As this professor exemplified, academics and emotion have a rocky relationship. As a result, academia is a tough culture in which to talk of faith, hope, and love. Those three words are hard for some academics. It’s a culture that traditionally says paradoxically with great emotion that emotions have no place in the Ivory Tower. Instead,it emotionally tells you that you must–must–be emotionless, cold, distant, impersonal, disengaged, and rational. It’s all encapsulated in the word, “objective.” So, too many academics don’t know what to do with or want having to do with the persons they feel and judge to be a “waste of my time,” “I’ve got better things to do,” the “poor,” the “unprepared,” the “don’t belong.” and the “they’re letting anyone in.” They ignore them, say painful things, belittle them, and do everything they can to weed them out. With that attitude, they are failing the students, as well as themselves. What they don’t want to understand is that not according these students an honorable dignity and disregarding them makes matters only worse. It causes them see themselves as different in a way that devalues them, that strips them of faith in themselves, hope for themselves, lowers their self-esteem and self-confidence. And, as the research shows, lowers their performance levels.
“I understand,” I explained to her, “that when I talk of faith, hope, and love it sounds so alien to a lot of academics. It did to me at first way back in the 1990s. To some, it sounds like being a weak, ineffective, sentimental, ‘hallmarkish’ push over. To still others it’s a rabid invasion of an anti-rational, emotional, and subjective pestilence. But, as Thicht Nhat Hanh said, we human beings ‘inter-are’ creatures who have a hard time flourishing when we feel invisible to, disconnected with, and isolated from others.
“I have found that faith, hope, and love actually augments academia,” I explained, it doesn’t undermine it. The research done by the likes of Rochester’s Ed Deci, Standord’s Carol Dweck, Harvard’s Teresa Amabile, UNC’s Barbara Fredrickson, Harvard’s Daniel Goleman, UC’s Sonja Lyubomirsky, Chicago’s Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and host of others tell us that faith, hope, and love help create a whole new mind and heart. Daniel Goleman calls it ‘EI– emotional intelligence’ and ‘SI–social intelligence.’ To that I added my own ‘HI–hospitality intelligence’ and ‘KI–kindness intelligence.’ They positively create positive people, positive feelings, positive thoughts, positive experiences, and positive results. Faith in, hope for, and love of are a positive audacity that nourish, that provide the impulse, that infuse the energizing juice to take bold actions, that instill a resiliency, that strengthen self-esteem and self-confidence, that help each student help herself or himself become the person she or he is capable of becoming, and can consequently improve performance.”
“Permit me,” I asked this professor, “to quickly let you in on a few little, big secrets I’ve learned about learning from both educating myself about the latest research findings and decades of experience in the classroom. I’ll just list them and explain later if you wish me to:”
“First, don’t get stuck in sameness. Each day is a new adventure. Each day is unique. Each day is a challenge filled with opportunities and possibilities. You never step into the same class twice, even if the course number is the same. Change is the only constant, every moment, every day, every term. The one thing that never changes that is that the end of the day you, others, and things will be different than they were when the day began. So, you never step into the same class twice, even if the course number is the same. And, you never deal with the same person twice, even if her or his name is the same. Dealing with that change is how we and they learn, grow, and change.
“Second, no one can leave her or his ‘trash’ at the classroom threshold. What occurs outside the classroom and inside each student deeply impacts what goes on inside the classroom. And, if we are truly concerned with what occurs inside the classroom, we must be equally concerned with what goes on outside the classroom and inside each student.”
“Third, as educators, we are in the people business, as much as, if not more, than in the information transmission, skill development, and credentialing business. We have to heed Thomas Edison’s assertion that the mind and heart of people must control what they create. We, therefore, have to insure that we are graduating good people as well as good students who can live the good life as well as secure a good living.”
“Fourth, persuasion and trust and respect always trump authority. Students will listen when they are inspired, not when they are demeaned and scolded. Brute attitudes will be met with subtle or overt brute resistance and intransigence. At best, you’ll get resentful, submitting, or reluctant compliance to get a passing grade, but not dedicated commitment to learning.”
“Fifth, to the question ‘how much faith, hope, and love am I supposed to show?’ There is no metric for them, or for caring, kindness, support and encouragement, for empathy. So, the answer to the question ‘how much faith, hope, and love am I supposed to show,’ is ‘You show and do as much as you can or wish.’ It’s as simple and complicated, as easy and hard, as that.”
“Sixth,, it is wrong to banish discomfort. To paraphrase, a quote I gave you earlier, ‘Teaching begins at the end of your comfort.’ Discomfort is when you learn the most about yourself, others around you, and the crafts of teaching and learning; when you’re always on the move, journeying, never completely satisfied and fulfilled, always on an adventure, always renewing yourself; when you know your best today is never your best since you can be better tomorrow. Discomfort, then. insures that the proverbial grass doesn’t grow under your feet and your stone is constantly rolling preventing a gathering of moss. The paradox occurs when the time will come, then, when you will be comfortable with discomfort.”
“Seventh, there is a toll on having negative attitudes towards students. They throw spontaneity, imagination, and creativity out the window with a resigned ‘what’s the use.’ Excitement devolves into droning on and on rote. It’s becomes like hiking up a steep hill while carrying the weight of a heavy pack on your back. Exhaustion and burn out, the research finds, is not the result of overwork; it is the result of ‘underjoy,’ ‘undepurpose,’ and ‘undermeaning.'” Faith, hope, and love are at the core of resilience and sustainability. They make you into a ‘kindness iconoclast,’ an informed and reflective activist in the service of each student, conscious of the human complexity in the classroom, honoring the dignity of each human being in the classroom, acknowledging the unique of each person, dealing with that complexity and individuality in supportive and encouraging community, walking the lifelong road of innovation, and bringing new realities to the classroom. ”
“Eigth, it’s no fun not being noticed, being rendered invisible, much less feeling disrespected. Your attitude makes a hell of a difference not only you, but on students as well; it exerts a powerful influence on both you and each student; it has an enormous impact on how the day unfolds; and, it’s yours to control.”
“Ninth, each time you see those uplifting angels walking before eat student pronouncing ‘Make way. Make way. Make way for someone created in the image of God,’ you always come back to a mindfulness fraught with awareness, attentiveness, alertness, and otherness. You cannot help to choose to be anyone other than an unconditional devotee of the SLM movement. That image will make a difference in how you see each student, how you listen to each of them, how you feel about and think of each of them, how you behave towards each of them. You’ll see the sacredness, nobility, uniqueness, a unique potential of each student. Unconditional faith, hope, and love rises each day in you to serve them. You will find ways to get each student to believe in, search for, discover, and tap her/his inner uniqueness. It will make a difference in deciding whether each of them should be your top priority. then, you will sruggle to find ways to get to know them in order to tailor yourself to their needs.””
“And finally, Be patient and humble. There’s truth in that warning adage about Rome not being built in a day. Faith, hope, and love require a lot of is called ‘sweat equity.’ They take time and energy. They demand perseverance and endurance. They demand constant strength and courage. There are no magic tricks, no quick solutions, no easy answers, no sure-fire manuals, no guaranteed technology. And, that is scary.”
“Enough for now.”
Louis