Well, I’ve been gnashing my teeth, snarling little–and not so little–curses, and contorting my face into gnarls. It’s that time of the term that I despise with an unbridled passion. It’s when I’ve got to come up with those very uneducational and misleading final grades. To go that, I’ve been pouring over copious notations I’ve taken over the semester on almost 180 students, reading each of their self-evaluations, pondering their evaluations of other members of their community. And, reflecting both on their final journal entries and their evaluations of me and my unique no-test, no-lecture, no-grades, hands-on-only, wholeness-emphasizing class structure.

 One sentence from one first-year student’s evaluation so struck me that it has been sticking with me as I fought panicking about everything I have to do before leaving in seven days (gulp, double-gulp) for six weeks in China. “….You know what you are?” she wrote. “You’re a caring magician and a loving servant. That’s what you are because you see and give a damn about each of us, and that’s what you see real teaching as.”

 That’s all she said. But, as I prepared to do battle with the final grade sheets, rush a host of caladiums into the ground, work on the courses I’ll be teaching in China, try to calm my Susan down as she frantically struggles to figure out how to pack everything she wants for the trip into one light-weighing suitcase, the counter-balancing calming effect of those two words worked on me all weekend. Though she left me to try to figure out what she meant, I figured out what they meant to me.

 Caring magic and loving service. Looking back on this past semester and on the many semesters before it, thinking about each student and all those people who preceded them, those are two great descriptive phrases for, as she said, “real teaching,” aren’t they? That’s what real teaching is, isn’t it? It all boils down to those four words, doesn’t it? At least, it should: caring magic and loving service. Real teaching exists in a mysterious and inexplicable futuristic world of otherness, awareness, empathy, faithful loving, and becoming. Without a wand, with no trick hat, without any rabbits or doves, without any illusions, a true teacher works creative magic and helps to create creative magic. A true teacher is a finely attuned, highly effective, persistently imaginative embodiment of creativity. A true teacher also knows that the only way to satisfaction and fulfillment is through being aware that there are others in the classroom with her or him and both loving and serving those others. She or he sees beyond her/himself, into the selves around her or him and serves them. Combining magic and service, she or he is a conjurer. She or he is there each day to help bring possibilities to life in the special lives around her or him. With every thought, every feeling, every gesture, every act, every moment, she or he adds her or his own special gifts to help a student unwrap her or his own special gifts. With caring passion and loving empathy, with an authentic purpose, with uncompromising integrity and tireless service, with magnificent vision and committed mission, the teacher continually focuses on and works to help transform who a student can become into what a student is. The teacher helps both to bring her or his and a student’s dreams into reality. Gosh, she hit the proverbial nail on the head, didn’t she? That is what real teaching is: caring magic and loving service

Make it a good day.

      –Louis–

 This morning I read a final journal entry made by a first year student. All it said was “53!!!” But, it sure does say it all. I must have sat staring motionless at that number for a couple of minutes: staring, thinking, feeling, listening to its fanfare. I admit my eyes got a bit teary and my breathe slowed. I won’t decode the message for you. I will say that it says if you really care, everything you think, feel, and do will resonate with faith, respect, hope, and love. If you really care, it will show up in the way you relate to each student, the student relates to you, and you each relate you yourself. Caring sets the stage for the way you experience the life in the classroom; it gives you the positive and uplifting strength and energy to meet with unwavering commitment and perseverance whatever comes your way; it’s the lens through which you see everything around you; it controls the way you respond to every situation and every person.

 You know, all it takes is just one caring thought, just one caring action, just one caring word, just one caring smile, just one caring look. That’s all it takes to give a student comfort, confidence, faith, respect, belief, love, happiness. That’s all it takes to help someone learn to dare to take the risk, to learn from a mistake, to help open a door, to destroy doubt, to endow love, to instill courage to walk through that door. One caring word, one caring smile, one caring look. That’s not so much. And yet, it is so much. Small things to do, but the transforming results for both teacher and student can be large. Because they’re small, anyone can do them,

 And, I tell you, there is nothing–nothing–like getting a message like this one and knowing that you’re making a difference in someone’s life. Nothing can match it. It makes everything worthwhile. It’s something to experience.

Make it a good day.

      –Louis–

I want to say something about Trish, our department secretary. She is retiring at the end of this semester after thirty years at VSU, and I am not a happy camper. In fits of selfishness, over the past months I have tried everything in my power to change her mind. I have asked, cried, pleaded, begged, conspired, and even offered a bribe of weekly donuts and keeping the candy jar on the desk filled with Tootsie Rolls. Nothing.

I wish you all could know her; not as a secretary, but as a person. Oh, that I possessed the talent of a Keats to write an ode to Trish. She deserves one, for there is nothing but an “ode-iousness” about her. Yeah, she doesn’t have all those degrees and publications and grants and renown and reputation. She has something far more. Without one iota of exaggeration, she is as noble, caring, kindly, respecting, appreciating, humble, patient, compassionate, empathetic, moral, ethical, and sacred a human being as I have known. In all the years of the three decades she has cared for me, I have never seen a sneer distort her angelic face; I have never heard a cross word cross her lips; I never seen her body stiffen with annoyance; I have never seen a fidget of impatience shake her; I have never heard a loudness distort her soft melodious voice; I have never seen a drop dampen her spirit; I have never seen a hint of a cloud darkening her heart. Everyone is important to her, be she or he a student, a member of the staff, a member of the faculty, or an administrator. In her eyes, everyone is equal. I have two lasting images of Trish etched into my soul. One is of her tearfully hugging me with a silent smile in support and encouragement when we learned I had cancer. The second is of her tearfully hugging me with a smile in joy when we learned they had gotten the cancer out.

I won’t be able to attend her retirement “party.” But if I could and if by some miracle she would let me get up and say something, I could say all I have to say and all I feel in eight words: “Trish is a good person. I love her.” Yeah, that says it all. Nothing more need be said. What more can you say about another human being? Now what I am about to say may sound trite, but it is no less true. I will hug her goodbye with disbelief in a couple of weeks as I leave to teach in China. I know I will my eyes will get watery and a tear or two will flow down my cheek. I know my voice will crack if I’m stupid enough to try to say anything. I know my breathing will become a bit labored. I know my body will quiver slightly with more than a slight sadness. But, it won’t hit me until I return, walk into the department office and she won’t be there to light up and warm the place with her aura. Then, and only then, will I realize the nightmare of her departure was real, feel my loss, and feel lost. She won’t be there. She won’t be there! She won’t ever be there!! Instead, there will be an irreparable hole torn in my universe. Then, it will hit me that I have lost a colleague; I have lost a friend; but, most important, I have lost a teacher.

You know, so often we make the mistake when we capsulate someone’s career into a series of numbers: X number of books published, X number of grants received, X number of years in the profession, X number pages in a resume, X numbers of years on the job, X, X, X, X.

But, you know, it is one thing to recount a life by counting; it is another thing to learn from someone’s life. In her poem, “The Dash,” Linda Ellis reminds us that we each will some day have our lives represented by two dates: the date of our birth and the date of our death. But, what matters most is the dash between those years. That dash represents all the time we have spent alive on earth and all that we have done. We decide what that dash will be worth. And, its worth will not be judged by how we lived and loved and spent our dash. She ends her poem with these words:

So when your eulogy is being read

with your life’s action to rehash,
would you be proud of the things they say
about how you spent your dash?

If you want to know how Trish is spending her dash, if you want to know her legacy to me, if you want to know what I have learned as her student over the decades, read the words of 1 Corinthians 13 1-13.

I, for one, will miss her deeply; oh so deeply will I miss her.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

So many of academics pride themselves on being good talkers. But, do they strike the students on being good listeners? You know, it’s amazing what students will say to you, what they will share with you, and what they will let you say to them, if you just sincerely and intensely listen to them first.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

 This past week I was taught a profound lesson that I really can’t talk about. I’ll just say that I learned once again that you have a better chance of netting a student if you troll with unconditional, non-judgmental love. If you’re able to do that, no moment is ordinary and nothing you do will be commonplace, meaningless, or joyless.

Make it a good day.

      –Louis–

 I read this in a student’s journal this morning. “Don’t you love it when professors so carelessly say they care about us and think that’s its enough just to say it when they don’t act that way? Who are they kidding? Themselves! Not us!”

 That got me thinking. Caring about each student is not shown in the pronouncement, “I care about students.” Claims to care or to be caring are easy to come by, but are no guarantee of genuine caring. There has to be a strong connection between conviction and virtue, that is, between word and deed. Not only must professors feel that something within them that forges a common bond with the students, but the students must feel as well that something within them that forges a common bond with the professors. No, caring is not really exercised when you care, but when you act with a guiding sense of awareness and otherness and service, and each student feels and knows she or he is really noticed, wanted, and cared about.

Make it a good day.

      –Louis–

 “I’ve been in the classroom for twenty-three years,” someone just wrote me in a huff. “I know how to teach! And, I know all about the students!” Ah, the curse of close-minded, arrogant, and atrophying certainty.

Make it a good day.

      –Louis–

 She began with a whispered “Dr. Schmier, can I talk with you for a second?” Her second lasted about forty-five heart-wrenching minutes. She ended with “Please don’t judge me.”

 No, I won’t judge her because if I am judgmental of any student, I won’t really see or listen to her or him; she or he will become an invisible, unnoticed, valueless cellophane person to me; and, if I really don’t see or listen to her or him, I’ll have no time for her or him.

Make it a good day.

      –Louis–