Good morning. Feeling the morning after the day before effects, I know why we have poets. Only they can summon up the right words to sum up what happened yesterday on the Mall. If I had to come up with something, “awe” would be my only true word, the truest of words. Awe for the arrival of a crowning day I never dared dream I would live to see, a moment for me that itself was far more important, more imbued with meaning, than ceremonies, speeches, parades, and celebrating balls. Awe for the now first extended family’s cheek to jowl diversity, making it look like it stepped out of the pages of America’s true multi-cultural experience, truly representing the textures, colors, sounds, feels, and flavors of this country like have none of the past overwhelmingly white Protestant ruling political families. Awe for we as a nation, a great and unique nation for which we each should be both grateful and proud. Awe less for change than for a natural march, not always steady, in an evolutionary process moved by a profound desire, a pledge, to form a more perfect union; awe for a natural continuation of the American dream toward its hoped-for goal of equality for all that Jefferson so eloquently penned 233 years ago. I wasn’t there, at the Mall, among the exuberant flag-waving, multi-faced throng. I knew what was coming. I didn’t know what was coming. Until Barak Obama was sworn in as President Obama, until he said “I do,” I found to my surprise that it was only then that I fully absorbed the overwhelming emotional force of the moment. My chest tightened ,my breathing shallowed, and tears rolled down my cheeks. I just sat there saying to myself, shouting to myself, arms uplifted, “It’s real. Dammit, it’s really real!”

     And in the warm and haloed afterglow, I went back to a snapshot of a conversation I had with a struggling first year, African-American student last spring semester.

     “Jerome (not his real name), you’re disrespecting yourself! You’re better than this! You can become anyone you want to be if you put your heart to it.”

     “I’m no good at music. And, I can’t play sports.”

     “What the hell does that have to do with it? I said anyone. You’re prejudiced against yourself. You think those are your only choices? They aren’t. Ever hear of Colin Powell, Clarence Thomas? I bet Justice Thomas can’t carry a tune or throw a ball! You’re listening to the wrong voices. Don’t you understand? You’re here to get something no one can take away from you once you get it: knowledge, skill, self-respect, self-confidence, faith in yourself. But, you’ve got to get it to get it. You have to say all this to yourself and believe it and live it. Otherwise, you won’t get it.”

     His retort hit me. “You say I can become anyone I want to be. You really think so? My momma says the same thing. Everyone says that. And, I want to. But, out there? Out there ‘they’ won’t really let me, won’t let most all of us.”

    I’m thinking now of both President Obama, his multi-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-religious clan–which includes a rabbi–and Jerome. Now, maybe Jerome also was awed. May he’ll be inspired to draw on the power of that awe, listen less to the dark, negative voices, and won’t let those ‘they” get in his way. As teachers, as teachers of the heart and soul, as well as the mind, it’s our mission to help him to see the way to break down his barriers, to plow through them, and to build bridges to his unique potential.

     Damn, I love this country! We are a great nation. Yesterday, we were especially so. To thee I sing–just not as stirring and inspiring as Aretha.

Louis

      A tad belated Happy New Year! Well, a new semester of the twelve day old new year begins today, and a few days ago I heard from Kenny. It has been a while. He wants another word from my “Dictionary Of Good Teaching” to start his new year. Okay. Here it is, clean, neat, direct, and brief : dilate.

      My job…. No, I’ll take that back. My mission, my purpose, if I am to live by my vision, has been, is, and will be to practice in my life and profession a wholeness that tightly weaves wonder and reason and values–and joy–into every thread of the fabric of everyday life. Here’s where “dilate” comes in. As a teacher I must widen my eyes, open my mind, enlarge my heart, and expand my soul to that miracle of each unique human being. That means I must treat each and every person as sacred and noble and unique; to love, have faith in, believe in, and have hope for each person; to inculcate ethical and interpersonal moral skills into each student along with the intellectual and professional skills of academics; to help each student understand that we each exist by co-existing, that there is no “I” without “thou.” As a teacher, I must be there to help each student love, have faith in, believe in, and have hope for herself and himself. I must open not just a student’s mind, but her or his eyes to her or his potential and promise, as well as her or his heart to others; to help prepare future professionals and businesspeople who are not just good at their jobs but who perform those jobs and live in society as good, caring, trustworthy, and respectful people; to help each student see that there is no innate conflict–no competing pressure– between material and professional success on one hand and ethical behavior on the other; to help them achieve a material success that is not divorced from a sense of humanity, from ethical behavior, from proper values, and most important of all, from a regard to relationships with other human beings.

     Rolling your eyes? Think I am being “warm and fuzzy,” “touchy-feely,” an out-of-touch idealist, a walking greeting card cliché? I don’t. My castles in the sky have a bedrock foundation. After all, what good is it if we prevent ignorance, but do not improve the quality of life. It is of no use and it serves no worthy purpose if all we do is graduate professionally skilled moral dropouts. Just look around and you’ll see what I mean.

Make it a good day

Louis