I was sitting in synagogue this past weekend as we of the Jewish faith celebrated Rosh Hashanah, the New Year. As I listened to the chanting, I started thinking about cancer. For me, having discovered almost two years ago that I had cancer and having had beaten it, though physical side effects persist, is a daily humbling experience. Yet, what I lost is nothing compared to what I found. Each day I feel more than ever that I’ve gotten back my life. Each day I feel intensely is another chance at life. Each day I am so deeply humble and grateful for each day. Each day I ask myself what am I doing with this day. You see, the day in itself, is not important. Someone said that a day is a blink in a cosmic eye. What makes that day important is the eye that blinks; it is how you live that day. It is whether you unwrap the present of the present; whether you give substance to your vision; and, it is whether you grow and improve on who you already are and what already is. It is how you live it with meaning. Do that and you’ve made that day something.

Meaning of life, purpose in life, and significance of life is not automatic. Imagine a windowpane which hasn’t been kept all that clean. It’s dusty; it’s dirty; it’s grimy; it’s splattered with mud drops; it’s covered with cobwebs. Because it has become opaque, when we look out, all we see are blurred forms. And, though the sun may be shining brightly outside, light won’t penetrate with the same brilliance until the glass is cleaned. Each of us is a windowpane, and though the sun is shining, we have difficulty seeing that until we take the time to clear away what it is that’s clouding our vision. Then, we gaze through the clear panes at the landscape, if we take the time and make the effort, we can see new things; we see things we never imagined; treasures in your heart find fresh expression. The view was always there. That didn’t change. What changes is our capacity to see.

It’s not easy work. Life is full of dirty distractions. It’s easy to get wrapped up the grime in our daily lives, the grit of professional demands, the dust of emotional entanglements, and the cobwebs of personal challenges. Each day, now more than ever, I consciously look around, remember where I was, where I am, where I want to be going, and keep washing my window.

I think it was thinking about all this as I walked the cool, autumny streets this morning because of a rather long message I had received a while back from a past student whom I had not heard from in ten years. She is now a collegiate teacher. She is a professional academic adviser. Who would have known at the time. With each step through the dark silence, I slowly remembered. With each step I silently thought of how many times I came close to throwing up my hands in surrender to her. I thought of how many times I nearly turned away and got out of her face. She never met the members of her community half way; always seemed to be off in the distance, never opened up the slightest, never smiled, always seemed defiant, never cooperated, never journaled, was more often MIA in class than not. Everything was “lame,” “stupid,” “dumb”–until that last day of the semester. I know that last sentence is cryptic, but let’s leave it at that. She failed the course. And now, a decade later, I heard from her:

…. I heard you have cancer. So, in case anything happens,
I want you to know you made a difference. You made a
difference in my life and you are making a difference in the lives
of other students through me. I want you to know that you have
affected my personal and professional life in a way that is almost
beyond description. I know that may sound trite, but it’s not a
cliche’ to say I learned that the most important things are on the
inside of me…… Though I failed the course and failed myself, you
never once treated me as a failure….I screwed up, to say the least,
but you never treated me as a useless screw-up. You never saw
less than an angel in me, although I acted more like a devil. The
more I thoughtabout that throughout that summer, the more I saw
how you never let my poor mouthing and disrespect influence you
to do anything other than dig in to help me dig myself out. You
gave a damn about me when I didn’t, had faith in me when I was
faithless, and you only saw me as someone better than I saw
me….I never told you how that got to me. I never could stop
thinking about what you said about nothing gets built with excuses.
It’s time…..You’re my model for always loving, believing in, having
faith in, and having hope for each and every student. You’re my
model for helping students help themselves….A day doesn’t go by
that I don’t read those words of Yoda you put on the board as your
“Words For The Day.” I hand them to students I am advising to
advise themselves: “Try not. Do. Or, do not. There is no try.”…..
Thanks for caring. Thanks for believing I can be a better person,
and helping not to believe otherwise or care any less. Keep that
pinky painted. Don’t lose your happiness for what you’re doing.
Don’t lose that passion and joy for helping each of us help ourselves.
Get well. Stick around. For all those others to come. Please.

 And somehow, since reading and rereading the entirety of that seven page letter, catalyzed by a magnificent act of kindness I witnessed in the synagogue at the end of the service on Sunday, which I don’t care to describe, this message, that act kindness, the cancer, the meaning in any teaching, making a difference, being significant, purpose my work, and my happiness all seemed to come together.

 Do you know how many great rabbis and philosophers say that happiness is all about your work? No, they didn’t mean it’s all about your job. Good work is not about making that goal and getting that bonus. Work and job are not the same. It’s about what in Judaism is called “avodah.” At it’s simplest, avodah means “work. But, it also means something deeper and higher. It means “service” – sacred service, service to someone other than ourselves, service to something greater than ourselves. The rabbis and thinkers were talking about how we live our personal and professional lives and how we should live those lives. Professionally, what better place is there for the practice of avodah than the classroom. Teaching, after all, is all about others. Education is a service industry. We classroom academics are in the people business. Avodah means how we teach, the meaning and purpose of our teaching, how we should live our teaching, how our teaching should serve others. Avodah raises some pointed questions for us to honestly ponder. Are we out to get tenure? Do we compromise our values in our quest? Are we out to get promotion? Do we bargain away our principles on the way? Are we out to get appointment? Do we sacrifice our morals on that path? Are we genuine? Are we out to get reputation? Do we edit our beliefs? Do we have a strong resume? Do we have a strong heart? Do we have a strong soul? Do we have a strong stand? Are we out to help people help themselves? Do we leave a mark? Do we make a difference? Are we significant? Teaching, done with vigor, with integrity, with dedication, with meaning, with purpose, and above all, with an unyielding commitment to serve others becomes avodah, sacred work, with a moral significance, making a last difference that lasts long after we and our resumes have crumbled to dust..

 For the past few days, as I can’t keep me from going from my head into my soul, as Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement approaches, all I hear are three questions, three sacred questions: What have you done, and how? Your work, where is your work?” “Where is your avodah, your work that gives your life meaning and purpose? They are questions to help me become aware of myself, to learn to face more often in the right direction, to be less apt to miss the mark, to walk Robert Frost’s less taken road. These High Holidays are the time we ask ourselves what are we doing that obscures what is really important, how are we letting our own issues get in the way of relating the way we want to relate to others, how our ego is preventing us from being the person we want to be. We can perform avodah – our true work –we all can perform the labor of love. That labor is not how we feel. It is about what we do with what we intend to do. It is about what has to be done. What rests in our hands is the power to do avodah, to work well, to give ourselves to something beyond ourselves, to be significant, to make a difference.

 Avodah is great word for my Dictionary of Good Teaching. Avodah is about the power of caring. No, it’s about the power of loving. It’s about a forceful energy to which we’re exposed that generates a no-limited and an unstoppable “me.” It’s about how that power can place each of us so close to significance and greatness. It’s about a power that can place us a heart beat away from heart-felt humility, gratitude, significance, and happiness. It’s about a few simple truths: when you change how you look at yourself, a student, and the classroom, you, that classroom, and the student you look at change. When we are excited, we know we can do it. When we are inspired, our dormant abilities and talents come alive. When we love, all obstacles crumble before us. And you ask why letters like this one light up my world and leave me with a lifetime chill?

 On these Jewish High Holidays, Susan and I would like to wish a shana tova, a good year, to our Jewish friends, and in this holy month of Ramadan, we wish an Eid Mubarak, blessed festival, to our Muslim friends.

Make it a good day.

      –Louis–

” Play,” “Fun,” and “Happy” are exuberant words in MY DICTIONARY OF GOOD TEACHING for a very good reason. And, it’s really simple. Playful, fun, and happy teaching makes me a child, a child at play, a child wondering, a child daring, and a child curious. If someone asked me what the aim of life is, I would answer that it is to become an adult while remaining a child at heart. I describe myself as an “experienced teenager.” When someone asks my age, I tell them, “I’m 65 going on 8.”

Play and fun and happy are the keys to life in general and teaching in particular. When we play, when we have fun, and when we’re happy, we will do things without consideration of effort, time, or pay back. When I teach, I am that child. I am happy doing it, I am playing at it, and I am having fun at doing it.

I can attest that life shrinks or expands in proportion to how much you are truly having fun and how much you are truly happy. When you’re having fun, when you’re happy, when you’re enjoying what you’re doing, you’ve got a power and effectiveness to your teaching. When you’re enjoying teaching, you’re on your game; you’re sharp as a razor blade. You age with a youthfulness and creativity. No empty, dead eyes. No sullenness. No shuffling along. Life stays with you. You’re jazzed up. The pizzazz is there. The neurons keep firing. The flame keeps burning. You keep growing. It’s fun and happiness and play that makes me 65 going on 8. That’s why I always tell people that I’ll retire when teaching stops being fun.

I’m not sure I know why the majority of us talk about the students and their attitudes rather than about ourselves and our attitudes. It’s a crucial omission because our misery or happiness depends on our attitudes, not on our circumstances or on others. And, though we can’t change reality around us, we can change our reality. We can change the eyes with which see reality and that new vision becomes our new reality. So, enjoying what you’re doing depends on you than on your colleagues, students, or administrators.

Want to have fun; you don’t need anything more than the will to have fun. You want to be happy, and you need nothing more than choose to be happy. Your attitude controls whether or not you’re going to have fun and enjoy yourself. It’s that simple and that hard, but that meaningful.

Part of my epiphany those many years ago was that I slowly discovered that as I lived as if I was happy, I surprised myself. I slowly became happy and did change my reality. I tell you from my experience that happiness is not a substitute for action. It’s not a free ride. To have happiness in your heart is more than to merely wish. The power of happiness comes from the deeply compelling effort and commitment it inspires. Happiness is an indispensable ally when you’ve got to make the effort, take the time, and rise to the challenges. When we feel happy, our minds are open and expansive; when we’re open and expansive we feel happy. Happiness, then, is an updraft. It makes us not only feel better but be better – better able to forge fulfilling relationships, find meaningful pursuits, and handle the vicissitudes of life. Happiness helps us stay healthy and whole no matter what the circumstances.

I stand here as an example that if you can choose to bring the power of enjoyment to bear on your teaching, you will. And, if you find the ways to do it, I guarantee that you’ll be more creative, more loving, more hopeful, more encouraging, more empathetic, more supporting, more believing, more imaginative, more pleasant to be around, more accepting, more energetic, more positive, more resourceful, more likely to go outside your walls, more of everything. It often makes the difference in trying to make a difference. It’s significant if you care to be significant.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

Before I get to the student’s second question, I want to say more than a few more words about teaching and being happy. Happy! What a word! What a way to live! Want to get a high? Be happy! I am told that I am a member of a very small “fortunate minority.” I am part of that very small percentage–a very small percentage–of people who make a living loving. Teaching for me is a labor of love without anything about it being laborious. Rumi was right. When I let myself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what I really love, I will not be led astray. That’s true of my angelic Susan; it’s true of my children and grandchildren; it’s true of teaching; it’s true of students.

Now, by happy I don’t mean just whistling a happy tune or singing the sound of music. When I say I’m happy teaching, I mean I love what I do and I am doing what I love. I love where I am and I love wherever I am going. I love who I am and who I am becoming. I know what I do matters. I know I make a difference. I have fun at my work and work on having fun. I live a satisfying life. And, it has nothing to do with fame and, goodness knows after looking at my last paycheck, it has nothing to do with fortune. I find both meaning and pleasure in what I do. I find fulfillment and satisfaction in what I do. I live each moment in the purpose of a powerful vision. I am driven by an equally powerful demanding mission. I do something that is beyond myself and carries on into the future. I don’t live bumper stickers; I live a philosophy of life.

It was not always so, and stand as living proof that anyone can change. As I look back on those many days before my 1991 epiphany I have to admit that I was fundamentally unhappy however much I didn’t admit it, said otherwise, and struggled to put on masks to demonstrate it. All my publications, grants, renown, and accolades seemed so shallow, though I didn’t admit it. Importance seemed so unfulfilling. I see now how I was longing for a meaningfulness and significance. Before 1991, I really didn’t see them in the classroom and honestly didn’t find it in my research and publication binge, but I had rationalized away, buried, explained, and excused all those feelings and attitudes. In 1991, at the ripe old age of 50, I suddenly began to realize that by acknowledging and coming to terms with all those less than comfortable feelings I could find an understanding of myself–if I had the courage to follow their path. Like Jean Valjean and Javert of Les Miserables, I peered into my soul. I discovered that I had an awful lot of work to do, that it was going to take a long time, a lot of hard effort, and a lot more perseverance before I became that proverbial overnight success. Habit made over years take years to be unmade. I had to transform my inner cacophony into a harmony, rewrite my inner dirge into a joyful ode, turn my sighs into songs. As I was able to slowly write a new arrangement of my spiritual song, note by note, bar by bar, I began to experience an energetic and creative love, a sharing of life-giving energy between me and myself, and between me and each student. It was like choosing to redirect my energy from my negative, self-centered, egotistical and self-serving pole towards my positive, communal, humble, and serving pole. And, I discovered a limitless energizing force: happiness.

Happiness is future oriented because it’s a river of attitudes and actions fed by what I call those four “litte big words”: love, belief, faith, and hope. Professionally, I began to see that it was in the classroom where my life could grow, expand, become new, and renewed. And, self-realization was the condition for this slow transformation that is still underway. That is, I began to see myself and others deeper than title, position, and renown, I slowly began to see myself and others, think of myself and others, evaluate myself and others in other terms. And, to the extent I was successful, I behaved in new ways. As I clung less and less to scholarly position, as I liberated myself and others from the identity of academic status, I felt a goodwill, compassion, and empathy radiating to each and every student. I saw that everyone is absolutely essential and infinitely precious. As my good friend Don Fraser would say, I started caring and saw how I and each student was capable, how each had a unique potential; I started caring about my and others’ strengths rather than focusing on our limitations and weaknesses. It was, and still is, an unconditional love and boundless faith. It is an unconditional love and caring that is fraught with hope, a hope that is bountiful, inexhaustible, dynamic, vital, creative, and radiating. It’s a good will that is willed goodness. It’s has become more and more the center of my being as the nature of my being ever changes.

Let me give you a bit of my take on happiness. You don’t always have to have things going your way all the time to be happy. To the contrary, if you constantly play the 100% game and the easy game, if you limit your happiness only to certain specific situations or certain, conditions, it will almost always elude you. If you bring happiness to every situation, you’ll be constantly happy. You see happiness is not something that you get from others by taking it from others. Happiness is something that flows out from you. It’s a matter of choice. It’s up to you to count and name your blessings or your curses. Like Lincoln said, you can choose to be happy in any place, at any time, under a whole wide range of conditions, for any reason., as you make up your mind to be. You are your own source of joy or of aches and pains.

Let’s take teaching. Now you’ve got to be honest with yourself. If you’re fundamentally unhappy with being in the classroom, if the classroom is really where you don’t want to be, if teaching is really not what you want to do, if you don’t really care about each and every student, if you find teaching a distraction from what you consider to be more important endeavors, if you think walking into the classroom is not the path to success or satisfaction or fulfillment, if you find time with students–especially first year students–to be an encroachment on your valuable time, if you do not find the time for students, if you do not work to become as trained for the classroom as you are trained for your discipline, you’ll go mindless, you’ll go on autopilot, you’ll become mechanical, your feet will become leadened, your senses will become dull; you will tend to be self-focused, withdrawn and distant, intractable, cool or cold, tensed up, pessimistic, disrespectful, agitated, insensitive, intolerant, brooding, frustrated, unforgiving, moody, unsympathetic, unempathetic, critical, maybe even hostile. That’s when you don’t really have peace of mind. That’s when you have nightmares. These are the waters that douse the flames. On the other hand, if you’re happy in the classroom, if your juices flow, if you’re cookin’, if your synapses are firing all over the place, you’ll cheer rather than sneer; you’ll stir your senses; you’ll generally be in a good mood and have a greater awareness and a sense of otherness; you’ll lighten up, be far more flexible, accepting, involved, relaxed, serene, healthier, creative, optimistic, imaginative, warm, compassionate, calm, sensitive, tolerant, respectful, nurturing, kindly, sympathetic, empathetic, loving and forgiving. That’s when dreams come true. That’s when you sleep a contented and peaceful sleep.

I’ll let you in on a secret I discovered. Being unhappy in the classroom is not a victimless crime. I can’t it enough: life reflects back. You, the teacher, the authority figure, create the mood of the classroom. You, not that gizmo on the wall, are the climate controller in the classroom. Your mood is contagious, and the fact that you’re unhappy doesn’t give you the right to inflict your mood on the students. I’ve always said that I can’t control the actions of others. But, I can have a significant influence on how they act toward me. When I’m happy, the people around me will pick up on it; when I smile, it hard not to get smiles in return; when I display a pleasant attitude, it’s hard not to meet me with a similar attitude. You know, the classroom, and the entire world for that matter, is a much more respectful, beautiful, and happier place when I choose to be respectful, beautiful, and happy myself.

We have a moral obligation, then, to be happy in the classroom, for happiness is a powerful and therapeutic nourishment just as unhappiness is an equally powerful and pathological starvation. Just as cheerfulness breeds cheerfulness, happiness breeds happiness. Happiness is like going to an emotion and spiritual gym; it’s strengthens your heart; it tones your spirit; it creates a loving and beautiful world. Satisfaction, fulfillment, and achievement are not some future objects or destinations. They’re not in some yet to be “some day.” They’re a present state of being. They’re a present attitude. They’re a present state of heart. They’re an understanding of what of what goes into making them. They’re songs that you go on singing. They’re a whistling while you work. They’re an inexhaustible source of creative energy. They’re now the moment to appreciate, value, and enjoy who you are, where you are, and what you’re doing along the way to achieve the results you’re struggling to reach.

When you’re sincerely happy, you’ll be happy with what life in the classroom hands back to you. Yeah, “happy ” is a good word for my Dictionary Of Good Teaching.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–