As I traveled the darkened streets in solitude, I was pondering passages from Hamlet and Julius Caesar. In Act I, Scene III, of Hamlet, Polonius says to his son, Laertes: “For the apparel oft proclaims the man.” Does, then, the mere taking of a core of liberal arts courses or even a liberal arts major proclaim the enriched spirit and mental agility of a person? I wish it did, but there isn’t an automatic and exclusive impact by such core courses or programs on a person.

Liberal arts is not a course or a major or a program. It is not a class, but what takes place inside the classroom and what is generated within the student. It is an attitude, a spirit that permeates every fiber of a person’s being, that creates a place of questions and initiates the first steps towards wisdom. A liberal arts curriculum should be judged by that ethereal and more difficult measurement of what the student has become, the centrally defining attributes of character which energize and give direction to native talent. But, that requires that professors lead the way. They must first have a vision and then give it life in the imagination of the students.

Yet, students are led down isolated, barrel-visioned, pre-determined paths overloaded with “courses appropriate to the major.” Liberal arts core courses are often paid little more than lip service. Students are led to believe that every course must have a utilitarian vocational value. They and professors are too often infected with what I call “I don’t need it for the major” syndrome. Departments and schools vie with each other for body counts. Classes are so stylized that few stand free and are alive. Professors package and filter information to students who are under considerable pressure to please them. Professors fearfully seek to please students. Professors divert their energies from the classroom to research and publication. And so, it’s not all that clear that most present-day institutions of higher learning are the best places to acquire a liberal education; or that studying the liberal arts has a guaranteed meaningful connection with the enrichment of a student. And the “fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

Well, I’ve been walking the darkened streets again, thinking about OBE, job training v. education, liberal arts v. professional programs, etc. I guess it’s that time of the year when such things are on everyone’s minds as graduates leave the stage with a diploma in one hand and want ads in the other.

Well, I hadn’t rounded the first corner when into my head popped, “It’s all in the wrist, people. It’s all in the wrist,” and my thoughts began to center on diminutive, buxom Miss Helen Trombly. She had been my typing/shorthand teacher in high school way back in 1956. I’d like to tell you about her because I think she is worth knowing about.

She was quite a lady though no one appreciated her at the time. I certainly didn’t. She didn’t cut a striking figure. She didn’t light up a room when she entered. She was quiet and unassuming, maybe a touch shy. I can’t say she carried herself with a dignity. If anything, she was bland. She wore her graying hair up in a bun. Her clothing was drab. When her reading glasses weren’t hanging around her neck and resting on her chest, held there by a frayed black string, they sat half-way down her nose. I can still see her eyes peering over those black frames and saying firmly but warmly over and over and over again as we struggled with banging on the typewriter and writing those surrealistic short-hand lines with our pencils, “It’s all in the wrist. It’s all in the wrist.”

She was a lonely figure. We kids made cruel jokes about her. We didn’t take either her or the course seriously. Why should we? This was secretarial administration. It was a subject that we college-bound kids were told by other teachers was “crib,” “below” us, and only for the “girl rocks” who were going into the work force after graduating high school. The only reason we were there was because it was, along with shop and home economics (I took a class in cooking and made biscuits that the navy still uses as anchors), one of those “snap” lowly fill-in electives. Yet, in reflection over the years, that course turned out to be one of the most interesting and influential courses I ever took.

Miss Trombly was not content with teaching us merely to learn how to type and take shorthand. As I look back, I think she was more interested in preparing us for life than for a life of typing and taking shorthand. There were no mindless Gregg typing or shorthand manuals to be found in the class. No charts of either the keyboard or the shorthand symbols hung on the walls. Instead, the walls were so draped with hand-printed quotations that they looked like pages from Bartletts. She changed them every week. There were no dull repetition drills. She expected us to learn on our own outside of class how to set our fingers on the typewriter and learn the keyboard and learn the shorthand symbols, “squiggle stuff” as she called them.

In class, to sharpen our typing and shorthand skills, so she said, we copied bits and pieces she had selected from Hemingway, Greene, Faulkner, Rand and a few others! With about fifteen minutes left in the one hour class, she would stop us and ask what we felt about the passages we had typed. “Be a thinking person,” she’d quietly admonish us if we hesitated, “not a living typewriter.” To practice our margin and tab skills on the typewriter, we copied passages from Shakespeare, Pope, Keats, Death of a Salesman, The Glass Menagerie, The Cherry Orchard, Requiem for a Heavyweight, and a few other plays. And then, she’d ask us how we felt about the passages. “There’s more to life than being a secretary,” she’d warn us. To develop our shorthand speed and typing dictation speed, half the class formally debated issues while the other half struggled to record it. And we had to come in prepared to debate! As I remember, we discussed civil rights and racism, sex, communism, religion, democracy, etc. This was a secretarial administration class, but she would not allow us merely “to get by.” I can still hear her firm, caring, melodious voice reaching out and saying, “Louis, is that really the best you can do?” or “Where’s your pride in what you’re doing, Schmier?” “Be honest, Louis.” or “Stop being scared, Mr. Schmier. Think for yourself.”

Miss Trombly had been shunned and even ridiculed by the other teachers, even the ones in home economics and shop. No one ever or would ever have thought to nominate her for the school teacher of the year award. I certainly would not have. Hell, that was supposed to be a breeze, not a debating-English-philosophy-history-and-God-knows-what-else course, the grade for which we had to work! And I haven’t said a thing about her tests, mind-challenging “evaluations” and “opportunity experiences” she labelled them. No, no nominations then. After class was over, I don’t think I ever said a word to her. I am truly sorry about that and wish I could apologize. It was my loss. I don’t know about the others, but I learned a hell of a lot more than typing and shorthand, though it took me decades to realize and appreciate that I did. Accolades to her today.

It wasn’t until a few years ago, that I unexpectedly thought about that ……… (I won’t tell you what we called her at the time). Oh, I had written the books and articles, and made my professional reputation, and I had a reputation of being a crack teacher, but something was missing. I felt off-balance, for the scholarship, that damn publish or perish garbage, had come at the expense of the classroom. I was a good teacher, really good, but deep down I felt that I could be so much better and do so much more for students. Then, Miss Trombly started haunting me again and showing me the way: “It’s all in the wrist, people. It’s all in the wrist.”

I think a lot about Miss Trombly. I wish I could thank her. She helped show me that the true teacher must be far more student oriented than subject oriented, that the true assessment of a class or curriculum or major is far more the character of the people who leave it than the content presented in it, and that my dedication to helping the students broadly prepare for life is a far, far better thing I do for them and me than merely training them for a job. “It’s all in the wrist, people. It’s all in the wrist.”

Well, here I am again. I’ve just come in from my power walking. I’ve been thinking about what happened in another one of my classes last Tuesday. It was about 11:30 a.m. A student had just left my office. For almost an hour and a half, I listened intently, almost saying nothing, as she told me about what had happened in our 9:00 a.m. intro class. I got up from my chair, walked slowly across my rather expansive and cluttered office, closed the door, slowly walked back to my chair, sat down. It was all almost in slow motion. And suddenly in an outburst of energy, I banged on the desk with both fists and screamed out a private and orgasmic (that’s the only way to describe it), “YES!!!!” I’ve been on a controlled high ever since. Let me tell you why.

What I call “a happening” had occurred in my 9:00 a.m. class. Last Tuesday, many of the students in that class, at least for that moment, had “found themselves.” I had walked into class ready to discuss the day’s assigned reading and discussion issue. Before I could utter a word, Shelly, a quiet student who had been afraid to talk in class, got up from her chair. Without waiting for me to recognize her she firmly said, “Dr. Schmier, when we had our open class evaluation yesterday there was a lot of bull shit going around. I think we all have to have a “truth talk” with each other, but can’t if you’re around. Could you please leave!”

“What’s going on ? What are they going to do to me?” I silently asked myself very nervously.

Shelly had come into my office the day before and said that not many students were honest in their appraisal of the class and asked what should she do. I replied that she should do what she thinks needs to be done. And now this! My feet became jellied; my heart started pounding; I admit I was afraid. The other students turned to me to see what I would do. Words like “courage” and “risk” and “honesty” suddenly came home to roost. I had told them the day before that I had a tough skin and needed their input in order to improve in the class whatever needs improvement. Talk about being on the spot! Well, I figured I had to put my money where my mouth was. I nervously walked out of the room. For the next hour, I fidgeted on the computer, struggling to write something sensible, but my mind was on the goings-on in that classroom.

From what Shelley told me and later recorded for me, this is the gist of what happened:

“Yesterday we had a class discussion where Dr. Schmier asked us how we thought the class could be bettered. But none of you spoke up and said anything. You were afraid he’d hold it against you and you were more worried about your grade than helping yourselves or to improve the class for all of us.”

“She’s right. We’ve got to get down to business.”

“I hate these triads. I don’t want to depend on someone else for my grade. I don’t need anyone else.”

“You play football. No wonder we have a lousy team. Where’s all this teamwork stuff, or is all that crap only to sound good?”

“I’m going to med school. I need good grades. I want to drop this course. My adviser told me to wait for an easy class. He’s such a bastard for not letting me.”

“I heard you try to corner and embarrass him at the beginning of class. But, he didn’t back down. I think he did you a favor. Maybe, instead of whining you ought to meet the challenge and stop acting like a spoiled brat. Are you going to take only easy courses in med school? Stay away from me when you get out!”

“Let’s get down to business. How many of you honestly do the assignments everyday and come in prepared, or even use the SQ3R methods Dr. Schmier suggested at the beginning of the class?”

“Some of you don’t even read the syllabus calendar and then complain you don’t know what’s expected or assigned.”

“Here’s what I think. The reason some of you are complaining is that you’re not doing your work and want a free grade.”

“Well, I don’t understand the discussions sometimes.”

“Ask questions. I’ve never seen anybody embarrassed in this class when they do. He loves questions.”

“Then, he makes us answer our own questions.”

“Maybe he’s trying to show you that you’re able to answer the question, but are too lazy or scared to try.”

“Maybe he could summarize at the end of class.”

“Tell him. He won’t bite. I’ll tell him.”

“Some of the triads aren’t working.”

“Well ours has become a study group.”

“We’re friends and have become like family. We come to each other with our real personal problems.”

“It’s been hard for us, but we’re getting to know each other and starting to work together.”

“I think we are becoming family. I know more people in this class than in all my classes since I’ve been here combined. I see some of you talking outside class. Some of you don’t know a great thing when you see it. Like Dr. Schmier says, ‘you gets out whats you puts in.'”

“I like taking the quizzes and discussing tidbits like we were one. It’s not that we can do less work by sharing the load. Hell, I learn more arguing over the answer to a question than when I study by myself.”

“Yeah, but some of us aren’t together. We haven’t been pulling our weight. But we’re not giving up. If you can do it, so can we. We have to help each other.”

“Why doesn’t everyone look at each other and point to the ones who aren’t doing their share. Say that we need your help. You’re important to your triad. You’re part of us and without you we’re not operating at 100 percent. Go ahead. Point.”

“Look, Dr. Schmier comes in here, come hell or high water, prepared, alert, and ready for bear. We owe him to do the same thing.”

“That’s his job. He gets paid for teaching us.”

“And we pay to learn by ourselves. We owe it to ourselves. If we don’t want it why should he give it to us. Why the hell are you here.”

“To get a grade. This is all so stupid. He doesn’t lecture. He doesn’t give out any handouts. He doesn’t tell us what’s going to be and what’s not going to be on the quizzes. When we ask him what he wants on the exams, he says, ‘what do you think you should do?'”

“Get a life. You ain’t going to make the grade.”

“I don’t like how he asks me questions. He’s always asking, ‘why?’ He embarrasses me.”

“Maybe you embarrass yourself because you come in here unprepared and try to wing it. He’s not going to let you get away with it. He’s too good and cares too much to let you do less then what he thinks you’re capable of doing.”

“Hey, I’ve been in his office and talked with him. Remember, he dragged me in kicking and screaming. He really cares about us. He wants us to care about ourselves. If you don’t want to give him a chance, give yourselves a chance. Hell, how many of the profs around here would do what he just did. I really respect him for that. Maybe some of you ought to start respecting yourselves.”

“How many of you have a smart person in the triad and say, ‘Well, they’ll carry my load. I don’t have to do anything.’ Well, get off your asses. Our triad meets twice a week in the library. We’re there about 2-4 hours. Come on over and join us. It’s working for us. It can work for you. We’ll help anyone who wants to help themselves.”

“That’s a good idea. We, too, meet in the library. We’ll help anyone who needs it. But, you have to come prepared.”

“Three of us just have been talking. I know we’re not in the same triads, but that doesn’t matter. We’ve decided that we’re going to designate ourselves class tutors. Let’s start a history lab. We make a commitment to the class to be in the library twice a ……”

“My best time is Sunday.”

“O.K. We’ll also be in the library on Sundays from 2-4. We’ll reserve a study room and we can discuss. Your obligation is that you have to read the material before you come in to discuss. We’re not going to do your work. Come in and join the rest of us for a talk. If you haven’t done the reading, come in and read, and then ask questions.”

“I hate the tidbits. I tell him what each article is about and he says that he wants to know why it’s important and what does it mean. I’ve never had to do that. It’s too hard.”

“He wants you to think and understand. Use the guide words he gave us. What we do is to read together and talk about the meaning of the article. We consider the points and see how they apply in our lives and society today.”

“Sometimes, when we finish talking, we close our eyes and do a quantum leap like he does with us in class, and imagine what’s going on, and feel the article”

“We’ll work on the tidbits in the library.”

“I’m not sure this is all going to work.”

“It won’t if you don’t want it to.”

“I don’t know if I can do it. It’s hard and I’m not used to it.”

“Maybe she and the others are right. Let’s see if we can help each other in our triads and between the triads. We might learn something.”

“We’re used to memorizing things for a test. He doesn’t do that. He says he wants us to think. I’ve never done that. Why doesn’t he just tell us what to learn?”

“Maybe he wants us to take control of ourselves and make our own decisions. That’s scary. If some of you are willing to help, I’m game.”

“I know you all said you were going to come, but if you don’t, it won’t hurt us or him. You’ll be hurting yourself. I’m going, and if you don’t show up, it’s your own fault. I heard bellyaching today. Sometimes I’m one of you, but you’re not putting forth the effort. You’re not trying.”

“He promised us pizza and drinks on him if we all pass this course. I got a taste for pepperoni and mushrooms. Let’s think on it today and meet in the library and talk some more if you want.”

Shelley wrote me a personal letter at the end of her written summary of the class events. I want to share it with you. I do so not to brag about myself, but to applaud and praise her. We just had Honors Day here at the college. She did not receive any recognition. She did not receive any awards. She didn’t have the grades. In fact, she is among that group of students whom my colleagues say don’t belong in college. Well, in my book she is an honor to have in my class. She and all the others are the reason I go to sleep each night anticipating the next day’s classes. They make all the frustration and aggravation and worrying and hard work worthwhile. They are my encouragement and strength in the face of discouragement. I offer you her letter to show what unique potential lays hidden within these “poor students,” and what they can discover with some support, effort, and caring. I cried as I read the letter:

A few members of the class said today that they just didn’t think that things would work out for some reason or another. But, it didn’t disappoint me all that much, because if they don’t learn anything from what I and all the others said, I learned a lot. I learned that I can do things that I never thought I could do. I learned that I could be a leader, and I guess it is something I wanted to do all my life, but was afraid to do and felt I couldn’t do. In high school I wanted to be, let’s say, an officer in a club, but I wasn’t popular. I was shy. I didn’t believe I was a leader. And I thought that the people who were popular were better than me. I was sort of a loner in high school.

I don’t know what happened in your class. I don’t know. This feeling just came over me. I know I was surprised that when I came to you and said that something had to be done in the class because people weren’t honest about their feelings in the open evaluation, you only said that I should do what I thought should be done. I felt you felt that I was good enough to be trusted enough that I could decide, not you, what the right thing was to do. I am so happy with myself because I’m so much more than I thought I was. I’ve never been able to speak in front of people. The one time I had to stand in front of a class was in a history class in high school. But, I was too shy. I literally passed out on the spot because I was too nervous. When I got up and asked you to leave the class so we could talk, I was so nervous that I could hardly get the words out. I was shaking and sweating. And when I was up there in front of the class, Dr. Schmier, I knew I would end up crying, and when that happened I would fall over and pass out like last time. But, I didn’t! I didn’t do it! I think the reason I didn’t do that was because you trusted me by leaving without a protest, and more importantly because my triad had encouraged me to say something. They were out there supporting me when I said something. Others were supporting me,too, when others were saying negative things. But I have such a feeling of accomplishment. I can do anything! I am growing as a person. I think I stopped being a kid. I learned that I can face people. I learned that I can face myself…

I’m proud of myself! I feel that I have earned this sense of accomplishment. For the first time in my life, I took a deep breathe and I took a big risk not knowing whether it was going to be for the best or not. But I left your office feeling that you bet on me and I figured it was time I had to try to trust myself. I’ve helped myself and found a me that I thought didn’t exist. I hope that I can help anyone who needs encouragement to help themselves. I’ll never stop trying. But, Dr. Schmier I just want to thank you for helping me because you helped me a lot by showing that you believed in me and helping me believe in myself even though you never said anything. It was just that I knew from how you acted and talked in class that you really cared about me as a person. I truly believe now that if I want something, I can get it. And I am not going to let anyone tell me I can’t. And I’m going remember forever what it felt like when someone told me or acted like they were better than me. I’m not going to do that to anyone if I can help it. I’ve grown a lot since I’ve been your class. I’ve learned a lot about myself, about others, and about history, too. I’m starting to see now that only I can, as you say, hold my head up.

I can’t let anyone else tell me how to think about me. What they think about me is their concern. I think I understand when you say the problem is inside of us and so is the solution. I think I’m beginning, just beginning, so don’t expect too much, to understand what you mean when you once handed out: ‘To strive to reach the potential that inside you, you need the will to achieve and the courage to fail.’ I taped that on my mirror last night. I’ll never, never, never forget that, this class, or you. Thank you, Dr. Schmier, for being you and being there.

On that note, I’ll just say a very quiet,
Have a good one

Well, it’s real early in the morning. It’s starting to get humid and warm down here in south Georgia, even at 5:00 in the morning. As I was walking the quiet streets, I was thinking again. This time it was about a discussion, a vigorous discussion, I had yesterday afternoon with a colleague from the School of Business at a TGIF (thank God it’s Friday) faculty get-together. She had come up to me and started talking to me about my character-based approach in my classes. I was in an excited mood. I felt that I had a good week in my classes. There was that one class had learned a dramatic lesson in applied ethics over the cheating incident. Another class had kicked me out of class so that they could have what one student called some “honest truth talk.”

“I’m no Sister Teresa, ” my colleague proclaimed. “We are here to send the students out into the work place with a degree that will give them a better job. And that’s all my job is!”

“Is that what an education is all about,” I replied, “just to get a job?”

“Yes, and the student should have to take only those courses that they need,” she asserted.

“Why, then, are we in June becoming a university–at least, in name,” I asked.

“It will give our students more prestige. They’ll be more marketable if they graduate from a university rather than a college,” she replied with assurance.

“Sounds like packaging to me, marketing if you will,” I retorted to my colleague who was from the marketing department. “Pretty glitter that’s more show than substance.”

While the conversation ended without any minds being change, it was my colleague’s word, “need,” that continued to haunt me this morning. What does a student, any person, need? A student needs to be independent; a student needs to be able to think for him- or herself; a student has to believe in him- or herself if he or she is to struggle to reach his or her potential; a student needs to be able to control the forces swirling around him or her rather than let them control him or her. To put in other words, give me a person who believes in himself or herself and can think for him- or herself, and he or she can learn to be anything at any time.

I think those attributes are especially “needed” in these turbulent times. We see all around us that we are living in a world of rapidly changing job skill requirements. We are seeing what happens to people when the particular job skill they are learning or have practiced is no longer needed. It seems to me that my colleague’s myopic definition of an education would not offer people the personal life-skills that they “need” in order to be independent of, flexible in, and adaptable to such dramatically changing situations.

Moreover, it seems that such a narrow definition of an education is limited to the work place and preparing students for a single career. But, what about the rest of their daily lives? There is life before a job, aside from a job, and after a job. What will prepare them for life outside the work place? The truth is that students will become more than just bread winners. They will become friends, spouses, parents, and citizens. No, an education is about far more than just getting a job. It is about learning how to live, as well as learning how to make a living. The primary goals of an education should be to encourage our students to strive for their fullest potential as whole individuals and contributing members of society. And, we as their teachers “need” to commit ourselves to developing not just the brains and hands of our students, but their minds and hearts as well.

Well, it’s early in the morning again and I have just come in, dripping wet, from a vigorous power walk. I love roaming the darkened, quiet streets. The air is clean and my thoughts are clear. This morning I was thinking about all that has happened in my classes during the ten days since I returned from my son’s school in Maine. It’s really blown my mind and I’d like to share one great event with you this morning.

I found the courage to take the risk to place my students on their honor and trust them to do the right thing. I told them that I was going to let them administer their own weekly quiz. No department monitors. I appointed a student in each of my three freshman history classes to pick up the quiz from the department secretary, hand it out to the triads, use the answer key to have the triads grade their own quizzes, collect the quizzes, and hand them back to the department secretary. I left for Maine nervously thinking about whether I really wanted to know if I had any impact on them after only four weeks of class, and whether my concepts and techniques were working. When I returned, I asked each class how things went. In one class which consisted of 13 triads, one of the quieter students said with a noticeably annoyed tone, “Fine, but were we allowed to use the book?”

“Damn,” I disappointingly thought. And then I asked the students, “What happened?” Those were the last words I said as the students spontaneously took over for the rest of the class. The conversation went something like this (Thankfully, I feverishly, but quietly took notes of the discussion):

“There was cheating in some of the triads. You used the book to look up the answers. I am mad. We didn’t cheat.”

“We let Dr. Schmier down. He trusted us.”

“Hell, we let ourselves down!”

“Why didn’t you say something Friday when it really counted. Maybe we could have talked then?”

“I wanted to, but I was scared that everyone would think I was a brown-nosing, do-gooder.”

“It’s easy to do it now that Dr. Schmier is here to ‘protect us.'”

“I would have backed you up. But I didn’t have the guts to say ‘This isn’t right. It ain’t worth it.’ I’m just as guilty letting it happen as those who cheated.”

“Bull! Who are you to accuse others?”

“I’m mad because we didn’t cheat and they’re going to get just as good a grade.”

“Is that all you’re concerned about, the grade? How about doing it just because it’s the right thing to do? But, I didn’t want to get involved either.”

“I felt it was none of my business. If they could get away with it….I was sort of envious that I didn’t have the nerve.”

“Those who cheated, speak up. We know who you are. Do you have the guts to open up right here and now?”

“Dr. Schmier, our triad cheated. I’ve been feeling shitty about it all weekend. I rationalized that we were only checking three answers, but that’s no different since we would have changed them (all) if they were wrong.”

“It’s no big deal. We changed only three questions. As I figure, that’s about 3/25th of 1% of the final grade.”

“You sell your honesty cheap.”

“I don’t see where its worth it. Something’s wrong if a lousy small grade means that much.”

“What will you do if some big thing came down, when you people showed no backbone over something this small?”

“We cheated, too…..But I don’t think we ought to get punished real hard since we admitted it and some others still haven’t.”

“You want a reward? Hell, you cheat, you pay. Just because you admitted what we all know doesn’t mean you get a medal. What you ought to do is look at yourself and learn. I say, Dr. Schmier, those that cheated should get 0s!”

“I’ll take it.”

“There are others. At least go into his office and own up. You screwed us all.”

“Wait a minute. I’ve been listening. We screwed ourselves, me included, by letting it happen when it happened. We all lose his trust. So, let’s stop feeling so righteous.”

“I think we all ought to leave here and do some heavy thinking about just how upstanding people we are. Let’s see who has the guts to do something about it. .How can he trust us again? Why should he?”

“Damn,” I jubilantly thought to myself. I was so excited. I thought that was the end of it, but there was to be more. Students from three other triads who cheated came to my office and quietly turned themselves in.

“We figured if others were doing it, it was alright. But that’s crap. It was wrong and there are no two ways about it. You took a risk to trust us and we didn’t take the same risk to trust ourselves. The truth is some of us just didn’t study and this was the easy way out and the rest of us went along. We talked and we decided we want the 0’s. We’re going to study our asses off from now on.”

Now, that is what I call a value-forming, character-shaping experience. Understand that I don’t teach character. I don’t believe I can. I do not have any curriculum units that say “this is character,” or “do this or that” or “you get it this way or that way.” But, I can and do create a spirit and attitude that permeate the entire class, that place an extraordinary amount of importance on character, that help the students develop their character, and that place them in value-forming experiences. This is what education is all about.