Couldn’t sleep. It’s early, late, who knows. It’s this delayed time change. It’s an almost “brrrrrrr” morning. I’m about to go out for my five mile brisk, semi-bundled up walk–no power walking until at least mid- January–in the brisk 40 degree pre-dawn air. Meanwhile, this morning, over a cup of freshly brewed coffee, I was thinking about a bunch of questions laid on me by a young professor a couple of weeks ago. “You’ve been at Valdosta for thirty-seven years. You’re senior professor on that campus. You teach the same courses semester after semester. You always seem upbeat. How do you not become bored? How do you not become frustrated and resigned? How do you not burn out? Why do you not burn out?” He asked. “How do you still continually enjoy both your career and your life? How do you keep fresh? How do you avoid becoming stale, getting into a rut, and ultimately burning out? What’s your secret?”

I don’t really have a secret as this professor and so many others assume. You only have to know where to look to see how public my secret is. We always have to look inward to find the worth, the meaning and purpose that give us the courage to change, the determination to continually go on, and the strength to continually make the effort. It’s a long, rocky, challenging inner journey of constant reflection, admission, correction, and betterment. So, here are some of my fuels that over the past fourteen years I have concocted which constantly feed my furnace and keep me blazing away:

1. I smile and laugh inside as well as outside, especially during the challenging
situations
2. I have a dream, a vision or a calling that gives me a heading of true north in the
service of others
3. I see the sacred in myself and each student
4. I trust and am trusting of myself and each student
5. I care and am caring about myself and each student
6. I am kind towards myself and each student
7. I’m a constant learner always asking “why,” and reframing myself each day.
8. I enthusiastically create enthusiasm in myself and each student
9. I understand and accept that nothing worthwhile is quick and easy
10. I am excited about adventure and take pleasure in the unexpected and in discovery
11. I make sure I do something special for someone each day
12. I am grateful that I have an opportunity to make a difference in someone’s life
13. I stay in physical and emotional shape
14. I stay in mental and spiritual shape
15. I am flexible and adaptable
16. I am hopeful of and optimistic about myself and each student
17. For me the job of teaching is a love, my love
18. I accept my own imperfection and that of others
19. I am understanding of myself and others
20. I let go and don’t try to control others
21. I am patient with myself and each student, especially when I or they make mistakes
22. I see and embrace the newness of each moment, each place, and each person
23. I have as much joy in my teaching as I do in my hobbies.
24. I enjoy being alive each precious moment, live in the now, and live in this place at
this moment
25. And, I go to sleep and wake up each day with my best friend by my side.

As I looked over this list, I noticed that not one of these twenty-five ways comes under the heading of pedagogy or technology. Not one of these is an outside doing of a “what” or a “how.” No, each ingredient is an inward looking being of “who!” So, each of these twenty-five ways is one of those “I teach who I am” and “I see things and others as I am.” Each of the twenty-five ingredients is an act of both faith in and love of both me and each student that are at the core of every one of my acts. They’re the source of my strength, conviction, assurance, courage, peacefulness, vitality, clarity, vibrancy, perseverance, connection, commitment, and determination. They calm me when I get agitated. They hold me up when I wobble. They invigorate me when I weaken. They refreshen me when I feel stale. They remind me when I forget. They urge me on when I hesitate. They give me the encouragement to risk, permission to fall, freedom to laugh, support to feel worthy. Each of these twenty-five ingredients then is a seed, an outlook, a thought, an emotion I plant each day, nurture each day, and allow to germinate each day in the soul of my being and the spirit of my doing.

You see, the secret to keeping the fires burning is to thrive rather than strive. The real fuel is not limited to just a lucky few. We each can be our own endless fuel plant. To be one, we have to make the courageous choice to retrain our hearts and minds, to reshape our attitudes and outlooks, to let go of the limitations we each have imposed on ourselves, to make a place where fulfillment and satisfaction and joy and peace happen, to understand that each of us has to cross our inner River Jordan; that what happens in us is far more important than what happens to us; that who we each are and can be is far more important than what each of us does or can do.

What does it take to do all this? Make no bones about it. It takes strength and courage. It’s takes endurance and perseverance. It takes commitment and determination. It’s takes time, lots of time. It’s a heavy chore because it’s not just a matter of learning new strategies, acquiring new outlooks, or developing new attitudes. It’s really first a matter of unlearning. I had to unlearn what was tethering me, in my way, weighing me down, and limiting me. It was not just a matter of learning more. If you think it is, you’ll go back on yourself as if you were on one of those faddish diets or self-help programs. I mean I found out that I couldn’t learn to reach out and touch until I learned to let go. Moreover, I couldn’t play the blame game. It’s a no-winner. For one thing, blaming keeps our heads turned around to where we came from and doesn’t let us look forward to where we want to go. For another thing, blame is an excuse for not taking responsibility and control of ourselves. Blame gives control over us over to others and makes us powerless.

And so, though a make-over is a labor, it’s up to you to make this a labor of love in a way that is not laborious. Otherwise little will stick. The answer for this professor is that the prevention of burnout is a matter of what most of us call a state of mind. I call it a state of heart. It’s key. It takes nothing more than your choice to make it happen and keep making it happen. Nothing more! I’m not being flippant. It’s a tough “nothing more” that doesn’t happen overnight, but it doesn’t happen by itself. If inner change is a matter of unlearning, it is also a matter of a transference of empowerment. These twenty-five ingredients have no special powers until you transfer the empowerment you gave to those things holding you down to those things allowing you to soar. That is, no one can do it for you. It takes your effort, determination, and commitment to find a way to do it and then to do it, moment by moment every moment, step by step every step, day by day every day. So, staying happy, satisfied, contented, and fulfilled in my career and life, to paraphrase the bard, is not in my stars or my genes or my situation or my resume or in the judgment of others or in some technique or in some technology. It’s all in me. It’s not in someone else’s decisions. It’s in my decisions. It’s not in anyone else’s hands. It’s all in my hands. The more I open my mind, my heart, my ears, and my eyes, I more I will seek out and find that which makes me feel lighter and happier and absolutely wonderful. These openings of my heart and soul invite me to accentuate the positive and depreciated the negative, to savor being fully alive, to dwell in the place where I am, to live boldly in the now and wow, to get everything out of each day, to love deeply, and to have undying faith. They make sure I don’t miss the miracles of existence all around me. They help me appreciate and be grateful for everyday things every day. They are what fuel my spirit and my soul and my body. When I live from my heart, I feel full, rich, in control, confident, peaceful, vibrant, energized, blissful, bold, connected to my life’s purpose, and life just seems to flow so easily. And what of the dampening waters? Well, the fires burn so hot that the flames steam them away.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

Someone asked me to describe teaching. I thought about that. I think I’ll describe my teaching or at least the spirit with which I teach. But, I’m not going to talk about my discipline, or my methods, or my philosophy of education, or my credo. I think I’ll talk about what I struggle to get students to understand about themselves and their own potential. Mike Ditke, an ex-pro football coach, said recently while analyzing a particular football game and explaining why one talented team got trounced. “It’s a game of attitude. You can have all the talent and ability, but if you don’t have the right attitude, you don’t have much and can’t do much.”

“If you don’t have the right attitude, you don’t have much and can’t do much.” In their daily journals, in everyday conversations, in bantering small talk, I see how so, so many students have shut down that part of themselves that houses their dreams; they’ve been wrapped so tightly in fear of failing that they’re not free to freely have the courage to achieve; they don’t understand how much they can make their lives better and perform better by virtue of their own attitudes; they don’t understand how much energy they expend and waste by worrying; they don’t understand how much strength and stamina is sapped by fear; they don’t realize that nothing can stop them when they choose to keep going; they don’t allow themselves to feel their longing; they hold back themselves from being their full selves; they so easily get down by being down on themselves they concentrate on a hesitant “I am” rather than on a bold “I can be;” they don’t understand that paying a large price of not risking makes them smaller; they don’t understand that they can only move around within the cramped confines of their self-imposed limits; they don’t understand that they can only change what they do if they change how they see themselves.

So, how do I describe my teaching? Wholeness! In every semester beginning “getting to know ya” exercise, in every response to a journal entry, in every project, in response to every community evaluation, in every “Words For The Day” on the board, in every conversation, in all the small talk, I work on their attitude. If they don’t have the right attitude about themselves they won’t do much with learning the subject matter. So, I urge them to break out of their own confining prison, grow beyond their confining limits, and start discovering their limitless potential It’s a kind of a hands-on, “stop-start” sort of approach on which everything I do and everything they do rests. It’s a form stretching that is far more daring and challenging than anything the students will feel in a workout at the recreation center. It’s a stretching of their faith in themselves, of their hope for themselves, of their confidence in themselves. It’s a stretching that starts within. So, I offer students a long series of demanding stretching lessons that go through spiritual stations of stretching, opening the cell door, daring to peek out, risking to step out, tapping their unused potential, and start growing. With my eyes, my voice, my lips, my hands, my inflections, my body, at every chance and in every place and in every way, this is what I tell student after student after student as each wades through the muck of confusions, questions, hesitations, anxieties, excuses, rationales, fears, blames, and lies:

Stop stopping and start starting.
Stop blaming and start accepting responsibility
Stop making excuses and start making choices
Stop every challenge from being an obstacle that stops you and start seeing those
challenges as opportunities to grow.
Stop worrying about the load you’re carrying and start thinking about how to carry
that load.
Stop with the “I’ll try” and start with the “I’ll do.”
Stop discouraging yourself and start encouraging yourself
Stop accepting negatives and start accentuating the positives.
Stop trying to control people and things around you and start controlling yourself
Stop trying to get the most by doing the least and start doing the most to get the
most
Stop looking for a quick and easy shortcut that’s really the way to nowhere and
start understanding why “long and hard” is important and is the path to
everywhere.
Stop with the “I can’t” and start with the “I can.”
Stop with the “I don’t have the time” and start making the time.
Stop putting on your brakes and start hitting your accelerator
Stop being lazy and start putting in sustained effort.
Stop getting knocked down and staying down and start getting up and getting on.
Stop being all work or all play and start being whole and balanced.
Stop being stopped at the first obstacle and start overcoming, enduring, and
persevering.
Stop with the “buts,” and start getting off your butt.
Stop leaving things for the last minute and start giving things every minute you
have.
Stop looking for guarantees and start taking risks
Stop complaining about what you don’t have and start making the most of what you
have right now.
Stop using your own words and thoughts to put yourself down and start using your
own words and thoughts to lift yourself up.
Stop thinking avoiding mistakes is the way to success and start knowing that the
secret to success is learning from your mistakes.
Stop imposing limits on yourself and start seeing that you have no limits.
Stop accepting being average and start pursuing excellence.
Stop thinking and start dreaming.
Stop wearing masks and start being authentic.
Stop roaming about and start finding a direction
Stop doing only what you have to do and start doing whatever it takes.
Stop wanting convenience and start being inconvenienced
Stop talking the words and start living them
Stop wanting comfort and start being uncomfortable
Stop wanting things your way and start going out of your way.
Stop being safe and start taking risks.
Stop acting as if small acts are “no big deal” and start realizing what you do
makes a difference.
Stop worrying about failing and start dreaming about succeeding.
.Stop living someone else’s life and start living the life you want.
Stop being distracted and start focusing
Stop getting buried and start digging in
Stop focusing on what you cannot do and start seeing what you’re fully capable of
doing
Stop letting your life be controlled and start taking control of your life.
Stop trying to be someone else and start being the unique person you are.
Stop drifting about and start to acquire and develop a vision so positive,
meaningful and compelling that you simply cannot sit still.
Stop talking about all this and start living all this.
Stop thinking that this all there is and start knowing that there’s a hell of a
lot more.

I hope to get them to see that every challenge can make them stronger, every risk can make them more daring, every disappointment can make them more determined, every frustration can make them more patient, every mistake can make them more understanding, every stumble can make them more persistence, every achievement can make them more confident, and every circumstance can work in their favor–if they so choose.

But, you know, I also tell all this every day to myself as well. When I am alone, in my quiet moments, in my quiet places, it always comes to me that I must not only say these stop/starts, write them on the board, teach them, encourage them, and advocate them, but I must consciously and conscientiously live them and model them. I have to be all about by how I live, not by what I say or write.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

Well, my “grrrrrrrrr” has generated a lot of discussion that has threatened to send my computer on overload and wear my typing fingers down to the proverbial bone. It has ranged from a “go, Louis” to accusations of being “controlling,” “regressive,” “patriarchic,” “uncaring,” and “getting into students’ lives.” It has ranged from agreeing with limiting student withdraw–except under truly extenuating circumstances–to no more than a week at the beginning of the term without consequence to defending institutional policies of allowing students to withdraw freely, explanations not needed, from classes up to the last day of the term with no more than a meaningless “W.” Interesting spectrum of responses.

I admitted to one particular group of academics that the description of my response to students who wanted to drop a course at mid-term was laced with some hyperbole and poetic license to emphasize my attitude and hammer home my point. I am always readily available; for this purpose, I just don’t go out of my way to be available way, way beyond office hours as I normally do. And though I am firm in my response to such student requests, I don’t express my feelings in fits of anger, but a heavy heart. I still believe in and love that student; I just don’t support his or her decision, and I make sure he or she knows it. But, I still won’t sign the drop forms as my little sign of protest against what I feel is a regressive policy. And, to explain the reason for the heavy heart, I told these academics the story of the 12 spies going into Canaan.

Do you know who Caleb is? I like Caleb. He’s my kind of guy. He’s a “wow” guy. His name means “bold, determined.” I think he’s just may be one of the unsung heroes of Scripture. He is the leader of the tribe of Judah, the largest of the 12 tribes. He’s also one of the 12 spies who were sent by Moses to scope out the land of Canaan. When the spies returned from their recon patrol of forty days, they were carrying huge clusters of grapes. Ten of the spies, however, were frightened by what it would take to reap the fruits of the land. They came back with tales of horror. What they saw had terrified them. They talked of giants. The cities were large and heavily fortified. If the Hebrews entered Canaan, the ten spies warned, they’d be defeated. The ten spies had no confidence that the Hebrews would have what it would take to take over Canaan; or, that they wouldn’t want to do what it would take. In any event, they revealed how shaky their faith was. “Moses, don’t go there. It’s too dangerous. We can’t do it. Let’s drop this idea. Let’s withdraw.”

But, the other two spies, Caleb and Joshua, stood firm. They saw the same “giants.” They saw the same thickly walled cities. They saw the fruit of the land. They saw the potential of the land. They believed in themselves and in their people, and confident knew that the Hebrews could do whatever it would take to take over Canaan. And, they reveal how firm their faith was. “Moses, look at the size of these grapes! Man, we can do it. Bring them on. We’ll be protected. Let’s go conquer this land,” they argued.

But, it was the banks of the Red Sea and the foot of Mt. Sinai all over again. Fear prevailed. Disbelief dominated. The people balked. Their faith waned. God was not a happy camper. The Hebrews did not enter the Promised Land. They wandered once again. The ten fearful spies died off with all in that faltering generation. Their names are not worth remembering But, two of that generation survived. We know who they are: Joshua and Caleb. Of Caleb, God said, “But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it” He and Joshua were the only ones of those who had left Egypt who would enter the promised land.

Now, are we academics to be among the ten spies who allow students to falter, drop courses, and withdraw? Or, are we to be Calebs, telling students to stand firm? I know, for I have seen time and time and time again, there’s a Caleb in each student. So many students don’t know that; they don’t believe that. For a host of reasons, they act like they’re one of the Hebrews of that disbelieving generation preferring to believe the tem spies rather than Caleb and Joshua. Like the Hebrews, the students so often let their disbelief, lack of self-confidence, fear, and/or angst prevail. So, they, like the Hebrews, want to drop and withdraw at the drop of a challenging hat. And, so many of us let them. Now, a lot of us academics let the students make that unguided decision in the noble name of “freedom.” A lot of academics want to be disengaged and allow students to take the easy path in the sacred name of “progressivism.” A lot of academics want to condemn as “regressive” and “patriarchical” and “controlling” and “getting into students’ lives” positions that hold the students’ feet to the fire of commitment and have them stand firm in the face of challenge. And, too many academics merely want to be the guide on the side or the sage on stage only when it comes to their discipline and the development of intellectual skills.

We all have to remember, by virtue of our positions, like it or not, that we all get into student lives. Our choice is that we can be as one of the ten spies or as a Caleb and Joshua. If we be as one of the spies, through policy, words, and actions–or inactions–we’ll be condoning students’ lack of faith in themselves, their lack of confidence, and their willingness seek out the mythical risk-free, unchallenging yellow brick road lined with guarantees. Or, as a modern day Caleb may, we can read from Dr Seuss’ IF I RAN A ZOO: “If you want to catch beasts you don’t see everyday, you have to go out-of-the-way. You have to go places no others can get to. You have to get cold, and you have to get wet, too.” I think it was Charles De Gaul who said something to the effect that it is only by coming to grips with difficulty that a person can realize his or her potential. By allowing students to drop courses at the flick of the hand at mid term or farther on into the course with the only justification being fear of getting a lower grade or facing a harder challenge or not being comfortable or not wanting to be inconvenienced, then, we do them no service. As the Hebrews at the border of Canaan demonstrated, the art of dropping a course isn’t difficult to master, but it isn’t exactly character building, and it sure won’t get anyone the fruit and honey.

As for me, I prefer “getting into their lives” as a Caleb rather than as one of the wimpy spies. I’m not going to back off. I’m going to help students open themselves to and embrace challenge, and realize that it is their best friend. I’m going to help students face life instead of hiding or running from it. I’m going to help students help themselves get out of their “so-so zone” and into their own “wow zone,” and stay there. I’m going to help them build up their resistance to the temptations to be lazy, to be easily distraction, to take the easy way, to take the risk free path. I’m going to help them acquire a great vision for their lives, enroll in the challenge, and strive to achieve what they and nobody ever expected. I’m going to help them have high expectations for themselves, set their aims high, commit to them, and move forward. I’m going to help them raise their own bar by challenging and confronting their own shallow standards, by committing themselves to excellence and walking away from mediocrity. I’m going to help them set new standards by moving from the ho-hum of the ordinary to the wow of the extraordinary. I’m going to help them acquire a “bounce backability” of that proverbial if at first they don’t succeed they should keep on trying, trying, trying, trying again. I am going to help them help themselves acquire and hone their thinking skills, their emotional skills, their spiritual skills, their community skills, communication skills, and their people skills.

I’m going to live my academic life struggling to convince students that they have it within them to do better than they believe they can, to help them find that “different spirit” that dwells sometime hidden and latent within them, and to help them help themselves to draw on its power so that throughout their lives rather than being one of the anonymous spies to themselves, rather than wander about outside the land of milk and honey, they’ll say confidently, like Caleb, “I can do this. Bring it on. Let’s go. Give me this mountain.”

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

Grrrrrrrrrrrr! I am not a happy camper. I’ve been in a stew for the last few days. It always happens at this time of the semester. I was going to let it pass, as I usually do, with mumbles and rumbles under my breathe or in the sanctity of a colleague/s office. But, not this time.

‘This course isn’t what I expected,” her voice meekly told me over the phone. She wanted to drop from the Perspectives course on the Holocaust.

“What did you expect.”

“Just some lectures, a few readings, and a test. You were supposed to be a fun teacher. It wasn’t fun being crammed into a corner for an entire period on that first day as if we were in a cattle car. And those films aren’t fun. You’re not easy. This course is serious and hard. I didn’t expect to have to work in this class. It’s only a two hour Core perspectives course.”

“Fun? This is a course on the Holocaust? You want me to crack jokes about the murder of 12 million people? This course has been an emotional roller coaster for me, and you want fun?”

“Well, that’s your reputation.”

“What’s the real reason you want to drop the course?”

Silence.

“What’s the real reason?”

“I have to spend outside time for this class. I have to go listen to speakers who survived the Holocaust. I’m not comfortable looking at the horrible films you show in class. I have to write journals about my reactions to them and what we see in class, and talk of my own prejudices to see how prejudices like them can led to the Holocaust. And then, I have to help write a play in the first person as if I was a by-stander who let these things happen. I don’t have time for all that.”

“You don’t have time? Golly gee whiz,” I answered with a tone of more than a little sarcasm. “What do you have time for? You’ve got time for your sorority? You’ve got time to go home and see mommy and daddy and boyfriend almost every weekend? You’ve got time for going to the local drinking holes? And you don’t have time to work? What’s the real reason?”

” I don’t want to do that, especially write the play.”

“You don’t want to do that? I’m not sure I’ll sign that form.”

“Why?”

“Because you should stick by your commitment. I told you the first day of class while you were all crowed in the corner of the room to simulate a cattle car heading for Auschwitz that this was going to be a demanding class, that if you weren’t ready to put in the time and effort, you should do yourself and me a favor and drop the course, and that I had a waiting list of twenty-five students ready to fill your seat. You knew what the requirements of the course were from day one…..Are you going to bail out on the others in your writing community?”

“Yes.”

“What’s your major?”

“Education.”

I nearly choked. “Education!?!?!?!??! You’re going to be a teacher?!?!?!?!? Is that what you’re going to let your students do? Not do an assignment just because they don’t want to or because they supposedly don’t have the time?”

“No.”

“Then, you’re being a hypocrite?”

“….Yes….I guess so.”

“No ‘guess so.’ I guess you don’t think that is a big deal. Maybe you ought think about changing your major…..”

Grrrrrrrr. It’s the time of mid-term. Students are scurrying to drop courses so their GPA doesn’t drop and the Hope Scholarship doesn’t drop them. Some of them act like a herd of cattle infected with mad cow disease on a stampede ready to trample anyone who gets in their way. They can be disrespectful, irrational, confrontational, assaulting, and abusive if they don’t get their childish way. Most professors sign the form with a sneering “good riddance” or a sighing “what can I do” attitude. Not me. I grrrrrrrrrowl. This the one time each semester I almost want to agree with the academic naysayers. This is the time I see what they mean when they rant and rave against grade inflation and coddling of students.

And, for this brief time, they’re right. It is coddling time. It is grade inflation time. In our university system, a student can drop a course as late as mid-term without any consequences, without any accountability, not even a feather tap on the back of his or her hand. Never mind student errant behavior, never mind irresponsibility, never mind a lack of discipline, never mind the pursuit of less than mediocrity, never mind preferring to crack a keg rather than a book, never mind wanting to take the road most taken, never mind seldom showing up in class, never mind not doing assignments or handing them in on time, never mind sleeping off a hang-over or worse, never mind rushing a sorority or fraternity rather than rushing to class, never mind all this and the other stuff of which excuses are made.

We condoning such attitudes? What are we modeling here? I’ll probably get into trouble for publicly airing my distaste. I really don’t care. My rabbi always says, “write the letter and then throw it away.” I did. This is the fourth letter! The policy is wrong; it’s stupid; it’s criminal; it’s obscene; it’s unconscionable; it’s immoral; it’s uneducational. It’s not caring about the student. I’m not sure what it’s a caring about. It would be nice to hear the reasoning behind it. But, no one has yet to offer me a convincing explanation or rationale for this policy other than a discussion closing “it’s Board of Regents policy.” Want to give a student ten days to drop a course at the beginning of the semester, fine. Want to allow a student to drop a course for extenuating personal, family, or medical reasons throughout the semester, I’m all for it. But, just because they don’t want to do the work, or the work too hard or challenging, or it will adversely affect their GPA? No! Can you hear those naysayers saying, See? This is how low higher education has sunk.”

So, each time at this time of each semester this policy brings out the old ’60s protester in me. It raises the hair on the nape of my neck; it reddens my face; it tightens my lips. This time I won’t go silently into the good night.

You know, I am a wholeness teacher. I pride myself on being a character educator. I struggle in my classes to help students develop their character, to help them bring out the potential within them, to overcome the limits they have placed on themselves or have allowed to be placed on them, to learn that there are consequences to their actions, to stop blaming, to assume responsibility, to be disciplined, to be principled, to pursue excellence, to be accountable, to give it everything they’ve got, to believe in themselves, to spit in the eye of difficulty, to pick up the gauntlet of challenges, to stretch themselves, to take risks, to transform obstacle into opportunity. And then, at mid-term this comes along as a threat to neutralize all my efforts, taking their eyes off learning and back to grading, encouraging them to become unaccountable whiners and wimps who are all too ready to blame and all too ready to assign responsibility to someone else, all too ready to want only convenience and comfort and guarantees. What are we teaching them, that it’s okay to blame their shortcomings supposedly on circumstances beyond their control, on dead alarm clocks, on flat tires, on inconsiderate professors, on torturous practice schedules, on too much of a load, on dead car batteries, on police pullovers, on time-consuming Greek rushes, on lack of parking, on inconsiderate room mates, on lost keys, on locked doors, on demanding parents, on challenge, etc, etc, etc.?

One of my colleagues in another department told me as I snarled about this policy over a cup of coffee, “I thought you were student oriented.” He was serious. Not student oriented? Me? You think this policy is student-oriented? I’m upset with this policy because I give a damn about the students, because this policy doesn’t teach students a “stick-to-itness,” because the habit created by following this policy will come back to bite them in their buns. We all want students to make good choices. But where are they to learn? Certainly not from this policy of catering and leniency. It doesn’t teach them to improve. It doesn’t teach them resolve. It doesn’t’ teach them to be accountable. It doesn’t teach them how to become better persons, only how to get a better GPA. It doesn’t teach them how to overcome challenges, only to how to back off from them. It doesn’t teach them to face fears and tackle unpleasant tasks. Is that how they learn to place a higher value on learning rather than getting grades? All it teaches them is to rationalize, offer excuses, submitting to impulses. They can just walk away without a by your leave. Is this how we teach them to dig out from the hole they’ve dug themselves into? Is this the clock by which they should set their moral and ethical watches? Is this how they learn about the perseverance they need when trying to master a job or get the right job, finding the right relationship or working through the problems? Is this how they learn to make good choices? Is this how we teach them to resist self-indulgence? Is this how they learn to resist putting their integrity on the auction block? What a great price we’re teaching them to pay for so little in return.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr. I am tenured. I am senior professor on my campus. I have a reputation for being an iconoclast. And, in this one instance I use them all to the hilt. I know I’m flailing at windmills. I know I can’t stop a student from dropping a course, but I sure don’t have to make it easy, convenient, and comfortable for them to do so. I know people roll their eyes when I take this semesterly stance. Nevertheless, I just won’t go quietly into the night. In protest of this demeaning regulation, I don’t make myself easily available. Let them search high and low to find me. At least, some will show some energy and initiative for the first time. Anyway, if they are unlucky enough to catch up to me, I make sure they’re not comfortable in my presence. I’ll give them a pyroclastic blast. I’ll read them such a riot act about responsibility, commitment, self-discipline, perseverance, pursuit of excellence, self-respect, tail-tucking it straightens out their hairdos, blows them backward, and tatters their clothes. Then, I won’t even sign the drop form. Let them scurry to find someone else do it!

Get the idea I’m mad about the signals this sends to students, about the life lessons this teaches them, about the lousy habits it lures them into?

Grrrrrrr!

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

I lost a dear colleague and friend last week to the ravages of pancreatic cancer. His name is Fred Morris. Very few of you know of him. You should have. For me, he was a fellow traveler and kindred spirit. He tooled about in a motorized wheel chair, but stood so tall I really never noticed it. Sometimes he’d hobble around on crutches, but there was no hobbling of his spirit. I regret I could not be at the “Celebrationof a Life” memorial service on campus. At the time I was hosting a presentation in the “Witness To The Holocaust” program I had put together to compliment my course on the same dismal subject. Fred would not have wanted it to be any other way. I wrote a few words to him and sent them on for someone to read in my stead. Had I been there, I would have said how much he was an inspiration to me and how much my memory of him will continue to be a benediction to him.

We talked often. I’d bounce into his office to bounce teaching ideas off him; he would bounce ideas off me. We’d celebrate when a struggling student made a small, giant step and cry the loss when one stumbled and refused to get up and go on. We’d cheer each other on and encourage each other when the going got rocky for either one of us. We’d shore the other up when we weakened. Our conversations were often interruption by a faint knock, a slow opening of the door, a few fingers appearing that weakly griped the door’s edge, a single, hesitant, peeking in eye of a student in need, and a needy, inquiring “You busy?” The student would be met by an inviting twinkle in his eye and compassionate smile on his face. Our focus immediately would shift. Nothing was more important to Fred at that moment–or any other moment for that matter–than that student. We’d look at each other. There was no “wait a minute” or “I’ll be with you in a few minutes.” Be it mid-paragraph, mid-sentence, or mid-word, I would quickly get out of my chair and leave with a “Later.” And, would return in a day or two and pick up where we had left off. Now, there are no more “laters.” Now, there’s a hole in my day’s schedule and in my soul.

I did not have that one last “later,” that one last conversation we both so desperately wanted. We had agreed it was to be a celebration of life, not a bemoaning of death; a joy of what had been, not a sadness of what would have been. We scheduled to have at discussion at his bedside in his home, but had to reschedule, and reschedule again, and again, and again until there were no more “and agains.” It was not to be. Both the cancer, advancing at a blindly rapid pace, and the equally ravaging chemo therapy constantly and successfully conspired to deny us. I will miss our searching talks about each other, teaching, students, and life. I will miss his laughter and his smiles. I will miss his “ugly puss” and his beautiful heart. I will miss his love of life. I will miss his good counsel. I will miss his support and encouragement. I will miss our loving bantering in the hall:

“When are you going to play some good music on that boom box of yours? You’ll chase the students out of the classroom with that noise,” he’d yell out with a guffaw.

“Hell, you’ll kill them before they have a chance to hear these great tunes if you don’t stop racing down the halls in that dragster wheelchair of yours,” I’ll yell out in a laughing retort.

Now, there will be no more of that.

I will miss his unconditional love of each and every student and his endless faith in each and every one of them and his boundless optimism for each and every one of them. Though our styles of teaching were different, our visions were not. We always agreed about what was at the core, or should be at the core, of we academics do. We agreed that if there is one central reality in all of education, it is this: every student–every student–regardless of major, GPA, SAT score, scholarship, physical condition, tattooing, athletic ability, gender, body piercing, skin color, accent, sexual preference, ethnicity, sorority or fraternity, special needs, etc is a sacred, unique human being. He or she is an invaluable piece of the future that is entitled to be treated with respect and dignity and consideration. And, nothing–not fund raising, sports records, research, publication, curriculum, institutional renown, title, reputation, resume–is more important in academia for the administrator, staff person, faculty member, and student than that realization.

We always talked about how it’s so easy to find fault with students. It’s easy to treat them as an annoyance and intrusion. It’s easy to dismiss them. It’s easy to cast them aside. It’s easy to criticize them and make them feel incapable and unwanted. Anyone can do it. It doesn’t take much effort to do it. You don’t need any training for that. What takes effort and skill, what takes patience and kindness, what takes perseverance and commitment, what takes empathy and faith, what takes a lot of hard work and dedication, what takes consuming time and effort, what takes hope and love, what takes awareness and “otherness,” what takes heart and soul is picking each student up and making him or her feel good about where he or she is, who he or she is, and what he or she is capable of doing, and who he or she is uniquely capable of being.

Many, far too many, academics don’t understand that; many, far too few, do. Fred Morris did.

Fred was one of those rare people who left the world a better place than he found it and who has defeated the cancer by continuing to live on in the souls he touched. He will in mine.

Damn, I’ll miss him.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–