Another high 20’s brrrr morning. We’re growing peach melba on our trees this wintery year! Going out a tad late didn’t help much. I didn’t really want to be a huskie in the Arctic. Boy did I come up with a bunch of excuses why I shouldn’t and couldn’t go out into the south Georgia Arctic. Let’s see. I told myself I didn’t want to risk getting a cold, my grubbies hadn’t been washed, I was too achy, I just wasn’t in the mood. I came up with a bunch of chilling excuses of why I shouldn’t brave the chill. Then, I thought of something I had told a student yesterday morning. And, I had to put my money where my mouth and spirit were. I went out because I wouldn’t let myself have an out.

So, here I am frozen as a solid as a slab of meat in a freezer. As my stiff and shivering fingers thaw out and I’m being warmed by a delicious cup of freshly brewed coffee, I think I’ll share why I wouldn’t allow myself to remain in the cozy warmth of the house and went out in nature’s refrigerator.

It was the fault of a student. And that brings me to yesterday morning. A student, a first year elementary education major, came up to me after class. We had just two exercises I call “It Communication, dummy” and “Remember the Chair,” which emphasize two of the classes four working principles. This student said, “Dr. Schmier, can I interview you for a class. Got the time now? It won’t take long.”

“Sure,” I answered.

“I only have one question for you.”

“Okay,” I replied never knowing what’s coming.

“What does it mean to be committed to teaching?”

“That’s an easy one ,” I snapped back. I hesitated and added, “….and a hard one. ‘Committed to teaching’ means you don’t leave yourself a way out. It means you won’t walk away from your dream. It means you’ll do whatever it takes to make your dream a purpose in life. It means to challenge your excuses and rationals when you hit the challenges. It means you have to can your can’ts–each and every day. It means you have to will yourself to ‘I will’–each and every day. It means overcoming your fears with your faith. It means not hiding from yourself and working on yourself. It means always making yourself your first—and best–student. It means you won’t let you disappoint yourself. It means knowing that teaching is not an event, but a journey develops day-by-day, not in a day. It means always to be ready to change. It means to accept inconvenience, not falling into a boring routine. It means practice and learn and grow, practice and learn and grow, practice and learn and grow each and every day. It means hang in there come what may. It means a lot more. But, first, last, and only ‘committed to teaching,’ means no exit strategy, nothing more, nothing less.”

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

Last Thursday night, I attended the Dr. Martin Luther King commemorative program at the University. As I looked over the almost all African-American audience with an occasional speckle of white, I thought how wrong it is to think that the celebration of Dr. King’s accomplishments is completely an African-American thing. It is not. It’s a completely American thing. He is a national hero. And time has not passed that he is not a vivid personal hero for many of us. Either way, we all must be grateful Dr. King walked this land. It is because of him. possibly more than any other person in the 20th century, that we are a better nation and closer to his dream of living the principled Jeffersonian ideals written in the Declaration of Independence.

While I listened to the words and melodies of the celebration, I was flooded by the memories of sounds and sights of the civil rights movement in the ’60s and ’70s in which I participated and which remain personally vivid to me.

And, in the twilight of my years, if my grandchildren ask me, “Grandpa, what did you do in the civil rights movement?” I will think of all that I did do and all that I did not do.

I will think of Dr. King and all that he did. I will think of his uncommon strength, of his uncommon courage, and of his uncommon nobility of purpose to bring a common American vision closer to reality. He dreamt of social justice as so many of us do, talked of human dignity as so many of us do. He went to the front lines, time and time and time again, as so few of us do. And, I will think of all that I did do and all that I did not do.

I will think of the great challenges he met and challenged us to meet. I will think of his unrelenting pursuit of non-violence and how he rose powerfully above Black militancy. I will think of his pursuit of non-violence and how he steadfastly held his course in the face of church bombings, attacking police dogs, dispersing fire hoses, burning crosses, shots in the night, exploding bombs, the killing of civil rights workers, hooded klansmen, screaming mobs, restricted neighborhoods, school children escorted to class by armed soldiers, student boycotts, police clubs, travesties of justice, nation-wide racial bigotry that took now unimaginable forms, White Citizen Councils, resistant state officials, and scheming federal officials.

I will think of the risks he took, the times attempts were made to destroy his reputation, the times he was jailed, the times his life was threatened, and the time of his murder at the age of 39. And, I will think of all that I did do and all that I did not do.

I will think how far we have come and how much institutional racism has been eliminated because of Dr. King. I will think how far we have to go and how much racism remains in our hearts because of each one of us.

I will think of all of this and much more. And doubtlessly, my eyes will swell up, and I will sadly answer my grandchildrens’ question, “Not enough. Not enough.”

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

Good morning. Had a great walk this morning even it was in the mid-20s. After walking the grinding Himalayan hills of San Mateo, six miles on the flatlands of South Georgia is a breeze.

Talking about grinds and breezes, I passed a colleague from another department as I bounded two steps at a time up the stairs on the way to class Monday. “Oh, well, the grind starts,” he unhappily moaned he slowly labored up the stairs, one trudging step at a time, with an arthritic spirit. This is on the first day of class!

My colleague is much younger than I am. He has been at what he calls “this teaching game” for almost four decades less than I have. You would think our attitudes would be reversed. You’d think after forty years in the classroom–counting my days as a TA–it would be me who has burned up all my fuel, that it would be my flame that’s losing its blaze, and that it would be me who should be a burnt out cinder.

My colleague and I have talked on and off over the past year. He often reminds me of a photographer in a darkroom developing negatives. The real difference between my colleague and myself is not knowledge or talent or potential or longevity. The real difference is that eleven years ago I stopped being like him. Up until that time, like him, I felt more like a working stiff than a missionary. I hadn’t gazed carefully at the students in the classroom. I had assumed that I had the whole picture at first glance. I didn’t take for a closer and slower look at the details because I felt I had no need to so. I talked of individual students and treated them as carbon copies. What I didn’t realize is that I took my quick and self-serving presumptions and preconceptions and made them into lasting, universal truths. At that fateful October, 1991, moment, I learned that I don’t have to believe my thoughts. And, as I slowly challenged my assumptions, I broke the enslaving spell. I slowly–and painfully–broke the spell my thoughts had over me and I learned two things. I learned that there’s no such person as a happy slave. And, I learned that thoughts–any thoughts–have no power other than which I give them.

There is a Zen saying: To a lover a beautiful woman is a delight; to a monk she is a distraction; to a mosquito she is a meal. As these words tell, the real difference now between my colleague and myself is the filter through which we each look at what we’re doing, what we expect to get from what we’re doing, and what we expect others to receive from what we doing. We each teach in two different worlds. The world we each choose to experience and the world we each choose to live in is precisely the world where each of us is. Where he sees little hope, I see a world filled with beauty and possibility. Where he sees little to discover, I see an adventure on which I see how much more there is to discover. Where he is discouraged, I am encouraged and excited. He doesn’t know how not to be bored with teaching; I don’t know how to be bored. Where he mumbles a resigned “why me,” I proclaim an enthusiastic “why not me.” He thinks in the next hour he’ll be in the same place still wandering aimlessly. I believe in the next hour I will be in an entirely different place full of vitality. Where he sees lethargy and stagnation, I see shimmering kinetic energy, nuances of movement and change. Where he finds excuses, I find a way. He doesn’t see a lot in his lot; I see a priceless treasure I have been given to live, to experience, and to share. He is in a fog of quiet despair and frustration–maybe even anger–because things are not working out as he planned. I’ve learned to live the life that’s waiting for me, to have what Longfellow called “a heart for any fate.” He’s waiting for someone or something to keep his flame from flickering. I believe I have the potential to be an instrument of the highest good for each student and to be a literal miracle worker.

I’m not sure what his measure of success may be. I do know that I measure my success by the fact that I am doing what I love and love what I am doing. By that measure, he’s is living in a conditional, wistful, yearning “if only” world. He doesn’t want to know that. So, he blames students, administrators, and politicians for his plight. I have discovered the hard way that wanting people and circumstance to be perfect is one of the worst forms of self-abuse. It’s a form of substance abuse that abuses the substance of our own existence so that we are in motion without movement or direction developing little more than a both a mental and emotional sclerosis that hardens the mind and attitude and spirit.

Somewhere I read that Abe Lincoln said, “A person is generally about as happy as he’s willing to be.” It’s our choice to be enthusiastic until it positively thrills us or be depressed until it negatively deadens us. Listening to wise ole Abe, my colleague and I can generally be on fire or burnt out as we each are willing to be. And the truth is, what we decide to be radiates out from us to influence, to warm or chill, all around us.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

A belated Happy New Year to “ya’ll.” It’s another high 20’s “brrrrrr” south Georgia morning. A thin film of frost covered everything like a delicate veil of shimmering lace. Those winged hyperdermic needles we call mosquitoes were grounded by the ice on their wings. I walked through the tundra this morning with frozen, bleary-eyes. Didn’t get all that much sleep. It was that exciting Miami-Ohio State game that kept me up late into the night.

Anyway, a belated Happy New Year to “ya’ll.” I don’t know about you, but I am just about holidazed by the slate of holidays and bowled over by the spate of bowl games. And the pros are just starting their four week trek to the Super Bowl! My angelic Susan is not a happy camper on the weekends at this time of the new year.

Nevertheless, I’m still in a ringing in and ringing out reflective mood trying to see what the old and new rings look like. It’s useful, maybe essential, for me to reflect on and evaluate myself. I do it every day rather than merely once a year. I’ve discovered that if I don’t stay on top of things each day, things we get the best of me. I won’t be able to offer the best of me and it won’t be long before I’ll be at the bottom. To purposefully decide, then, what is going well and what is not, what is worthwhile and what is not, what helps and what doesn’t, what adds value and what doesn’t, what to keep and what to modify and what to throw away is a critical exercise in self-correction, self-improvement, and self-affirmation. It’s important to cut loose the dead weight and haul out the emotional trash to the curb.

So, as I cut across my memories and take a long, hard look at who I am and where I am and where I would like to go, I began thinking about something I read during the reading marathon with which I ended this past year. Picasso said that a mere painter matter-of-factly takes the magnificent sun and dolefully reduces it to a mere, lifeless yellow dot. A master artist excitedly takes a mere, lifeless yellow dot and joyfully transforms it into a living, magnificent sun.

Not much different with teaching, is it. I realize that the meaningful teachers are the master artists. It is they who are worth writing about. It not the “dotters.” After all, vital persons vitalize. And, vitalize the meaningful teachers do. They read the Confusian message to always have a reverence for each person; they acknowledge it, recognize it, focus in on it, cultivate it, live it, get going with it; they give themselves to something larger than themselves; they give their lives over to others; they teach with their hearts wide open to others in compassion; they aspire to inspire the realization of possibility; they grab others inside; they give themselves to the future; they touch eternity; they engage in no less than heroic deeds; they help others leave a condition of dependence to discover a richer condition of independence; they alter lives and make a difference. I would go so far to say the meaningful teachers’ moral objective is to save people. I would go still farther and say, in the spirit of Joseph Campbell, they are heroic.

So, each day I have to keep in mind what it is I want to say on December 31, 2003. I want to say that when I entered the classroom each day this year, I settled even less than I have done to being a mere painter of dots and struggled even more than I have done to give it everything that was given me to give and do whatever it took to be a master artist of suns.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–
——–