Suckered? Nah!

I haven’t been in the mood to write lately. I don’t know why. I just knew the spirit wasn’t there and I wasn’t about to force it just to write for the sake of writing. Then, a few mornings ago, as I felt deeply sorry for myself that the hurricane Katrina had caused such a scarcity of gas on I-75 here in Georgia that Susan and I couldn’t drive to Nashville for a few “grandbaby spoiling” days, I was blasted by a “serves you right” Category 4 message from a professor at a northwestern university. She was responding to a Random Thought entitled, “Ah, Me” that I had written last April. For you who don’t remember, it was about a student who had taken advantage of an offer I had made to her and who had decided, upon the advice of her parents, that getting the better grade was more important than doing the right thing.

“I could have told you what she would have decided. No mystery. How can you have such faith in students?” she asked. With an interesting intensity, we she on, “They haven’t earned it. They don’t deserve it. They’ll cheat and take short cuts every chance they get. They want everything to be so easy. They don’t want to exert themselves….they want a lot for so little….This student is proof to me why I am right to never trust a student….Your way is starry-eyed and fool hardy….You’re a dreamer. What you’re asking is impossible….Your faith in students is a poor strategy of teaching. Our time is too valuable to get involved with such things that waste our time and efforts. So, I don’t bother with any of them. I’m sure you won’t anymore. In your case, I would have been too embarrassed to have shared with the world how easily I had been suckered.”

As we e-mailed back and forth, she was surprised when I told her that not only would I do it again without any hesitation, but instead of indulging in self pity, I am at this very moment giving another student a second chance. “He’s coming through and keeping his word,” I explained. “How do you account for that?”

“He’s the exception,” she replied. “You’re just lucky–so far. Just wait. You’re taking some risk….You’ll be victimized again.”

Her haunting phrases–“never trust a student,” “haven’t earned it,” “they don’t deserve it,” “poor strategy,” “our time is too valuable,” “don’t bother with any of them,” “suckered,” “victimized,” “they,” “us”–smacked not so much of haughtiness and arrogance as they did anger, cynicism, frustration, hurt, defensiveness, dismissiveness, hopelessness, disbelief, meaninglessness, and/or maybe fear and powerlessness. With such an apparent lack of faith and belief, such limiting and discouraging thoughts I can’t imagine how her classroom life can be truly bearable for her. “Carpes Diem” doesn’t seem to ring in her soul. Though I asked, I don’t know why this professor to choose the attitude she currently has. From years of conversation, I do know she is not alone.

As I read and reread her words, as well as those of our subsequent conversations, I thought of all those moments during the eight weeks between the moment I heard that I had a cancerous prostate and the moment the prostate was surgically removed. I thought of all those moments between the time I heard “you’ve got cancer” and the time I heard “we’ve got it all.” I thought of all those moments in the months between the operation and my recovery, a recovery which, after eight months, is still not complete. I thought of all those moments of six months between the time of the urologist unhesitatingly declared success and my PSA tests that proved him right. And, I thought of all the choices I had to make about living my personal and professional lives. Life in general, and so life in the classroom, comes at us without warning. What each of us chooses to think of ourselves and our world has an enormous impact on what direction we point ourselves, how we each relate to and deal with life and life in the classroom, and how we influence those around us. There is a choice each of us has to make in everything we do and about everything we experience. And, as we choose, we should never forget that the choices we make, both reveal us and make us.

Heck, we all will feel betrayed, we all feel advantage of, we all feel disappointed, we all feel frustrated, we will all feel threatened. It is our choice whether we let these feelings naturally fade to pale images or let them hold us hostage, intensely hold on to them tightly, and give them permission to increasingly weigh us down, eat at us more and more, diminished us more and more, atrophy us more and more. Of course, they don’t do all this to us; we do it to ourselves, for they can do nothing without our permission. We can live in the shadow of our anxieties, suspicions, and fears. We can fret. We can choose to use our disappointment or hurt as an excuse or explanation to waste what we still have and can do. We can shun. We can embrace. We can accept defeat within. We can achieve victory within. We can be clinical. We can be involved. We can see more of. We can see less of. We can find common bonds. We can sever all bonds. We can widen chasms. We can build bridges. We can choose to be teachers who are not teachers in spirit. We can choose to be spirited teachers. We can turn the warm, bright, and joyous simple and deep moments of opportunity to make a difference into cold, dark, joyless squanderings. We can see and listen or we can ignore and overlook. We can notice or turn a proverbial blind eye. We can surrender each day or we can fight for each day. We can go into the classroom as if it’s a laboring chore and merely mark our days as passing and regretful “ah, me’s.” We can get up out of bed each morning excitedly thankful for one more day given to us. We can choose to live this one more day, the only day we have, to the fullest, to decide to laugh and smile one more day, to choose to embrace and love one more day, to make a difference one more day. The extent to which we become emotionally wounded and weakened or healed and strengthened often determines how we live not only that day, but the rest of our lives and careers.

Somewhere I read these words: “Yesterday is a dream. Tomorrow is a vision. But today, well lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope.” I would add that there are no impossibilities in a dream. Am I a dreamer? You bet!

This message has gotten my wheels spinning. But, enough for now. More later.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

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About Louis Schmier

LOUIS SCHMIER “Every student should have a person who wants to help him or her help himself or herself become the person he or she is capable of becoming, and I’ll be damned if I am ever going to let one human being fall through the cracks in my classes without a fight.” How about a snapshot of myself. But, what shall I tell you about me? Something personal? Something philosophical? Something pedagogical? Something scholarly? Nah, I'll dispense with that resume stuff. Since I believe everything we do starts from who we are inside, what we believe, what we perceive, and what we do is an extension of ourselves, how about if I first say some things about myself. Then, maybe, I can ease into other things. My name is Louis Schmier. The first name rhymes with phooey, the last with beer. I am a 76 year old - in body, but not in mind or spirit - born and bred New Yorker who came south in 1963. I met by angelic bride, Susie, on a reluctant blind date at Chapel Hill. We've been married now going on 51 years. We have two marvelous sons. One is a VP at Samsung in San Francisco. The other is an artist with food and is an executive chef at a restaurant in Nashville, Tn. And, they have given us three grandmunchkins upon whom we dote a bit. I power walk 7 miles every other early morning. That’s my essential meditative “Just to …” time. On the other days, I exercise with weights to keep my upper body in shape. I am an avid gardener. I love to cook on my wok. Loving to work with my hands as well as with my heart and mind, I built a three room master complex addition to the house. And, I am a “fixer-upper” who allows very few repairmen to step across the threshold. Oh, by the way, I received my A.B. from then Adelphi College, my M.A. from St. John's University, and my Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I have been teaching at Valdosta State University in Georgia since 1967. Having retired reluctantly in December, 2012, I currently hold the rank of Professor of History, Emeritus. I prefer the title, “Teacher”. Twenty-five years ago, I had what I consider an “epiphany”. It changed my understanding of myself. I stopped professoring and gave up scholarly research and publication to devote all my time and energy to student. My teaching has taken on the character of a mission. It is a journey that has taken me from seeing only myself to a commitment to vision larger than myself and my self-interest. I now believe that being an educator means I am in the “people business”. I now believe that the most essential element in education is caring about people. Education without caring, without a real human connection, is as viable as a person with a brain but without a heart. So, when I am asked what I teach, I answer unhesitatingly, “I teach students”. I am now more concerned with the students’ learning than my teaching, more concerned with the students as human beings than with the subject. I am more concerned with reaching for students than reaching the height of professional reputation. I believe the heart of education is to educate the heart. The purpose of teaching is to instill in all students genuine, loving, lifelong eagerness to learn and foster a life of continual growth and development. It should encourage and assist students in developing the basic values needed for learning and living: self-discipline, self-confidence, self-worth, integrity, honesty, commitment, perseverance, responsibility, pursuit of excellence, emotional courage, creativity, imagination, humility, and compassion for others. In April, 1993, I began to share ME on the internet: my personal and professional rites of passage, my beliefs about the nature and purpose of an education, a commemoration of student learning and achievement, my successful and not so successful experiences, a proclamation of faith in students, and a celebration of teaching. These electronic sharings are called “Random Thoughts”. There are now over 1000 of them floating out there in cyberspace. The first 185, which chronicles the beginnings of my journey, have been published as collections in three volumes, RANDOM THOUGHTS: THE HUMANITY OF TEACHING, RANDOM THOUGHTS, II: TEACHING FROM THE HEART, RANDOM THOUGHTS, III: TEACHING WITH LOVE, and RANDOM THOUGHTS, IV: THE PASSION OF TEACHING. The chronicle of my continued journey is available in an Ebook on Amazon's Kindle in a volume I call FAITH, HOPE, LOVE: THE SPIRIT OF TEACHING. There a few more untitled volumes in the works..

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