It’s a tad before dawn. Can’t sleep. Finally, there’s a chill in the air. Sipping freshly brewed coffee. Standing by the koi pond. Listening to the music of the waterfall. At last, I’ve come out from the thick fog of a Thanksgiving Tryptophan overdose that had sent me into a caloric coma. Having a son as an accomplished chef doing all the fixings will do that. It’s curious that as the sky grays with the coming light during these festive seasons of light, I’m thinking about the dusk and dark of burnout that is worrying this professor with whom I’m having an exchange. I was hoping that by offering my own experience, I could possibly be a dawning light-bringing candle that would help push out this fear of oncoming darkness.

“So, what does it take to keep your afterburners going full blast?” this professor came back to ask after my last response to her that I shared on the internet with her permission.

“Attitude and choice. It was unrelentingly clinging on to Dylan Thomas’ rage: ‘Rage, rage against the dying of the light.’ I refused to let the light die. I refused to acquiesce to the dousing of the fires. I refused to let my tanks run dry. I refused to let dust settle on my sense of adventure. I refused to waste one second of what I call my ‘once-in-a-lifetime day’ by not taking it for granted, by not living it routinely same way as the previous day. I always went off-road into places I never had been”

“My epiphany, having overcome cancer, and being a ‘a walking 5 % miracle’ who survived unscathed a massive brain hemorrhage, all constantly whispered to me: adventure calls; you need a new story; you have to reimagine a teaching and learning that breaks down entrenched assumptions and expectations, that throws a wrench into the accepted works, as challenging and uncomfortable and risky as that may be; the means of your teaching, as well as your life, have to match your ends; your very being must be a vision. They admonished me: have faith, have more faith, have better faith, have unconditional faith, move it into public spaces; hope, hope more, hope better, hope unconditionally, move it into public spaces; love, love more, love better, love unconditionally, move it into public spaces. I found that faith, hope, and love nudged me onward and forward. That’s why I titled by latest Ebook, Faith, Hope, Love: The Spirit of Education.  Faith, hope, and love took the focus off myself, helped me live beyond myself, and required I serve others. They helped me create my compass of my Teacher’s Oath and Ten Commandments of Teaching. They ultimately helped me acquire a ‘true north’ meaningful and purposeful vision: to be that person who is there to unconditionally help each student help her/himself to become the person she or he is capable of becoming. And so, I became, as Anthony said, ‘a constant influencer.’ Here’s some more of my unexpected conversation I had with Anthony in the grocery store that I wrote down. As an aside, I must have been a sight, sitting on the floor, scribbling away at breakneck speed. I got some interesting looks. Anyway:”

“You were a constant ‘influencer’ to each of us with your pushing words: ‘Untie the “not” in your “cannot” and kick yourself in your “can”’ or ‘Do or do not. There is no try.’ You know, you were and still are the only professor I’ve had who was ‘captured by teaching.’”

“’Captured by teaching?’”

“‘Snared.’ ‘Trapped.’ ‘Hooked.’ Use whatever word you want. But, you couldn’t help but be curious about each of us because of it. I watched you closely watching us. Because you were sincerely curious, you were ‘grabbed.’ Because you were grabbed, you become so observing and paid so much attention to each of us; you were always ‘there,’ totally, never somewhere else or wishing to be doing something else; you were always alert and aware of what was going on. I saw your eyes always moving, always scanning each of us. You prowled around us like a tiger as we worked on our projects or did an exercise. You connected and got involved with us. Sometimes you whispered a word in someone’s ear; sometimes you just gave him an inspiring slight thumbs up or nod; sometimes you only smiled; sometimes you walked by and gave a silent tap on the shoulder. Always encouraging, always supporting. I think even when you got real annoyed, it was a caring ‘you can do it’ or kindly ‘you’re better than this’ act to inspire us. I heard you say that alot. You were never truly angry. With the daily journals and the small talk that wasn’t all that small, you found ways to know us and what was going on with us, especially outside the classroom, that influenced what we were doing or not doing. You noticed each of us; you saw each of us; you listened to each of us. It was something to watch you watching and to be on the being watched end. You taught us where we were in a way to bring us to a place where we could begin to be who we could be. And, that place would be different for each of us. I remember you once saying that if you met one student, you met one student.”

I told this professor: “‘Wow,’ I thought to myself. What insight. What descriptions: ‘influencer,’ ‘captured by teaching,’ ‘grabbed.’ Nice words and phrases. They’re fired up words. While Anthony nailed me, to be those I had to first release myself. That release, which was at the core of my epiphany, was a cutting of my binding inner cords. It was an initial freeing and broadening, a freeing and broadening that has lasted to this day: a departure from the way I felt about myself; a detachment from the ways things I had always done and been expected by others to do; a confronting of and freeing from those flaws and issues that were holding me back and that were keeping me from reaching my full potential; a broadening beyond myself to see, listen, understand, sympathize, support, encourage, and serve others.”

“That was and still is not easy. It was and is a sense of needing to move beyond merely wanting to do something different to becoming a different person. I was adrift for a bit after that momentum until I was next captured by happening upon Ed Deci’s Why We Do What We do in which he promoted autonomy, ownership, mastery, and connection as self-motivating attitudes. Then came Carol Dweck with her growth mindset followed by other findings of researchers on learning. They all spoke to me both personally and professionally, both to motivate myself and inspire students; to be life changing for myself, as well as for students. They were so many turning points for me that I felt like a constant whirling dervish. To coin a phrase, they were rapid punches to my spiritual gut that changed my life and profession. They were thunderbolts that prompted me to start shaking up things by asking some simple questions: What did I truly want? What really moves me? What touches me? What draws me? What desires move me?”

“Sure, part of the answers is profession and career. Most of the answers, however, revolved around wanting to become the person I was capable of becoming. So, my immediate answers were: to do important things rather than just being important; to acquire a vocation rather than just to have a career. Those questions and answers have been my guiding compass for the last 25 years down a path of a constant cycle of invigorating and reinvigorating questioning, unlearning, disbelieving, exploring, learning, believing, applying, questioning, unlearning, disbelieving, explorting, learning, believing, applying, questioning, unlearning……”

“You see, ‘vocation’ to me came to mean my truest and deepest identity, a calling, a mission, a vision. And, there is the unending shaking up, the unending adventure, the unending refueling, and the unending fire—and the end to burnout. So, again, if you ask me what constantly fueled by afterburners, I’ll always come back to three things: attitude, attitude, attitude; a shaking up attitude that constantly asks who really am I; who do I really want to become; what do I have to do to get there; and am I truly willing to do it? I found the powering fuel lies in my ability to choose and decide upon my attitude towards everything. Remember and live the Scriptural verse, ‘Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season, we shall reap, if we do not lose heart.’”

“‘Not lose heart’ means to me that its the fires of faith, hope, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control that keep the afterburners fired up. I discovered that when these things are dominant in my life, doing good is the inevitable result. So, I learned that I had to put my heart into teaching in order not to lose heart. I didn’t surrender to despair, for I found that if I did, the opportunities would disappear. But, if I didn’t, opportunities and possibilities multiplied. I accepted the challenge offered by the need for faith, hope, and love. I needed a faith, hope, and love that were tender and kind; I needed a faith, hope, and love that were about combating indifference and disinterest; I needed a faith, hope, and love that were unconditional. That didn’t mean I was naive and gullible because I also needed a faith, hope, and love that were down-to-earth and gritty. I needed all that because, to the horrors and chagrin of colleagues, mentally and emotionally and physically and intellectually, and spiritually, I chose to distance myself from the role of accomplished scholarly professor to close the distance with students and become a loving, serving, and joyful teacher.

“Enough for now. More on ‘joyful teaching’ later.”

Louis