmation. I was supposed to inspire and be motivated, and I was inspired and motivated. And that, too, is as it should be.

They have every reason to stand tall and every reason to deserve an honored place in the academic sun. You may snicker with the sarcastic question, “You’d think you were describing saints?” Well, my simple answer is, “In acadmeia, I am!!” They are saintly not because I or anyone admires them. They are saintly because they believe in and have faith in and admire and bless and walk among and give solace and offer help and give hope to the academic damned.

And, I just think you should know about them. And, I want them to know that they are appreciated. They deserve that much for the noble work they do.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–