FEELINGS

It was damp out there this morning. A light drizzle hung in the black, tepid, morning air. I kept being splattered by drips from the overhanging tree limbs. Wish I had windshield wipers on my glasses. But, as I splashed through the small puddles, I was thinking about late last night in my office.

It had been one of those days. Ever have “one of those days” when everything seemed to come crashing down in a never ending avalanche? That was yesterday. It was one of those particularly long and hard days that everyone has nightmares about: not a walking day; a very early morning Minority Affairs Committee meeting–no doughnuts; a long painful conversation in my “hall office” with a tearful student afraid to try to achieve for fear of failing to meet the expectations of unreasonably demanding parents, and a walk to the University psychologist; politicking to get extra funding from anywhere so that I could attend a teaching conference where I am supposed to present two workshops; quietly reading student journals and marveling at their insights, honesty and reflections; tackled as I left the Dean’s office with a refilled cup of coffee by an angry student who refused to work with the other members of his triad “who just aren’t as good as I am,” and discussing humility with him, asking him to think about how he would feel if I as the professor felt the same way toward him as the student; talking with a journal editor about two soon to be published photo essays; preparing a weekly quiz; grading weekly tidbits; a walk with an African-American student who doesn’t know how to contend with the pressures of the “oreo syndrome”; lively and emotional and substantative class discussions about an assigned article, “The Founding Fathers and Slavery”; a discussion with a student who is self-conscious about his accent and taking him to the College of Education’s speech clinic; a confrontation in the Faculty Senate with the President of the University conniving to undermine the Senate because he prefers the throne of Louis XIV to the chair of the Senate Head; a conversation with my younger son about giving it his best shot in everything he does; a walk back to the office to finish reading journals.

But, when I slowly opened my office door, tired and drained, I unexpectedly found a letter slipped under the door. It was written by a non-traditional student who had been in my class last quarter. She is a 27 year old mother of three who returned to get a college education ten years after she graduated high school: first in her family to attend college, wants to be a teacher, faced constant and vocal opposition from her husband’s family about “my leaving my marrying duties”; always heard her own family’s suspicion about “whether anything worthwhile can come of it.” I’m not sure how long I sat at my cluttered desk reading this letter over and over again. Reading it rejuvenated me; it made me feel that it was all worth it. If someone asked me yesterday morning why I teach, I might have said something philosophical about preparing students to live truer lives or to teach students to improve the world in which we live. Last night, I would simply have said: “Debbie is one reason I teach.”
Here’s what she wrote:

Dr. Schmier:

I’m not really sure what I want to say here, but I feel I must say something. I’ll do my best. I believe that I’m already saying a lot just by writing you this. I could never have thought to do such a thing at the beginning of last quarter before I got “trapped” in your class. I’m letting you know that I worked to do my best in your, no, in MY history 200 class. I may not be able to rattle off history facts or remember all the so-called “important” dates, but I can get those facts in a book. Besides I don’t remember all that stuff I once had memorized in high school. I learned much more than that in this class. You opened up my eyes and mind to why things happened and how they influenced the future and me instead of the dull when, who, what, or where.

I learned how to work with people. If one of my triad members had a weakness in a particular area, say, tidbits, the other two of us used our strength in this area to help them learn how to get them right. I learned to rely upon others when we did our quizzes and trust them for the exams. I learned that I could be a leader.

I learned how to work with me. I learned that I have weaknesses. That wasn’t easy. I’ve always put up a strong and quiet front to hide them, but you know that. You saw through me somehow. I learned not to dwell on that anymore like I used to because I learned that I had strengths and could use them to overcome my weaknesses. I now try continually to improve myself and reach that unique potential you said each of us had. I don’t do this now for others. I learned to do it for myself. I have learned that there are people that I will never satisfy. But, if I don’t like something about myself, I will work to “fix” me so that I am the best that I can be. So, I just worry about me. As long as I like me and the things about me, my ways, I don’t have to worry about what you or anybody else thinks about me.

I am still kinda rusty from being out of school for such a long time. I am maybe a little slower for now than other students on picking up on things but I will catch up and probably pass. No , I will pass some of them.

It’s kinda like something we learned in church. If you are doing something and God deals with you on it then you have discovered a fault that you have. Faults become sins when you still have the same ones year after year and you don’t do anything about them. I guess your class has been like a church. It showed me my sins and has started cleansing me of them. I’ve tried in your class as I never have before, and that’s a lot to me because at the beginning of last quarter, before taking your class, I would not have even tried. I believe that your teaching method has given me confidence that I did not have before. Who would have thought at the beginning of the quarter that I would help write an original song, stand up front of the class and sing it with the others in the triads, and then take the risk of helping give you a jigsaw puzzle to solve for our final exam. Not I. I guess that when it really comes down to it, it didn’t matter what grade you gave me at the end of the quarter. Why? Because that’s your judgement of my performance, and in the long run it’s MY opinion of my performance that really has come to matter to me. Well, I’d better quit writing now before I put you to sleep. I’d like to say thanks for all your time and advice and for being so hard on us all. I needed it. I got a real education in your class.

As I see it, a large part of my role is to teach the students something they need to know, something that will hopefully make them more interesting human beings. If our educational system is only about grades and grade-point averages, only about jamming subject matter down a student’s throat to be vomited forth for a test, it’s way off the mark in my grade book. I don’t grade a product. I encourage process and progress and development within the classroom and for a lifetime beyond it. Isn’t that the point of education?

Now, this is not a matter of being “student oriented” or “subject oriented”, and it’s not an issue of either process or content. It’s about “both”; it’s a matter of “and.” It’s an ever-changing balancing act: the subject matter with its principles, concepts and people about whom I teach are balanced by my concern with the student’s attitude. At the same time, attitude is a balance to subject content.

What I am trying to foster is courage, risk-taking, taking the plunge. I’m trying to bolster self-confidence and encourage growth. I am trying to promote knowledge of some principles. I am trying to develop critical thinking. I am trying to support the application of such skills, and I am trying to emphasize emotion or attitude. The competence demonstrated by a student should not only be a grasp of the subject, but the emergence of a greater self-assurance and self-confidence that would do her in good standing in the rest of the class, in other classes, and hopefully throughout her life.

So many students come into most classes with a bunch of hidden, non-academic, non-intellectual factors that limit or prevent their success. Singularly or in combination, these factors cause anxiety, apathy and/or chaos for many students. I just held an open evaluation in my classes. Do you know that few students doubted my authority or knowledge? Instead, they talked about whether I was fair, did I care about them as human beings, were they capable, did they have potential. The first reactions students exhibit in the class are not about whether the professor knows his/her stuff or not, not whether this is going to be a good course or not. They are about “Will the professor understand me”; “Does the professor care”; “In what ways can the professor connect this stuff to me and my issues.” And, those issues, not necessarily conscious ones, are self-esteem, self-confidence, need for validation, and a need for affirmation.

All I’m saying is that the emotions are there. If we truly care for the students, then, we, as teachers, need to be more aware, less afraid of that dimension of our students AND of OURSELVES. We must be more honest and more authentic in what we’re doing. The purpose for recognizing, naming and addressing tensions and emotions that exist within both the students and professors in the classroom is a means to help us become more comfortable with the spirit of inquiry and the joy of learning, become more aware of our intellectual powers. If a student believes he or she is mediocre, that is the best he or she will strive to become and will ever be. Fear and apathy have a debilitating impact on performance. The state of mind can affect the state of learning. It is manifest in the unquestioned self-descriptions of “I’m shy” or “I’m a listener” or “I can’t write” or “I can’t talk.” And, it’s all too easy to let immediate “can’ts” evolve into prolonged “won’ts” that mire into eternal “don’ts.”

Teaching to emotions or attitude is motivational. The emotion drives and gives direction to the intellect. It leads to academic performance and deepens understanding. It focuses on the student’s attention, arouses interest, connects the student’s world to learning, and, in my classes, builds a classroom community.

I acknowledge the world of feelings and take very seriously the role that emotions play in teaching and learning, in the professor and in the student. Call me a spiritual teacher. I make no bones about it. I make no apology for it. I take pride in it. I teach with passion and compassion. I struggle to warm the learning atmosphere in my classes.

What’s the purpose of what I do? It’s to deliver on some teaching goals: helping students learn skills, acquire an appreciation and/or knowledge of my disciple, and to believe in themselves; helping them to possess a grasp of principles, concepts, formulas, axioms, and even facts; helping them to begin acquiring analytical skills, to begin learning to apply those skills, and, above all, to begin acquiring self-esteem, self-confidence, empowerment, integrity, honesty, humility, pursuit of excellence. It’s the beginnings of an acquisition for the appreciation of learning and the wonders of life.

A very long time ago, I once gave a take-home exam in a World Civilization freshman course. The question was fairly simple, yet demanding. I asked: “Assume you are Charlemagne, write me a personal letter describing the world about you and your feelings about it.” Two days later, in came the pile of completed answers. As I was going through them, I came across four, dog-eared, unsigned blank pages. Well, that one didn’t take too long to grade. I scrawled a huge “F” across the entire page and wrote, “Think you ought to crack a book?” By a process of elimination, I discovered to whom this “answer” belonged. She wasn’t one of the better students in the class, and I thought “what could I expect.”

The day after I handed the exams back, she popped her head into the office. Our conversation went something like this:

“Dr. Schmier, can I talk to you about my grade on the exam?”

“What about it?”

“I think I deserve a better grade.”

“For handing in nothing but four blank pages?”

“Yes.”

With a tone of slight curiosity in my voice, I asked, “What grade do you think you deserve?”

“An ‘A’.”

“For four blank pages?”

“Yes. You told us to assume the identity of Charlemagne.”

“Right, and you didn’t.”

“Charlemagne, creator of the Holy Roman Empire, originator of the feudal hierarchical system, admirer of Roman law and order and government, defender of Roman Christianity against the Arian heresy, introducer of learning in the early middle ages?”

“Yes, but you didn’t write about any of that.”

“I can’t read or write. I’m illiterate in spite of all my titles and what I’ve done!”

I sat there in stunned silence. And then, without a hesitation, changed that student’s grade and gave her an “A” because it all boils down to what I as a professor wanted that student to get out of the class experience. It takes courage to challenge the professorial authority figure. Most of us professors won’t even do that with our colleagues much less with the administration. If this student bets on herself, bolsters herself, I’m not going to say, “Great idea. Good job. You’ve got a grasp of who Charlemagne was. You understand that being Holy Roman Emperor had nothing to do with education or intelligence. You took a risk and answered the question the way YOU thought it should be answered. Good job. You get an ‘F’.” That’s a mixed message. If I did that, then all she would do the next time is worry about “what does he want” and seek to parrot me.

No, I think this student and Debbie got the most important thing that seldom they can get from books. I think maybe they started getting an appreciation not only for the subject, but more importantly for themselves and for the excitement of learning as a daring adventure. And that’s the point of education: not so much to make sure the students “get it right,” but to motivate them to aspire to their fullest potential, whatever that may be. If they do that, then they’re getting it right.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

REALLY RANDOM THOUGHTS

My lord, it was cold out there this morning, really cold. My blue UNC hat got bluer from the chill. I came back from my walk and the dog was still frozen to a tree by a horizontal icicle! I’m talking about an eight degree wind chill factor! In south Georgia! It took me a long while to thaw out because the flames in the fireplace are frozen. Weather like this down here seems so out of place. The pristine, quiet solitude of a blanket of snow, the strong upright sticks of bared trees are missing. In their place, shriveling uncollected pecan nuts lie strewn about, semi-tropical plants are bent and shriveled, and there are the ever-present, messy pine needles.

Nevertheless, I was thinking about two sublime and reflective messages that I had read from Ray Rasmussen in Alberta and Len Van Roon in Manitoba. Isn’t this electronic highway of communication marvelous? They generated a bunch of disjointed, really “random” thoughts that kept popping into my head like a series of exploding flashbulbs. Luckily, I found a ball point pen lying in the street. Call it kismet. By the time I came back from my walk, the palm and wrist of my frostbitten right hand looked like I had come out from a tatoo parlor. I’d like to share some of those thoughts as I try to translate my “writing-on-the walk,” contort my right hand and peck-type with my left:

For a true evaluation of our classes and ourselves we would be better to look into the eye of each student, read each of their faces, and watch the tempo of their walk.

I love music and art and my flowers. I have found that playing the flute has helped me listen, which is different from hearing; my very occasional dabbling in sculpture has helped teach me to see, which is different from looking; my flowers have taught me to be quiet and reflect and feel, which is different from talking and posturing.

How we connect with each other on the electronic information highway is a very technological thing. How we use that connection and react to it is a very human thing.

How many of us by virtue of our position in the classroom have conditioned ourselves to a form of human inequality.

There is a vast difference between the privileges of being professors and professors being privileged characters.

Maybe the students aren’t “dumb;” it’s their schools that are “dumb.”

I know a lot of “dumb” people who come out of college, and I know a lot of smart people who didn’t go to college.

What makes education is not its jargon, its format, its techniques, its curriculum, but it’s goals and purposes.

I sometimes think so many of us feel our educational system would be great if it weren’t for the students.

Everyone thinks of changing education, but so few educators think of changing themselves.

Many of us give an up-front image for the students to break through rather than break through our own image and present our true selves to the students.

Before we wish to change anything in students or the educational system, we ought to first see if there’s anything in ourselves that could be improved.

Why are so many of us troubled with feeling and so untroubled with thinking?

Human growth in our students does not stop at high school graduation. Human growth in professors does not stop with the receiving of the degree or the bestowal of the hood.

Why are so many professors more at ease presenting ourselves as fonts of knowledge and masters of our subject, and so uncomfortable with the perception that we are developing, fallible human beings.

I recall Kahil Gabran saying that the true teacher doesn’t give wisdom, but faith and lovingness.

It seems the more professionally renown a professor is, the more professionally renown that professor wants to be. The more books and articles a professor publishes, the more books and articles that professor wants to publish. The more conference papers that professors presents, the more conference papers that professor wants to present. The more grants a professor receives, the more grants that professor wants to receive. To achieve all this, that professor becomes more sensitive to what others think, and thus the more that professor loses his/her independence. Maybe the less a professor wants, the more that professor becomes.

Maybe we should care less in our classes about achieving the illusory goal of mastery of a subject and care more about instilling an appreciation and love of learning.

If we are to produce the leaders of tomorrow in our classes, should we not be concerned with what kind of leaders we are producing?

The truths in both my teaching and my life are only momentary perceptions of today which, if not constantly re-evaluated, can stagnate my potential as a growing teacher and human being.

Well, I thought I’d share these musings with you. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to think and reflect hard and heavy on them. Thanks Ray and Len.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

FOUR BOYS

Hi there from cold, very cold (down in the mid-20s) south Georgia. It’s so cold the cockroaches decided to wear sweats rather than eat them. Anyway, I thought I’d explain what Barbara meant by wanting to be like “the fourth boy.” She’s referring to a sort of parable about the meaning of grades that I tell each of my classes sometime in the early part of each quarter. It goes like this:

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Four boys enter a convenience store to purchase some munchies. The place is a madhouse. Cars are lined up outside to pump gas, people are screaming to have their pumps turned on. Inside, the place is jammed. Impatient customers are crowding the counter, vocally demanding that the clerk immediately check them out. Meanwhile, the harried clerk is nervously eyeing a suspicious person in the back corner of the store. In the midst of this bedlam, each boy brings a coke and bag of chips to the counter and each hands the clerk a five dollar bill. The distracted and frazzled clerk separately bags each purchase, takes the money from each boy, and returns to each boy five dollars in change. As the boys are about to leave the store, each realizes that he has received too much change. Each turns around and returns the money. Everyone applauds their actions; everyone praises them. “You all have earned an “A” in citizenship,” the store owner announced as he patted each on them on the back. “You have proven that you are honest, upright young men.” As a reward, he gives each of them a free bag of chips and a coke. All the boys, but one, proceed to prance around in the store like proud peacocks and then, like Little Jack Horner who just pulled out his thumb, rushed out to tell the world what good boys they are. But, did their performance tell the true story?
The first boy felt the clerk’s mistake was his find. He was going to keep the money without a second thought if he could get away with it. “Hey,” he said to himself, “this is a dog-eat-dog world. You have to get what you can even if you have to climb over bodies. Everyone else would keep the money so why shouldn’t I. I’m no sucker!” As he opened the door to leave the store, however, he hesitated. “What if someone saw what happened and says something,” he asked himself. “Hell, there’ll be another time.” Then, with some disappointment with his cowardice, afraid that he would be stopped and charged with theft, he turned around. Was he truly an honest, upright young man?

The second boy also wanted to keep the money. He did not feel he had done anything wrong. “After all,” he said to himself, “the clerk gave the money to me. It’s not like I stuck a gun in his ribs and demanded it as if I were a common thief. I didn’t rob anyone.” But, as he opened the door to leave the store, he hesitated and thought. “Hey, maybe I can get something bigger out of this for me then a few measly bucks. If I play my cards rights, people will notice me. Maybe, I’ll even get a reward.” So, he turned around ready to be praised and ready to publicly brag how honest a person he is. Was he truly an honest, upright young man?

The third boy immediately realized the clerk’s mistake, but took the money anyway. He didn’t feel there was an issue of stealing; it was just a stroke of good luck. “Hey,” he convinced himself, “that’s the throw of the dice. It’s like the lottery. Someone has to win.” But, as he approached the door he started feeling sorry for the clerk. And although he didn’t feel any overriding obligation to return the money, he didn’t want the clerk’s salary to be docked for the mistake. “Damn,” he cursed himself, “if the clerk wouldn’t get hurt I’d keep it. Anyway, I’ll get some thanks.” So, he turned around. Did he deserve the “A” for citizenship?

The fourth boy, the quietest one of the four, turned around unhesitatingly, without a second thought, as soon as he realized the clerk had made a mistake, simply because it was the right and honest thing to do. He didn’t feel he did anything out of the ordinary, and never said another word about it to anyone.

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Does, then, as Polonious would tell Laertes, the “grade proclaim the person?”

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

BARBARA

Hi there from dark, wet, cold “sunny, warm” south Georgia. Here I am dripping wet from the blasted rain that started coming down half way through my walk. I felt like I was in an Iron Man marathon, walking one way and swimming back the other. Anyway, between the curses and the “why me” I was thinking about an exciting and insightful discussion ensuing on one of the e-mail lists concerning grades. It is a subject about which I have very strong feelings, even more so having just reread a holiday greetings I had received a few weeks ago.

It’s a lengthy letter from a student in one of my classes from last quarter. I’ll call her “Barbara.” All I will say is that as far as a grade is concerned, she received a “C.” She did not have to write the letter. I guess she felt compelled to write it. She came into my office yesterday, maybe that’s what prompted me to share this letter with you, gave me permission to share it, and said she wanted to do something to help my new students.

“What do you think you should do,” I asked.

“I not sure,” she replied.

We talked and she was off to class. A couple of hours later, as I turned off the music with which I begin each class to get us in the mood to “get goin’, Barbara walked in and said, “Dr. Schmier, could you please sit down?” I looked at her, smiled, and while everyone was wondering, “What the hell is going on,” I sat down. Barbara introduced herself as a veteran, a “Schmierite veteran.” Her words told them about me, saying “he’s for real,” went over the entire syllabus always introducing a section with a “did he tell you this,” intermixing her comments with “you ain’t gonna be able to hide,” or “help each other” or “think about the whys and don’t memorize the whats” or “come in prepared” or “take a chance and do it,” and ending a section with a “he means it. You’re going to work your asses off.” Then, she gave the class her address and telephone number, and strongly invited anyone who needed help to call or stop over at her room at any time of day or night. She also said she had talked and arranged with one or two other “Schmierite veterans” to be in the library each day at certain hours to help with the library reading assignment “or anything else that pops up. Use us”, she urged. One student asked why she was doing all this. She answered, “because I didn’t get anything near out of the class what I am capable of getting and I don’t want you to be as stupid as I was.” From their journal entries, it would be an understatement to say that the students were impressed by Barbara and put at ease.

I am sharing this letter with you to cause us to reflect on our craft and to applaud and celebrate a very courageous, yes courageous, young lady:

Happy holidays, Dr. Schmier. You are a son of a bitch. You’re putting me through hell here at home. Actually, I did it to myself. That C grade I got has made me do some talking with two very upset parents who aren’t used to anything but As. Mom was upset that she couldn’t brag on me anymore. I told her she could, but in a different and better way. Dad called you a son of a bitch. I agreed, but I told him that you are a wonderful son of a bitch!!!

You put me through hell in your class. That wasn’t supposed to happen. My parents couldn’t understand why I had so much trouble. It was obvious to them that it was all your fault. After all, I was the valedictorian of my class, a straight A honors student. I was supposed to breeze through your class like I did in all my high school and my other college classes. All through school I was told that I was bright and smart and had a great future. I was told I was better than others. I was all this and all that. I really believed all that stuff and was really taken with myself and looked down on others. I thought I was really some hot stuff. All because of my grades.

I didn’t like it one bit when I came into your office that second week of class to impress you like I did the other professors and you weren’t impressed one bit. I was also annoyed when you took me out of the room into your real “office” in the hall to sit down and talked about my background and talked about yours, how because of trouble with your son you had realized a few years ago that you had a strong streak of arrogance in you and that it was standing in your way of being a better person and teacher, of reaching what you called “your truer potential.” You didn’t say a damn thing about me like you were supposed to. You caught me off guard. A teacher bearing his soul to me, a student. I could have cared less about you because I was concerned about me. Later, too much later when it was too late, I wondered why you had told me that. I figured it out, but wouldn’t tell you and wouldn’t admit it until it was too late. I kept blaming you to everybody for my trouble. I wouldn’t cooperate with my triad members and did just enough to get by. You were telling me that I was arrogant and that it was holding me back. I was and it did because I wouldn’t be honest with myself. I think you said about yourself during that talk that no one is best because your best can always be better, no one is best in everything and there is always someone out there who is better than you were in something even teaching. By the time we finished, I was so mad I could have killed you. You were at the top of my shit list for a bunch of weeks and I wasn’t going to do anything you said. But, you were right. Well, this class has started knocking that arrogance out of me. I’m not sure when it happened, maybe it was that piece you read to us about blueberries, but Melinda said you were that one teacher for her and for a few others. Well, I had to write you that to tell you that I’m one of those others.

Now I know that all my teachers taught me was how to pass their tests and those others that everyone took including the SATs. They taught me how to memorize. I call it tell-memorize-test-forget kind of teaching. The only thing I really learned was how to forget very quickly after a test. My last year or so, I cruised on my reputation. Teachers gave me “As” I can now honestly say I didn’t deserve. I once handed in a paper with some blank pages inside and got it back with no comments marked an “A.” He never even read it! I think some were afraid to be honest and give me less than an A because it would reflect badly on them. I sure learned, not memorized, a lot of history in this class, but not enough. Just enough to pass. I’d like to take the class again and really dig into it. I appreciate it now, but I think the most important thing I learned was humility. There were people in this class and in my triad who had lots lower high school grades but knew how to think better than I could, and I had to start learning from them! Now I know what you mean when you say grades are worth shit. Everyone says we have to have them, and I guess I still have to play the stupid game, but now I know it’s not the most important game in town because they don’t say a thing about what I know and what I can know and what I am and what I can be and what I will become. I know now that what’s important is that journey you always talked about in class, not the destination, that whatever I do, like that fourth boy, I do honestly and fairly and humbly while considering and helping others along the way just like you did for me.

Yesterday, Barbara showed that she got more out of the class than she thought. More than I thought. She became, in my eyes, a valedictorian in life.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

JANE

Lordy, it was miserably cold and breezy and cloudy out there today in the dawning morning. It was anything but inviting for a walk. To the blues of new winter walking grubbies, today you can add the red of my nose! But, if the temperature outside me was icy, inside I was warmed by something that happened yesterday on that harried first day of class.

The first day is always tough for me. I go to class with a mixture of excitement, anticipation, anxiety, expectation. Each class is a new adventure; in each class are 60 new adventures. There are the handouts of the syllabus, the metaphor exercises, the riddles, the introductions. I get sweaty-palmed, nervous, never sure if I’m sufficiently prepared to introduce, explain, answer. I get that sinking feeling in my stomach as they throw the questions at me with “is he for real” or “what did I get into” stares: triads? journaling? tidbits? office in the hall? attitude and effort? no lectures? grades are unimportant?

I walked out of class drained and convinced that I had blown it, that I was more confusing than usual, less ready than needed to be, more unconvincing than normal. So, there I was, behind my desk, asking myself in my daily journal why didn’t I pick an easier way to do things. Then, like an apparition my answer suddenly appeared. As if from nowhere, Jane (not her real name), a student from one of my last quarter’s classes, out of breath and a bit harried, popped her head around the doorway. She had a nice smile on her face. There was a slight brightness in her eyes and a spring in her step. “Hi, I’m running to my English class. I just wanted to stop to tell you that I’m going to be OK. I’m on my way. Thanks. Talk with ya later.” She pulled her head back and disappeared as quickly as she had materialized before I could say a word. I quietly pushed some papers aside on my cluttered desk, put my feet up, leaned back, took a very slow sip of coffee, put my feet down, straightened up and then wrote in my journal: “It is going to be OK. It’s a very good day.”

Let me tell you something about Jane. I want you to know about her. I want you to know that students are persons, that they are someone’s child, brother or sister, husband or wife, father or mother. I want you to know the power a teacher, as a fellow human being, possesses to spark, to create, to inspire, to help, to guide, to rescue other people if inclined and willing to exert the effort, to endure the pain, to have the compassion.

Jane is an eighteen year old, first year student from a small, impoverished north Florida county, the first female in her family to complete high school and the first person in her family to go on to college. On the first day of class last quarter, she caught my eye. I don’t know why, but she did. Anyone who cared to look at her could see the unhappiness and fright that screamed out from her face. She would walk into class limp, almost painful. She would sit in class, motionless and without expression. She looked like a storefront mannequin. It was obvious that distrust of herself and others isolated her from herself, from the members of her triad, and from the class as a whole. She wouldn’t contribute during the weekly quizzes or to the class discussions. But, during my regular study workshops for the students in the library, I saw her studying, off by herself, uninterested in interacting with the other students. She religiously did her share of the triad’s daily and weekly written assignments. On her weekly self-evaluations she would write: “I’m a listener,” “I don’t like to talk,” “I don’t have anything important to contribute,” “I’m not comfortable around people,” and so on.

I spoke with her on several occasions asking what I could do to help her. I made supportive and encouraging comments on her weekly self-evaluations. I told her, that if she couldn’t speak out in class, then work closely with the other members of her triad. Nothing. Then, I noticed that she listened closely, intently, to the open and honest discussions the class had on racial and women issues. It was the first time she had taken a visible interest in the class. On the next evaluation, about six or seven weeks into the course, she wrote with words I remember to this day on her evaluation: “I know I am not doing what I am capable of doing and I know I have issues that I can’t face and I know there are issues so deep I need help to find them otherwise I ain’t going nowhere.” I took that as a signal. I asked her to talk with me in my “office” out on one of the campus benches. “Jane,” I said with a plea in my voice, “I know you want to be something.”

“I try, but I’m not sure I can.”

“Yes, you can. How can I help you?”

“You can’t do nothing.”

“Why?”

“Why you bothering with me?”

“Because you’re worth it.”

“No, I ain’t.”

“Yes, you are and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. I’ll be damned if I am going to give up. One of us has to keep fighting for you.”

“I ain’t worth it.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You wouldn’t be worth it if you’ve been fucked by your father as much as I’ve been?”

I went sheet white. My hands became stone cold and clammy. I could feel a sweat breaking out. I started to shake. I felt a painful tightness in my gut. I mashed my teeth. My eyes glassed over. I was stunned, angry, sad, pained. I have read about it and heard about it, but it was in the flesh in front of me. After what seemed like an eternity of silence and paralysis, I told Jane that I couldn’t help her. She looked at me with pain in her eyes as if I had betrayed her. I told her that I wanted to help her, but I didn’t have the expertise. She had to talk with a professional.

“I’m not going to talk to no strangers about me.”

“You’re talking to me and I’m really a stranger.”

“You’re no stranger. You’re a friend and you give a damn.

“Then trust me.”

“I can’t trust no one.”

“Why are you here?”

“Honestly, to get away from my daddy.”

“Do you want to stop running from your father and start coming to college for yourself?”

“I think so, but I don’t know how.”

“Trust me.”

With an abrupt “no” Jane got up and started walking off. She hadn’t gotten more than ten feet when she stopped, turned around, and asked quietly in almost a desperately pleading whisper, “Will you go with me?” I did. After I introduced her to the university psychologist, I went home. I could hardly walk that block and a half to my house. As soon as I went in, I had a stiff glass of wine, a real stiff glass, and slumped onto the couch drained of every ounce of energy, thinking “I don’t need this.”

Two days later, without my asking, Jane told me that she had been referred to a local psychiatrist whom she was seeing twice a week. There seemed to be an aura of relief surrounding her. During the last three weeks of class, I noticed Jane starting to make a valiant attempt to participate in class discussions, a word, a phrase, an occasional sentence. It was as if just getting things out was a relief in itself. The other members of her triad commented positively in their evaluations on her activities within the triad and involvement with them. I noticed that she started contributing an answer or two during the last three weekly quizzes. She assumed the role of Dorothea Dix in her triad’s final exam presentation. The other two members of her triad voluntarily came to me at the end of the quarter, assaulted my office, and fought, fought hard, on her behalf. “The hell with the first 2/3 of the quarter. Look at what she was doing by the end….She told us some about herself, but that has nothing to do with it….She got the idea for the talk show and worked with us on it….In my book that is worth a hell of a lot….If you’re half the person we think you are, you’ll pass her….If you don’t give her a passing grade, and I mean a ‘C’, I’m going to pester you until you do!” Jane doesn’t know they stood up for her. It was nice, very nice, to see students engaged in something other than selfish cutthroat competition. I was going to pass her anyway. It’s that attitude and effort and performance stuff in which I believe.

Jane had sent me a holiday greeting card. In it she wrote this short message:

You’ll never know what a difference you made in my life. I’m still seeing someone and will keep seeing her until I don’t have to. I think that might be for a long time, but I don’t care. For the first time that I can remember, I am really starting to fight for me. It’s hard, but you made it easier. You’re the only one who cared enough to talk and listen. You’re the only one I know who believed in me and showed me that there’s something inside me worth looking for. If anyone tries to poor-mouth me again, I’ll just think of the time when you said, “you’re worth it.” Lots of students say you’re a mean son-of-a-bitch. I and lots of others know better. I’ll come by and give you a ‘hi.’

I have a simple idea, maybe simplistic. It’s not even a new idea, but in collegiate classrooms it is a generally ignored or avoided idea. Yet, it has a profound impact on how I think about education, teaching and learning, and how I act with students and those around me. My idea is that if students feel powerless inside and outside the class, they get resigned; if they are confused about themselves academically or emotionally, they get nervous. Anxiety and apathy are the two curses in the classroom that affect performance. We so compartmentalize students. We have the spotlighted intellectual and academic on one hand, segregated from the often separated and neglected emotional on the other. By such separation, the two are divorced. What we should do is to connect the two and to be concerned with both. Unless we are aware of, sensitive to, and address the underlying emotional distress that students carry around, it’s very hard to motivate them to achieve.

My idea of teaching is to help students reach their inner strengths for development, put themselves at ease, feel true about themselves, feel more engage, in the class and life in general, develop strategies, operate more effectively in the class and in the world. What has helped me the most is to question whether the highest human function is the brain, whether the source of true “competency” and “mastery” lies in the brain. I tend to think it is the soul, the soul in the Aristotelian sense, not in the ecclesiastical context. To speak of that word, soul, that immeasurable essence of us all, might make some intellectuals uncomfortable. I’m sorry. I find that so many teachers are afraid of that word or its synonyms, “attitude,” “character,” “spirit” and “emotion.” I like the word “soul.” It’s a much more accurate word than “spirit” or “emotion.” To me, “soul” is the embracing three-dimensional word that brings together and blends intimately and inseparably “mind,” “body,” “emotion.” That is what journaling, self-evaluations, triads in my classes are all about. For me, everything starts with attitudes and feelings toward yourself.

Yes, Jane answered my journal question. Teaching is joy; it is happiness; it is accomplishment; it is meaning; it is purpose. Jane, and others like her, are the real reasons why I teach. Watching her and other students grow and transform is like walking at the moment a new day dawns, when the those first rays of the sun begin to penetrate the darkness, when I feel the vibrant appearance of life. For me, nothing scholarly is as exciting, as enchanting, as loving, as humbling as the appearance of new life. And when that happens, I live.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

THE MIND IS THE FUTURE’S FACTORY

I went out a bit later than usual this morning. Nevertheless, it was still miserable. It was cold, and after a night of wind and rain, it was biting out there. I was thinking about a comment someone made yesterday about my students’ final exam presentations.

“High schoolish,” this professor branded them in an obviously pejorative tone. “Void of any written critical thinking methods and signs of subject mastery.”

“Why?” I asked myself. “Because my students chose not to express themselves verbally in the form of a ponderous essay? Is that the only mode by which perceptive understanding, resourceful creativity, analytical thinking, and penetrating reflection can be communicated? Who says so? Us? What makes our imposed, arbitrary standard, which demands demonstration of supposed competency by a single mode of expression, the only accurate criteria for achievement? How does this measuring straight jacket equate with the diverse perceptions, the diverse personalities, the diverse styles of learning, and the diverse forms and ranges of talent and ability that so often lie hidden within the students, condemned, and suppressed by both our own myopic teaching practices and ‘assessment’ measures?”

No, to say that classroom performance must occur within only one medium, does not necessarily reveal competency so much as the result may be false incompetency. You can’t control the human imagination. You shouldn’t. You should create an environment to let it flourish. The successful industries for tomorrow are becoming less and less the brick and steel buildings of old with their obedient mass production lines and air polluting smoke stacks. The successful factories of tomorrow, however, will not be the new technology or the human mind alone. I recall Thomas Edison’s warning that whatever the mind of man creates, his heart and soul must control and guide. The single most valuable asset of tomorrow’s industry will be the marriage of the human mind and human spirit. That union will determine the utilization of that technology: the human mind with its vast storehousing capacity, adventurous curiosity, unbounded imagination, and daring creativity; the guiding and energizing human spirit with its enthusiasm, confidence, courage, hopes, dreams, pride, integrity, honesty, confidence and responsibility; the wedded mind and spirit of the “I wonder…..,” “what if….,” “let’s see….,” “maybe….,” “will it improve…..,” “can it help…..,” “could it be…..,” “I’m sure I can…..”

The state of this marriage affects the state of learning. Yet, what do so many do in education? They still use “smoke stack” readin’, writin’, ‘rithmetic educational methods; they still concentrate on more the mental brawn of information transmission, acquisition, and collection. So many are still more inclined to practice educational crowd control, to herd students into impersonal and uncaring holding pens called large classrooms, to place students at a mass production belt forcing them to engage in a string of meaningless, dull, stultifying, repetitive, parroting, memorizing routines: “Do it this way….,” “Remember this….,” “Memorize that…,” “Think this way….,” “Say or write it that way….,” “These are the answers…,” So many create more often than not an environment of copiers instead of creators, memorizers instead of thinkers, test passers instead of learners, followers instead of leaders. They instill fear of trying by telling students that mistakes are sins rather than steps toward understanding. They inform rather than empower. They tailor student curiosity to fit test questions. They teach the test to students. They foster a non-productive competition in which there are winners and losers. It’s a cold, unthinking, unreasoning, and too often a destructive immoral process of bland “whats”; it’s not a warm, caring, supportive, encouraging, productive, creative, imaginative, and moral one of insightful and inspired “whys” and “purposes.” What has regrettably been accepted so often as a process for the yesterdays and the remnants of today, is not going to be worth much for the tomorrow.

What, then, do we do, or should we do, beyond the dispensing of information? We should see teaching and learning as an adventure into the individual human mind, human spirit, human emotion, and human soul. It requires the daring, courage, curiosity of an explorer who never really knows what lies beyond the podium but knowing full well that beyond is where the journey goes. Teaching is not lecturing to a mass of nameless students; it is not talking down to them. Teaching is conversing intimately at the emotional level with individual students; it’s helping, encouraging, and supporting each student to find for him/herself that adventurous spirit within him/herself, tap into it, and use it to become future adventurers.

Until we are adventurers in our classroom, however, until we engage in a never ending quest to see what’s out there beyond the podium’s horizons, we cannot produce adventurers. We cannot encourage our students to strike out beyond today’s horizons into the unknowns of their imagination. We cannot guide the students to be what we aren’t or no longer are; we cannot excite them or reasonably expect them to grasp life’s visions and to reach for the stars of tomorrow when so many of us have taken so much life out of the subject, out of the class, and out of ourselves.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–