I was all spiffed up,—uncomfortable noose of a tie, sports jacket, non-jeans slacks—small talking, waiting for the dining room doors to open. It was the community’s “Law Enforcement Appreciation Dinner” sponsored by the Rotary Club. Someone, passed by me, whom I’ll call Jim (not necessarily his real name or gender), stopped. turned around, looked at me, asked quietly, “Are you Dr. Schmier?”
“Last time I looked, but you have the better of me,” I said, not knowing to whom I was talking.
Suddenly small talk became big. He gave me his name and blind-sided me—in a good way—with something like, “You don’t remember me, but do I remember you. I was in class a long time ago, almost twenty years ago. What a class. It started with those trust falls off the desk and never let up through the whole term. I couldn’t believe you weren’t going to lecture or give us tests. Those triads, projects, and daily journals were something else. I want you to know that I’m here because of you. Every now and then, when I’m down and need to get myself going, I pull out my class notebook and read one of those inspirational ‘Words for the Day’ you wrote on the board at the beginning of class and we talked about as it related to the lives of the people we were studying and our personal lives. But, the one thing I remember over and over and over again, is the time I told you that I was not a great student. You didn’t walk away from me like a lot of others had done. All you did was to ask me if I was a great person. When I said yes, you softly whispered with a caring force, ‘Then, why don’t both of us work hard to partner up and get that great person to help you become the great student you can be and a great whatever you want to become.’
As I stood stunned, he went on to say something like (quickly had gone over to the bar to scribble his words on a napkin), “I never forget how that got to me. It turned me around. You had a quiet, focused, demanding softness about you for each of us. Somehow, you made time to see and hear each of us. I opened up to you in those journals like I did with no one else because I knew I could trust you and that you really cared. You just helped me understand that I didn’t have to believe my thoughts and feelings, that I could break those bad habits of doubting myself if I wanted to, that I could defeat that defeatist attitude that I had for so long, and that I could respect myself. It took a lot of work, hard work every day for both of us to do all that, a lot of hard work. But, I really got to enjoy watching me do the things I thought I could never do as you helped me see that I could. I saw possibilities inside me I never imagined. You helped me push my expectations of myself beyond where they had been stuck. That gave me a direction and momentum. All through the class, you were by my side with what you called those ’little big words like faith, hope, and love,’ those soft smiles, little nods, and quiet encouragements that helped me take those scary first steps to where I am now. And, you know something? I learned to work hard to treat my employees the same ‘soft’ way. I think I owe you a mountain of thanks for that.”
As he walked off to join others, I wondered if he had been eavesdropping on my conversation in the streets with Sam two weeks earlier. All through the dinner and in the days that followed, Jim’s words whispered in my ears: “Caring force,” “demanding softness,” “hard work every day for both of us.” I kept wondering if there was a pattern. Saturday, as I was meditatively walking the morning streets, it came to me: It’s the enormous power of mindfulness directed by unconditional engaging and involved faith, hope, and love. It’s the hard work of seeing with “soft eyes,” hearing with “soft ears,” and feeling with a “soft heart” beneath the surface of stereotype, generality, preconception, and label to each student’s hidden quality and unique potential. To put it another way, one of the great insights I had from “soft teaching” was that students weren’t who most faculty thought they were.
But, “soft” certainly is one of those words, like “love,” academics can’t get past. It causes so many of them to wince, gasp, and throw up their hands in horror as if it’s a threat to the intellectual integrity of academia. To them, it’s the leader of the insidious invading horde of wusses assaulting the Ivory Tower: “new age,””push-over,” “patsy,” “mushy,” “bosh,” “sappy,” “lovey-dovey,” “easy,” “coddling,” “wishy-washy,” “sentimental,” “touchy-feely,” “subjectivity,” “fluff.” Nevertheless, thinking of this businessman’s terms, “quiet, focused, demanding softness” and “a lot of hard work,” I don’t think “soft” has anything to do with that which is contrary to “rigor” and “demanding.” I’m going to be hard-nosed and rigorously stick with “soft.” if for no other reason than over the past couple of decades that living that word, as the last couple of weeks has reminded me, had really stuck with me as an essential and very effective teaching and learning tool.
Let me give you five hard facts about “soft teaching.” First, as someone said, “feeling are the first facts.” You can choose to let them be a bad master or a good servant. You can let them limit you with a sense of false safety or use them to break out in a daring escape for freedom. To do that, however, you have to ask yourself a very hard introspective question as I had to do, “Why do I feel what I feel about myself, what I do, and the students?” Second, “soft teaching” has a dramatic impact on your inner climate, the inner climate of each student, and the climate of the class community as a whole. “Soft teaching” nudges you into becoming a compassionate and attentive revolutionary, certainly a rascally iconoclast, urged on by a “who are you” curiosity about each student and a supportive and encouraging “I care about you” for each student. Third, “soft teaching” also asks, “What does a GPA, grade, score, or award really describe?” “Does the GPA, grade, score, or award tell the whole story, the human story, of a student?” “What is this person capable of becoming? and “What is the ultimate reality of the classroom.” A fourth hard fact about “soft teaching” is that its a habit breaker; it opens your eyes, ears, and heart to the grandeur that is each student. It forces you to slow down; it sharpens an engaged attentiveness, alertness, awareness of the humanity of each student. You can listen to each voice; see each face. It is infectious as you embody it and it radiates from you. And, that brings me to the fifth and final hard fact about “soft teaching”: if you want to be alive and keep your flame burning, if you want ignite a student’s flame, see and listen to each student, engage with and be involved in each student, never loose your sense of wonder and amazement at how extraordinary each student, not just the honors student, is, if you see, hear, and get to know her or him. It will whet your appetite for more and more—and more.
Soft eyes, soft ears, and a soft heart. Faith, hope, and love. Caring and kindness. They help us to understand that all these facts and questions they stimulate matter because we teachers have a moral mission to serve and help make things better for each student. They help us see details or perspectives that we’ve never noticed before or maybe even chose to ignore, that is, the humanity of each student and the need to know each student’s story. You see, when you don’t have information about each student’s story, you don’t have knowledge about that student; when you don’t have knowledge about her or him, you really can’t make wise, much less informed, choices on how to deal with her or him; when you don’t have that wisdom, you can’t truly be caring. So, they don’t accept blindness or deafness to that which is going on around you,
These attitudes, these feelings only require empathy. To have empathy, however, you have to have humanity and connection. To have humanity and connection, you feel that each student counts, that each student matters, that you treasure each student, that you appreciate each student, that each student is something in your heart, that you include and nurture, and that you never give a demeaning message of disregard.
As Sam, Jim, and others reveal, That makes these outlooks a presence that is more powerful than absence. Their openness opens a new way to think, feel, and do. They ask you to explore beneath the surface and mine for the hidden gold of unique potential that lies in each person. You know Yeats said, “In dreams begins responsibility.” Therefore, there’s nothing soft about them, nothing passive, nothing sluggish. They’re synonyms for caring engagement, kindly connection, faithful support, hopeful encouragement, and loving understanding.
For me, that makes “soft teaching” the “new hard.”
Louis