God, I hate this time change. I wonder if the squirrels set back their clocks and the ants got an extra hour of sleep. Anyway, here I am, cooling off with a cup of hot freshly brewed coffee after a brisk five mile walk in the brisk pre-dawn hours. I had to burn extra calories in the icy air this morning in preparation for a caloric overdose tomorrow on my angelic Susan’s sinfully delicious birthday cheese cake she has been preparing for me the past two days.

Anyway, I walked the streets this morning at about 5 am. There was such silence. I loved it. It’s mobile meditation for me. While by body got chilled, my mind and soul just chilled. I stilled my thoughts, took in the experience, just listened, and discovered. I need my time to let go of the noisy confusion of my own thoughts, just stop talking, and just listen to refreshing silence. When I do, my batteries get recharged and things get clearer. You just have to back off, let go, get vulnerable, and to let the pure experience of living touch you directly. At least, I do.

And so, refreshed, failing in my struggle not to think of Susan’s yummy cheese cake, I am at the keyboard with some more realizations for Tina.

(12) Inside. It’s all inside. For me, “teaching” is not “out there;” it has no being of its own; it is, therefore, not independent of me. It is me. It is something I create or participate in the creation of every day through my feelings, through my thinking, and through my actions. When, over a decade ago, I slowly stopped acting in a particular way, when I slowly stopped thinking in a particular way, when I slowly stopped feeling in a particular way, I slowly began to be a different person, a different teacher. And, I slowly began to teach differently. That can happen anywhere, any time, with anyone because teaching is an expression of an outlook, a philosophy, and a way of life. If this is the case, and I stand as an avowal that it is, the “what do I want to accomplish” magic bullet is not in some method or some technology. The magic bullets are in my own chambers, in what I feel, what I think, and what I do. Any one of us can be a great teacher the moment we decide we want to be a great teacher. It’s all inside.

(13) Confusion. Lots of confusion. Lots and lots of confusion. Life. Vibrant life. Always on the move. Full of life. I have to admit that I never have a handle on it. Teaching is like trying to grab proverbial jello. It’s so mercurial. If you think you’ve got it, you don’t understand teaching. If you’ve think you’re there, you don’t understand teaching. You never get it and you’re never there. You’re always searching, always journeying. It you’re standing still, you’re dead. If you’re not confused, you don’t understand much about teaching. It exists in the world of the living. If you teach lifelessly, you’re dead. The world of the classroom is an unfolding, confusing, and complex world that is in a state of far greater continual change than most of us realize. It is a world of organized chaos or chaotic organization. The fundamental reality of the classroom is relationship and the center is the students’ lives. A totally different set of rules apply in this kind environment. You hang back, you observe, you withhold judgement, you make sense as you go along, you observe, you act out of an inner feeling, you improvise. At times, you’re not even thinking. At times, you’re going on instinct and intuition. If you want to control, if you have to stop to think, you’re going to be creamed. You have to learn how to unthinkingly react as if you were surfing a wave. If you don’t, you’re going to be creamed. In some respect the key held by the great teachers is to surrender to the wave and ride it. In some respect that surrender is an awareness of the wave and a willingness to act on that awareness.

(14) Movement. Lots of movement. Change. Lots of flux. Difference. Lots of uniqueness. Lots and lots and lots. Great teachers know the classroom is not uniform, fixed, and static. Instead it is frothing with growth and development. They know the classroom is pulsating, modulating, forming new relationships, reverberating, changing, throbing, evolving, emerging, shifting, submerging, reforming, transforming, moving. Each class is, as I never hesitate to shout, a “gathering of sacred ‘ones’,” each with a specific set of past and present experiences each with specific learning habits each with specific strengths and weaknesses each with specific current and future strengths and weaknesses and, as someone once said, each with a specific set of itches to scratch. The classroom is neither predictable nor controllable. There’s that jello and mercury again. The great teachers know they are living today and can’t use the methods and answers of yesterday. They know that “there” and “here,” “then” and “now,” “those” and “these” are never identical. The great teachers, to be sure, learn from experience, but such experience is a bank from which to draw as the occasion calls. Experience should not be an enslavement of simple “how to” rules and routine formulae. The great teachers know there are no “tried and true” answers of yesterday, only new ways of looking at a new today.

(15) Unconditional intimacy. You have to be riding the wave if you want to surf. You cannot be intuitive or spontaneous or whatever in the classroom without actually being in the classroom. You’ve got to be where it’s at; you’ve got to be there when things are happening. You got to be “present;” you’ve got to have a presence; you’ve got to be “presencing” the doing of your faith and hope and love. As Peter Senge might say, presence is not merely about being physically there; presence is about love; love is about intimacy; and intimacy is about deep, deep regard. Call it connection. Call it communication. I think “intimacy” is a far better work because it is something that is in every fiber of your being. It is a constant “I see you” thing, a consistent “I have a deep regard for you” thing, ” an always “I can empathize” thing, and a deep “I want to help you make a difference in your life” thing. The great teachers have a genuine interest in each and every student in that classroom. They never forget that there are others in that classroom with them, that they are connecting with other human beings and not just dealing with subject matter. They struggle to know each student and to let the students know them. The deep regard they hold for each student doesn’t mean all goes well and all is always smooth and they are push overs. They get irritated, disappointed, annoyed, even angry, but none of that ever dominates how they feel about each student and what they do. It’s like saying “I do not love what you’re doing. But, I still love you and will continue to act out of that love.” The great teachers also realize they, no less than the student, are human. They can say “Been there, done it. I know what you’re feeling; I’ve felt the same way; this is what I have found.” And finally, the great teachers are altruistic. Without hesitation or reservation or equivocation, they commit themselves, dedicate themselves, to do morally, legally, and ethically whatever it takes to make it possible for each student to have a rich and fulfilling life. But, most important of all, by deed, by modeling, not merely by word, they let each student know they are valued, worthy, trusted, and respected.

(16) No labels. No “at risk,” no “disruptive,” no “special needs,” no “dumb,” no “smart,” no “challenging,” no “honors,” no “failures,” no “poor,” no “bad.” Not even “student.” No, no restricting, confining, segregating, imposing, depreciating, denigrating, distorting labels. Just “human being.” Only the Golden Rule. Just simple respect and dignity of a person who has talents, gifts, abilites, potential. It’s not something you create; it’s something you accord; it’s not something you implant; it’s something that’s already there; it’s not something earned; it’s already there; it’s not something you give; it’s something you acknowledge. No theory. Just the way you see and act. The great teachers help students see themselves through the lens of dignity and respect. And, I don’t care how high a student’s GPA may be, I don’t care what honors a student receive, no student has much of a real future as a person without a strong sense of dignity from which flows self-respect, self-worth, self-esteem, self-confidence.

Enough for now. Gotta go sneak a peek at my birthday cake.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

(11) For this part, I’d like to start with a brief exchange of questions. A professor wrote to me asking, “Why are you referring to Sample’s book on leadership so often? What does leadership have to do with teaching?” Interesting question, isn’t it. Like Sample, I’m not sure how to define “leadership” any more than I do “teaching.” Language is naturally messy Aristotle not withstanding. Noah Webster is of no help any more than are the lexicographers in Oxford since they all have multiple definitions of each word. So, “leadership” and “teaching” are both fly paper, “oh, you know what I mean,” eelish words. I answered that professor’s question with a few questions of my own: “Aren’t teachers leaders? Don’t we think of ourselves as leaders? Are you saying when we talk of leadership we should think of Presidents, generals, CEOs, Popes or coaches, and not of classroom teachers? Personally I think a classroom teacher is no less of a leader, and we teachers ought to get bullish on leadership principles and not just focus on information and methodology.”

As I have been sharing this multi-part reflection on teaching, I hope everyone realizes that I’m not trying, or I hope I’m not trying, to tell anyone just what is teaching or what to do. I am just trying to share my experience that teaching and teachers are proverbial works in progress and trying to get you think about something that too often has been non-descript.

So, I am going way, way, way out on a limb and am going to redefine teaching excellence. It’s a position based on forty years of being in the classroom, fifty-nine if you include my years as a student beginning in my pre-nursery days. I’ve had the privilege of experiencing a decade of challenging, no-holds-barred, and stimulating engagements with classroom and administrative educators at premier conferences on collegiate teaching. I’ve had the equally exciting opportunity of working and exchanging with other academics as I presented workshops in collegiate teaching on campuses throughout the country, Canada, and England. And finally, I’ve had the ultimate privilege of working with, teaching, and learning from over 350 students each year.

The all too often current model of teaching in higher education is limited to an avowed functional model of transmitting information and developing what’s called critical thinking and problem solving intellectual skills with an all too often little regard for the human dimension. If we honestly look at college classrooms, most appear to operate with the belief that students cannot be trusted to learn without careful supervision if not tight control, and most control is exercised by talking and professor devised exams and a far from objective grading system. Few treat the classroom as a living community and therefore don’t consider the human resources waiting to be tapped. Classes work the way they do because of the way professor and student, student and student relate to or “work with” each other. In most classes, too often students get “just do” exhortation rather than a “why” persuasion; they get a physical presence of the professor far more than a professor’s personal commitment to each of them. There is so often a lack of an ecological structure.

I am redefining teaching in interpersonal terms rather than in informational, technological, or methodological terms. The transmission and reception of information may be among the essential products to be sure, but they are not the only essential products and they are not the critical processes.

Let’s be honest. Professors with Ph.D.s and long scholarly resumes standing at the head of the class are not automatically good teachers. I strongly feel we have to distinguish authority from teaching. The best of the teachers do not lead by virtue of the power of their information bank, scholarly reputation, professional titles, position, or authority. The best of the teachers lead by being masters in the art of human relationship. The essence of teaching is the same as that of leadership: communication. What makes great leaders great is the same thing that makes great teachers great, but is divorced from what makes for great scholars great. It is not merely their bank of information; it is not merely their intellectual prowess; in academe it is not mere research skills. It is not merely what they know; it is not merely what they do; it is how they do it and how they effect the moods and emotions of others. The great teachers, like the great leaders, are great leaders of people. They are the great communicators in that they are the great connectors. It is the simple and yet profound fact that great teachers move students, or better yet, move students to move themselves; they do their work through both their emotions and that of the students. That is significant. That is what separates the journeyman from the master, the talking head from the teacher. For a teacher to be effective, he or she needs to touch student’s hearts.

The best of the best teachers are servant teachers with a student first pedagogy. It is an extremely difficult and challenging pedagogy. Such a teacher nurtures relationships in the belief that their fundamental task is to help students do more together than they could individually.

Now, let me say from the outset that there are a lot of good educators in the classroom who come on campus wanting to make a difference, but don’t really achieve that they intend. I think the reasons, however complex, are what I have already ennumerated, but I’d like to give you a quick repetitive listing. First, most teachers don’t look inside themselves where making a difference really begins. Second, they have to be purpose-based rather than merely purpose-stating so that everything they think and do refers back to their purpose which is the true source of authority and criteria of everything they think, feel, and do. The vision thing is a process not an event. You can’t go off and write a vision statement and then go back to work. There’s no point to it unless they spend 20 to 40 percent of their time continually reflecting on on and articulate what it is they’re really trying to create. It’s never ending. Third, they have to have ways of sticking out their necks and articulating an image of the future as a means of determining what they must do. This is where the passion comes from: working to make a difference, to have an impact, to make a contribution, to creat a legacy, to change the world, to alter the future. Fourth, they must be willing, have the strength and courage to admit “this ain’t working,” and then abandon what which doesn’t work. That is, to recognize that experimentation, innovation, and creativity is a process of “failure.” Fifth, here is where I struggle, they must have assessment. But, assessment involves both measurement and interpretation, and interpretation means understanding, involvement, and being on the scene. Fifth, they must not only be advocates of inquiry, but inquirers, for genuine inquiry starts with someone who asks a question for which he or she doesn’t have an answer. Sixth, they have to break mindless, it-has-always-been-so, going-through-the-motions, unthinging habit. In its place, they have to acquire a discipline of dedication, commitment, perseverance, passion, practice, and patience that are the ingredients for change, growth, development, learning. And finally, they have to realize that they are perpetuating an industrial-age, assembly line system in which what goes for education it is not actually about learning, it is about getting ahead, figuring out the right answers, avoiding the wrong answers, not making mistakes and, above all, pleasing the teacher.

The best of the teachers have looked and continue to look inside, reflecting on their own lives inside and outside the classroom as well as on and off the campus. They’ve looked and continue to look at the past, present and gaze into the future; they’ve thought about the challenges and their own dedication and commitment; they’ve thought and continue to think about how things and people would be if they just get “it” right; and in the end, having gotten past their fear that they could not touch anyone or anything, they grasped a vision, tapped a passion and a courage, decided they were “in,” and “anted up.”

They inspire the students to give whatever it takes as do they. They sense the feelings and needs and perspectives of each student. Such teachers have a knack for creating a climate of enthusiasm and flexibility and optimism. They have a sense of timing and know when to listen, when to jump in, when to talk, when to practice tough love, when to be patient, when not to be empathetic or sympathetic, when to bend, when to lay down the law, when to go one on one, when to discuss. They invite students to be at their most innovative, imaginative, and creative. They challenge themselves to be at their msot innovative, imaginative, and creative. They understand they are in a nest of fledglings. They understand or at least are aware of these fledglings’ dilemas, perils, pressures. They offer benefits that go beyond gathering information and honing “critical thinking” and “problem solving” skills. They are avid listeners who listen closely and well and always because they know how to quiet their mind. They understand that students experimenting with and developing new habits require safe places and safe relationships between them and each students as well as among students. Understanding that when stress is high and sustained learning diminishes, they make it safe for these fledgling learners to spread their wings, to try no styles, to tap new strengths, to draw on new confidences, to use new imaginations; they often rely heavily, as I do, on what might be called stealth learning or implied learning. Some students would describe it as “tricked into learning.”

Such a teacher knows how to use his or her talents and abilities at the right time, in the right way, with the right person or persons. They have that sense when to listen and when to lay down the law, when to discuss and when to sermonize, when give in and when to stand firm. When a teacher focuses on people, that teacher creates a supportive, encouraging, and caring environment. They become boosters of morale, self-confidence, and self-esteem. An invisible bond is created based on a belief in themselves, among others, and with what they are doing. Never forget or neglect the fact that if a teacher is enthusiastic about each student, the students will have a better chance of soaring; if a teacher creates an anxious environment, students generally will be on their guard, off-balance, off-stride. Emotions have a real significant and real consequence for getting both the teaching job and learning job done.

To paraphrase Napoleon, teachers are dealers in faith and hope. The challenge, then, is for the person who wishes to master teaching to reach inside him/herself to the source of his or her hope and faith and to help each student do likewise. But, more to the point, the teacher has to have the confidence to embrace and act upon that hope and help the students do likewise. The teacher helps students to help increase their confidence that they don’t have to be stuck in the mud of “that’s just me” and can change. To be able to do that requires not only a purpose, a vision, and a mission, it demands as clear a picture of the realities the teacher is facing. That is, it demands that the teacher struggle to know him/herself, each student, and the culture that envelopes them all.

And finally, there is an inordinate power in relationships. No one is an island. As an historian, I know of no innovation that was not the result of energized collaboration be it in the arts, science, business, military, agriculture, government. The master teacher creates classroom community in which there is a psychological atmosphere of togetherness, mutual respect, mutual support and encouragement, mutual honesty, and mutual trust. It offers the best path to change, growth, learning, and development. This kind of teacher creates a community of students who are venturing out together, who are walking the same path, and who are helping each other along that path.

In classes this week, I saw today presentations of the Hollywood Project in which each community of students displayed a freedom to experiment with little risk of embarrassment or fear of the consequences of failure. It was as if they were saying to each other, “Hey, we’re in this together. You overcame your shyness, your fears and took a risk. I can do the same thing. I can be free to try something risky myself. We’re there for each other.”

It’s important to understand that everything I’ve said is not a matter of a checklist to be marked off one at a time. Too often we see it that way. Teaching is not something mechanical and the issues are not separate, unrelated, and static tableaus. We teach in a living world of living beings. The matters I’m talking about are a totality with interrelated, interdependent, dynamic and organic components. Dealing with one issue touches upon and gets reaction from all the others. You can’t focus on one and ignore another no matter how much you may try or wish. That’s the nature of living organisms. It’s called “wholeness.” And if you lack an appreciation of the student or education as a whole, you will have little positive impact or may even make matters worse.

Does my definition of teaching run counter to a lot of insight and wisdom about teaching out there? No. Does it challenge the majority of the thinking about and doing of teaching. Yes. Am I asking you to buy into any or all of what I am sharing? No. Am I asking you think about what I am saying? Yes. Just remember, no one should say either anyone can teach or teaching is talking or teaching isn’t tough.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

As I was saying:

(9) Ninth, with greater frequency, I am seeing my role as a teacher is that of a mentor, that is, I assert my authority by stepping back and deferring that authority to the students. I quiet myself so that I can listen to the students. If I want, as I did until a little over a decade ago, the importance of the spotlight on center stage I should go to Broadway. Since then, I’ve surrendered the manipulative and conflict mode to a collaborative and persuasive mode. Being a teacher involves persuading, encouraging, and supporting students to take themselves with a “let’s see what happens” attitude into new worlds, to do new things, to go off in new directions and thereby expand their world, develop their latent talents, search for and get a glimpse of their potential. There does not exist one student–at least, I have found one–who does not possesses a unique gift somewhere within him or her though it may not be and probably isn’t yet apparent. To be sure, that is a positive assumption. It’s back to that “F”aith-based educator thing.

Nevertheless, almost in every way and every day, I both challenge myself and each student to be free to look under each of our own tree for that gift and have the courage to start unwrapping it to see what lies inside. To be sure, for a coterie of reasons they hesitant, equivocate, and even resist. No one said being a mentor was easy. Nevertheless, I say to the student, as well as myself, “Go for the gold. Mine for it. Dig it out. Smelt it. See what you come up with. See what happens. Think about what is says about what lies within you and what more lies within you.”

(10) Tenth, teaching for the majority of academics is far too often simply a matter of continuing to mimic their experiences as students rather than breaking out of the mould.. Like Steven Sample, I, too, often am amazed at the extent of the herd instinct among self-proclaimed individual thinkers and the extent to which so many so easily and so quickly submit to and conform to accepted teaching convention. That position may be comfortable and safe in the pursuit of tenure and reputation, but, to paraphrase Sample, no one can copy their way to excellence, no one can reach for the stars with their hands in their pockets, no one can set sail on new adventures while anchored in safe harbor, and no one can stand out while he or she is sitting down. It’s that being your own person thing, that “contrarian” thing, of which Sample writes so eloquently with insight from experience. Let’s go back to the “F”ear-based education. Steven Sample quite accurately says, congenital naysayers, however well intentioned many may be, are among the greatest stumbling blocks to harvesting creative thinking and imaginative innovation. I would add, if we let them bar the way.

My friend, Brian Johnson, just sent me a quote by Henri Bergson: “To exist is to change; to change is to mature; to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” And so, the art of teaching must be an ever-changing work in progress, an ever-incomplete and an ever-uncompleted endless journey. The teacher is both master and journeyman, constantly mentoring while constantly being mentored, constantly learning the art and craft of teaching no less than keeping up on his or her discipline, constantly in a state of flux, always on the move, always adopting and adapting, always drawing on constant study, apprenticing, practicing, experimenting, risking. Teaching isn’t just an action; it’s a state of being that takes a lot of effort to continue.

Maybe we shouldn’t look for the easy, comfortable, and safe way. Maybe we should hope for difficulties and challenges. We often tell students “no pain, no gain.” Why do so many of us often think we can achieve painless gain? As a teacher I should always be at the edge and on edge; at times I should be somewhat uncomfortable and feel a tad unbalanced; I should always be “sweating;” I should always do whatever it takes. Teaching can be difficult and disconcerting; it can look foolish to naysayers. I mean you will look “silly” as you learn to ski.

There is a Zen tale, often called “Empty Your Cup”:

A university professor went to visit a famous Zen master to learn all he could about Zen philosophy. While the master quietly served tea, the professor talked and talked and talked about Zen. The master poured the visitor’s cup to the brim, and then kept pouring. The professor watched the overflowing cup until he could no longer restrain himself.

“It’s flowing over. It’s full! No more will go in!” the professor blurted.

“You are like this cup,” the master replied, “How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

In a convoluted way, there’s a conjoining of this storied professor and my darling eighteen month bubbling, stumbling, babbling, Natalie, “Little Miss Getting Into Everything of 2003.” She and this professor personify a Zen saying, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilites, but in the expert there are few.”

My own teaching has a light, feathery aire because I’m having a lot of fun at doing what I do and doing what I do is fun. I have to admit that while I function as an adult and the expert, many times I have to force myself to be “adult-ish.” I just will not let go of the child within me. At the age of 62 (63 on All Saints’ Day), I still am uncomfortable being call a “man.” For some reason I’ve never felt grown up. I feel like a giggly kid inside. I much prefer to call myself an “experienced teenager.” You know maybe that’s one of the deep, dark, secret assessments of the teacher: If you didn’t know your age, how old would you say you are?

How many of us have started out with a child’s fearless, flexibile, and elastic adventurous curiosity, and have slowly replaced it or better yet allowed it to be replaced with the turgor of either our or someone else’s certainty? The one statement that still sticks in my mind when my new Dean introduced herself to the A & S faculty at the beginning of this semester was her assertion to us to be free to use in our teaching that “let’s see what happens” wonder of a child without worrying about mistakes and to be free of worrying about making mistakes. She subtly was offering her support for us to challenge conventional teaching methods and thinking that put a restrictive fence around creativity, that do not allow possibilities to be investigated, that leave ability and talent underdeveloped, and that stifle spiritual fulfillment. I wonder why she felt it necessary to emphasize that it was okay to make a mistake in the effort to improve our teaching? I wonder how many have taken her up on her offer?

Drawing on personal experience, I am certain we should and could train ourselves to open up, not to shut down. When it comes to teaching, what if we trained ourselves to always have an open spirit, a kind heart, and a curious mind when it comes to each student? What if we trained ourselves to be acceptable and open to all circumstances and to all people each day, without condition, without reservation, without hesitation, or without equivocation? What if we kept opening wider our heart? What if we understood whatever it is, is not always so. What if we confidently engaged our teaching profession as an endlessly living experiment? What if each day was a fresh start?

What excitement we’d experience if we every day we were “experienced beginners,” if we were open and accepting and flexible in the beginning! What enjoyment we’d receive if we continued to be open and accepting and flexible in the middle. And, what satisfaction we’d feel if we still had my Natalie’s free openness and acceptance and flexiblity and curiosity at the end. Imagine how we could think bigger, see farther, feel better. Imagine how our teaching, each day, would an exciting coat of many colors rather than a wet blanket of bland beige.

Well, this one got away from me, didn’t it. More later.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

I was watching the Chiefs-Raider game on Monday night football. Sometime during the third quarter, John Madden started talking about injuries, rehabilitation, and comebacks. Marveling at the return from what had looked like a career-ending injury by one of the Chiefs’ running backs, he said, “If you don’t believe in what you’re doing and the people around you,” he asserted, “it isn’t going to work. You’ve got to believe for it to work.” And, that brings me to my next set of realizations about teaching.

(8) Eighth, I firmly believe a teacher has to be a believer in each student, an unconditional believer. Teaching is an “F” word. It is “F”aith-based, ever-freshened with free action and free thinking, and over the past decade, I have evolved into a faith-based educator. No, I haven’t turned my collar around. And, no, I am not a Bush Republican though I won’t leave a student behind without a fight.

If you’re scared by the word, faith, or don’t think it belongs in academe, use Madden’s word, “believe.” It’s not as powerful of a word, but it’ll get the point across. Whatever the word, it is a stand I take and the basis on which I make my decisions. It is something no student has to earn; it is something I freely admit that I have before I can prove my position is positively true. After all, faith, Paul said, is evidence of things unseen and the substance of things hoped for.

I have come to the realization that if I am to help each student help him/herself stretch out to reach for his or her potential, I must have unconditional faith in each student. That faith tells me, “Louis, go for it. Give it a shot. You’ve got the power and so do they.” That faith tell me that there’s an ability, a talent, a potential within me that is always available upon which to draw. And, I must exercise that faith that I have the power within me if I am to help students convince themselves that they have it likewise within themselves.

My faith in my inner ability and in each student strengthens me and gets me through the inevitable wet sand. Now I admit that the clarity of purpose endowed by my faith in each student often can startle those around me. Some think it is a recklessness. Some think it’s serendipity. It’s not. It does make me far less hesitant and more fearless than I otherwise would be. It makes me attentive and attuned. It sharpens my senses. It makes me look for, hear out for, recognize, see, listen to each and every student. It’s a lens that gives me a startling magnification of purpose and vision and mission, of belief and hopefulness and optimism. It’s doesn’t turn me into a proverbial bull in a china shop. It does turn me into a demolition ball that smashes the walls of my own fear and the walls that the congenital naysayers would brick around me. It frees me to go out and feel free to express an idea, to try a technique, to reach out to someone. I rely upon it as I ply uncharted waters and try the novel. Faith lets me unload self-doubt, shed insecurity, silence the belittling inner murmur and outer clamor, vanquish negativity, shrivel the denigrating criticism–and help students do the same for themselves.

This attitude, however, has evolved, this faith has manifested itself, only over the last decade. Until then, I was at the place so many students and faculty are right now. I had been more of a teeth-grinding “F”ear-based teacher, fettered with frightened thinking and frozen action. There had been a wrestling match within me between a strong deeply and long rooted FEAR and a newly planted, but not yet sprouted FAITH. It was a struggle of biblical proportions–and that is no exaggeration– between the old, well-established inner censoring, negative, eroding, voice of self-judgement and the fledgling inner, strengthening voice of self- confidence, belief and hope. My ears often had hurt from the loud cacaphony of a shouting match between a noisy yakety-yak fear and the firm, positive, reassuring music of faith.

Fear, by any other name, is that daunting voice of the self-critical inner silencer that shriveled my ideas before they ripen. It makes it hard for anyone, student and faculty alike, to believe that he or she has any good ideas at all. Fear crushes impulses, impales ideas, shoots down attempts, ties your hands and feet with inner knots of anxiety and self-doubt. Trust me, when I say that if that self-critical voice gets hold of your spirit, it will lead you into a maze of depressing negatives and discouragements and inhibitions and prohibitions and depressions and weaknesses. The battle always goes on through the day, affecting mundane actions and thoughts and interactions that impact on both your and each student’s well-being. The inner war goes on and on and on as your inner voice tries to cut you down with a cannonade of negative messages: “Who do you think you are?” BANG! “They’ll think you’re crazy.” POW! “What does he want?” BOOFO! “If you blow this one, you’ll never get another chance.” BOOM! “Better keep quiet and let someone else do it.” POP! “You’ll look like a jerk.” SMASH! “Remember that they said you’ll never amount to anything.” WHAMO! “I’ll never get tenure.” CRASH! “They won’t understand.” CRACK! “What can I do?” CRUNCH!

Yesterday, I came face-to-face with the realization that when I enter, am in, and leave a class each day, my inner censor, fear, it really quite puny without my support. I alone supply the energy, darkness, and power on which it thrives. Likewise with faith.

One of the students came up to me as I was strolling along munching on a very sinful but delicious fresh-out-of-the-oven glazed doughnut.

“Dr. Schmier,” I heard coming from behind me. I turned. There was Nancy (not her real name) .

From out of the blue she said, “Your story about biting your nails and your painted pinky really hit home. Mine were just like yours.”

She held out her hands, fingers spread apart, “I haven’t bitten mine in four weeks! I feel so much better about myself. I have so much more faith in myself. I honestly believe I can kick ass about anything now!”

“I have so much more faith in myself.”

“You sure do,” I quietly answered.

Believe me when I say faith is a powerful state of teaching and learning. It puts a bounce in my step. It’s than a state of mind, more than a state of heart, more than a state of spirit. It’s a powerful state of being. It’s not just believing. It’s a magical, mysterious, mighty force that changes you and your teaching every day and changes students as well.

For me, faith-based teaching is that mountain-moving thing as faith-based learning is for a student such as Nancy. For each of us, faith is a “pow” thing when we believe we have the power and a “wow” thing when we see our power move the mountain. If you’re going to be the teacher you want to be, if want to go anywhere you want to go, if you want to make your own decisions, if you don’t want to be manipulated by people around you, you’ve got to have the faith and live the faith. It’s an positive assumption of potential idea, a positive and possible and potential that I let go to my head and get into my heart. Faith-based teaching gives me the purpose and meaning; the purpose and meaning give me the confidence to vision the dream; visioning the dream gives me the direction of the mission; the mission gives me the enthusiasm and excitement, the commitment, the dedication, the perseverance; and they give me energy;

Without faith in each student, I would revert to the educational derelict I once truly was.

Wow. Didn’t mean to go on with this realization. It’s enough–for now.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

I’m back after a brisk walk in the brisk pre-dawn autumn air. So, what are my answers to Tina’s question. What are the realizations I have been coming to over the last decade?

(1) First, my first obligation as a teacher is in serving the needs and interests of each student, not in serving my own ego, not in securing a job guarantee, not in advancing my own scholarly reputation within the academic guild.

Until eleven years ago, I didn’t really truly think in terms of service to the student. I truly couldn’t since I honestly didn’t know or make an attempt to know whom the students I was supposed to be serving truly were. I got around this problem by claiming that I knew all about the students when they didn’t know about themselves, that I knew what they wanted when they didn’t, and that I knew what was good for them when they didn’t know. I had made all these pronouncements without having asked them, engaged them, or listened to them. I had resorted to unfounded “in my humble opinion” and “I believe….” as proof of the validity of my positions. I got around this second problem of proclaiming that I knew those whom I didn’t know by drawing up self-serving stereotypes, pointing to emotionally satisfying statistics, and pronouncing encompassing generalities. Over the last decade, I have come to understand the vast difference between flattened statistics, herding stereotypes, impersonal generalities that for too many have become precise absolutes rather than merely reference points on one hand, and the reality of the unique and sacred and living and standardization-defying individual human being on the hand.

(2) Second, students today do not fit into any mould of being either better or worse than they really are. They aren’t any better or worse then students were before them. They aren’t any better or worse than we were. They aren’t any better or worse then we are. The “in my day,” or “I was” or “students aren’t what they used to be” prefaces I have found doesn’t really serve a useful purpose because it doesn’t relate to reality. Memory being what it is, the “good old days” are good because we block out the bad ones. That filter just offers excuses for those academics seeking excuses not to change, to blame it all on the students, and/or not to roll up their sleeves and get down and dirty.

In any event, I have come to struggling to be free from past situations rather than being enslaved to them. What happened yesteryear to me or in a particular class during a particular term with a particular student or group of students because of a particular situation, what has happened to others, ultimately has no bearing on how I must relate today to a particular student or group of students in a particular class during particular term in a particular situation. I struggle, and it is a struggle, not to get myself into that impossible contorted position of facing a student while looking over my shoulder at another or looking into the face of a student. And, don’t think that is not tough. It is. It is very tough. What straightens me out more often than not, what throws my eyes front, is that instead of succumbing to the easier heeding of the pernicious whispers of the past, I listen to my conscience; I have a conversation with my inner voice; I follow the beckoning of my gut feeling; I focus on my purpose, vision, and mission. And so, I struggle, usually successfully, to come to realize that every day I am a different person placed in a brand new situation with different people.

(3) Third, there are worlds of difference between studying the subject a teacher teaches, studying what teaching is about, and studying how a teacher functions. The first is the world most familiar to us academics, for it is the world we were trained to live in. It is the scholarly world of information and knowledge discovering, gathering, and dissemination that concentrates on our field of study. To put all your chips into that one research and publish pot poses the danger of perpetuating the prevailing self-serving myth “if you know it, you can teach it” or “to be a good teacher you have to be a good scholar.” The second world is the academic self-help cottage industry world of “how to” that lists ten ways of “ten ways to…..” and fosters the belief that there is some magical recipe for teaching or some sure-fire teaching method. In this world, exists more often than not the implication that you can change what you’re doing without changing what you’re thinking or feeling about yourself or others. In this world, so often we are told that it is method or technology that is the most powerful classroom weapon. It poses the danger of focusing on superficial and stereotypical formulas that don’t take in account either the humanity of the teacher or the students as a gathering of ever-changing diverse individuals. It is for these reasons that when I offer workshops I usually go through the exercises I call “The Parable of the Dandelion” and/or “The Parable of the Tool Kit” to lead the participants into the third world. This third world is a world in which the teacher and student are alive. They are living and complex and unique individuals, continually interacting with each other, with others, with the outside environment both inside and outside the classroom, and are engaged in an unending dance marathon of change. This critical perspective spotlights the need for a “systems” or ecological” approach, a very difficult approach, that I have come to appreciate and struggle to implement and utilize.

(4) Fourth, I read voraciously in my subject field. I have written reams of research and conference papers, untold pages of journal articles, and volumes of books. I have poured through mountains of records. I have interviewed crowds of people. I have founded an historical society, have sat on the boards of other societies, have headed committees in still other professional societies, sat on editorial boards, reviewed proposed research projects, consulted and observed and critiqued projects. I have actively participated in the administrative life of my campus, have headed key administrative campus-wide committees, was one of the key persons in the formation of the Faculty Senate, and am presently actively involved in the university’s strategic planning. Now, I ask myself what among all the historical works I have read and have contributed, what among all these professional and scholarly activities, what among all these administrative campus activities have taught me about teaching? The answer is somber: none. Everything I’ve learned about teaching came from what I’ve read, listened to, studied, experimented with, developed, and experienced outside my subject field and away from campus politics. It is a much avoided truth that the skills, talents, abilities, knowledge, insight, methods, techniques required of a teacher are far removed and apart from those required of a research and publishing scholar.

(5) Fifth, the paradox of teaching is that, as Carl Rogers and Galileo have recognized, I am convinced that other than myself, I cannot teach anyone anything. To believe that I can teach someone something not only is to believe I can do something to someone, but to believe I can control that other person. I cannot do either, whether I threatened or plead. I really cannot stuff in, forcibly or otherwise. I can transmit, but I cannot turn on the receiver. Teaching has little to do with what is done to other people. I can only help, entice, lure each student to become a partner in his or her own quest to acquire the faith, belief, hope, courage, and fortitude to seek out, find, call forth, and utilize that which is within him/herself.

(6) Sixth, if I am correct, this is not to say that I have no responsibility in the process of a student’s learning, that all I do is to profess and transmit the material, and that all the onus of learning falls on the shoulders of each student. My responsibility is to persuade, to create connections and relationships that are unconditionally loving, supportive, hopeful, encouraging, and believing for each and every student. When a student feels alone, lonely, inadequate, unwanted, and uncared for, when a student is left alone like that, there’s a terrible fear that closes the heart and mind to anybody and anything. When I really make a student feel loved and wanted and cared about, and believed in, it brings new life in in his and her life. As Daniel Goleman points out, the glue that commits a person to him/herself and to others is their emotions they feel. What Goleman calls “dissonance,” dispirits students, burns them out quickly, send them into the shadows, quiets them, paralyzes them mentally as well as emotionally and physically.

(7) Seventh, being a teacher is to be a persuader. Students always have their radar turned on full blast. They can spot a phony on their screen miles away. And when that disingenuous blip appears, they distrust, turn away, and turn off. I have found that transparency is crucial. It is not a matter of saying the right things or being in the right mood. It is a matter of being authentic and living from my genuine feelings and according to my purpose, vision, and mission. In the beginning semester “what do you want to know about me” session, students invariably ask my about my painted right pinky nail; they often ask me why I have structured the class the way I do. I share by personal Genesis story of my epiphany in October, 1991. I do so because both are compelling. I do this because I find that sharing my stories with the student for several reasons. They feel I have respected them as young adults; by revealing my humanity and my emotions, the stories create a bond that is among the first steps to breaking the barriers, building the bridges, and creating mutually supportive and encouraging community; the stories talk of self-discovery, change and take the status quo of “it’s not me” and “I can’t” and “I’m not comfortable with” off the table. In these stories, I became a symbol of myself, the model of my purpose, vision, mission. More importantly, I emotionally engage the students. Students, like anyone else, will commit to change, growth, development when they are emotionally engaged, when their hearts and minds are engaged. My role as a teacher is to keep the focus on the passion and discover ways to turn that passion toward the action of learning. When teachers focus only on the subject information, when they are only engaged at the intellectual level, it’s virtually impossible to entice most students to maintain their energy and commitment, and learning suffers. It’s a deliberate strategy of creating a “creative buzz,” but controlling what I call the “crazy factor.” That is, I have to be “bullish” about them and their capabilities in such a way that I capture their imagination without scaring them away. If I buy into each of them by having a supportive and encouraging relationship such as communities, by allowing them to struggle and to make mistakes, by giving them the freedom to think freely students are more inclined to buy into themselves.

Whew! That’s enough for now. I think I’ll stop here. There’s still more to come.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

These cool, level streets in Valdosta are a a piece of cake! They’re a far cry from playing at being a Yeti walking the impossible near-ninety degree inclines of the San Mateo streets. I can focus more on my thoughts and get deeper into my heart here in the flatlands of Valdosta than I could on the San Mateo himalayan slopes where I was wondering if my heart would give out. And if the near San Mateo inclines didn’t get me, our grandbaby did. For three days, Susan and I spoiled her big time. Nevertheless, like the San Mateo Himalayan slopes and teaching, spoiling Natalie takes work. At eighteen months, she has more energy than a split atom. And, we learned why having babies is for the young.

Anyway, whether on the west coast or the east coast, I’ve been more than usually pensive the past two weeks or so for about three reasons. There were the High Holidays when we of the Jewish faith get reflective as we take an inner journey to improve our lives. I had read intently Steven Sample’s small but powerful THE CONTRARIAN’S GUIDE TO LEADERSHIP on the plane out to San Mateo, read it more intensely on the way back from San Mateo, and dug into it for a third time this past week. I’ll probably read it a fourth time in the coming week. And then, last week I had finished putting together and submitting my post-tenure review portfolio. I have to admit that I initially felt that at my age and stage of my profession it was hard for me to take this post-tenure review stuff seriously. Not thinking much of the formal departmental statistical student evaluations, for the portfolio I had decided to include the 170 or so free hand first impressions the students had of me and the class after a week of classroom community building. I also enclosed about 170 mid-term free hand evaluations by the students of me, the climate and culture of the class, and how the class was operating. This week, with an undercurrent of the spiritual impact the High Holidays is still having on me, with a backbeat of Sample’s concepts and words that had initially touched some sensitive chords chiming louder, and fact that I am extraordinarily serious about students evaluations, I started closely reading and intensely listening to the student evaluations.

To my surprise, I found that what I originally did not have my heart in was getting into my heart. Phrases, sentences, and paraphrase from the student evaluations began to dance in front of me like sugar plum fairies. They were like affirming examples of Sample’s words. These evaluations and Sample’s words seemed to join in partnership to form categories that virtually aligned with my sense of purpose, vision, and mission:

Category 1: An education is not a mere transmission and stuffing in of information. It is not merely the development of a skill. It is not merely the preparation for a job. Were an education to be only this, it wouldn’t be worth much and would be a waste of time. And education must be about a change. It must get into a person and become part of him or her. It must be a way of growth. It must become a way of living. It must be transforming.

“He’s more than a history teacher; he is a life teacher.”

“I’ve noticed that you try helping each student be somebody to somebody.”

“This class is hard b/c I have to look face to face at some of the life-long skills I have avoided my entire life….the odd part is that I kinda like it and feel a sort of relief. I don’t have to keep my shoulder to the door to prevent it from opening and letting others in.”

Category 2: Teaching must have, in the words of Sample, a strategic plan. I interpret that to mean: meaning, mindset, method, manner. Teaching must follow a progression of purpose, vision, mission, and character. That is, it must be about a consciously reflected upon purpose, the “why” in my being, in my heart and my soul; it must be about an articulated vision, the dreams and possibilities in my mind’s eye; it must be about mission, what I am doing to fulfill the vision that is anchored in my purpose; and it must be about character, our internal priorities, about admirable and positive qualities, about valuing values.

“In the rest of my classes, I ask myself, if I am ever going to use the material I learn in class, but in your class I don’t ever have to worry about that….somewhere down the line you figured you needed to do some soul searching and help us to do some soul searching and that it has to continue until you stop breathing.”

“I finally see what you mean when you say that there is a reason for your apparent madness. I think you think about everything that you and we do in class. It seems to be laid out precisely and yet with a flexibility. It’s like you yourself are always remembering ‘The Chair.'”

“I thought those “getting to know ya” and “how it works” exercises were crazy. I saw no reason for the ‘Words of the Day’ or playing the music at the beginning of class or late and negative fees. Now I see their meaning and how they play out everyday in everything we and you do.”

Category 3: There was the category that said thinking free and independent, being different, in the words of Sample, being a contrarian, is the most important character that a teacher can model and can develop in a student:

“This class gives us the freedom to be creative and the chance to express ourselves.”

“His teaching is very original and unorthodox and he lets us be original and unorthodox. Heck he forces us outside our comfort zone and be seen.”

“I’ve never seen him in a comfort zone. It’s almost as if he’s most comfortable when he isn’t.”

“This class has inspired me to be different. And I have learned to my surprise when I accept being different and allowed to be different, I can be free to use my imagination and be creative while better understanding and learning the material.”

Category 4: Teaching must involve a combination of the arts of what I’ll call the “art of artful listening” and “artful procrastination” on the part of both the student and the teacher. It’s that “thinking gray” of which Sample talks:

“You never make snap judgements about us and you don’t let anyone else’s judgement influence yours. I’ve noticed that you just take it all in, each of us, always hearing and always looking, always talking with each of us, like a baseball coach at practice after practice after practice before creating the lineup just before gametime.”

“You have such patience because you see each class as part of a long chain of process and each of us as a work in progress and you know you don’t have to decide anything until it’s all over at the end of the semester. I think that is why you don’t grade anything until the final grade. You want us to look at ourselves the same way.”

4. The final category says that character matters, moral and ethical formation matters, no less than information and skills. The teacher must become a symbol of himself or herself and be the embodiment of his or her values, morals, ethics, character. He or she must be a “do as I do” person.

“You model your Words for the Day to us. You aren’t one of those sermonizing ‘do as I say, not as I do” people. You are a ‘do as I do’ person. I nearly cried as you nearly did when you pleaded with us about drinking and your fear you wouldn’t see one of us on Monday. You really give a damn about each of us.”

“He’s taught me to be free to be different. He’s taken me outside the box and has kept me there–every day–just like he does with himself!”

“You are what we get. You don’t try to wear masks and demand that we don’t either.”

And then there was the comment, “What are you thinking and feeling when you come into a class or talk to one of us outside of class? Behind your ever present smile you seem to see and listen so intently serious. I want you to give me your answer so it can help me when I become a teacher.” Wow. What a question–from a first semester student. What am I thinking? In pondering my answers to that question, I have been coming to some realizations.

Enough for now. Going out to my garden and then watching some football. To be continued tomorrow morning…..

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

It was not an easy walk this morning. I was carrying the weight of a heavy loss. Upon returning from a joyous extended weekend spoiling my grandbaby, I was shocked to learn that a devoted friend and a revered colleague of mine, Tony Grasha of the University of Cincinnati’s Psychology department, died. He had silently struggled. Now he is at peace. I only wish all of you had the good fortune to know him.

And when those who knew Tony hold an Irish wake for him at the Lilly Conference in November, of what will we toast? I cannot speak for others. I will lift my glass not to what Tony did or what he had, but to who he was. His ambitions, memories, knowledge are all no more. His renown will sooner or later shrivel to nothingness. His tenure is of no consequence. His books will ultimately go unread. His position is gone. His resume will no longer be read. The titles and degrees seem so unimportant. His background is irrelevant. It doesn’t really matter whether he was tall or short, fat or thin, brilliant or mediocre or below average, or homely or beautiful, rich or poor. Who cares now what was the amount of his income, the kind of house he lived in, or the make of the car he drove? His religion or lack of religion is of no consequence. The color of his skin isn’t important. Even his gender doesn’t count as I count up my loss. All those temporal things that so many people chase after and even fight over because they think really matter in the end really don’t matter. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

No, I will lift my glass not to what Tony did or what he had, but to who he was. I will toast the tracks he left on my soul. I will toast his passion, respect, sensitivity, selflessness, compassion, enthusiasm, courage, encouragement, support, sincerity, integrity, friendship, authenticity, wit, laughter, smile, charm that have empowered, enriched, and encouraged me. I will toast his sharing and giving, not his acquisitions. I will toast his character, not his competence. I will toast his significance, not his success or reputation. I will toast the wisdom he shared, not the knowledge he had acquired. That is how I will value him, how I will measure the value of his days, and how I will acknowledge how invaluable they are to my days.

I will lift my glass not to what Tony did or what he had, but to who he was. Living a life that is significant, that matters, isn’t a matter of accident or circumstances. To live a life that matters is a matter of choice. Tony chose to live a life that matters. Would we all. And that is what I will toast, for long after memories of him have faded away what he gave away will last in each of us and in those to whom we give.

To Tony!

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

I just finished going through a recent report called “Hardwired To Connect.” You should read it. It’s more than interesting; it’s thought-provoking. I first heard of it in a George Will Column. The report is the result a mixture of neuroscience, developmental psychology, the psychology and sociology of religion, social theory, moral and political philosophy. These researchers partner “nature” and “nurture,” biology and social convention, family and society, and the individual and community. These partnerships, according to the researchers, impacts on the way in which genes are switched on, how brain circuits develop, and ultimately, on mental, emotional, and spiritual health. The research was sponsored by the Dartmouth Medical School, the YMCA, and the Institute for American Values.

The researchers conclude that Rousseau, not Hobbes or Locke, was more on target when he said people are by nature social beings and that Donne was right when he penned “no man is an island.” According to the findings in this report, basic biology and the operation of our brains indicate two fundamental human imperatives: (1) people are born to bond having an innate need to be close to other people; (2) they long for purpose and for some transcendental experience. These needs for connectedness and meaning are more than mere conveniences. When they are not met the result is not only stifling of abilities and talents, but it creates an inner imbalance and is mentally pathological. These supposedly natural social needs are best met through supportive and encouraging communities that articulate a clear and inspiring vision of the good life and help people to bring that vision into their own lives. The emphasis of the report is on renewal of family life and the social utility of religious affiliation.

Whether the report is based on good science, whether it reflects a bias view promoted by the Institute for American Values’ devotion to “renewal of marriage and family life,” I cannot say. Nevertheless, it gives me a cause to pause because the logic of the report would extend beyond our families and places of worship.

By logical extension of this report’s findings, maybe the problems in education are the result of both an intellectual and emotion failure to meet our and our students’ most basic needs of connectedness with other people and a connectedness with a purpose and meaning beyond merely getting a grade and diploma. Maybe what is missing in our educational structures is a vibrant environment of deep connections with nurturing people and ennobling sources of meaning.

Aside from parents, teachers play premiere roles in the lives of our developing youth. It is in the classroom where connectedness, shared meanings, mutual purposes should be promoted, reinforced, and sustained. Yet, they are played down. We introduce by word and deed, and continue to foster throughout a student’s educational experience, almost an isolating solitude that has trained students to feel an anti-social “I don’t want to depend on anyone for my grade.” We focus almost everything we have on earning a good living and focus very little on living the good life.

As I told a colleague yesterday, somehow I get the feeling that we educators in this capitalist country have violated the basic Smithian capitalist Law of Supply and Demand. On one hand, the biological makeup of human beings demand connectedness, cooperation, collaboration, mutual support and encouragement while on the other hand our classrooms do not supply connectedness to other people and moral and spiritual purpose and meaning.

Maybe, just maybe, our students’ educational problems are not just personal and individual, but are social and communal as well. Maybe, it’s not just them, but us as well. Maybe the way we have structured our classes is unnatural and therefore unconsciously unsettling. The scientific fact of this report, if it is valid, undermines any vindication of rampant, isolated, and totally self-centered, competitive individualism.

Majorie Savage, in her YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN, observes that when students come on our campuses they are not looking for information or wisdom or even guidance. They are looking for friends. They’re looking for connections. They’re looking for bonds. They’re looking for community. They are looking for a cure to their aloneness and loneliness and “strangerness.” They want to be less the stranger and less isolated. They want to be more the friend, more noticed, and more valued. They may find all that in going along and getting along when it comes to sex or alcohol or drugs, or being fashionable in dress and behavior, or in joining the brotherhood of a fraternity or the sisterhood of a sorority, or in going out for a sports team, or in running for office, or in joining a club, or in just “hooking up.” It’s tragic that they seldom find these needs satisfied in our supposedly all important academic classrooms.

In our classrooms, the students are so often like blurred images in an out-of-focus picture. Students commute not just between classes, but between two worlds. Their souls are split no less are ours and they are confused about it. Part of them has been trained to chase after achievement and do questionable things along the way. Yet, part of them yearns for community. The former is the competitive world, the world of comparisons, the world in which they need to be successful and need to be important. It’s the world that places emphasis on the grade, the GPA, the scholarship, the Greek bid, and election victory. It is a world that confuses honors, award, selection, appointment with importance. The latter is the world where they reach higher, and demand greater and deeper things. It is the world where the need is to be a good person, to care, to be generous, to matter, to be significant, to make a difference, to do the right thing. It is the world where the goal is to become a beautiful person, to fashion one’s life as a work of art as inspiring and lovely to look at as is any great work of art.

In journal entry after journal entry, in small talk after small talk, in deep conversation after deep conversation, I find students struggling. They’re told to be hungry for that grade and that honor. Yet, they are hungry for community and meaning. They’re told that it doesn’t matter how they get that grade, that it’s “cool” to cut moral corners and take ethical shortcuts. They sense they want to know how to live so that their lives matter. They’re told to blame wrongdoings and mediocrity on the pressures around them. Yet, they truly want help to develop the moral will to resist temptation and to strength of character to deal with demands on them. They’re told to sit down, be quiet, and go along. Yet, they want to stand up and be different so they can make a difference. They’re told to be fashionable and hide their identity. Yet, they want to reveal their uniqueness. Deep down, when things come out, when things are allowed to surface, when they feel safe, they want want their precious personhood, what is loveable and admirable about each of them, to be seen in their substance rather than in their image.

Maybe I’m prejudiced, but when I see students in the community world, when they are with people who share those treasured moments with them, when they are noticed, cared about, respected, trusted, valued, when they have a sense of purpose and meaning and worth and accomplishment beyond getting a grade, they have a greater sense of themselves and they accomplish so much more. Only this past week, I saw that incandescent power of community in one class as the students presented their Dr. Seuss Project, in another class as the students presented their Bruce Springsteen Project, in still another class as the students presented their Rodin Project, and in a fourth class as the students presented their Dali Project. This past week in seismic conversations with students, I saw how empathy allows us to see the connections between us, making strangers less strange, isolated people less isolated, alone people less alone, depreciated people less devalued.

In an academic culture that values independence, we create such dependence. In an academic culture that values individuality, we create such anonymity. We so often forget that our ability and the ability of students to thrive depend on interrelationships, not on isolation. We throw students into a competitive rat race with each other rather than in cooperative community with each other. We teach them critical thinking skills and generally ignore communication and people skills. We have an unnatural classroom architecture and tradition that barks like a drill sergeant, “Eyes Front!” We line students up in rows, looking at the backs of napes, making them feel like islands, disinclines them to turn their heads to the left or right, directs their attention forward to the professor on center stage, makes it difficult to forge acquaintances much less friendships, reinforces the sense of self-consciousness, isolation, vulnerability, aloneness, and strangeness. In the classroom, connectedness is weakened or thinned out, strangeness is accentuated, aloneness is increased, and, contrary to John Donne’s assertion, unnaturally turns each student into an island.

Why is it so hard for so many of us academics to acknowledge that we have a role to play in establishing that sense of connectedness and that search for meaning for beyond getting a job? Why do so many of us harp on “success” and play down or ignore “significance?” Why do so many of us put making a good living center stage and leave living the good life in the darkened wings?

A lot of academics loudly defend themselves by saying they are not clergy or councelors or parents. They don’t have to be. They can be just teachers who teach that there’s more to teaching than mere information transmission and more to learning than information acquisition and grade getting and more to getting an education than getting a job. They can find ways to “educare,” to call forth, and to stuff in simoultaneously. Certainly they can teach that while we can devote ourselves to a life of accomplishing worthy and satisfying personal goals, we can be enormously enriched when we consciously use our talents and time to improve the lives of others. Isn’t that the noble mission we each have embarked upon when we became teachers? Is that why teaching is one of the few “noble” professions? Teaching is a sacred deed in which we humbly offer ourselves as servants of something or someone greater. In so doing, we transform and are transformed.

Why do so many of us deny teaching’s nobility? Why don’t we pass on that nobility of purpose to our students? Why can’t our campuses and classes live out connectedness as what may be called “learning communities” or what I would call “connected communities” or what in classes I teach we call “communities of mutual support and encouragement,” that treat students rather than subjects as an end in themselves, that are warm and nurturing, that are loving and caring, that connect people, that put people ahead of research and publication, that focus on people rather than on tests and grades, that focus on life outside the classroom as well as the future beyond the classroom and campus, that transmit a shared vision of what it means to be a good person and live a good life, that foster moral and ethical and spiritual development, that promote the ideals of the dignity of each and every individual, that reveal to each student what he or she can be?

Some of my colleagues are really hot under the collar about something they call “corporatization” of education or the “business model” of education. If they want a business model for education, here’s mine: The customer IS always right; sell the students the products THEY truly want: community and meaning and purpose along with and beyond credentials.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–