In response to my last reflection, one professor wrote in what seemed to be a demanding tone,  “….let’s just stick to technology and pedagogy…..”

I wasn’t going to respond until an answer unexpectedly happened my way yesterday.  I was disobeying my beautiful Nurse Rachet and working, braced knee and all, the drive-through line of the synagogue’s corn beef sandwich sale fundraiser.  A black Lexus pulled up.  I leaned through the open window.  A smiling young lady leaned over holding two tickets.  I exchanged them for two sandwich boxes.  Then, as if not caring that cars were lining up behind her, she hit me square in my heart.  I wasn’t ready for it.  “Dr. Schmier.  You don’t remember me, do you.  I was Sally Sax (not her real name) in your class twelves years ago.  You came to the hospital to visit me when I was really sick and missing class.  I was surprised to see you. I wondered why you came since I wasn’t a very good student.  You told me not to worry about a project presentation my community was making and to just focus on getting well.  You said, we’d work something out so it wouldn’t hurt me.  After you left, I cried.  For the first time that I could remember, I felt worthwhile.  I felt loved.  I felt I mattered because you showed that you noticed me that I mattered to you.  I decided right then and there to start believing in myself and turning myself into the person you believed I could be.  I still am.  And, I’m teaching what you taught me to my children.  I never said anything about this in my journals or to you.  So, I think it’s time to say, ‘thank you.’  I’d come out and give you a big hug if there weren’t so many people behind me.”

I just silently leaned on the door for a second, speechless.  The ache in my braced knee disappeared.  I could feel a tear forming.  Then, I said a quiet “thank you.”  It was enough.

With that, I backed away, she smiled and drove off.  When I told my Susie, she asked if I remembered Sally.  I answered, “No.”

But, I couldn’t get Sally out of my mind.  This morning, as I was reading David Brooks’ oped in the NY Times, and writing a comment, it hit me.  I remembered; and, I remembered that I could never figure out why Sally had suddenly blossomed after she came back from a week in the hospital.  Now I know.

So, to this professor, I say,  no.  I won’t.  I can’t.  I’m someone who speaks to people about living a deep, meaningful life, professionally and personally.  Though I’ve never have ignored technology and pedagogy, but I’ll focus more so on people.  Hippocrates said something to the effect that it is more important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know what sort of disease a person has.  It’s not different in the classroom.  We each have self-fulfilling views of both ourselves and students.  We shouldn’t see students merely as avatars of GPAs, stripped of their intrinsic worth of being a human being.  We are at our best when we present education as personal transformation and development rather than as ritualized test-taking and grade-getting.  So, I’m not just asking you to consider living and teaching according to the dictum of my “Teacher’s Oath.”  I’m begging you.  Technology and methodology are important, but not more than is tindividual person.  There are a lot of people like Sally out there.

Louis