A FOURTH “ONE THING FOR STUDENTS TO LEARN,” I

Someone asked me why I bother with my “Schmier’s words for the day” since it has nothing to do with course content.  My initial answer was simple, “I believe it has it has everything to do with content; learning, and learning how to use, and to what end to use the content.  I say that if you want students to achieve, as Maslow and a bunch of others said and still say, we should choose to pay attention to and work with students on their attitudes.  That’s what EI and SI are all about.  A student’s attitude affects all aspects of her or his attitude towards learning and their learning no less than it does ours.  Both positive and negative attitudes are catalysts for a whole series of feelings, thoughts, and actions on both sides of the podium.  And, we should not only pay a lot of empathetic attention to students’ attitudes and emotions, but help them learn how to use them in way that is in their interest.  We should help them see that they can live, as do we, by one word:  choice.  We should choose to help them see that they are not helpless, that they each can choose to be up just as they can choose to be down, that they can cast off or be burdened by distracting and paralyzing weights. The choice, no matter what the situation, no matter the difficulty to make it, is always up to them–and us.”

In that vein, let me continue with my batch of “one thing for students to learn.”  This one is such a “biggie” that its going to be a long one.  So, I’ll break it up in a series of reflections.  Here goes.  Usually, on the fourth day of class, while we’re engaging in the “serious fun,” “stress reducing,” connecting community building exercises of “getting to know ya” and “how it works,” I write on the whiteboard a crucial “Schmier’s words for the day” which deal with the one overpowering, heart-stopping, hesitating, paralyzing, acid-producing, nerve-wracking, stomach-upsetting, tearful, muscle-tightening, fearful, eroding emotion on our campuses:   “No one and nothing can stress you without your permission.”

Don’t think debilitating stress is pervasive and rampant?  Look around.  So many people are a mass of stressful tension, thinking that “I’ll be happy, when….”  Yet, because of the way most experience education and the way education is presented, there’s always the Siren, the goddess of the “rat race,” with another beckoning “when”:  assignments, tests, grades, GPAs, honors, finances, personal stuff; tenure, promotion, research, publication, grants, recognitions, awards, personal stuff.  Almost everyone is frantically and fearfully, and usually unhappily, scurrying around physically or mentally, and/or emotionally, like Alice’s out of breath, stressed-out, hustling white rabbit.

Think of how many people surrender themselves to blaming “so and so made me do it,” or disenfranchise themselves with “such and such is stressing me,” or enslave themselves with “I have no choice, but to….” They feel so alone.  They feel so stuck.  They feel so powerless.  They feel so lost.   Yet, they’re not alone.  And, they’re not impotent.  If nothing else, they are there with themselves.  And, there’s an untapped power within themselves.  The truth is that they themselves are the source of inhibiting and crippling anxiety, and they themselves are the source of inner peacefulness.  The truth is that they are their own tuning fork.  These have the power to do right by their day.

In the course of our conversations, I tell the students something like “Let me tell you something about stress and happiness that I’ve learned from my epiphany in 1991, my cancer in 2004, and my cerebral hemorrhage three years later: every moment is a choice, and all those choices add up to what kind of day you’re going to have, and they, in turn, add up to what of life–and whose life–you’re going to live.”  We usually talk about how choices will either suck the air out of us or let the air out of all the pressures we feel.

So, in the course of our brief conversation I let students know that I truly believe that an important part of getting an education is learning the meaning of the serenity prayer:  “Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”  We talk about how stress is the result of not knowing how to accept and live that prayerful difference.

“When you do, as I did, and am still doing,” I say to them, “you’ll understand why it’s not called the “serenity prayer” for nothing.  It teaches those willing to learn how to be active on the outside, but calm on the inside.  Sure, let the outside stuff inspire you, motivate you, educate you.  Let it push you, but don’t let that stuff push you over the cliff.  Let it drive you, but don’t let it drive you nuts.  Let the outer you be engaged and involved; at the same time let the inner you put everything in its proper place.”

They hear me say, “You know, You can’t proclaim a thunderous ‘wow’ when your inner voice is whispering an ‘ugh’ and expect anything other throwing yourself off balance.  What do you expect when your tongue and lips form a ‘yes’ and your gut says a ‘no.’  It’s like they’re at war with each other and that’ll leave you with a spiritual acid reflux.  And, then, you’ll only get an emotional ulcer, and maybe a physical one as well.  I learned that to be active on the outside while being fully at peace inside is the most powerful way to live and the best way to achieve anything.  Your strength to face whatever is thrown at each of us only comes from both your will and won’t power.   Let’s work on it.”

For a start, I told them, “No grades.”  More later.

Louis

A THIRD “ONE THING STUDENTS SHOULD LEARN”

Life Savvy.  That’s one of the three strategies around which I wrapped classes:  building lifelong communal, personal, emotional, and social skills.    One of “Schmier’s words of the day” that I write on the whiteboard to help students become both what I call “class savvy” and “life savvy,” and we discuss in class during the first week of the term is crucial.  It’s a wholesome, wrap around:  “Just because you’ve failed, it doesn’t mean you’re a failure.”

If there’s one skill set almost all of us don’t address, it is to help students learn how to deal with being wrong; how not to feel like a screw up just because they screwed something up.  We let them struggle to be something they’re not:  perfect.  We don’t let them be something they are:  imperfect human beings.

Is failure a reason for shame?  Is it a cause for eroding self-confidence?  Is it deleterious on self-esteem?  Is it sand in the gears?  Should it be seen as a sign of weakness?   Should it be salt poured in a wound?  Is it a referendum on  ability?  Is it a signal for condemnation?  Is it evidence for weeding out?  Or!!!!

Or, is it a tool for discovery, the first of which is to be reminded that you don’t know it all.  Is it, then, a practice step on the way to achievement?  Is it, as Einstein said, an indication that you’re doing something?  Is it, as Henry Ford said, a means to begin again better informed?  Is it a way, as Thomas Edison said, of finding out what won’t work on the way to discovering what will?

You know, I always expected students to get things wrong.  And, when they did, I didn’t punish them.  I didn’t lower their grade or fail them.  I just calmly and caringly took the time to show them what they had done correctly, told them to add to that, raised a few questions, gave some guidance, and encouragingly said, “You can do it.  Do it again.”   When they winced, I told them, “Look, I’ve written and published a lot.  But, there was never anything that I’ve published, not an article or book or encyclopedia piece or anything, that wasn’t sent back with a bunch of suggested ‘do it again.’  And, sometimes I had to do it again, and again, and again before it got into print.”

What I discovered was that if our answer to their question, “What if I get it wrong,” is “Well, you’ll just do it again,” if our answer to their question “Will this affect my grade” is “no,” if we encourage students to go ahead and give it a shot, if we accept that students will miss a lot of practice shots in order to learn how to make the shot in the game, if we become a heap of unpenalizing “do it again” second chances, students will discover that there’s nothing more empowering than successfully doing something they thought they could not do. When they were able to get passed that one assuming “cannot,” when they took the “not” out of their “cannot” and kicked themselves in their “can,” they slowly began to question other limiting assumptions. When they stepped out of their comfort zone and tasted success, they were suddenly confronted with a whole new level of exciting possibilities.  Their whole concept of what is possible changed; their confidence levels skyrocketed; and, their self-esteem when sky-high.

Our job is to help students help themselves get there.  Our job is to edify students, not to berate them.  Our job is to build them up not tear them apart.  Our job is to help students loosen up and accept their fallibility, and not get uptight and tied in knots about it.  Our job is to help them use their inner power against the hold of that dreaded feeling of uncertainty.  Our job is to show them that a mistake offers a beautiful insight not an ugly sight.  Our job is not to let a mistake be a drag.  Our job is to help them see that a mistake can be a fire-starter “wow,” not a dousing wet-blanket “ugh.”  Our job is to help them let mistakes propel them high in the sky, not over an emotional cliff.  Our job is to instill self-confidence, not self-doubt.  Our job is to help them not let mistakes suck out curiosity, daring, and dreaming.  Our job is to constantly remind them that the greatest mistake they can make in life is to be continually fearing that they will make one.

After all, if anyone one is afraid to fail, if anyone thinks a mistake attacks and undermines her or his womanhood or manhood, she or he won’t try anything new or strive to achieve.  Our job is to show them that achievement is a matter of going from “oops” to “oops” without loosing enthusiasm.  But, then, of course, we have to know that ourselves.

Louis

ONE THING FOR STUDENTS TO LEARN, II

In response to my last reflection, an e-colleague from a southern university, asked me, “How do you live a life that matters? ”

“Good question,” I replied.  Then, as dangling bait, I added, “Living life is like sermonizing.  You give a more effective sermon with your life walking among people than with your lips from the distance and heights of a pulpit.  You live with your heart, not just your words.  Or, as they say, you have to ‘put your money where your mouth is.'”

She took it. “So what sermon does a life that counts give?” was the question with which she came back.

“‘Love!'” I replied.  “I had this fantasy that came within a proverbial hare’s breathe to being a reality at the Lilly conference last November.  I wanted to walk into my session, ‘T.U.I.:  Teaching Under the Influence,’ and say only, ‘Love, love, love, love.”  And sit down.  But, I chickened out at the last minute.  I hope you’re not rolling your eyes.  I told you that I had a bunch of ‘one thing I hope students would learn.’  ‘Love’ wasn’t going to be my second ‘one thing,’ but it is now.  It really should have been my first since it has been my first principle of living since 1991.  Anyway, during the ‘What Do You Want To Know About Me’ session at the beginning of the term, when the students invariably ask why my right pinky is painted and why I teach the way I do, I tell them, ‘Because I love each of you without any strings attached.’  Sure, they snicker and even wiggle because it makes them uncomfortable.  They don’t know what to make of a prof who said what I had just said. Heck, I know a lot of profs would be doing the same thing.  Back to the students.  They then will always ask me how other profs feel about me using that word.  I tell them that ‘love’ is a word, feeling, and action I love.  I tell them that I often explicitly have written about it, that it’s there between almost all my lines, and that it’s the backbeat of everything I think, feel, and do.  I tell them that I’m not afraid to say it and that I’m not embarrassed by it. And, if anyone winces or sneers or laughs or criticizes, when I do say or write it, I remember one thing.  It’s their issue, not mine; it’s a reflection of them, not of me.”

We talked a lot more.  The gist of my end of the conversation was that in an academic world that holds tightly to the myth of cold, distant, disengaged “objectivity,” it’s hard for that word to roll off the lips of so many academics or administrators.  In academia we have a strong “intellectual culture” or “cognitive culture,” and a very weak “emotional culture” or “affective culture.”  In fact, we constantly are struggling to separate them when they’re really inseparable.  Emotions are behind behavior, intentions, thoughts, perceptions, choices.  They’re the backbeat of everything we think, feel, and do.  Nevertheless, we academics pay so close attention to the intellect and give emotions such short shrift.  Yet, we live in a world where there is constant need to state something that is as obvious as the noses on our faces: we each are a human being, and human beings are beings.  None of us is a “unit;” none is a number; none is a source; none is a resource; none is a statistic; none is a chart; none is a weed.  All are sacred, noble, unique.  None of us should ever forget that.  None of us should accept that.  None of us should act like that.

As I finished up my end of the conversation, I told my colleague, “Nothing we do is without the feeling and enacting of emotion, the most fundamental and most powerful of which is love.  I didn’t hesitate a wit to repeat that I loved them throughout the term to them as a whole or individually if an occasion arose when they needed to hear that again and again and again and during ‘closure’ on the final day of class.  In fact, the first of ‘Schmier’s words for the day’ that I write on the whiteboard during the community building ‘getting to know ya’ stuff we do in beginning weeks of the term, before we’re dealing with the subject matter, was what I told you:  ‘Whatever you do, make your life a “love story.”  And slowly, maybe even painfully, certainly uncomfortably, over the course of the term, so many become believers; so many begin to see at various times in various ways for various reasons to various extents, as I did twenty-three years ago, that love is a guide into a world hitherto unimagined and otherwise inaccessible. You ought to read a recent study coming out from Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and George Mason’s School of Management, ‘What Does Love Have To Do With It?’  It’s answer, like mine, is simply ‘everything.’  So,again, to answer your question:  make your life a ‘love story,’ and your life will matter.  And, there are more ‘one thing.’  Later.”

Louis

ONE THING FOR STUDENTS TO LEARN

Well, classes are beginning today at my University.  Even though I won’t be in the classroom, last week I was asked by a friend, if I could help a student learn one thing, just one thing, and only one thing, what would it be.  I’d been thinking about that, even while watching the NFL playoffs:  just one thing.  Not sure I can.  My problem is that I had merged together myself, students, course content, and life, and had exposed students to a bunch of “one things.”  I wanted them to see that everything we did in class was relevant and meaningful to their lives.  I wanted to help students transform their thoughts, attitudes, and feelings about themselves and others, what they learned, and what they should do with them.  I had  done this in eight major ways.  The first was to put myself out there in a “What do you want to know about me” exercise in which I would answer any and all personal and professional questions about me and my life experiences.  Second, was to do an exercise I called, “The Chair,” which became one of the major “how it works” themes of the course, Third, to give students a constant social experience which they could relate to both the subject matter and their lives, I insisted that they form communities of three and four according to three rules:  they must be strangers to each other, the communities they form must be gender and racially mixed.  Fourth, every day I’d write “Schmier’s saying of the day” on the whiteboard, something like Yoda’s “Try not.  Do or do not. There is no try.”  Then, in a brief five or ten minute discussion we, they and me, would relate the saying to the people about whom they’re studying at the time and to ourselves with a “how would so and so respond?  How do you reply?”  Fifth, everything we did in and out of class, everything without exception, had a reflective transforming and relevance character:  the method of acquiring and accumulating information, the manner of its use, the application of it all to their own lives.  Sixth, my reading, learning from, and reacting to their daily, confidential, computerized journal entries.  Seventh, I significantly minimized grade getting and emphasized learning.  And finally, there were those constant student initiated “I gotta talk with you” or my initiated “let’s talk” personal, face-to-face sessions I had with students.  There was other things we did, but these were the major activities in my wholeness approach by offering lessons both in the subject matter and life.

Now, every time I sifted through all those doings in and out of class, as well as the other “stuff,” done by both students and myself, every time I struggled to come up with that “one thing,” a seminal thing, a foundation thing, my friend wanted, I thought of the lesson in my massive cerebral hemorrhage that should have killed or seriously impaired me, but miraculously did neither: death is a split second from any of us, but so is another moment filled with opportunities and possibilities.  We don’t control or are in charge as much as we want to believe.  I’ve had a few speed bumps, a few rough spots, a few curve balls, a few ups and downs, a few highs and lows, and a few twists and turns in my life and career.   I’ve had unforeseen, unexpected, uncontrolled moments of what I call “divine timing” or “you-just-don’t-ask”:  taking a fallback class I didn’t want with Dr. Viault in my sophomore year; meeting Susie on a blind date neither one of us wanted; adopting Robby because of a series of inexplicable events; an unexpected research discovery which made my career take a sharp left turn; my epiphany which made my life take at a sharp right turn; a bout with cancer; my cerebral hemorrhage; my unexpected, unwanted, and very reluctant retirement.

When I had my epiphany, I suddenly found myself faced with my life and was startled by the rare experience of becoming intensely and painfully aware of the moment-by-moment passage of my past life; when my brain exploded sixteen years later, I suddenly found myself faced with death.  I should have died.  I didn’t. It was as sobering.  There, on that fateful day in the autumn of 2007, once again, it all flashed before me and has since stayed with me:  all that I materially had done in life, all that professionally I accomplished in life, all that I and Susie accumulated in life, could have disappeared in a blink of an eye.  All my degrees, all my publications and grants, all my Random Thoughts, all my renown would prove to be naught in a snap of the fingers.  It was all so temporary, all so transitory.  But, the pain and happiness of those experiences was a layer upon layer of mindful responsibility that life offers us a series of second chances after chances after chances as gifts too precious to waste by not living.  At the same time, they were, to say the least, increasingly uplifting inner joyful awarenesses.

One thing to teach students?  Here is my simple “first” foundation upon which rest my many other one things:  Stop counting on stuff.  Stop counting up your stuff.  Instead, live a life that counts.  Live so each and every second of each minute of each and every hour of each and every day of each and every month of each and every year that we are privileged to live counts!  How many of us have heard reports of people who have died in the forest fires last summer to save stuff.  Or, whose life was shattered to extent of some committing suicide when they lost stuff.  When I think of that, I shake my head in saddness.  It’s not the stuff in your wallet, hanging on the wall, parked in your driveway, paying the mortgage on, resting in your bank account that matter.  It’s not the stuff that you can measure, chart, manage, analyze, test, compute, even explain that matter.  One thing to teach students?  Cure yourself of your addiction by getting off the stuff of stuff.  One thing to teach students?  My answer to my friend was, “The same one thing I learned I work to offer to students to learn:  live what matters.  Live “below the surface,” not on it.  Stop envying, stop collecting, stop hoarding, stop scurrying around, stop chasing after, stop hustling, stop cutting corners or even cheating, stop not noticing, stop not acknowledging, stop being disconnected, stop so everything and everyone around you is no longer a blur.  Life is so much more beautiful, brighter, greater, and richer than the material riches you can amass if your coffers are filled with love, kindness, happiness, purposefulness, meaningfulness, friendship, and service.  Acknowledge the presence of others, hear them say, “we are here,” rest your eyes on them, open your heart to them, shrink the distance between you and them, experience the intense shivering of the wellspring of communal intimacy, make something wonderful and exciting of it all, share the gifts of life, and extend a benevolent hand and touch another.”

There are other related “one things,” but enough for now.

Louis

THEY’RE HUMAN; BUT, SO ARE WE

I was reading the comments to David Kirp’s NY TIMES OpEd piece, “How To Help Students Graduate.” Boy, were they interesting.  So many were in attack mode, especially some of the professors.  Yeah, students can be erratic, impulsive, insecure, shy, hateful, egoistical, fearful, depressed, possessive, demanding, uninterested, bored, distracted, disinterested, haughty, immature, naive,  Sure, they can be crammers, memorizers, procrastinators, grade-getters, corner cutters, maybe even cheaters.  They can feel threatened, controlled, dominated, misunderstood.  Truly, they make demands; they constantly desire to be noticed, valued, welcomed, wanted, connected, cared about, appreciated, heard, understood, seen.  And, yes, many prefer to crack a keg rather than a book.

Gosh, they’re so imperfect.  What do you expect of them?  Perfection?  You won’t find it.  After all, they’re highly fallibly human  And, if you think otherwise, you’re heading for a lot of frustration, resignation, and anger.

So many of us have convinced ourselves that we are such divorced-from-them-super-humans that we are divorced from reality and we don’t get it.  Do we really believe we’re above all that?  Do we really accept that we also are highly fallible humans?  What do you think is the meaning of excuses, rationales, explanations I’ve heard and read such as “oh, it won’t work” or “what will they think” or “they don’t care” or “I’m not good at” or “I’m not comfortable with that” or “oh, I could never do that” or “It’s too hard” or “But, I don’t have tenure” or “I don’t have to change?”

If we don’t go into the classroom with an unconditional consciously positive mind, a hopeful spirit, and caring heart–welcoming and embracing whomever is in there with us–what are we doing?  Where does the strength, dedication, perseverance, empathy, sympathy, and courageous action needed to bring to life that faith, belief, and hope come from?

We moan, groan, and blame that students are unprepared, that so many don’t belong, that so many are among the ranks of the “letting anybody in.”  Do you think a lot of us truly belong in the classroom?  Don’t you think academic institutions are not letting anybody into the classroom to teach?  Do you think that most of us are really prepared to teach?  Want to blame wanting k-12 for student ills, blame, too, wanting graduate programs for a lack of training and preparation for classroom teaching.

If we’re not skeptical about ourselves, as we are of them, if we’re haughty and perhaps arrogant about ourselves, we’re no match for the complex reality of the classroom.  And, that human fallibility and complexity, on both sides of the podium, is the only game in town.

Louis

EQUIPMENT, II

I read two articles in the Harvard Business Review.  In the first, John Kotter  says that in business, efforts to change people, despite all the talk, efforts, and money spent, are more often than not doomed to failure.  That’s no less true in academia when it comes to both faculty and students.  The second article in the HBR is a study by Teresa Amabile which gives insights into why the ineffective or failure rate for change is high.   The answer is that we so often address the outer stuff of things, of technique, method, content, and technology.  We seldom address the inner person.  We don’t know what we’re doing because we really don’t know with whom we’re trying to do anything.  In an academic world that touts knowledge, so many academics are ignorant of the people with whom they are in class.

I’ll even go one giant leap farther.  What I say of students also applies to us academics.  If I have discovered one crucial reality, one that is so often ignored, is that you teach who you are.  And, if you’re going to reframe your teaching, you have to reframe yourself, and when you do, you reframe everything.  So, we have to see ourselves differently; we have to see the classroom differently; we have to ask different questions.   It is as James Allen says in his As A Man Thinketh:   we each have to realize and accept that if we want to alter what we do, we must alter our attitudes, and that what we do is what our feelings and attitudes make of the world in which we work and live.   Think about it:  I mean think of how fear, anxiety, stress are handicaps not only to students, but to us as well.  We stymie ourselves with anxiety of “what will they think;” we distract ourselves with fears of something not working; we divert our time and energy with concerns about tenure and promotion.

We are as human as are students.  Yet, supposedly new approaches to  teaching such as ‘clickering,’ ‘flipping the class,’ T-PACK,  and STEM focus on method, technique, content, and technology.  That’s fine, as far as it goes. But, I just think it doesn’t go far enough.  It certainly doesn’t go deep enough.   They’re merely tools, not the wielders of the tools.  The narrative is incomplete because they explicitly have left out the crucial fourth element in teaching:  the human being. They ignore the human spirit with all its strengths and weaknesses, with all its fallibilities and foibles.   It ignores the impact of “heart armor” or chinks in the armor, the open or clogged emotional channels, a fortified or breeched will on the acceptance and utilization of this supposedly sure-fire trifecta

So, I’d like to reach for a bigger point than the triangulation of teaching method, content, and technology. Teaching and learning are a “four-wheeler,” not a tricycle.  I wish we’d talk about the so-often ignored fourth wheel: the crucial human element of each of us, as well as of each of them.

Louis

EQUIPMENT

I was just reading an Op Ed piece by David Kirp in the NY Times that talks about how to help students graduate.  And, it stirred a thought and a question:  where are the people in the ilk of such “thingifying,” almost “non-human” programs as STEM and T-PAK.  People seem to disappear into thin air.  The human condition of “who” is so often ignored in favor of the pedagogical, technological, and informational “what” and “how.”  Yet, so many students–as well as faculty–are in need of a crucial personal, therapeutic touch.  So many students are so ill-equipped for dealing with being wrong and are subsequently penalized when they are.  Most academicians are ill-equipped to equip them with this much needed equipment because so many of them are ill-equipped themselves for dealing with being wrong.  And, they, too, are subsequently penalized when they are.  We all have to learn that being wrong, that failure, doesn’t deprive anyone of her or his dignity; that inability at the moment to steer through the maze of life neither strips anyone of her or his worth nor are signs of incompetence; and that nurturing–not callously leaving everyone out in the proverbial cold to fend for themselves–isn’t coddling.   It all should merely reminds everyone of our humanity.  After all, who among us is so infallible so as never to be in need of someone’s support, encouragement, care, love, and faith along the way; who among us was never helped by someone who took a personal interest in us; who among us was never in need of someone who believed in us as we struggled to sort out life’s challenges; and, who among us would have succeeded had we not received such nurturing helping hands?  Who among us is never in need of assistance?  I know, having been taken under someone’s wing made all the difference to me.  That I was not venomously weeded out when I could easily have been is the reason I am who and where I have come to be.

Louis

LABELS

We do love to label, don’t we:  Boomers, Gen-Xers, Me Gerneration, Greatest Generation, Millenials.  Now it’s Globals and Selfies.  In our piety towards labels, in our rush to demystify, we hand over to certain petrified stereotypes a certain control over us.  There is a certain power in labeling, in the labels themselves, in speaking a word, in using a word intentionally as something alive and real. The labels focus our attention; they place our energy; they shape our expectations.  The way we understand the classroom is very much based on what we can see of the classroom, and what we see is determined by the labeling.  And, worse of all, the labeling implies the impossible:  we know all there is to know.  We treat these “theory of all” so that they allow us to say one size doesn’t fit all when it suits us while we suit everyone with one size when it suits us.

Yet, the labels are an impossibility as a matter of principle.  They don’t include everything that can be included.  They are so superficial and outward.  They’re incomplete.  They’re a cheap imitation.  They’re limited conceptions of the human condition. They devalue individuals.  They take a complex and robust life and see it through the distortions akin to Alice’s looking glass, and create a world that distances itself from it’s own heart.  They reveal that we far too often are most comfortable with lifeless, impoverished, unimaginative, undervaluing, identity eclipsing, inherently stale, flat placards rather than with dynamic, fleshed out human intricacy, complexity, and diversity.

There are interesting people out there and they deserve all the attention we can give each of them.  And, if label we must and if labels are freighted, let’s change not the weight but the freight.  Use them to imagine our academic contemporary world differently from the existing tradition.  Let us use them wisely apart from the conventional wisdom.  Let them have the emotional power of respecting, welcoming, embracing, and loving.  So, if there be such a power in naming, as there is, let’s use them to be therapeutic rather than pathological, to smile rather than sneer, to build up rather than tear down, to create a healthy climate rather than a poisonous one, to elevate rather than demean, to be passionate rather than resigned, to be hopeful rather than pessimistic, to close rather than to distance, to support and encourage rather than ignore needs, to engage rather than disengage, to empathize rather than be unfeeling, to communalize rather than balkanize, to nurture rather than weed out, to shimmer rather than dull, to embrace rather than push away, to see rather than turn a blind eye to, to listen to rather than be deaf to, to light up rather than darken.  Let’s transcend the barreling shells.  Let’s dive beneath the surface of stereotyping and generalizing  into the depths of individual uniqueness and true diversity.

Let us name each student instead “individual sacred human being.”  Name each professor instead “individual sacred human being.” Name each administrator instead “individual sacred human being.” Name each staff member instead “individual sacred human being.”

The heart is a strong muscle.  I am proposing a vigorous exercise plan for it.  If you say that name enough, over and over and over again, day after day, you’ll heed your better angels rather than be turned by your lesser demons.   The eye of your heart will open.  You’ll see untold secrets.  You’ll have untold understandings.  You’ll taste unimagined goodness.  You’ll feel the undreamt-of beauty.  You’ll have insight to the innumerable unique potentials.   Then, you will slowly change.  You will change who you are; you will change how you feel about yourself and others; you will change what you believe; you’ll change what you do.  You’ll appreciate, celebrate, support, encourage, believe, have faith, hope, and love.  You’ll never act as a spent force. And, the world around you slowly will change.  Trust me.  I know from the personal experience of having been there until 1991 and am now here since.

Louis

GOODBYE AND HELLO

Good bye 2013.  You. Were. So. Amazing!  You were so worthy of being celebrated.  You were a year of transition and transformation, but, then again, what year isn’t.  In spite of some inevitable downs, of pains and sicknesses, of losses, of worries and sadnesses, I made sure you were a constant and daily celebration, a year too precious to waste, a year of great excitement, a year of new beginnings, a year filled with joy, a year of immense happiness, a year of deep love, a year of kindness and consideration and respect, a year of living a full life filled with life in a new life, a year filled with accomplishment and possibility, a year of beauty, a year of great richness, a year of fulfillment, a year of grand adventure, a year of daily miracles, a year of blesssings, a year for which to be thankful.

Hello 2014, I’ll make damn sure you’ll be just as amazing.

Happy New Year to one and all.

Louis