I was just watching an insightful piece on CBS’ Sunday Morning dealing with a truly modern-day rennaisance man, Michael Hawley of M.I.T. After a decade at M.I.T., this young accomplished visionary computer scientist, inventor, award-winning musician, master teacher, and philantropist is without tenure. He says, with his outside interests in music and medicene and Hollywood and the military and the computer industry, he’s not bothered by that fact. Tenure, he asserted, has become a pigeon-holing barrier to imagination and creativity.

Boy, did that hit me square between the eyes. Recently, I’ve decided he just may be right. Joseph Campbell said that organized religion is the greatest barrier to the religious experience. That just may be true of tenure in academia. I’m coming more and more to the conclusion that the politics of, kowtowing to, quest for, fear for, need of, compromising for, and granting of tenure and promotion have become obstacles for rather than educational promoters of some of the most energetic, creative, imaginative, and caring people on our campuses. Tenure is fast becoming, if it alredy hasn’t become, a self-interested end in itself. It has become denigrated to no more than job guarantee. Highly educated and highly talented and well meaning people have allowed themselves to sink into “fit-the-mold” uniformity and conformity, compromised themselves, danced to others’ tunes, turned themselves into preservers of a museum piece rather than become a dynamic and promotional educational force.

And, I’m not sure tenure and promotion as it is seen inside academia today is worth the price almost all people are willing to pay to get it.

I think I just got myself into trouble.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

There is now resting among my sacred objects of teaching a Valentine’s card handed to me by a first year student last Friday. It read: “You smile every day. You love your students. You make school fun. In other words, you are one terrific teacher.” Needless to say, it made my weekend. But, what really got to me and got me to thinking is what she said as she handed it to me. “Dr. Schmier, you sure know your ABCs and are a very literate teacher who can read us.”

“You sure know your ABCs.” “Are a very literate teacher.” I wonder if Ashlee realizes how profound she spoke. I mean, what would it be like if we couldn’t read a menu in a restaurant, a sign on the road, a story to your child? We’d be lost in a dim and shallow world. Like a lot of illiterates we’d struggle to compensate for and cover up the void. The Sufis would say that everything inside and outside each of us, inside and outside each of others, inside and outside the classroom is a letter to be read. Without knowing our ABCs of education and teaching, we’d miss those signs of that “something more” that is possible in our mission and in each student.

Sign tracking involves seeing and reading, as well as listening for and hearing the many and varied signs in the classroom as a tracker reads and hears the signs in the forest. Students are constantly speaking to us. There is never a sound or movement that doesn’t tell us something about each of them. Sometimes there are subtlies and whispers; sometimes there are the obvious and shouts. Sometimes it is gestured; sometimes it is written; sometimes it is spoken; sometimes what is there to read is what is not there.

Every student has his or own own interior, own self, own mystery. Nothing is obvious. Everything conceals something else. Too many of us never learn that alphabet with which to read each of them, especially that which are moving deeply and powerfully behind the scenes and beneath the surface. I have never met one student, not one student, who doesn’t want to be seen, heard, noticed, respected, valued. Not one who doesn’t want to be recognized and acknowledge as a noble and sacred and radiant “I am.” Not one!! That bears repeating. Not one!!! And, by doing what students want, we transcend ourselves; we give ourselves over to them; we do something sacred; we become servant to something greater than ourselves. Then inconvenience, discomfort, disruption dissipate and disappear. That’s when we are transformed.

Sadly, too many of us look at a student, but don’t experience a person’s presence. Our thoughts, intellect, methodology, technology, information so often cut us off. So often, too often, we spend too much time in our heads, on methods and technology and information. As Coach Dean Smith of UNC would say, however, “There’s more to the game than X’s and O’s.” Sadly, too many of us don’t spend enough time in the rest of us where real perception and appreciation reside. We all possess quietness, alertness, perceptiveness, and aliveness. We all possess sympathy and empathy. We all possess faith, hope, and love. Too many of us just don’t practice them and allow them to unfold on campus.

You have to know your ABC’s, use them, and live them–everyday. I have found that I need a daily-ness. You don’t do them occasionally and go about the rest of your time. They’re not a line item on a “To Do” list. It’s not an unexamined routine in our hectic lives. It’s not an obligation as taking out the garbage, bringing in the mail, flossing our teeth, or walking the dog. It’s a broad, encompassing, and unending path we experience and travel that attends to every moment. As the Zen masters say, how you do anything is how you do everything. I find that the way I walk down the hall is as important as being in the classroom. It’s no different from telling a religious person that how he or she acts at work on Monday is as significant as his or her attendance at synagogue or church on Saturday or Sunday. The ABCs must be constant, center, focused, concentrated in my daily practice of my mission. You need, at least I need, what I call the “Alphabet for Good Teaching” in order to be educationally literate, to keep my inner eye open and unclouded, to want and to be able to discern, decypher, and read each student in the classroom, to be awakened and enlightened, to catch intimations of the extraordinary in the mundane, to appreciate the magic moments that occur each day, to avoid landing in the fat, mediocre, average of the bell curve. .

I’m not going to explain and define each word. I have not listed them so that they’re grammatically parallel. I’m going to leave them veiled, subtle, mysterious, and cryptic. Some of you will lift an eyebrow, wrinkle a nose, furrow a forehead, tighten a lip, pucker a cheek; some of you will smile, snicker, twinkle, or sneer; some of you will feel irked, shocked, satisfied, soothed, or astonished; some of you will agree; some of you will disagree; some of you will raise a question mark, an exclamation point, a period. I don’t intend to be obscure. I leave it to you to delve into their meanings by the means that you can and are willing to muster to seek out the plain, obvious, hidden, literal, intellectual, emotional, or spiritual hints, insights, reminders, and calls. I have discovered that, unlike a dictionary with fixed meaning, in my dictionary the meanings become clear, meaningful, and effective in my teaching only when I ferret them out for myself; when I am expressing and living them; when I’m using my imaginations, being creative, going through a transformation, confronting the shadow, coming to a sense of my true self, and following through on my deepest yearnings. For me, these words are bells that alert me, that wake me up and keep my eyes open to the many beautiful, mysterious, and sacred things that happen all around me every day on campus. They are the language of practicing attention, cherishing connection, soul stretching, thought provoking, asking questions, seeing around with awe, listening with wonder, and weaving together a tapestry of meaning. From attention and Beauty, through Imagination and Play, to Yearning and Zeal, these are my practices and well as “prescriptions” for living a richer, fuller, and deeper life, for appreciating the daily magic moments of grace in the classroom, for learning the art of listening and seeing. Over the past decade, as I struggled to live these words, my teaching has become easier, more purposeful, and much more meaningful. It seems almost magic. Ashlee was right. I smile everyday. Love each student every day. Make learning fun everyday. Everyday, I feel like I’m floating on air. Everyday, I realize how very good and very special teaching is. The more I realize, the more life I give in and give to my possibilities, the more I celebrate teaching’s goodness, and the more that goodness floods the classroom.

It’s not easy. There are the pull of distractions. There is the resistance. There is the rejection. There is the consensual thinking. But, I have found that if I can think and live free, if I can practice thinking and feeling and living these words, to paraphrase the Bard from AS YOU LIKE IT, I’ll find tongues, books, and sermons in the classroom.

And so my Alphabet of Teaching:

A is for attentive, awareness, authentic, adventurous,
accepting, adaptable, available, accessible, approachable,

B is for believing, beauty, blessing, bold, blossoming, blissful

C is for creative, challenge, curious, communicative,
compassionate, caring, cheerful, changing, community,
celebration, commitment, courage, childlike, connecting,
confidence, conviction

D is for desire, discover, doubt, devotion, daring, dedication, dream,
development, daily, delight, dancing, devotion

E is for enthusiasm, energy, enjoyment, encouragement, empathy,
emotional, excited, explore, effort, embracing

F is for fairness, freshness, friendship, forgiving, faith, fun,
fulfillment. focus, foolish

G is for genuine, gentleness, growth, greatness, go, gratitude

H is for happy, hope, humor, humanity, hear, honor, heart, hospitable

I is for integrity, imaginative, inspiring, interaction, itch, interested,
involved, intrigued, information, impromtu, including,
improve, invest

J is for journeying, joyful

K is for knowledge, kindness

L is for love, laughter, learning, listen, look

M is for motivate, mistake, mission, meaningful, mindful,
marvelous, miracle, method, magic

N is for newness, naive, notice, nurture, newness, nourish

O is for openness, optimistic, oneness

P is for patience, potential, persistence, perseverance, personable,
playful, practice, peopleness, power, purposeful, presence

Q is for quick, quiet, question, quest, query, quixotic

R is for risk, read, reverent, rapport, relax, restlessness, reach

S is for sympathy, support, seed, sensitive, skill, smile, stimulating,
self-confidence, self-esteem, see, sympathetic, self-awareness,
sacredness, spirituality, sincerity, silence, soulful,
surprise, serenity, silly, service, self-control

T is for trust, time, truth, talent, technique, transforming, touch,
transparent, thankful

U is for understanding, unique, unpredictable

V is for vision, vitality, vim, venture, vigor, valuable

W is for wow, welcome, wonder, why, wholeness, work

X is for “x-tasy,” xenophilia

Y is for you, yes, yearning

Z is for zeal

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

Well, the mushy, red, slurpy, and flowery month of February is upon us. Valentine’s Day is fast approaching. And although I don’t do the “on demand” candy, flower, or love card scene, I’ve been thrown ever so slowly into a cupiditous mood by my e-friend, Steve Mendelle, in Brisbane. In a message he had sent me, he had focused on something Elisha had said to me: “You really don’t have a choice, you know.” He told me to look at Exodus 24:7 and think about the meaning of what she had said. I did. Exodus 24:7 passage reads: “He (Moses) took the book of the covenant and read it aloud to the people. They (the Hebrews) replied, ‘We will do and we will listen.'”

That passage has really sent me deep during the last few weeks. Strange isn’t it. The Hebrews made what seemed to be an impetuous vow of “we will do.” At first glance, this seems a little a strange since most of us are taught to think things out first and then act. What do we usually do when faced with a choice? We first think about it, mull it over, weight the pros and con, decide whether to do or not to do. Think about it. In this passage, the Hebrews seem to be so careless, almost cavalier. How did they know that they would be able to carry out that which would be commanded of them when they did not yet know what was required? They didn’t. It’s like embarking on a journey without first looking to see where you are headed and what equipment you need and what training you must get. It’s the reverse of the natural order of acceptance, isn’t it. Or, is it.

In a Valentineish way, this passage reminds me that when Susan and I said “I do” to each other, we did the very same thing as the Hebrews. We had no idea what we would have to do. We had no idea what we had taken on. I mean how the heck did either of us starry-eyed, young lovers know what forms or what course “better” or “worse” would take; we had no clue what “in sickness” and “in health” had in store for us. We were heading into the unknown on a path we had to blaze as we went. But, it was an unconditional and firm “I do” vow; it was a promise, a trust, a dedication, a commitment. Now I realize it was a credo to each other: without hesitation or condition, we’d each be there for each other and with each other. We heard and accepted the offering of the other, but we really could not understand the “I do” until we did it. It was only when we lived the spoken “I do” did we understand the extent to which it was a demanding agreement bound by obligation, responsibility, and perseverance.

Saying the words was easy. Floating down the aisle with both of us feeling “we can do this” was easy. Being able to pull the words off, being able to live them, being able to live up t them, however, had more of a challenging messy-ness than we realized. It was a constant test, a challenging test of perseverance and stretching and changing and growing, both individually and together. Not every time was peachy-creamy, not everything went well and good, not everything was straight and smooth, not everything was easy and safe. It was neither mistake-free or risk-free. It’s not a messy-ness for the faint-hearted. The past thirty-eight years we’ve needed a lot of brooms and dust pans to clean up the mess we made and/or walked into. We had a lot of those hard, rough, challenging, testing, less than lovey-dovey and kissy-kissy patches of “worse” times. We’ve had a lot of those long bouts of emotionally draining and physically tiring “sickness” times that you don’t see in the picture albums. We have been in the valleys together, in the shadows together, hurt together, sacrificed together, agonized together, feared together, lost together, cried together, clenched together, mourned together, experienced growing pains together, rafted life’s water water together, struggled together, gritted our teeth together, clenched fists together, grimaced together. There were times we were shaken to the core. But, every day, consciously or subconsciously, we remembered our “I do.” We worked everyday, worked hard everyday, to work our way through, over, and around the challenges. Together we weathered what at times seemed like the unsurvivable perfect storms; together we faced and faced down adversity; every day we fell once again and deeper in love together. We have ventured together, discovered together, healed together, played together, grown together, reached the mountain peaks together, laughed together, celebrated together, smiled together. Every day together we nursed “sickness” to “health” and made “worse” times “better” ones.

Exodus 24:7 and our vows mean 24/7: twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It’s the ever and always and unending trust and a yielding to that commitment of trust. By trust, I don’t mean a “head trust.” I mean a “heart trust.” It’s not blind faith; it’s a seeing faith. We obligated ourselves to an affirming, no exit “do” rather than an iffy, fraught with exits “try.” It’s almost a surrendering, unconditional obedience to that “I do” that must occur in order to figure out what it really means. That’s what Yoda was telling Luke about “The Force;” that’s what Moses was telling the Hebrews; that’s what Susan and I were saying to each other; that’s what Elisha was telling me.

Do not think for a moment, then, that I could have chosen to deny Elisha. If I did, I would have violated and nullified my credo. She would have likely felt rejected and gone back to a life of rejection. She was right. I did not have a choice. When you have a reflected upon and articulated credo, a stated purpose, a sense of mission, a vision, to which you have committed yourself, you have to surrender all control. You have to choose no longer to be able to choose. In my case, my teaching credo is: I will be that person who is there to help a student help himself become the person he is capable of becoming. My purpose is to cultivate people. To be that person, I must do whatever, whenever, and wherever.

It’s like being a Ruth: wherever my credo goes, I will go and do. It’s a commitment, an unlimited commitment, an open-ended commitment, before you hear the details and the particular application. It’s not calculating; it’s not self-protective. No hesitation. No doubt. No weighing of pros and cons. No self-serving evaluation how much you can bite off, how much is possible, what can be done, etc, etc, etc. No self interest. Nothing to cool off the ardor and dampen the enthusiasm. It is a promise, and not a promise meant to be broken. No excuse is good enough. No rationale is acceptable. No explanation can be offered. The promise is more than words. You see, I do not see my credo as a “sometimes” commitment. It’s not utilitarian. No credo can be selective and still be meaningful. It’s a 24/7, an Exodus 24:7, promise. It’s a serious promise to getting up every morning determinated you’re going to go to bed filled with accomplishment and satisfaction; it’s an unswerving consistency and constancy to purpose; it’s rolling up your sleeves, digging in, and going to work; it’s being intuitive, curious, creative, flexible, sensitive, understanding, and effective; its reaching for those challenges others shy away from; it’s shutting off all exit doors; it’s the difference between possible and impossible; and, its the opportunity to accomplish something of enormous value, to stand taller, to grow stronger, and be pulled higher. It’s a commitment to be unique to another person’s quest for his or her own uniqueness. It turns cliches, truisms, bromides, and platitudes into truths. It transforms the trite and hackneyed into originality and freshness.

It’s not a question of choosing what’s convenient or comfortable or even safe. You know, you just don’t put a dent in the universe with convenience, safety, guarantee, and ease. Sure, the tests and challenges are extraordinary. So, are the accomplishments.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

“I should hardly admire them more if real starsand lodged on my coat,” Thoreau wrote. and lodged on my coat,” Thoreau wrote of snowflakes. I was reading an article about snowflakes. Snowflakes. No two snowflakes follow the same path of creation. No two snowflakes fall to earth by the same course. No two snowflakes are alike. Over the course of its life a snowflake may go through many different stages of growth, experience a host of different influences, as the wind dances it from cloud to cloud, from drier to moister or warmer or cooler environs, all of them leaving their marks on the final flake. A snowflake is a dance between destiny and contingency. A snowflake is a collision of physical law and chance. Each snowflake is vaunted individuality. Each snowflake is a marvel of uniqueness. Each snowflake has a distinctive beauty.

Sounds like a student, doesn’t it. And, we should be no less amazed at and enchanted by him or her.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–