WHO AM I

I am in a warm, deep, reflective mood even if it’s a “brrrrr” 44 degrees outside.  That inner glow has taken me back twelve years to the time I wrote a poem as a dedication to a dear friend, a neat person, Beverly Firestone, a.k.a. “Joysong,” who was then dying of cancer.   I called it, “You Tell Me; You Don’t Say.”   The end read:  “You tell me you are a wife or husband, sister or brother; a daughter or son; a father or mother a thinker of this or doer of that; a friend or foe, an -ist or an -er.  When there are no roles to describe, and there are no masks to wear, and there are no others to point to, you don’t say who you are.”   So, when we cannot say what we know and what we do and what we have, when we cannot talk of titles and positions and resumes or labels, who are we?

It’s my birthday in three days.  My mother always said that I should have been born on Halloween rather than All Saints’ Day.  Anyway, I don’t believe I’ll be 72. The only way I feel it is because of this damn retirement.  Other than that, I feel like I haven’t left my youth.  I power walk three miles every other day, lift modest weights every other day, mediate every day, all of which keeps me in physical, mental, and spiritual shape.  I guess that’s why I always identify myself as an “experienced teenager.”  Or, as Jefferson said, “I am an old man, but a young gardener.”  That is to say, the child within me is alive and kicking.  If you saw how my old office was decorated, you’d understand.  But, now with reluctant retirement pending in exactly one month and two days, as I listen to Jean Valjean in Les Miserable sing “Who Am I,” I thought I’d take stock of myself and share it with you.  How to do that?  I’ve come to the conclusion that the object of another birthday, like a new year, is not to add another year, but to have new heart. So, who am I? But, what does that mean?  It means, as Shakespeare had Cassius say, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”  For me, therefore, in something of a disorderly fashion that is dear to my heart, it means:

 

I am a liver of life, especially after having survived cancer and what should have been a death dealing cerebral hemorrhage, reveling in this precious minute

I am an unconditonal lover of love, a believer in belief, deeply respect respect, appreciate appreciation, consider consideration, faithful to faith, kind to kindliness, and trusting in trust–every day.

I don’t waste time being frustrated and annoyed–struggling with that one right now with this unexpected retirement coming on me.

I don’t waste time being afraid; “Can’t” isn’t in my vocabulary any more than is the restricting and escaping and risk averting “be careful,” “act your age,” “be real;” I am a risk taker, darer, venturer.

I don’t cut myself off from goodness by being angry–struggling to do that right now with this unwanted retirement coming on me.

I hate gossip and rumor; I don’t poor mouth others.

I am a people person; more important, I am a one person at a time person, liking and appreciating each of them, of all ages from all walks of life

I am not a generalizer or stereotyper; and if I speak otherwise, it is a convenience of conversation, not a perception of reality

I believe doing something important is more important than than being important; I don’t want or seek or need rewards and recognitions.

I struggle to be a positive and have a positive impact on another’s life.

I practice respectful honesty over harmony

I am in love with a very special woman who treats me as a very special person

I adore serendipity, dislike mindless routine; can’t stand enslaving ruts

I am a challenger, wanting to have my question of “why” answered before I commit; for myself, I revel in the purposeful “why” of things rather than just the doing “what” and “how.”

I am not a groveler, “yes man,” or an ass kisser; I am not a compromiser of values; and, I am willing to and have paid the consequent price–sometimes heavy price.

I am high energy and always on the move mentally, physically, and spiritually; I feel out of sorts when I can’t exercise and work to stay trim

I occasionally write poems, sculpt, and wok

I am my own person; I don’t care to jump on or ride on bandwagons; I am not a fan of any kind of fad, fashion, or gimmick. I am an iconoclast

I love to sing–always off key–to myself.

I am a “let’s see what happens” quester with an insatiable curiosity; I am an adventurer, loving to experiment, but not with drugs; I love to learn; I am a kind of renaissance guy who is interested in all sorts of things

I hate ties; they feel like nooses

I’m not wild about dressing up in suits,

I like stylish, colorful, and different things that suit my less than conservative taste

I struggle not to be judgmental

I love to change and grow; I love learning; and, I don’t mind making mistakes or am afraid to fail because it means I’m doing something; I don’t look back in safety, but forward to growth

I don’t see, want, or need guarantees

I am a smiler, a laugher, a punster, but not a practical joker.

I have very thick skin; I don’t let very much get to me, having survived cancer and a massive cerebral hemorrhage

I love my children, their wives, and adore my grandmunchkins

I am nothing without my Susie

I am a toucher, especially of my Susie

I am a listen to music with an eclectic taste

I treasure true happiness

I am enamored with all the new technology, but am not enslaved to it or by it; it’s only a tool.

I never give advice

I am respectfully candid

I’m a listener; I listen more with my eyes than with my ears

I live in a state of “organized chaos,” not the neatest of people; leave my clothes lying around; leave empty boxes in the pantry and refrigerator as well as leaving cabinet doors open; drives my Susie nuts

I am a problem perceiver before I am a problem solver

I am calmness

I am a handy fixer-upper; I love to work with my hands as well as my mind, and, so respect anyone who works with either

I have been remodeling the house for nearly 40 years, although I don’t always pay attention to minute details and can ignore them for 40 years

I live in my now, knowing I should be dead, I don’t worry about tomorrow

I have an eye for art that Susan and I modestly collect

I have an eye for Susan

I do love Susie’s cheesecake–and her meat loaf and goulash–culinary delights.

I live my “Word For The Day” each day; today it is “rejoiceful”

I am what I eat:  I am a chocoholic, but don’t like much made with it; I hate peanut butter although I love peanuts; “fruitoholic,” a “fishoholic;” I gulp down raisins every day; I don’t like broccoli or okra or collards; to me they are proof God is not a perfect creator, but I do love my grits; I devour pecans, but not in a pie; I can’t stomach fast foods; I have no control when ice cream and fruit pies are within reach.

I very much like to travel and experience people in other cultures, but I am a horrible tourist since I want to experience places at my pace rather than have to stick to a schedule

I do relish my morning cups of coffee to start my day

I do relish my end of day “medicinal” glass of red wine and piece of Manchego cheese with Susie

I am a 4 am early riser–let’s see how long that lasts after I retire

I take deep, near-coma, refreshing, reinvigorating power naps each day

I am giddy by the fact I can see clearly, that the cataract surgery took me from “blind-as-a-batness” to 20-20 vision

I am so damn proud for my two sons and what each has achieved; I love my two neat daughter-in-laws; I revel in spoiling my three grandmunchkins rotten; but, first and last, Susie comes first and last.

I don’t smoke, never did.

I don’t drink and drive–fanatic about that.

I no longer bite my nails, having been a rabid “nailoholic” until the autumn of 1991.

I love giving Susie “just for the hell of it” gifts; don’t do the commercial holidays.

I talk to my flowers in the garden as well as to the koi fish in the something of a Zen fish pond

I light up and feel at peace and safe whenever I am with my Susie

I believe good character is essential to living the good life

I am an intensely emotional guy and make no bones of it, and I can be pragmatic when I want to play the game, both of which combined to make me a “practical romantic” with my feet on the ground and head in the clouds

I don’t hide sorrow or hurt

I really don’t like being labelled or cubby-holed in any manner shape or form because I am a unique, individual “me.”  I’m the and only “Louis;” and, I don’t de-personalize others with label.

I am “awareness,” “alertness,” “attentiveness,” and “otherness,” intensely so.

I am empathy and therefore sympathy, sometimes to a fault, if there be such a thing.

I am endless second chances.

I think I’ve pretty much won the war each day against anyone who has tried to make me into the person she or he wants me to be; paid the price for being “me,” but in the scheme of things, it is less than pocket change.

To sum it all up, I am process.  I am change.  I am growth.  I am transformation.   Whoever I presently am, I am not the person I was 20 years ago, or 40 years ago, or 60 years ago.  Like it or not, none of us are. I am the sum of the consequences of my 1991 epiphany.  I am M68ED (Micah 6:8 Every Day).  Or, at least, consciously struggle to be.  I am authentic.  In spite of feeling I am being “forced” into a retirement where I don’t want to go, I am happy, fulfilled, satisfied.  I feel I’ve am significant.  I know I’ve touched others, and thereby changed the world and altered the future.  But, I am not whoever I will be in 20 years, for my after-retirement story still has a few chapters to go.

Louis

IN THE SERVICE OF

I love “you just don’t ask” serendipity.  Not this time.  I was at a confluence of three events this morning.  The first event was a question posed by a student yesterday, whom I’ll call Mary.  She threw a challenging assignment at me.  She is thinking of becoming an ed major.  She came up to me after class on Wednesday and said, “Dr. Schmier, in one sentence define what it is to be a true teacher, a true teacher.  I’ll give you until Friday morning, 5 am .”   I figured that citing Micah 6:8 and telling her that she had to live a life of “M68ED” (Micah 6:8 Every Day) is not only breaking her rule of one sentence, but it’s too abstruse.  Then, last night, Susie and I watched an episode of “Criminal Minds.”  It’s one of those masterful shows that I initially I hate to watch but which ultimately just sucks you in.  It always starts and ends an episode with a profound quote.  This time, it quoted Lewis Carroll.  Then, at about 4:30 this morning I was “slammed,” and I mean “slammed,” by a long, student journal entry that had been laying in my mailbox since 3:45 this morning.  To call it “heart wrenching” sounds so cliche.  To say it brought more tears and deeper breaths than Max’ entry sounds so trite.  But, no one, not even someone with a hardest of hearts, or screaming at the top of his voice, “This is not my job,” could not get torn up, however momentarily, reading this one.  When I finished reading it, I just closed my eyes and rested my gently shaking head in my right hand, grimacing and biting my lower lip in more than sadness, and whispering an angry ‘shit’ or two to myself.   It ranks up there with the toughest entries I ever read over the past 16 years.  For a moment, I had a flash of a pity party with a brief “Why do I put myself through this.”  It lasted only a second or two.  Then, after a tear drop or two, a few heavy breaths, and some more silent cursing, I regained my composure.  I know.  I’m being more than a tad cryptical, and I’ll leave it at that.

But, it all came together and I made deadline.  I sent my response to Mary’s assignment at 4:58 am this morning:  “One sentence?  What is it to be a true teacher?  A true teacher, a deep teacher?  It’s to be a human being, but I’ll let Lewis Carroll, of what you know as ALICE IN WONDERLAND fame, give you the one sentence you want.  ‘One of the deep secrets of life,’ he said, ‘is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others.’  To which I will add, ‘and as a ‘true’ teacher there is a price you have to be willing to pay for being unconditionally in the service of each and every student.'”  How true.  How true.  I need Susie.

Louis

IN THE PEOPLE BUSINESS

A while back, I had just come in from a late, but invigorating, meditative walk.  I grabbed a cup of hot, freshly brewed coffee, fussed about this one-cup-at-a-time gizmo by Susie had bought, sat down by the computer and nonchalantly started reading student journal entries.  I opened a long one from a student whose class performance in all aspects hadn’t been stellar.  “Abysmal” would be a better descriptive.  I read slower, and slower, and slower.  Went cold.  Took deep, long breaths.  Eyes got watery.  It was hard to read the horrifying words and phrases and sentences of what I would describe as a “spiritual vomit.”  Words and phrases assaulted me:  “having troubles,” “need to speak about it,” “come from an abusive household,” “father would beat me,” “older brother would beat me,” “everyone smoked and shot up,” “had to fend for myself,” “lived in abandoned stores,” “no water or electricity,” “disconnected from everything,” “very good at faking it,” “did drugs,” “took pills,” “smoked pot,” “drank,” “got away from it,” “want to be happy but can’t,” “detached,” “can’t feel,” “dead inside,” “got away from it,” “see a pattern forming again,” “terrified,” “don’t want this to happen again,” “can’t sleep,” “wanted to talk with someone,” “you won’t judge me,” “thank you for being here.”

I got up.  Walked away from the computer feeling like a zombie.  Left the room.  Went over to Susie in the den and gave her a soft kiss.  She knew something was troubling me.  I told her that I just read a gut-wrenching call for help.  We talked.  I turned.  Went back into the den.  Paced the floor.  Opened the class folder.  Picked up my cell phone and called.  It wasn’t long before I heard “thankful crying.”  As we talked I knew I had come to the line which I dare not cross.  I suggested to Max (not a real name or gender) professional help that I could not offer.  I desperately hoped Max would agree.  Max did.  I asked for permission to call my friend who was head of the University’s counseling service as well as to send him a copy of the journal entry.  Max agreed.  I hung up and immediately called.  I called Max and said everything was set up, even offered to go along for introductions  Max said agreed to go.  “Thank you for being you.  I wasn’t sure I could have made it without you calling.” Max whimpered.  I hung up with tears in my eyes, slumped in the chair, emotionally exhausted by those 30 minutes.  But, I began to understand why Max was and was not doing.

Max and an op-ed piece by David Brooks a couple of weeks ago titled “A Psych Approach,” as well as a professor who just condemned me offline as “touchy feely” has gotten my lather up.  So, here goes.  And, you’re telling me that we’re not in the people business?  Read the “fine print!”  It says that if you’re interested, truly interested, in nothing else than a student’s achievement, even in grades and test scores and GPAs, you still must be concerned with that student as a person.  You must understand and deal with what goes on outside the classroom, for it comes into the classroom; you must take into account and honor that what goes on inside a student has an enormous impact on what comes out.  There is a link between lives lived and performance.  As David Brooks said, we just may have to psychologize higher education.  If we don’t, we fall into what the psychologists call “attribution error;” we misinterpret the reasons for action or inaction.  Now, you say, “It’s not my job.”  Fine.  You day, “I don’t have the time.”  Fine.  Then, don’t say, “I care.”  Stop pretending!

You know, if you do read the “fine print,” you’ll see that school failure, the drop out rate, flow more from psychological spring wells than have intelligence roots.  Dysfunction comes in all forms, can impede achievement, and can ruin a student.  I read about 120 journal entries a day.  I read of debilitating pain, fear, focusing on short comings, depression, feeling threatened, spread thin, running helter-skelter, sickness, drugs, alcohol, deaths of friends, stress, accidents, law-breaking, dying family members, loss, insecure relationships, abusive relationships, sex, peer pressure, distractions by rushing and sports and theater and music, feeling lost and without direction, impatience, quirkiness, pregnancy, abortion, lack of funds, economic pressures, sadness, jobs, children, husbands, wives, controlling parents, divorcing parents, vulnerabilities, loneliness, frustration, pressure, cheating girlfriends, cheating boyfriends, disability, embarrassment, inexperience with life, rush of hormones, and a host of other slings and arrows.   There are a lot of stressed, unhappy, pessimistic, insecure, disbelieving, confused, inexperienced young people in our classrooms in desperate need of guidance, caring, faith, encouragement, support–and love.  Their lives are not simple, easy, safe, convenient, comfortable.  They feel they are in an exhausting three-ring circus.   These emotional, social, personal, and economic anchors produce dragging stress and distraction.  They throw the students out of focus, don’t allow them to function, lead to “quirky” and often illegal behavior, and undermine effort.  All that too often trumps intellectual assets, hinders academic progress, and are barriers to success.  Instead, so many of us revere, recognize, and award the “highest” while demeaning and having little patience with the “lowest.

So, I ask, “Do you really know each student beyond a name?”  “Do you see the human being within?”  “Do you know what and why is going on beneath the surface?”  “Do see such a student in your class from where you stand?”   In your class do you ask students to listen to you, but do you listen to each of them?  Do you get upset and frustrated when they don’t listen?  Do they have a right to feel the same way when you don’t listen to them and hear each’s voice?  Are you engaged?  With whom or with what?  Are you disengaged?  From whom and from what?

Education has nothing to do with information or technology or even assessment, however so many focus on those things, unless…. Unless, academics who “thingify,” teaching and learning, and that includes the overwhelming majority, remember one thing:  education has everything to do with psychology.  If you believe you’re in the people business, you have to be interested in each person in that classroom with you; you have to study each person; you have to get to know each person; you have be aware of what is ticking inside of each and outside the classroom.  You can’t just look at them or look through them; you have to see them and see into them.  And, that includes yourself.  It’s the only way to truly care, to be truly empathetic, to be truly sympathetic.

What I am talking about is an attitude, a state of mind, that let’s you understand what it is to be human–and alive.  Beneath the apparently simple and smooth skin, which under a microscope reveals its own complexity, is an intricacy of veins, arteries, muscles, organs, blood, sera, bone, tendons, blood cells, lymphocytes, t-cells, bacteria, etc, etc, etc.  The performance of each has an impact on all.  With a torn rotator cuff, how well I know that.  So, there are complex and complicated and mysterious persons in that classroom, including you  There are thoughts and emotions, and lives going on, including your own.

Want me to roll your eyes?  Watch:  “I love what I do and am doing what I love.  I love each and every student unconditionally.”  See?  How many of you rolled your eyes?  But, loyalty to a petrified perception doesn’t give you agility.  Now, in academia, it’s cool to feel those arctic icy emotions of hate, anger, resignation, frustration,  dissatisfaction, disappointment, hurt, and even fear.  But, to love?  We hide from it; we shun its utterance.  We condemned it’s use as “touchy-feely,” fuzzy, “feel good.”  And, thereby we stunt our language of significance, narrow our vocabulary of living purposefully, and take out a part of the human dimension of teaching and learning.  I mean how far do you really think the negatives carry you?  How much of the “best” in you do they bring to the surface?  How much to they fill the emptiness?  How powerful are they to assail inhibitions and destroy prohibitions?  How strong are they to pry away pretenses?  How rich do they make your life?  Ask the Scrooge of his “bah, humbug” self-regarded life before the visit of the three ghosts; ask the Scrooge after his visitations.

You say that warm, lush feeling is quirky, naive, weird, uncool, off-the-wall?  Yet, I assert that love will carry you beyond your wildest dreams and help you reach plateaus you never dreamed possible.  Love is purpose, a process, a way of living, a constant and unattained quest.  It’s a way to a fuller and truer self; the discovery of a more valuable and sacred self; it nourishes, redeems, endows meaning, fulfills, deepens, focuses, renews, transforms, sedates.  Do you know what love is? Thinking of my feelings for my Susie and for each student, it’s, as someone said, that feeling whereby the happiness of someone else is crucial to your own happiness.  It’s an emotion filled with otherness, service, awareness, attentiveness, alertness, belief, faith, and hope.  So, if you don’t want to be starved by an indigestible self-centeredness, disfigured by emptiness, scared by purposelessness, be uncool to love, be weird enough to use the word love,  be “touchy feely” to reach out and touch and be touched and to feel, be fuzzy so to see and listen clearly, be quirky to be renewed,  be off-the-wall enough to have a deeply reflected, articulated, and guiding purpose,  be naive enough to feel a meaningfulness and to feel fulfilled.  And, if anyone rolls their eyes at you, jeers at or mocks you, love her or him.  She or he needs it, probably desperately so.

Louis

IF YOU WANT TO TEACH, START WITH THESE BOOKS

Teachers should be readers.  They should be “try-it-outers.”  But, what to read?  What to mess around with?  Tough questions.  Lots of answers.  If I was to focus on a short “starter” list, these 30 books are probably the ones with which I would begin.  Now, I’ve only listed books I’ve read over and over and over, whose passages I’ve underlined and highlighted, whose pages I’ve crimped, in whose margins I’ve scribbled thoughts, whose ideas I have experimented with and adapted as they fit into my vision.  In one way or another they’re relevant to teaching, aka classroom leadership.  I’ve shied away from the “what to do” and “how to,” assessment, and technology books.  I’ve concentrated, deliberately concentrated, on books that deal with “why” and the “inner ‘I.'” The simple truth is that you can know all about the technology, all about the pedagogy, and all about the science, and still not have your face to the sun and still not be able to teach  They will not power your heart.  They usually don’t help you understand that students are evolving and transforming; that they need to be noticed and truly cared about; that they, like us, need belief, faith, hope, and love; that we need to be empathetic and sympathetic; that tenderness, kindness, awareness, alertness, attentiveness, and otherness are required from each of us; that they need all this and all this is required of us because we’re first and foremost in the people business.  We don’t often address the truth that successful teaching doesn’t occur from either spontaneous combustion or from something or someone else striking a a match, but from setting yourself on fire.  Our greatest challenge in the classroom is to bring the sublime into the mundane, for information is pretty thin stuff without character.  All personal and professional breakthroughs occur with a change in beliefs, not with new methods or technologies.   No one is so tired, lazy, and old as someone who hasn’t the enthusiasm, purpose, meaning of a deeply reflected upon and articulated vision.  The first step for anyone teaching or engaged in teacher training is to understand the richly nuances, complex, and complicated humanity involved; that the challenge of the classroom is not supposed to stymy you, but help you discover who you are; that the dynamics between personality, self-perception, and role are inseparably immeshed; that the classroom is a place that demands an understanding of the nature and roots of human behavior; that what goes on in the mind, heart, and soul of both teacher and student have an impact on the achievement of both; and, if you want students to soar with you, you have to win their hearts.

The list is incomplete.  There are other worthy titles, a ton of them.  Nevertheless, here are the ones I recommend among those I’ve read. One last word, I decided to list only one work by those who have reflected, researched, and published prolifically.  That is not to say their other works are unimportant.  To the contrary, this is only a beginning, a whetting of the appetite, list.   Again, this is only my starter list.

1.    Carol Dweck, MINDSET: “it isn’t just our abilities and talent that bring our success — but whether we approach our goals with a fixed or growth mindset.”

2.    Gregory Berns, ICONOCLAST:   understanding how our brain processes information and affects our perception, imagination, and decision-making

3.    Richard Boyatzis, RESONATE LEADERSHIP:  resonant” leaders are individuals who manage their own and others’ emotions in ways that drive success

4.    Ed Deci, WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO:  They wish to be autonomous (authentic) rather than controlled. If they act autonomously (authentically), they are self-motivated.

5.    Teresa Amabile,  GROWING UP CREATIVE:  creativity can and should be a part of the daily life of all children and adults

6.    Viktor Frankl, MAN’S SEARCH FOR MEANING:  Life is primarily a search for meaning, of finding your “bliss” to follow

7.    Stephen Covey, THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE:  A principle-centered life is the most rewarding.

8.    Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee, PRIMAL LEADERSHIP:  to keep emotions out of the work environment creates a dire peril.

9.    Peter Senge, FIFTH DISCIPLINE:  stresses the importance of cultivating a learning organization in which autonomous thinking, personal mastery, and shared visions are vital

10.  James Allen, AS A MAN THINKETH:  “Thoughts of doubt and fear never accomplish anything, and never can. They always lead to failure….all strong thoughts cease when doubt and fear creep in”

11.  Robert Brooks, THE POWER OF RESILIENCE:  helping students and ourselves re-write new positive life scripts to replace the old negative ones.

12.  Alfie Kohn, PUNISHMENT BY REWARDS:  rewards motivate people to get more rewards.

13.  Paulo Friere, PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED, “True education is a process in which teachers become students and students become teachers, all in the name of liberation for everyone involved.”

14.  belle hooks,  TEACHING TO TRANSGRESS:  “education as the practice of freedom….is a view that can be held by anyone who believes in it and transgressive teaching can be done by anyone who is committed to working with students to transform the limiting structures that form the basis of our society and, consequently, the foundation of our institutions,

15.  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, FLOW:  how different people create meaning in life with full intention and focus and thereby achieve an ongoing state of satisfaction and sense of fulfillment.

16.  Charles Duhigg, THE POWER OF HABIT:  how the science of habits can be used to improve willpower

17.  Daniel Gilbert, STUMBLING ON HAPPINESS:  explains why we seem to know so little about the hearts and minds of the people we are about to become.

18.  Howard Gardner, CHANGING MINDS:  How do we do it? What plays a factor in it? Why is it so hard to convincce people to give up well cherished beliefs for new ones?

19.  Parker Palmer, THE COURAGE TO TEACH, takes teachers on an inner journey toward reconnecting with themselves so they can empathize and connect with their students

20.  Daniel Goleman, EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE:  delineates the five crucial skills of emotional intelligence, and shows how they determine our success in relationships, work, and even our physical well-being

21.  Marilee Adams,        CHANGE YOUR QUESTIONS, CHANGE YOUR LIFE:  asking the right questions of the right people – can radically transform attitudes, actions, and results.

22.  Jon Kabat-Zinn, WHEREVER YOU GO THERE YOU ARE:  mindfulness, awareness, attentiveness, and otherness in everyday life.

23.  John Dewey, DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION:   school should be relevant to real life and that solving problems is more important than reciting facts.

24.  Jack Kornfield, AFTER THE ECSTASY, THE LAUNDRY:  unbounded joy and happiness is possible, but we are faced with the day-to-day task of translating that ecstasy into our lives

25.  Steven Sample, THE CONTRARIAN GUIDE TO LEADERSHIP:  “effective day-to-day leadership isn’t so much about himself (the leader), as it is about the men and women he chooses to be his chief lieutenants. He knows that a lot of the things on his own plate will be minutiae and silliness, while his lieutenants will get to do the fun and important things.”

26.  Leo Buscaglia, LOVE:  “The true function of education should be the process of helping a person to discover his uniqueness, aiding him toward its development, and teaching him how to share it with others.”

27.  Malcolm Gladwell:  OUTLIERS:  It’s fulfillment and significance that makes us truly happy, not money or titles or renown.

28.  Carl Rogers:  FREEDOM TO LEARN:  asks the the hard-to-ask questions about education that are still hard to ask.

29.  Robert Cialdini, INFLUENCE: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PERSUASION:  core principals of persuasion is a sterling example of the cross application of psychological principles to life in the classroom.

30.  Dr. Seuss, OH THE PLACES YOU’LL GO

Is this the list for you as a teacher?  Can’t say. It’s my beginning list. Have your own? What is it?

Louis

GENESIS 1:27

I know.  Thinking, feeling, reflecting introspectively, writing a lot lately.  But, it’s not just that student who has really gotten into me or that I’m still feeling the gift he gave me.  There’s more that I’m not ready to talk about yet.  But, still echoing in my soul are his words, “You didn’t give up on me.”  Give up?  Me?  Never!  As the Talmud says, “You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”  So, I am a guy of many second chances.  And though I may not always ‘win,’ and I don’t, I never surrender.  I never stop believing, having faith, having hope, and loving.  I always say that my favorite passage in Scripture, my guiding north star for all my feelings, thoughts, and actions that I use not to “thingify” teaching, to ritualize or ceremonialize it–or anything in life–is Micah 6:8.  It’s my favorite.  It reminds me to “humanize” what I do, that what really matters is people.  But I don’t think it’s the most important passage in Scripture.

Micah rests on what I believe is the seminal biblical passage.  Take the whole of the New Testament, the whole of the Old Testament, the whole of the Koran, the whole of the Midrash, the whole of the Talmud, the whole of all the Jewish and Christian and Islamic writings, however often misused and abused and perverted they may be by imperfect followers.  It all rests on one passage and one passage only.  The rest is commentary.  It’s among the opening passages of the Old Testament.  Maybe the fact that it’s among the opening passages reveals its significance.  Genesis 1:27 gets my vote:   “In the Image of God they were created.”  The spark of the Divine in us all.  Imperfect, but godly, all of us.  Bar none.  Sacred, noble, valuable, worthy, unique.  All of us.  No exceptions.  No conditions.  No exclusions.  No judgments.  No ifs, ands, or buts!

“In the image of God were they created.” A simple but profound and challenging and elegant statement.  But, really.  Do we believe it?  Do we see the angel ahead of each student, reminding us with the proclaiming, “Make way, make way, make way for someone created in the image of God?”  We all believe we are decent folk; I know we all want to be decent folk. But do we believe in all the people who populate our campuses and classrooms?  Do we act as if we believed everyone is made in God’s image?  Do we feel as if we believe everyone has a unique potential?   Perhaps the easiest answer to that question is how we talk, and how we act, towards each student.  If we really believed that every student is created in God’s image, if we truly did, then simple decent feelings, thoughts and behavior toward each of them would flow.  We’d be nurturers for all and weeders of none.

So, I ask, is an uttered “I care” simply a comforting platitude or an expected sound bite?  I think we would act differently if we really practiced caring and acted caringly, rather than just mouthing it.  Do we mean “I care” when we disengagingly say, “It’s not my job?”  Do we mean “I care” when we haughtily say, “I don’t have time?”  Do we mean “I care” when we say disparagingly, “They’re letting anyone in?”  Do we mean “I care” when we negatively act in a way that reveals “Students nowadays can’t…..don’t….?”  Do we mean “I care” when we annoyingly say, “This generation….in my day when I was a student?”  Do we mean “I care” when we resignedly say, “Well, you can’t get to all of them; so why try?”  Do we mean “I care” when we’re more interested in and care about informing and credentialling than transforming?  Do we mean “I care” when our hearts and minds are in the lab or archive?  Before you answer any of these questions, keep a few things in mind:

First, how did you feel as a student when you were treated as if you were far, far less than angelic?  Second, how do you feel when as a faculty or staff member you are not respectfully treated by colleagues or administrators?  Third, the more we can be honest with ourselves, acknowledge our own imperfections, the more we can accept those imperfections in a student.   That is, we can have empathy, sympathy, and compassion. You know, I learned that humility does not mean self-effacement; it does not mean thinking of ourselves as worthless or useless. But rather it means being honest with ourselves and accepting our limitations.  Once we know and accept our own limitations, we can more readily accept that in another human being.  Fourth, if you believed and lived Genesis 1:27, I bet you’d notice each student.  You’d feel differently about and speak differently to and of each student. You’d find the time to spend more time with each student who needed your time.  You’d complain less about students. You’d give more.  You’d accept each of them both as she or he is and as she or he can be.  You’d forgive them for not being mini copies of us, for not being perfect, for not doing everything we want them to be all the time.  You’d accept each of them both as she or he is and as she or he can be.  You’d work harder to help each one help her/himself transform her/himself.  You’d be a person of unending second chances.  I bet eventually you’d teach fully, and urgently, and carefully; you’d see teaching as an essential part of your professional life rather than apart from it or an intrusion on it.   Fifth, what would you do if a student came up to you and said, “I’m giving you one more chance.  I’m important.  I’m worthy.  You don’t pay enough attention to me. You aren’t interested enough in what’s happening in my life. I’m giving you one more chance.  Notice me.  Care about me.  Help me.” And finally,  each time we can generate empathy and sympathy, have passion and compassion for, encourage and support, have belief in, faith in, hope for, and love a student before judging or blaming or weeding out, we change the world. And, as we continue to strive to change the world just that much more we can leave it better than when we found it.

So, “in the image of God were they created.”   It is an awesome notion that gives us tremendous energy and tremendous responsibility.  It’s the unlimited source of unlimited dedication, commitment, perseverance to transforming rather than merely informing and credentialing.  Once you believe each student has an astonishing inner light, you’ll fight to keep her or him away from the dark.  And, you’ll fight even harder to drag him or her out of the dark and to help her or him be the crack in her or his own dawning.

Louis

WHAT’S IMPORTANT

Yesterday, I had just finished having a neat conversation over lunch with a colleague from the College of Education.  Being that it was early for class, I sat on a bench along the pedestrian walk, turned on my boom box, watched students passing by, and thought about how I just might miss this place I so love and I’ve given so much of life to.

One of students in the class saw me, came over, and sat by me.  She didn’t say a word.  Then, she turned and said, “Doc, I’m curious.  I’ve got to ask this since I want to be an ed major.  We do a lot of stuff in class, a heck of a lot more than most other classes.  And, I know you’ve told us over and over again that there is a madness to your method and a method to your madness.  But, I want to know one thing.  Of everything you do, that we do, all the ‘getting to know ya’ exercises and ‘rules of the road’ stuff we did at the beginning of the semester, setting up the Issue Template that we use for everything, having to work in communities, having us tell our name every time we say something, read and reply to journals each day, read the project evaluations, read comlogs each week, set up and assign projects, assign and read and comment on chapter and film issue papers, read our rewrites, holding us to deadlines, finding and telling us which daily YouTube clips or weekly films to watch, read our answers to the questions about them, play music at the beginning of each class as we close our eyes for a minute or two, have us pay a dollar late fee donation to your cancer fund, bring in donuts when we use our cell phones, write and discuss the ‘words for the day,’ write our one word ‘how we feel,’ talk with us, write to us, and all the other stuff, which is the most important to you?

“That’s easy.” I answered without missing a beat.  “Whatever I’m doing at the moment.  That’s the moment I’m in.  That’s where I am, all in.  That’s what I am doing fully.  That’s where I am focusing and concentrating.  That’s the only thing I have and appreciate the most.  That’s what I sweat about most.  That’s the most important thing of everything I do because everything is ultimately all about you.”

“I don’t get it,” she answered with an obvious look of confusion on her face and in her voice.

I explained with a parable.  In a small village, I told her, there lived a poor tailor who just barely eked out a living.  He worked hard all week long, cutting and snipping and sewing and mending and stitching and fixing. At the end of the week, he would sit at his table and enjoy a little restful time with his only child, a charming and beautiful daughter. But he had a strange habit. At the end of the week, each Friday afternoon, after he closed his small shop, after his daughter got off his lap and went to help her mother, he would gather up the fallen pieces of material lying strewn about the floor, the wasted ends and the odd shaped remnants, and he would lovingly fit the throw-away pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle, sewing them into a tiny, perfect square, and put it inside a box with the squares he had created the Fridays before. Week by week, month by month, year by year, he would turn each apparently worthless misshapen little piece of cloth into a piece of a perfect, tiny and apparently useless square. One happy day, his daughter became engaged.  A few weeks later, she tearfully came to her father to inquire about a wedding dress, knowing full well they could never afford one. With joy and excitement, he took her hand and led her to the back of the shop. There upon a hanger was the most magnificent wedding gown the town would ever see, made of tiny little squares, each one different, each one perfect, sewn together into a gorgeous pattern.

So, told her, “I sweat what everyone thinks is the unimportant stuff because I know it is not unimportant stuff.  You and I take the small supposedly unimportant, everyday pieces, and slowly weave them together into something of immense value and significance.  That makes every piece important.”