A student from a previous semester, who constantly had “given me grief” and on whom I never let up,  came running up from behind me, stopped me, and said a few words.  I won’t tell you what he said, but I will tell you this.  My hand was clasped in a tight handshake, sincere words of gratitude were spoken, palms got sweaty, tears formed, a slight numbness swept over.  I could barely get out a “thank you.”  He turned and left me standing there.  Momentarily dazed.  I turned, walked to class, at much slower and studied pace, slowly climbed the steps, one at a time instead of my normal bounding two steps at a time, still stunned by what had just occurred.

His final words are still reverberating in my ears, “I believe in me now like you always did.  I just wanted you to know that I’ll always hear your voice telling me ‘You’re better than that.’  I’ll always remember you for that.”   I stopped by the classroom door.  I thought to myself, “What a hell of a gift I had just received.”  Then, I shifted emotional gears, ready to help students prepare for presenting their community’s “The Song” project tomorrow.

To be remembered for having touched someone and for having made a difference in that person’s life is truly a very special and precious gift, maybe the most valuable that can be given or received.

This short conversation will last long in my heart and soul.  It will be a constant reminder to me that in the scheme of life, an education is supposed to be far more transforming than merely informing and credentialling.

Louis

I know.  I shared some reflections just two days ago, but I warned you that as retirement approached, I’d get more and more pensive more often.  I have what I call a You Kippur hangover.  Refreshing.  Rejuvenating.  Reminding echoing of a single sentence:  You never step into the same river twice.

That’s what Heraclitus would tell me today.  Remember Heraclitus?  No, he wasn’t a Hebrew sage.  He was the pre-socratic Greek philosopher who insisted that the only constant in the universe was constant change.  Emphasizing omnipresent change, he is accredited with saying that you never step into the same river twice.  That means the moment of change around us and in us, as well as in others, is always upon us.    That’s the link between him and Yom Kippur, and maybe the reason why yesterday, in synagogue, Heraclitus popped into my head and spirit.  Literally.  Yesterday was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest day on the Jewish liturgical calendar.  It culminated the Eight Days of Awe that began with Rosh Hashanah, the New Year.  These days, especially Yom Kippur, are meant to be a kind of kick in the heart, a jump start of the soul.  They deal with change.  They don’t ask if we can change, but demand that we change. This is not a gentle holiday time even if it starts gently and optimistically with honey and sweet apples at a gathering of friends and relatives at a sumptuous dinner table.  It is a commanding, sobering, but not somber, time.  It’s a sweet time of introspection, dramatic commanding to us to look honestly and deep inside over and over again, challenging us confidently to change so we can change the world and alter the future.  Ourselves first.  Then others.  The world and future as a result.

You never step into the same river twice.  Change.  I have had to personally face my own “change” demons in the last few weeks as I was blindside with the prospect of unexpected and unwanted retirement in two months and three days.  I’ve been going through self-created stages.  First “what the hell” surprise and confusion.  Blame.  Then, I amplified the angst.  Here came anger.  I didn’t want to retire.  Bared claws. I felt I was being put into a corner having to make a quick decision.  Then as anger abated, it was joined by sadness.  It wasn’t my time.  And now, most important, I felt a soothing wave coming over me of acceptance and being at peace with myself and recent events.  Opportunity.  Possibility.  As I sat in the pews next to Susie, listening to some of the chants, sitting on the other side was Heraclitus whispering in my ear:  “You never step into the same river twice.”  As I talked with a dear friend between services, there was Heraclitus again, saying this time, “You never live the same day twice.”   And, as Yom Kippur came to a close, as the shofar sounded, once again, there was Heraclitus reminding me in the spirit of Yom Kippur, “You’re not going to live this coming year as you did last year.”  As the last notes of the shofar faded, a realization brightened.  It came to me that to exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating yourself endlessly; and, to create yourself is to let go and grab hold; to let go and grab hold, to “re-invent” yourself; and to “re-invent yourself is to become better, not different.  Let me take this into the classroom.

You never step into the same class twice.  That’s what Heraclitus would tell us academics if he was among us today.  Today, Heraclitus would shake his head and say, “They still don’t get it.  Constant change is constantly all around; it is going to happen with or without us.  And, whether we know it or not, like it or now, we’re changing with all the changes.  That’s not being philosophical; that’s being real.  Most of us academics, however, accept that only when it comes to research and publication, not when it comes to classroom teaching.

You never step into the same classroom twice.  My interest is in change because that’s what I always have, am, and will be doing.   That means for me one thing is certain, one thing never changes, I always struggle to believe and always doubt.  Nothing gives us certainty.  Nothing gives us certain, unchanging answers.  Not science, not religion, not the humanities.  If I remember my philosophy of college days, combining William James’ will to believe and Bertrand Russell’s will to doubt are the driving forces for gaining insights into all existence.  Not to acquire elusive self-evident truths, not discover immutable absolutes.  Just insights.

You never step into the same classroom twice.  In my world, academics accept that.  The word of doubt, “but,” starts a research progression from “I wonder” curiosity to “let’s see” adventure to “what if” experimentation to an “aha” discovery.  But, only for the moment, for that “aha” moment is the mother of another “but” doubt.  And, on it goes.  Now, imagine if we didn’t have that attitude, we didn’t ask challenging questions in the lab or archive or out in the field, all research and grant getting and publication would cease; resumes would be non-existent;  scholarship would come to an end; resumes would be non-existent, or, at least, shrivel.  Good heavens, how would any one of seek and be granted tenure.  Yet, that is exactly what we do in the classroom.  What I find curious is that we while we live with stepping stone questions in the lab and archive and out in the field that focuses on the areas in our disciplines, when it comes to classroom teaching, why are piled up stones piled up  to form obstructive walls.  I mean why in the classroom do we say to questioning, “Satan, get thee behind me;” why is questioning, heeding Heraclitus’ admonition, taken as a sign of weakness or incompetence or unsuredness.

You never step into the same classroom twice.  Applying that to the classroom, none us quite get the mystery of that one individual student, much less a group of them, “quite right.”  If for no other reason, then, life in that classroom, as everything in life, is always changing.  It’s a messiness we have to live with and deal with, but it’s a messiness we don’t want to have around.  We want answers and assertions, not questions, much less unanswerable questions.  And yet, I think the acceptance of uncertainty, of doubting, of asking questions, just may be the cure teaching in higher education needs as far as teaching is concerned.  We should never want to eradicate doubt, we should never assert infallible certainty with “I know how to teach” or “I’ve been in the classroom for 25 years,” or, as one exemplifying professor recently professed to me, “They work, period…How can you say something does not work that has been working forever….HAVE worked well for ages.”

You never step into the same classroom twice.  So, that professor, with his proclamation that what he does and how he thinks in the classroom has always been so and done by a horde of other professors, denies a faith in teaching. What do I mean?  Remember, a few years ago a book was published containing over a century of correspondence between Mother Theresa and her superiors.  What a furor it caused.  In it was revealed her doubt about the presence of God.  People were aghast at how this “saint” could doubt, and subsequently they doubted her sainthood.  Some even called her a phony, a hypocrite.  They doubted her because they equated faith with unalterable certainty and doubt with faithlessness.  Yet, she lived with her doubts; she lived with her questioning; she did not abandon her beliefs; she did not walk away from her work; she did not stop loving and caring; she persisted.  To me, her doubts did not reveal weakness or incompetence; they did not reflect a moral betrayal.  No, to me, her work was even more intensely saintly, heroic.  She lived with mystery, with unanswered questions, with the unknown.  And, in the face of all this, she lived and worked caringly, unhesitatingly, fully, tenderly, passionately, empathetically, kindly, compassionately, lovingly.

You never step foot into the same classroom twice.  We academics have the same kind of faith as Mother Theresa when it comes to scholarship in our discipline.  Faith gives us the courage to live with and work through uncertainty, mystery, the unanswered question, change.  We academics cherish the questions in the lab and archive and out in the field, but not in the classroom.  We have patience with the unsolved in the lab and archive and out in the field, but not in the classroom.  We live with and for the questions in the lab and archives and out in the flied, but not in the classroom.  As scholars, we know that if you invest your attention, if you choose to focus, if you direct your awareness to the change, you become so fluid.  We have something of a courage and strength to greet and meet the question mark in the lab and archives and out in the field, but not in the classroom.  We are open to all possibility, to the still unplanned, to the still unaccessible that may, can, and might occur in the lab and archives and out in the field, but not in the classroom.  We know that the “eureka moments’ in the lab and archives and the field work come not so much from answers, as from questions. When it comes to classroom teaching, people, such as this professor, with his dogmatic and dictatorial “edifice complex,” who proclaim the certainty of “I know” or “I has always been done this way” are actually the people of little faith.

You never step into the same classroom twice.  Now, I know I can’t live without food and water, but when it comes to teaching, I can live without answers.  I can’t live with the likes of this professor’s dogmatic and tyrannical “edifice complex” when it comes to teaching.   I’ve learned and am conscious of the fact that opposite of change is close-mindedness type of certainty.  It’s absence is also characterized by a stale “ho-hum” routine, boredom, rut, weakening, paralysis, atrophy.   There’s no “wow” in stasis, in being redundant and predictable. Synonyms for change, frightening as it may be, are “possibility” and “opportunity, ” healthy rejuvenation, progress, innovation, and growth.  Or, at least, change makes for all this happen.  And, if truth be told, before you can do anything, as Heraclitus was saying, you have to understand that all of life is an experiment.  So, change has to be your sparing partner.  It’s like continuing to gain an expertise without thinking like the “I-know-it-all” expert.  That is, if you heed Heraclitus, if you are enveloped by the spirit of the Days of Awe, you get better, not different.  If you don’t, you’re a Dr. Jekyll of scholarship and a Mr. Hyde of teaching.

You never step into the same classroom twice.  If you are willing to carry the attitudes towards scholarship in your discipline into teaching, if you are willing to accept change and to change when it comes to teaching, the more choices are at your finger tips; the more choices you have, the more opportunities are there for you to grab; and, the more opportunities that lie before us, the greater the number of possibilities can become realities.  But, choose to be deaf and blind to all this change around us in the classroom, ignore the opportunities, and both they and possibilities disappear and die.  It is as Ben Franklin said, “When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.”  So, if you reject Heraclitus; if think you don’t like change or resist change or ignore change or deny it when it comes to teaching, wait.  You’ll like being out of touch and irrelevant even less.   To this professor, I asked, as one of the great Rabbis of past ages asked, “If you won’t be better tomorrow than you are today, then what need do you have for tomorrow?”

You never step into the same classroom twice–or the river of life.

Been thinking and feeling a lot lately, more than usual.  As I sat by the fish pond this morning in the pre-dawn darkness, a few tidbits of light came to me.  Here are some of them:

1.    Because students don’t do what a professor plans for them doesn’t mean the students are worthless and unable.

2.    You cannot help a student “become” unless you accept where she or he is.

3.    Aristotle:  educating the mind without educating the heart is not educating.  I call it “white collar vocational training” or “credentialing.”  In other words, there are a moral role and function that should be inseparably woven in with the material missions.  It is so often ignored–except in eloquent and empty mission statements.  Yet, it is the moral compass that should provide the guiding spirit of an education, or as Thomas Edison said, the heart and soul must control, guide and give meaning to the creations of the mind.  Mastery of the subject mean nothing if we don’t help students acquire a mastery of themselves.

4.    Nothing makes a student more able and capable than being helped to believe she or he is able and capable.

5.    I wish a lot of us would stop searching for the pot of gold in the classroom and be the pot of gold.

6.    Educare!  If we’re spending all our time transmitting and stuffing in, how can we call forth?  If we’re doing so much talking, when do we listen?

7.    A presumption or generalization or stereotype about students is nothing more than someone being tired of seeing, listening, feeling, and thinking.

8.    The character of a teacher is revealed on the third or fourth or even fifth second chance.

9.    Lectures, tests, grades?  Abraham Maslow said that if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

10.  And, on a personal note:  if people knew how long and hard I work at, studying, and learning about teaching, they wouldn’t think it is easy and anyone can do it.  Show me someone who says he can teach in his sleep and I’ll show you someone who walks into the classroom in his sleep and who puts people to sleep.

11.  I wish people would listen to Heraclitus and realize they never step into the same class twice.  Each day you have to start over in each class with each person.

12.  We should teach to transform, not to a test.  If you bungle transforming a student, don’t think a book, article, or grant matter all that much.

13.  How many students think their first name is “wrong” or their nickname is “you can’t?”

14.  My authority in the classroom does not come from my tenure, title, and/or resume; it comes from my unconditional caring, empathy for, commitment to, respect for, my belief in, faith in, hope for, and love for each person in that classroom.  In the spirit of Lao Tzu, when students are sincerely cared about, when they feel they are loved, when they know someone has faith and belief in them, they have a better chance of finding their inner strength and courage.  If you judge a student, when do you have time to believe in, have faith in, have hope for, and love her or him.  As a gardener, I can bear witness that as long as you weed out, some part of you and your efforts and your time cannot nurture.

15.  We live in an academic culture of fearful risk-averting.  Doggone, I wish we would stop practicing safe teaching, take the condom off the classroom, and be fearless risk inviting.  I mean how do we discover our way unless we risk going way out?  The greatest risks bring the greatest satisfactions.  I think Democritus said that.

16.  Tenure is not synonymous with backbone.  Fear does not make for connection or community; instead, it breeds strangerness and aloneness; it widens the chasm.

17.  I didn’t marry my Susie because I felt I felt I could live with her; I married her because I felt I could not live without her.  After 46 years, still do.  It shouldn’t be and for me isn’t any different in that classroom.

18.  To paraphrase a Sufi teaching, into the classroom came those weak in self-esteem, lacking in confidence, shy, the haughty and arrogant.  Seeing them as the “they’re letting anyone in,” the professor cried out, “They’re unprepared; they don’t belong here.  God, how is that You, a loving creator, can see such things, let them happen, and yet do nothing to help them?”  The professor then heard a voice saying, “I did do something.  I sent you.”

19.  The classroom is a wondrous world full of sacred, noble, unique individuals.  There is no end to the adventures you can have and the miracles you can witness if you only see with open eyes, listen with open ears, and love with open heart. Every memorable event in the classroom is the result of unconditional enthusiasm, belief, faith, hope, and love.

20.  If you think technology is the magic bullet, the panacea, I would remind you when Lewis Waterman invented the fountain pen, people didn’t suddenly become Shakespearean writers.

21.  And finally, Buddha says that a thousand candles can be lit from one candle.  So, as I approach retirement in two months and four days, all I want is for people to say of me is, “He touched one student and changed the world.”

Louis

It is the beginning of the Days of Awe, the Jewish High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.  At synagogue we had special guests from the community say a few words:  the President of Rotary, the head of the Valdosta Chamber of Commerce, and the President of the University.  It was interesting.  All had prepared their comments separately.  Yet, all said virtually the same thing coming from different angles.  And, the sameness that I heard them say in so many different words is this:  the quest for of the human heart for meaning is the heartbeat of community and education, and it is on that adventure which rests all that we feel, think, and do. And, as I listened to them, I started feeling that these holidays are about both a story having been written and one yet to be written, about hope and potential expectations for ourselves and reflecting how we will achieve all we hope for.  On one hand they are an optimistic celebration of the possible, despite the odds, despite the doubts; on the other hand, they are a “whoa” check of the need to think things out before we rush out, of using our energy and inspiration wisely rather than haphazardly.  It’s a balancing act of having your head in the clouds while your feet are planted firmly on the ground, of being both hopeful and careful, of being both euphoric and sober, and making sure your actions do no harm.  Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur are about free will — making the conscious decision to look inside yourself, to look truly at your life, to learn lessons, to admit to omissions, and to make amends.

You know, as a survivor of both cancer and a massive cerebral hemorrhage, I always talking of having learned the lesson of living “today,” but, one thing I never said was that the real lesson was to live “in today,” not “for today.”  Those two little words, “for” and “in,” make for a powerful difference; they are words of expectation; they are words that drive us to live our lives in a certain way; they are words of intention; they are ethical and moralistic words.  As I see it, “for today”” means self-gratification, serving one’s self at whatever and whomever’s expense.  “In today”” means living a life of high expectation; it means an alertness, awareness, attentiveness, and otherness all that is around you; it means living a search for meaning and connection; it means gentleness, sensitivity, reflection, and wonder; it means living a life of courage in the face of doubt and fear; it means living a life of optimism

Trust me, living “”in today”” isn’t easy.  It takes a lot of concerted time and effort and energy.  Maybe that why so many of us just love distractions although we mouth that we dislike them.  Distractions take us away from the uncomfortable, inconvenient, painful, insecurity, lack of a guarantee.  Living “in today” isn’t about being fulfilled, satisfied, or happy all the time; it isn’t about being upbeat all the time.  Living “in today” is living with all that life had to offer in the title of the Clint Eastwood spaghetti western, the good, bad, and ugly.  Living “in today” means totally focusing, deeply concentrating, completely stopping, intently listening, peering into someone’s eyes, paying full attention. Living “in today” demands we confront ourselves, tackle whatever we feel now, to acknowledge the reality of where we are in life, with whom we are, and who we are.   Living “in today” means not playing the “perfection game” or the “100% game.  To be able to hit all that is thrown at you, living “in today” must mean every moment is an “Hineni” moment, an emotionally charged, difficult, and important “here I am” ready, willing, and able moment.  Abraham faced it with Isaac, Jacob faced it with Laban, Moses faced it with the Burning Bush.  We all have our “Hineni” moments.  My first was my epiphany, then the cancer, then that hemorrhage, now impending retirement in less than three months.

Living “in today” means living with both the fast balls and curve balls life throws at you.  That tough.  But, that is a meaningfulness, purposefulness, fulfillment, significance money cannot buy, that cannot be quantified.  But it can be lived.  It’s a deep connection, a community, with, as my President said, of connecting concentric circles: with yourself, with my Susan, with my Michael and Robby, with Terri and Nicole, with my three grandmunchkins, with my dear friends, with my colleagues, with members of the community, with the world.  When I am living “in today,” I’m not sure I can put into words, but I know it; I feel it.  And, when I’m not “in,” as I have been more than a few times lately, I know it as well.

So, for me, this Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are special.  There are be “hokey pokey,” to be all in, to stop being half-hearted, to be wholehearted about whatever comes my way, to be standing in one place without wishing I was in another, to turn face to face with myself, to listen fully, and to pay full attention.  This time it is time to say an “hineni” as a conviction, not a resignation; with high expectation and not regret; to let go of the sadness and greet the joy; to see the coming dawn rather than the departing twilight.  So, okay, I hear life; I’m living “in today”; I’m here, right here, right now, focused, undistracted, listening, ready for a recharging, not thinking of being unplugged, ready to be plugged into something with someone in the here and now.

And, if you think this has nothing to do with teaching, stop and think about it.  I’ll give you a clue.  Wholeheartedness, the labor of love, the “hineni,”is an antidote for burnout, for it’s the halfhearted things, those “un-hineni” things, we do that are the laborious things which weigh on us and wear us out.

Louis

It happened again.  A student came up to me after class and said, “I thought you were a nice guy.”

“I think I am,” I answered.  “What have I done to make you think I’m not?”

“You’re always in my face.  Why?”

I calmly and quietly answered with a smile on my face and in my voice, “Because I give a damn.  And, I hope that you will.  But, I’ll ask you, ‘Why aren’t you in your own face?  Why do you accept excuses from yourself?’  If truth be told, I can be in your face until I’m red in the face.  But, until you’re also in your own face, nothing will happen.  So, I’m in your face hoping that you will replace me to be in your own face.  I can threaten and plead and entice and support and encourage and believe and have faith and even love until the cows come home, but only you can take the ‘not’ out of your ‘cannot’ and kick yourself in your ‘can.’  Remember the words for the day we quickly discussed yesterday?  ‘Effort and achievement can only occur in an environment of expectation.’  Whether that expectation is ‘high’ or ‘low’ will decide if you ask yourself, ‘What does he see in me that I don’t.’  Whether you will start going for it or won’t depends on your answer, not mine.  Do you hear what I’m saying?”

“Oh,” he meekly said.  And, then, unexpectedly, he hit me with a broadside.  “You know Dr. Schmier, you preach to each of us without being preachy because you do it with how you act towards us rather than with your lips.  Thanks.”

He left with a smile; he left me stunned.  Lesson learned.

Louis

I’ve been in school for 67 years.  You know, I can’t really remember a time I wasn’t in school.  Some of my memories, especially of my first grade teacher, Mrs. Sachel, are not pleasant.  She beat my knuckles until they bled to stop me from writing with my “satanic” left hand.   Then, after I screwed up my pre-med major in college and played musical majors, there was my college mentor, Dr. Birdsal Vault.  It was solely because of him that I got my M.A. and Ph.D., ultimately wound up where I am and being who I am.    And soon, on Dec 1, it will be my last day in school when I do closure in my classes for the last time.