Just came in from a youthfully invigorating short walk.  I say “short,” because a shin splint in my left leg has kept me off the streets for about a month.  So, here I am, sipping a cup of hot, freshly brewed coffee, thinking “it’s done.’  I’ve handed in my keys; I’ve emptied my office; I’ve donated the last cases of books to the University Library; I’ve gotten a new ID; I’ve completed the out-processing interview; I’ve submitted final grades of the final semester of my 46 year teaching career here a VSU.  I am officially retired.  At the moment, it’s not a good feeling.  I’m not a happy puppy.  Now, however, in reflection, I’m trying to sum it all up.  So, during my pre-dawn walk I found myself thinking back to October, 2008, and I could feel an uncontrolled smile forming.

It was the Lilly North Conference on Teaching in Higher Education at idyllic Travis City, Michigan.  My good friend, Todd Zakrajek, the conference director, came up to me. It was the end of a long conference day and I was in an interesting mood:  Susie had just returned from a jovial spending jaunt through the boutiques, lifting the local economy by several points; I had been getting myself into the groove for a featured workshop the next day until I discovered only a few minutes earlier that I had packed student community project evaluations into my suitcase instead of my presentation stuff.  I would have to go impromptu for 90 minutes the next day.  So, I was in a mental and emotional groping “what the hell am I gong to do” groove.

“I’ve got room for you and Susie on the wine tour.  Want to go?” Todd asked me.  “We’re leaving now.”

Like he had to ask twice.  For Susie he had said the two magic words–wine tour.  For me, it was a needed distraction–I thought.  “Oh, by the way,” he added, “at the dinner when the tour is ended, I want you to present a ‘five minute lecture you’d give to a person new to teaching.”  Todd does these things to people he loves.

“Five minutes?  My entire testament on teaching in only five minutes?” I asked.  “You got to be kidding.”

“To the second,” he smiled impishly.

“I don’t have anything.  And, if we’re going on the wine tour now, I won’t have time to think up something.  I’ll have to go off the top of my head,” I told him.

“Good.  Then, it won’t be canned and it’ll mean something.”

“Okay,” I sighed, “but I guess that means I can’t sample too much wine.”

“I knew you would do it.  Couldn’t turn down the challenge, could you.” he replied in his own inimitable, smirking way.

It was a godsend since it became the core of the next day’s presentation.  So, to the best of my memory here is the unwritten “My Five Minute Testament” in writing.   As I look back, it had sprouted out from my “To Be A Teacher,” my “Am I A Teacher,” my “Ten Commandments of Teaching,” and my “Ten Stickies,” and would grow three years later into my “Teacher’s Oath.”   It was my Testament then; it is my Testament now; it will always be my Testament:

“Five minutes?  Okay.  No technology or information or methods and techniques talk.  Just first principles:  You are in the people business!  Education is always about the individual human being.  The individual human being is the only reality.  ‘Students’ are not; ‘class’ is not; ‘generation’ is not.  ‘They’ is not.  Statistics are not.  A pie chart is not.  A graph line is not.  Don’t bury the breathing individual under a lifeless generality.  Don’t take the life out of her or him with an inanimate stereotype.  Don’t reduce human worth to a one dimensional standardized score, test, grade, or transcript.  Don’t perceive these individuals through distorting and blurring prisms.  Don’t select them out, those to be nurtured to the right and those to be weeded out to the left.

Welcome, embrace, include, say ‘yes,’ to every individual student, unconditionally–UNCONDITIONALLY–no matter where she or he is on life’s road.   Never forget that each person in that room is someone’s son, daughter, sister, brother, niece, nephew, cousin, father, or mother who is entrusted to you.   Burn into your soul the words of Carl Jung: ‘You have to put aside your formal theories and intellectual constructs and axioms and statistics and charts when you reach out to touch that miracle called the individual human being.’

And a miracle each is.  Close your eyes.  See an angel walking in front of each student, proclaiming, ‘Make way, make way, make way for someone created in the image of God.’  Let that pronouncement get under your skin; feel it in your bones; never let it stop reverberating in your ears and pounding in your chest.  Let it be your vision.  Let it form your dreams.  Let it energize your imagination.  Let it nourish your thoughts and feelings.  Let it lay out the direction in which you’re moving.  Let it decide the world you live in.  Let it decide how things are going.  Let it guide, focus and drive every moment of what you do.

Trust me,  as you bring that image to life, as you constantly think of, believe, feel, taste, live by, and clearly see and listen to these ethereal messengers, it makes a difference in how you see, listen to, feel about, think of and behave towards each  student.  It makes the classroom so sacred you almost have to take off your shoes.  It makes the classroom a beautiful gathering of sacred, noble, capable, talented, unique, diverse, extraordinary ‘ones.’  It gives you an intense alertness, attentiveness, awareness, and mindfulness that become one with your teaching.   It morphs each ‘human being” into a ‘human becoming.’  It transforms those supposedly ‘devilishly impossible students’ into ‘angelically’ possible; it converts the impossible to reach into the reachable; it makes the bothering ones too valuable not to be bothered with.  It elevates the ‘ordinary’ to the heights of the ‘extraordinary.’ It turns the routine-ish ‘ho-hum’ into an exciting ‘wow!’  It makes you into nothing other than a ‘hopeless hope-oholic,’ a ‘helpless help-oholic,’ ‘a dreamy-eyed dreamer,’ a ‘restless believer,’ an ‘insightful visionary,’ a ‘daring daredevil,’ and a ‘people-struck lover.’

Do you how important what you do is?  Each of those people is a piece of the future.  Lose one, and you’ve left a hole in the fabric of things to come.  You have a shot to make each person find her or his place, to help each make her/himself bigger and better, to help each student find her or his true self, to help each of them to open her or his shut doors, and to help each to aim higher. You have the future in your hands.  Use them to make a real difference in a real way in the real lives of real people in a real world. Be there to help each student help him- or herself become the person she or he is capable of becoming.  Let that be your ‘why,’ translate it into action by having your ‘whats’ and ‘hows’ be in the service of it, and you will never get old, never get lazy, never get resigned, never get cold, never get distant, never get hard, never get frustrated never get bitter, never lose your passion, never become routine, never stop having serious fun, never stop questing and adventuring, never stop enjoying, never stop. Never!  It’s hard work, I admit.  But, a vision won’t work out unless you work at it, unless you constantly practice practicing it.  The way to do this is simple but oh so demanding:  Care about.  Believe in.  Have faith in.  Have hope for.  Connect with.  Respect.  Honor.  Nurture.  Support.  Encourage.  Empathize.  Sympathize.  Edify.  LOVE! LOVE!!  LOVE!!!  LOVE!!!!  Every student!  Every day!!  UNCONDITIONALLY!!

And you will, if you don’t play the ‘I can’t get to them all’ 100% game or the ‘perfect’ game.  Remember, to paraphrase the Talmud,  touch one student, just one student–ONE STUDENT–and you have changed the world and altered the future.  And,  I guarantee, each time you do that, you will feel a sense of significance, accomplishment, satisfaction and fulfillment beyond your wildest dreams.  Nothing can match it.  Not a book, a conference paper, an article, a grant, a recognition, a promotion, an appointment.  Nothing!”

Whew!  I just timed me.  I made it:  4 minutes, 59 seconds.  If you want, I’ll give you copies of my “stuff.”

Louis

A few weeks ago, I was talking to a professor at a near-by flagship university about how in the Remembering the Holocaust class I require the students wear large yellow stars on their chest with “Jew” boldly written on it pinned on their chests outside of class, 24/7, wherever they are and with whomever they are, and daily record their feelings and the responses of those around them.  Fabulous stuff.  Anyway, back to the point of this encounter, the professor’s immediate, first, unthinking, knee-jerk response was, “Oh, you must have tenure.”  That one sentence has had me thinking, especially after reading Daniel Gilbert’s STUMBLING ON HAPPINESS and some other stuff, that in most corners of academe, academics grovel at the feet of the great god, Tenure.  No, they don’t offer up people to the flames.  But, they often just throw people to the wolves.  After all, this deity can provide lots of safety and security, and supposedly happiness.  In fact, if Mae West was an academic, she might say, “I’ve been untenured and I’ve been tenured.  Tenured is better.”

I know, tenure really isn’t the problem.  Threatened people who pursue it are.  The demands of that “tenure track” environment are.  You can tell a lot about people by how they pursue tenure when demand and threat merge into a proverbial “perfect storm.”  The problem is that the campus are perennially stormy.   The result is that far too many academics practice a fearful austerity rather than an heroic audacity.  Cultivation of a sense of well-being is not high on their professional bucket list.  They have the fearful look of prey being stalked.  They walk around with a defeated heart, a submissive mind, and an inner surrender that’s all summed up in “what will they think” and “but, I don’t have tenure.”  They are thrown into a survival mode, having a tendency to overvalue it, wanting it too much, are willing to make too many compromises, are willing to sacrifice values and character to secure it, giving it a priority above classroom teaching, sacrificing students, thinking it can do so much, and thinking it can do too much.

Too many of us are rationalizing academic Tevyes, singing “if I was tenured prof.”  Oye, the wonderful careers we could have and the great things we could do if we were tenured.  It’s easy to think that tenure is synonomous with “job satisfaction” and happiness; it’s easy to think that habits and attitudes formed during the years in the pursuit of tenure can be broken the day after nailing it down.  So many academics pursuing tenure believe that life will be much, much better–and pleasantly different–once they are tenured.  They assume they can relax from the judgment of others, have the freedom they desire to do the things that most interest them, and they will have job security in an insecure world. Guess what.  They have what Gilbert calls an “impact bias.”  That makes them lousy forecasters, and dead wrong.  After that one ray briefly breaks through the dark clouds, the hole closes to gray the sky once again.  And, it is that error that makes our campuses perpetual risk-aversion, fearful places.

A little secret that not really a secret:   getting tenure will make you “happy,” but not all that much and not for that long.  Deny it all you want; rationalize it away all you want.  Close your eyes, put your fingers tightly in your ears, and make a wish for it to go away.  But, it won’t go away.  The protracted stalking, threatening, cowering, and withering pressures are still there and quickly make known their predatory presence.  The stifling anxiety and fear quickly return after a momentary relieving “whew, got it.”  At my University there are those ever-present, dour, prodding, chaining, and dampening little impish devils dancing around the campus.  They go by such names of “SOIs, (Student Opinion of Instruction),” “annual reports,” “promotion application,” “salary recommendations,” and “post tenure review.”  And, there are more.

I know.  A little dash of the anxious, fearful, and threatening spur you on and make you more creative and productive.  The findings by Gilbert and others respond with a “hogwash.”  But, that’s the rest of the story.  For the moment, I just want to raise a red flag, a bright red flag.  And, I want to raise it high.  We have to be careful, very careful, for, to paraphrase the Talmud, if we believe tenure can do everything, we just might be willing to do anything to get it.  And, far, far too many of us are far, far too careless.

Louis

Five days to go, for the end of the hurricane season–and my retirement.  Not sure if there is some irony there.  Meanwhile, a Thanksgiving wish.  I wish, truly wish, academia would be infected by an epidemic of “mad about the students” disease.  It’s symptoms are recognized by an unconditional welcoming and embracing of each student with an uncontrollable open-mindedness, open-heartedness, and open-armed sincerity.  Our campuses should be ravaged by this affliction not because of some “thou shalt” fiat from higher up, not because we need to attract and keep students whose tuition increasingly pays the bills, but because it’s simply the right thing to do.

Louis

So, I’ve been getting what I am sure will be a host of panicky post Turkey Day, end of the semester messages from students asking how many points this counts, whether undone assignments will effect the grade, could they do extra work to get extra points to improve their grades, how much does this and that count.  And, as I came out from my Thanksgiving caloric coma, those questions, as well as others like them, got me to thinking how “thingified” education has become.  The problem is that if people are “trained” only to pass tests, focus on points, and be concerned only with grades and scores on exams, then it’s very hard to imagine how they will become imaginative, creative, and independent thinkers and doers.

Louis

Yeah, I know I’m being prolific, but with only nine days to go before it’s all done, I feel an effusiveness.  This one was triggered by this one liner I received:  “Fuzzy-brained New Agers like you, sir, are a threat to higher education.  That is all I am going to say.”  Not a very nice Thanksgiving greeting.  Anyway, she said enough.  You’d think after having laid siege to the Ivory Tower, I was moving up the assault towers, hurling boulders at its battlements with catapults, getting ready to overrun the holy of holies.  I don’t know why this professor called me a “a fuzzy-brained New Ager.”  Maybe in her mind she’s trying to minimize and marginalize me, or trying to turn me into a lightweight, or telling herself that I should not to be taken seriously.  Whatever her reasons, what she doesn’t realize is that when you try to put someone down, you’re really putting yourself down.  As far as not being serious, if she had heard the conversation between me and this student I had mentioned, seen our tears, and read in the follow-up journal entry, “thank you for loving me when no one else has.  I don’t know where I’d be or what I would have done if you hadn’t…..” she’d know I am very serious, damn serious, and that love is serious.

Someone asked me how I seem to stay so cool and let that water just run off my back.   Sometimes it’s just not that easy.  But, then I think of two answers, one about “them” and one about me.  My quick answer about “them” was, “I vaguely remembered and looked up the words Shakespeare put into Caesar’s mouth just to make sure I got them right, ‘I want the men around me to be fat, healthy-looking men who sleep at night.  That Cassius over there has a lean and hungry look.  He thinks too much.  Men like him are dangerous.'”

My “me” answer is a Zen story:  there was a Zen master who was called every name in the book by someone who was angered by his teachings.  Knowing that he had not caused any personal hurt to his assailant, the master calmly listened and heard him out.  He asked the accuser if he ever had guests over for dinner.  The man replied that he did.  The master then asked what did he do with the left over food.  The man said he kept it for himself and used it.  “So it is with your abuse,” said the Master.  “I don’t eat what you are serving; you keep it and eat it.”

What, then, are we supposed to do besides not eating what’s being served?  Nourish ourselves!  Strengthen ourselves!  Have a spiritual, mental, and physical workout program so we can make the climb to great heights!  First, we should understand that disinterest, apathy, love, faith, belief, hope, all see what they want to see, that they see through the prisms of perception and preconception.  Second, if such a thing as peer pressure exists, why don’t we become advocates of “It is my job” belief, faith, hope and love as much as others are with “It’s not my job” disinterest and apathy.  Why meekly and fearfully submit to them?  We can’t, nor should we, force anyone to feel, think or do anything.  But, why don’t we talk about things we should be talking about?  I know we shouldn’t let fear of “what will they see,” “what will they think,” “what will they say,” “what they will do” cower us, silence us, shackle us as it so often does on our tenure-focused, safety-seeking, risk-aversion, and fear ravaged campuses.   If we whittle ourselves to suit all those “they,” we’ll soon have nothing left but a useless pile of shavings of ourselves, and we just won’t have much left of our core.  And finally, we should, then, be the sculptors of ourselves; we shouldn’t determine our own worth by the criteria of those “they.”

As for me, I do not let someone fit me with their shoes.  I am not be distracted from loving each student just because others don’t love what I have to say and do.  I do not feel little merely because someone makes attempts at belittling me.  I am not devalued merely because someone doesn’t value what I do or believe.  I do not feel shame just because someone tried to shame me.  I am not frightened even if someone else feels frightened by my words.  I do not feel rejection merely because someone rejects my vision.  And, I am still standing!  My value, nobility, sacredness, my authenticity, is not dependent upon what someone else agrees with, feels safe with, likes.   If I did, I would surrender being in command of the way I live in general and the way I teach in particular.

So, how do I do that?  I do it by having a deeply reflected upon and articulated “why,” a personal vision.  I study; I study the latest research findings in what I call “brainology;” I attend conferences on teaching, listen, learn, and then go home and”mess around” with.  I follow my “word of the day to live by,” my “Teacher’s Oath,” my “Ten Commandments of Teaching,” my “LED,” my “KISS,” my “M68ED,” and I mediate in a variety of ways throughout the day.

I realized two decades ago that the answer lies in my being, not my doing, that is, what guides me, what calls me; that everything is gained by daring, and daring starts within me.  To do that, I looked in the mirror and realized painfully and reluctantly that I had to face and overcome all the barriers within me:  all the anger, all the blame, all the fears, all the rationalizations, all the safeties, all the self denigrations.  It’s my being, not my doing, that keeps my eye on the prize and away from the booby prizes.  I give a damn; I live giving a damn; and, I make not bones about it.  I don’t hide it.  I don’t shut up.  I care about each and every student, not what others think or say of me.  I unconditionally believe in, have faith in, have undying hope for, and I love each student.  And, they know it and feel it.  I don’t allow any distractions drag me into a numbing abyss and away from my caring and loving.   I will be that guy who is there unconditionally to help each student help her/himself become the person she or he is capable of becoming.

A couple of secrets I’ve discovered:  we all have burdens, as the yiddish saying goes, but we also have shoulders; a deeply reflected upon and articulated purposeful “why” will overcome anything; how you spend a day is how you spend your life; you really start living when you stop fearing; your life is what your feelings and thoughts and actions make it; the more you love, the stronger you’ll be; love has the best chance of making things happen; and, you’ll only discover how much you can be by being much.  All this determines the extent to which you are a practitioner of awareness, aliveness, altertness, otherness, and mindfulness.  All this determines what you see, listen to, feel, taste, and do.  All this determines the extent to which your presence is known in a caring way.  So, love each student unconditionally.  Don’t just think it; don’t just say it; do it and shout it from highest rooftops!  The pains, inconveniences, discomforts are nothing compared to the miracles that can take place.  Trust me, you’ll feel the miracles; you’ll feel alive; you’ll feel the significance; you’ll feel the exhilaration of being a real, live, genuine, strong, courageous, unique person, giving yourself a strength, determination, perseverance, and endurance to refuse to become a mindless, fearful, submissive automaton.

Remember, to avoid criticism and to say nothing and to do nothing is to be nothing and to accomplish nothing.

I feel like an aging star that’s going out like a bright supernova.  I’d exploding with Ideas, thoughts, feelings.  They’re dancing on the stages of my mind and soul like Tchaikovsky’s dancing sugar plum fairies.  They’re pirouetting, leaping, arabesque-ing, batterie-ing, pointe-ing almost uncontrollably from my head and heart, down my arms, and into making my fingers do their own ballet steps on the keyboard.

As I told an e-colleague, this time I was looking at a sheet of paper the other morning.  I don’t know why.  Well, I do.  It was triggered by both a tearful conversation I had with a student as I brought my classes to an end that threw me into a loop and read an equally heart-tugging journal entry that followed that made me even more tearful.  That’s all I’ll say.  I’ll leave it at that.   Back to the sheet of paper.   At a glance, the paper seemed simple enough.  Just a blank sheet.  Then, I stopped merely looking and began to see, to see deeply, so deeply I felt I was an electron microscope.  And, guess what I saw.    I saw trees.  I saw sun.  I saw soil.  I saw rain.  I saw seeds.  I saw nutrients.  I saw growth.  I saw miracles of life.  I saw all that made up the previous life of that piece paper.  I saw fibers.  I saw invention.  I saw imagination.  I saw ingenuity.  I saw creativity.  I saw civilization.  I saw process.  I saw progress.  I saw all that made up the human capacity and potential.

I saw what seemed so simple only when I just looked was truly complex and even mysterious when I intensely saw.  I read somewhere something someone said that stuck with me:  “He who looks outside, dreams; he who looks inside, awakens.”  Ain’t that the truth.  And, I will attest without any reservation, hesitation, or equivocation that when you see a student through the prisms of unconditional faith, belief, hope, and love, that student will enter your heart, awaken your heart, and stir your soul.  So, I wonder what is it that we can discover if we stop just looking and begin to see, to see deeply, to see ourselves, to see others?   What if we stopped being content to merely gaze at images on a screen?  What if we were no longer satisfied being spectators in an arena.  What if we started looking other people in the eye, not just through a camera lens?  If we participated in, engaged in, experienced and lived first hand, touched and felt, saw and listened to, were fully involved, and lived the details, we see that the classroom is a place of unseen potential, a place of possibilities, a place where we should keep open our options.

Understand that true faith, belief, hope, and love, that the acts of true empathy, sympathy, and compassion, occur only when we are aware of, attentive to, mindful of, caring about, and knowing–really knowing–who that person in the classroom with you is.  Thinking of this student, it is so important that we put aside our resumes, titles, and positions to be deeply human and to know how deeply human each student is.  Someone once said that the real measure of how you live is the extent to which your presence and absence both mean something significant.  How true.  How true.

Louis

A conversation with a colleague from the College of Education, an accidental meeting with a childhood friend of my younger son who now works on campus, and a poignant student journal entry, all got me to thinking about “conception bias,” “attribution error,” “positive regard,” “resilience,” and a Zen adage which says,  “Even a villain loves his mother.”

As I wrote to my colleague, we can’t play the “perfect game” or the “100% game.”  Things won’t work; there will be downside.   But, more than anything else, how we respond to these things is what determines how happy, meaningful, and significant our lives will be.  If we want to be happy, to be meaningful, to make a positive difference, free to enjoy the things we have, and avoid being tamed and turned out into the faceless herd, we must make inner strength our primary goal to develop a persevering, enduring, indestructible self.  That is, we have to avoid acquiring and retaining a “what will they think” defeated heart,  submissive mind, and surrendered spirit.  We have to stop having false expectations feed by “conception bias” that breed those frustrations.  To do that we have to acquire, maintain, and utilize a triumphant heart, an independent mind, and an inner strength.

I’m not talking about never fearing, never being discouraged, never doubting, never feeling funky, never being disappointed, never despairing, never being moody. God knows, as my unintended retirement approaches in exactly two weeks, I’m fighting all that.  I’m talking about what are you going to do when you do experience those inevitable “downs?”  What is going to get you up?  What is going to keep you up?  What will it take to keep going on in spite of it, seeing challenges as opportunities rather than as obstacles, defining courage as falling down seven times and get up eight, remembering that failure or defeat only comes from stopping and giving up?

Now, answering these questions won’t make experiencing these experiences any easier because I am not just talking about having a resiliency, to rebound quickly from an occasional adversity or to face it calmly without being pulled down by depression or anxiety such as the one occasion when I had cancer or the single incident of nearly dying from a massive cerebral hemorrhage.  I’m talking about everyday plugging away and slogging through, using the impact such adversities and traumatic events to be ever-present; I’m talking about getting up from bed each morning and getting up day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, decade after decade with nothing less than an appreciative and grateful “yes,” and deal with the obstacles in front of us again and again and again.

Now that doesn’t come automatically.  You’ve got to have an exercise program of pumping spiritual iron.  It takes practice to develop an attitude.  It takes practicing practices for developing an outlook.  It takes conscious practicing of practices to see what’s not wrong rather than staying in the prison of our sorrow by focusing only on what’s wrong; it takes consciously practicing practices for developing what’s called an unconditional “positive regard,”  of accentuating the positive, for, let’s say, colleagues or students and things around us.  But, what the other person does or how she or he responds is not particularly relevant; nor are the circumstances we find ourselves in.  The point is that you want to make a positive difference, that you want to do important things more than appearing important, that  you want to change the world, that you become a person who cares so much about other people that you boldly thrusts yourself into the fray, roll up your sleeves, and get to work.  And, the real benefit of feeling and doing all this is that it builds you up; it snatches victory from the jaws of a defeated heart; it breaks the chains in a shackled mind; it keeps up the inner fight.

Your feelings of beneficence gives you greater chance to bring out the best in you, and that will increase your ability to bring out the best in others.  Heck, that’s the definition of a master teacher, isn’t it: not to share your abilities but to help others see their own abilities, to love someone unconditionally regardless of whether they do quirky, jerky, dumb, irrational things?   Again, we, some colleagues, some students may seem so detached, so far away, from their best selves that to make a difference seems so “dreamy,” but as I was reminded by a heartfelt student journal, somewhere inside “even a villain loves his mother.” And, as Leo Buscaglia would have said, you never know what small persevering gesture will pull good things out from others;  and the more we strive to pull out the good things in others, the more we pull good things out from ourselves.  To become someone who consciously seeks to find the best in others is to become someone who we ourselves like; it’s to become more optimistic; it is to become a believer and lover; it is to become a see-er of the glass being half full rather than the pessimist who only mopes about the emptiness in the glass.  Now, I say this because I believe we’re responsible for not only working on ourselves, but helping others work on themselves as well.  And, if I really wanted to touch someone, and change the world, and alter the future, why wouldn’t I not both reach out to touch myself and reach out in the classroom with the students there with me?

It is, in essence, a way to learn to love yourself and others. To develop lives in which we can freely enjoy each moment, however, requires far more work—far more self-development—than many would believe.  We have to learn how to consciously direct our attention away from the half empty glass to the half filled one.  That is, we have to, like Peter Pan, develop and concentrate on our happy thoughts.  I always use the example of a wet stormy day.  I don’t see the miserableness of such a day.  Instead, I focus on the fact that the rain is nourishing my flower garden and I see the sun shining brightly and warmly above the dark grey clouds.  That is why I’ve developed my practice of selecting positive “my word for the day,” (today it’s “personable”) and consciously living them.  It focuses me and minimizes the ability of people or things from distracting me.  Which brings me to learning how to be free from distractions, from fighting against being pulled away from “happy thought” and “word for the day,” and to keep your eyes on the proverbial prize.  That “word for the day,” consciously lived each moment raises my radar antennae to pick up the distracting blips.  And, curiously I find that I am more at ease when I am more conscious of when I return to the word rather than being on the lookout for the distraction.  It’s a paradox, isn’t it.  And, as you practice at it, it will eventually become an unconscious practice and you won’t have to consciously monitor yourself to insure you’re doing.

The bottom line is that insuring that your heart goes undefeated, that your mind doesn’t submit, and your don’t sap your inner strength, is a very real promise.  It can be learned.   I personally bear witness to that.  It pounds in my ears and beats in my heart.  It just takes work, a lot of work, a lot of constant work, a lot of never-ending work.  And, its work not to avoid the adverse challenges, but to overcome them and use them to your advantage.   An undefeated heart is itself what grants us access to the creativity, strength, and courage necessary to find those real solutions, viewing obstacles not as distractions or detours off the main path of our lives but as the very means by which we can capture the lives we want.   We should measure our time here and our achievement, then, by how much unconditional love we put out and how much love comes back to us.

Louis

I wasn’t planning on this, but the heavy rains came.  A verbal nor’easter.  Torrents of unexpected flooding off-line e-sneers, e-rejections, e-flames, e-jeers, e-giggles, e-sarcasms, e-snides.  But, I won’t let them inundate or sweep me away.  As I once said, touchy?  Sure.  I struggle to reach out and touch a student in need to make a positive difference.  Feely?  Of course.  I get to know and feel who each student is, what is going on inside her or him, what is going on outside the classroom with her or him, and I am empathetic and then sympathetic.  Dreamy?  Of course.  But, as I tell the students, dreams work out only if you work hard at them.  Fuzzy?  Heck, no!  I see very clearly; I listen sharply.

This acid rain of disparaging remarks is seeded by a negative “perception bias” held by too many academics, that has led to a lot of “attribution error.”  Too many academics live in an alternative reality.  Too often, far too often, they’re blinded by their own self-interest to swell their resumes, cowed by their quest for tenure, promotion, and/or position, and swayed by their belief that their fake world of Taylor and Skinner actually exists.  That is, they find and point out only that which creates the illusion that their myths are reality; that reinforces, validates, and proves the accuracy of their preconceptions, assumptions, presumptions.  But, why is it only okay to express negative emotions such as resignation, frustration, disappointment, and even anger under the aegis of being objective?

Oh, I see, it’s okay to claim with misguided pride that your intent is to weed out the myriad of “don’t belongs,” to separate the lethargic chafe from the self-motivating wheat, to send all those inept and unprepared “they’re letting anyone ins” packing.  It’s okay to condemn students because in their world, students by nature dislike work, refuse to assume responsibility, want to be told what to do, and have to be threatened and controlled before they’ll do anything.  But, identify yourself as a nurturer, and you’re condemned as a hapless romantic, a starry-eyed dreamer.  Mention “love,” and the place goes ballistic as if you’ve uttered a satanic incantation that threatens to destroy the Ivory Tower.  Why the sarcastic giggles when you say we academics are in the business of saving and transforming lives as much as, if not far more, than merely transmitting information, most of which will be soon obsolete?  Why the sneering faces when you say our mission is to help students beat the odds rather than to beat them down?  Why the nasty comments when you say our task to help students learn to deal with stress and pressure rather than to pressure them.  Why the “its not my job” flaming when you say you should be there for any student to turn to rather than turning away and turning out the many students who don’t fit your prejudiced image?  Why the jeering laughs when you say our job is to strengthen a student’s sense of belonging, self-esteem, self-respect, and self-confidence rather than brand and treat them demeaningly as “don’t belongs?”  Why the snide comments when you say you should have a special place in your heart for each and every student rather than bidding them good riddance as “non-performers” and “non-achievers?”  Why is to curse more acceptable than to bless, to be cold than to be warm, to be distant than close, to be objectively aloof than subjectively involved, to be bored with than excited by, to be callous than to be empathetic, to be a “ho hum” than to be a “wow,” to be disinterested than to be interested, to be apathetic than to love?

But, too many of us, far too many, with too much detached arrogance and self-righteousness, with a “grandiloquence,” don’t cop to all this.  Too many prefer the comfort and safety and convenience of having students follow our often harsh, commanding, and often threatening orders to the anxiety of standing back and granting them autonomy and ownership.

Let me give you something to think about, to think about slowly.  You do know that we’re not making ourselves feel better when we practice forms of disengagement, don’t you?  The devil’s not doing it; the students aren’t doing it; the administrators aren’t doing it; we are doing it, to ourselves!  The research done by the likes of Julius Segal, Roy Baumeister, and a host of others, shows that when people are excluded, disconnected, ignored, and rejected, everything and everyone suffers.  That includes us, the classroom perpetrators!  We victimize ourselves!  We feel just as miserable making students feel miserable as the students feel miserable.  Interesting, isn’t it.  Think about it.  I’ll repeat that because it’s worth driving home the point.  The form of separation, selecting out, distancing, the threatening carrot and stick approach so many of us practice in the classroom not only makes the students miserable, it makes us, we who are doing the disconnecting and chilling, miserable as well.  That’s why we feel the less that than happy frustration, resignation, and/or any other negative emotion. And some of us wonder why so many academics seek satisfaction in the lab and archive?   Our brains are no different than those of the students.  These researchers, and other “brainologists,” also found that such exclusion and disconnection triggers the brain’s dorsal lateral cortex.  That’s the same areas of the brain that are active when people feel physical pain.  Similar parts of the brain and often in similar ways process emotional and physical pain. Hence, the joylessness of teaching and the enjoyment of research.

We human beings are extremely sensitive to being socially rejected. Being connected and belonging is a powerful human survival mechanism against being prey.  It’s so powerful that the stronger the feelings of being unnoticed, unworthy, unwanted, disconnected, the greater the need for acceptance.  I read about it every day in student journals and faculty e-mails; I see it everyday around me; I hear it everyday in conversations with students and colleagues, as well as at conferences.  When we professors don’t feel connected in the classroom, we find safe, secure, comfortable connections outside the classroom.  That’s why social and professional networking in our disciplines are so important to us and why we will devalue the classroom.  When students feel alone, when they feel a strangerness, when they feel a loneliness, they feel lost, abandoned, scared, and downright unhappy.  They find, too, find joyful outlets outside the classroom.  They will do quirky things; they will abandon self-discipline, self-control, self-respect, self-esteem, self-confidence.  Why do you think “thirsty Thursdays” at the local bars are so popular?  Why do you think being socially “single” is so fearful?  Why do you think the siren of sororities and fraternities, or playing team sports, or participating in a theater troupe or band at any cost is so powerful a lure, even if it means crashing on academic rocks?

It’s not a matter of adapting to the new reality, but to the always reality, and abandoning the too often present and influential alternative reality.  Now, let me give you something else to think about, to think about slowly.  Just think what might have a chance of happening if while we want to raise the learning bar, they raise the loving bar.  Just think what might have a chance of happening if we broke down separating barriers, built bridges, and forged community in our classrooms and on our campuses.  Just think what might have a chance of happening if we took and lived my Teacher’s Oath.  Students gather strength, confidence, self-esteem from those Segal called “charismatic” people, from those who are unconditionally in each student’s corner, from those who are un-surrendering advocates for each student, from those who connect with students without any strings attached.   You think healthy connectedness and compassion are not the seeds for emotional, physical, and mental well being, for achievement, for success?

Doggone, it’s not just the students.  It’s each of us as well.  Have we forgotten?  We’re people, too.  We all needed and still need such charismatic people in our lives.  We all have had such people in our lives.  We all need uplifting relationships and supportive connections, and encouraging community.  Not only do we need them, we need to be them for others.  Didn’t you have someone in your life to whom you owe a deep appreciation for influencing you and having an impact personally and professionally?  I did.  Professionally, he was Dr. Birdsal Viault, a young history professor fresh out of Duke at Adelphi College.  He took me under his wing at a time I had a broken wing.  He set me on my course as a time I was adrift.  He convinced me I could soar at a time I felt grounded.  Personally, it was and continually is my Susie, and I’ll leave that at that.

So, do you think students today are any different?  They are not!   Maybe we’ve become different, and indifferent.  Do you think students today have changed from the time we were students.  They haven’t.  Maybe it’s we who have changed.  Think students are lazier today than yesteryear?  No.  Maybe it’s we who don’t want to work unless threatened or rewarded.  Maybe it’s we who are amnesiacs who have forgotten what it was like to be a student.  I say this:  students today, no less than students yesterday,  have to walk with the unconditional and persevering–uncondtional and persevering–nurturing believers and faithful, with the uplifters and energizers, with the dreamers and doers, with the encouragers and supporters, with the kindly and caring, with the smilers and the hopeful, with the inspirers and igniters, with the risk takers and fearless, with the committed and dedicated, and above all, with the lovers.

Louis

Because of a couple of heart-wrenching conversations with some students yesterday, I am proclaiming that we use only LEDs on our campuses.  I’m not on a going green energy saving kick.  Just the opposite.  I’m on a massive, rampant energy use kick.  Imagine if our campuses in general and classes in particular were lit and lit with only LEDs.  Oh, what’s the LED the I’m talking about?  Its “Love Every Day”:  LED!   LED would energize and light you up, energize and light up others, energize and light up the classroom, energize and light up our campuses.  That would be the greatest lesson we could pass on:  unconditional respect, dignity, love for all; without any conditional ifs, ands, or buts, helping each and every person to thrive in their uniqueness, sacredness, nobility, and unique potential.  Turn LED on, be dedicated and committed to keeping it on, persevere in keeping it on, and your heart will lighten up with amazement.  Your face will shine a beaming smile.  It is inflaming.  It is inciting and enhancing.  It is releasing, rousing, and exciting.  It is transforming.  It increases motivation, intensifies initiative, and strengthens vitality.  Trust me.  I use LED.  I see its influence over and over and over again as it slowly and arduously fights against and drives back the restricting and confining darknesses.

If there is a limb around here, I’ll go out on it–far out on it–and say that it increases the chances of achievement and success.  Use LED and you will have a better chance of seeing how above average supposedly average people can be, how supposed ordinary people can climb to extraordinary heights.  That no-strings-attached welcoming, believing, accepting, faithful, embracing, celebrating, caring, hopeful, supporting, encouraging, empathetic, sympathetic, thriving open-mindedness is the most brilliant, “shining on the hill” drawing and retaining card in our educational deck.  LED is education at its strongest.  It is education at its best!  It is education at its most valued.   It is education at its most valuable.

I was sitting at the Union, alone, quietly sipping a latte, thinking, staring at nothingness, feeling a somberness on my face, when a faculty member, a passing acquaintance, stopped by me. “Louis, I hear congratulations are in order,” she offered.  “I’m happy for you.”

“Don’t feel happy,” I quietly replied, thinking why do people think retiring is such a congratulatory event.

Then, she hit me.  “You should. You’re getting out of here in a couple of weeks.”

“‘Getting out of here?'”  I asked.  “You sound like I’m being released from prison.”

A deep sigh.  “Almost.”  A second deep sigh.  Obvious sadness.  “These students now-a-day just aren’t what they were years ago.  It’s not like in my day.”

I could feel a smile forming, a twinkle appearing, and my natural impishness surfacing.  “They’re not different from us at those ages,” I retorted with an empathetic tone, “You know, why the ‘good ole days’ are ‘good,'” I rhetorically asked.  “It’s because we tend to block out memories of the bad ones.  Heck, when I was a student, I just as soon crack a keg then a book.  And did.  I didn’t care about learning; I just wanted to get that grade by doing as little as I could.”  Then, I quickly told of some the corner cutting and cramming antics I pulled as a student with assignments and exams. “No different today.  We just have to work to make it different if we’re going to make a difference.”

“Well, it’s a losing battle,” brushing off what I had just explained. “You’re still lucky.  You can do what you want now. I wish I could retire right now like you and do what I really want to do and not have to deal with a lot of things,” she moaned with a tight lip.

“I don’t feel lucky.  It’s not like I really I want to leave, but that’s a long story.” I told her.

She looked at me with a puzzled “how can you say that” look.  “I don’t know,” she finished up.  “I’d get out of here today at the drop of a hat.  I can’t wait for the time I can retire.  Sometimes I just get so angry at what we’ve come to.  Oh, well, you’re still luckier than us.  We have to keep on teaching these kiddies who don’t want to be taught.” She didn’t hear a word I had said.  I expected that.  A look of resignation swept over her face like a grotesque Halloween mask, and she left with what seemed to be more of a plodding than a spry step as if our brief encounter had thrown her into something of a funk.

I went back to my latte.  As I took a couple of sips, put the cup down, and thought of the “words for the day” I had just written on the white board in class that I had discussed with the students for a few minutes before they went to work on their “Sculpture Project” about how they related to the people in the history we were studying and to their own lives:  “Stop stopping; start starting; continue continuing.”  Those are good words to live by each day for us as well as for them.

My colleague reflected the holding back inertia of resignation is strong when you give it such control over yourself  I mean, if you imprison yourself with such a depressing “no,” how can you have a chance of setting your or anyone else’s joy free with a spry “yes?”  You know, when you grimace, you can’t smile; when you’re angry, you really can’t be happy; when your heart has a downbeat; you can’t be upbeat; when you clench your fist, you can’t hold anything; when you fold your arms, you can’t reach out and embrace; when you act matter-of-factly, you can’t act as if it matters; when you let little things annoy you, you can’t live bigger; when you give power to limitations, you can’t give commitment to possibilities. The long and short of it all is that when you don’t unconditionally believe in, have faith in, have hope for, and love, you won’t see the opportunities and possibilities; when you are resigned, your heart will harden, your touch will hurt others, and you’ll lower the temperature in the classroom; when you’re darkened by downright miserableness, there’s no way you can be that candle to light the way.  No, I don’t feel lucky that I’m retiring, but my colleague is right.  I am lucky, and I know it.  I am lucky that I had found my place in the very place I am, and that I love what I am doing and have been doing what I love with people whom I unabashedly and unconditionally love.  Yeah, I am damn lucky.  And, a smile appeared on my face as I picked up the cup and took a sip of my latte.

Louis