QUESTIONS I ASK MYSELF

I came in from my walk this morning with my stomach and back covered with a scattering of little reddening, splotchy bumps. That’s what I get for going out barechested. I must traveled through a formation of mosquitos squadrons whose dive-bombing accuracy had been honed by practice runs at a weekend of Memorial Day picnics! Time for bug repellant!!

While unknowingly being attacked, I was thinking about Buddhism, the WIZARD OF OZ, and teaching. An interesting combination isn’t it. I guess it is the end of the term when I reflect on my performance in an effort to assess and improve upon it in the coming quarter. I read a fable yesterday in a book discussing Buddhist philosophy. As the story went, a young, inexperienced teacher was about to assume the duties as tutor to the heir apparent. The young prince was not an attentive and devoted student. The young teacher, understanding the consequences of failure, went to his own mentor, asking how he is to deal with a youngster of this sort. The mentor smiled and replied, “The first thing you must do is not to improve him, but to improve yourself.” For some reason that had brought to mind one of the ending scenes in the WIZARD OF OZ. There is Judy Garland, in the Emerald City, forlornly watching the ex-wizard drifting off in his balloon. As she laments that she and Toto will never get back to Kansas, the beautiful Billy Burke floats down in her bubble and tells Dorothy that she always had the power within her to return. She just didn’t want it enough.

What does this have to do with teaching. I think a great deal, for it seems reasonable that if what students believe about themselves and their abilities effects their efforts and impacts on their performance, then it stands to reason that is no less true about me, my efforts and my performance. For we all behave according to our beliefs, that what I do–my practices and techniques–are reflections of my attitudes and the atmosphere I allow to exist in the classroom; and my attitudes towards students have a significant influence on the prospects of student effort because they not only influence my behavior, but are transmitted to the students and influence their attitudes about themselves and their consequent performance.

But, it is not enough for me to believe that students can achieve. It is not enough to believe that in each student, what an e-mail correspondent degradingly called human deserts, there somewhere lies a hidden, untapped well of refreshing, nourishing, cool, sweet water. It is not enough for me to say or write that students are sacred, valuable individuals who are entitled to be treated with trust, dignity, respect.

The art of divining for that water is neither easy nor totally mastered. Teaching is not a static craft. Teaching is a active ever-changing craft of becoming. It’s never perfect. It’s never in a state of completion, but is forever developing. Like knowledge which it is supposed to impact, there is never an end to acquiring new concept and insights, but an ever-present and intense desire for more.

But, there is more to that dynamism than being creative, productive, sharing, imparting the satisfaction and joy of learning, and to assist others. I am always suspicious whether what I think is my current best is really the best I can do. For the truth is that I bring along with me my humanity. I bring onto the campus and into the class room not just my caring for and love of students, not just my commitment to my craft, but my human frailties as well. Courage is intertwined with fear; the ability to assist is mixed with my abilities to hurt; my commitment contends with my uncertainties; by quest to perfect meets my imperfections. And, there are my contradictions and my complexities. Any mistake I may make–and I will make mistakes–will inadvertently send a message to a student or to all the students that I would never imagine sending. Making mistakes is part of life, but when a mistake lowers the dignity of a student and not to care or be aware of that tragedy is far more serious than a student not doing well on a test.

I, therefore, have a responsibility to constantly talk to myself, to have an internal dialogue with myself as well as with both my students and my colleagues. It is a process of reinventing what I do and recreating my craft each day, of being open to new experiences and ways of doing what I do to make for fuller use of my potential, of realizing that criticism can be a positive force for improvement, growth, and change, of being flexible to alternate ways, of continually recognizing the wonder of students.

These are some questions as they came to me that I thought I should ask myself before the next quarter began–and ask the students about me. I’m sure I will think of more:

1. Am I creating an image that tells students that I here to help them construct, not destroy, them as sacred, unique, individual persons?
2. Do I show the students that I am aware of and interest in them as unique individuals?
3. Do I make the class appetizing for the students where they want to come and don’t want to miss?
4. Am I open, honest, and real with my students?
5. Do I make every effort to create private lines of communication?
6. Do I encourage the students to try something new?
7. Do I let students have a voice in the course?
8. Do I let students challenge me?
9. Do I teach in the most interesting and exciting manner possible?
10. Do I distinguish between student’s mistake and their personal failure?
11. Do I promote mutual respect and cooperative effort?
12. Am I calm, accepting, support and encouraging?
13. Do I not just learn not the name of each student but get to know each of them?
14. Do I share my feelings with my students?
15. Am I respectful and courteous with my students?
16. Do I attend to each and every student without favorites?
17. Do I notice things that are important to students and comment favorably on them?
18. Do I allow room for students to be active and natural?
19. Is the atmosphere in the class one of success rather than failure?
20. Do I afford students the opportunity to make mistakes without penalty?
21. Do I make positive comments?
22. Do I offer extra support and encouragement to those students who need it?
23. Do I take special opportunities to praise students for their successes?
24. Do I set tasks which are and appear to be within the students abilities?
25. Do I really listen for meanings rather than words?
26. Do I create an environment of success rather than failure?
27. Am I honestly aware of how students are experiencing things?
28. Do I make the students feel that they each belong in class?
29. Do I make the students feel that I care?
30. Do I create a learning environment that encourages students to grow in feelings? of personal worth as well as academically?
31. Do I genuinely value and respect each student?
32. Am I considerate, understanding and friendly?
33. Do I allow students the opportunity to release their emotions?
34. Do the student think I am a boring person?
35. Do I tell you by my words and actions that I want to be your friend?
36. Do I make the classroom a memorable place?
37. Do I do my best to insure that the students come first?
38. Is the air in the classroom that we all breath warmed by respect, courtesy, and civility?
39. Do I support the students taking risks to do what THEY believe should be done?
40. Do I truly encourage cooperative activity and give students a to have a voice in their own destiny?
41 Do I show them a confidence that I know each is competent and can accomplish?
42. Is the classroom lit up with the fun and joy of discovery?
43. Is the classroom an exciting place of exploration, curiosity, and fascination?
44. Do I encourage students to stretch and challenge themselves?

On second thought, I think I should ask myself these questions and struggle with the answers every day.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

ROBERTA AND KIM

I was reading a student’s journal this morning. As I read her entries, I felt myself being enveloped by a majestic grace. The more I read the more I realized that the purpose of teaching is to help another person crack their hard, encasing shell to reveal their life-giving kernel, to help bring something forth from someone else, to make a difference however slight in the life of someone else by my presence, to be involved in some way in the process of someone’s growth. When that happens the class room becomes a very special place, filled with the awesome wonder of magic, the radiance of rapture and the indescribable beauty of mystery. It becomes a place where suns can rise, seeds can sprout, flowers can bloom, and stars can come out. It becomes a thrilling, amazing and humbling place. This journal was written by a non- traditional student I’ll call Roberta. She gave me permission to share her journal with you. You’ll see why it stirred me so deeply:

Monday– Sometimes I feel like I could write a ton of
things in this journal. I’ve always been able to cope
with my feelings, thoughts, etc. Today I feel very
stressed and need to unload my worries.

I’ve got a geography exam coming up next week, and I do
not feel good about it. I really need more time to
study, but I go from 5 AM to 11 PM non-stop. It’s been
really hard for me to juggle college and my family.
Everyone seems much too demanding. I’m trying to be
everything to everyone–wife, mom, student, employee.
I’m really tired physically and mentally. I cannot find
a time that is convenient for everything. I’m seriously
thinking about not going to college summer qtr. I think
maybe I’m just burned out. I’ve been going for six
quarters near full-time. I need a break. I hate to
though. I really want to finish my degree. But, I’m not
sure now I can do it. I feel like a belly aching brat
doing all this complaining–but the fact still remains.
I’m exhausted. There is just not enough of me to go
around. I can’t do it!!

Thurs– I’m gonna drop this geography class. I can’t do
as good as I’d like to.

Mon– I made a 74 on my geog. test. Yuk. But I’ve
decided I’m not going to drop this class. I’m upset with
my grade–but I’ll just have to try harder.
I realized I am a hypocrite. When Kim couldn’t fall off
the table, I talked to her and convinced her that she had
it inside to do it. She just had to take a chance and
trust both herself and others. We talked about the need
to climb her mountain–her desk–and face herself, and
talked her into falling. But when I reach my “mountain”
I want to bail out. I mentioned it to Kim in passing and
she said it wasn’t much different from falling off a
desk. That got me to talk to myself as if I was talking
to Kim. If Kim could find that strength and courage
within her, I know I can. I am going to stay and just
give it my best. The hell with the grade. If I get only
part way up the mountain at least I’m that much further
up that I would have been if I stayed in the valley. I
have to tell Kim.

Thurs– I told Kim yesterday what I wrote in my journal
this past week and how she helped me see what I could do
and what she meant to me. A broad smile broke out on her
face. She was so encouraged by it. She said she never
thought she could help someone that much and do something
that important. I guess she learned something about
herself from me just like I learned something about
myself from her. I think we both learned from each other
that there is more to learn in this place than some facts
and there is more to getting an education than passing a
course with some grade. I guess we can be teacher of
each other.

For this moment, a shared experience took two separate individuals and made them one, combining caring, nurturing, giving, sharing, accepting, confirming, changing. Roberta had reached out and touched the heart of Kim as Kim inadvertently had done to Roberta. They each will leave the class in a few weeks having found a bit more of themselves realizing at least for the moment that because of them someone else became something more, that each of their actions had reverberated to touched and affect at least one other person, and so each became something more.
Now I admit, most people might not put this little episode in the same category as a newsworthy dramatic earth-shaking event or a daring life-saving feat or an historic discovery or a great artistic triumph. But, for me Kim and Roberta were to each other as important as a Jonas Salk, an Isaac Newton, a Buddha, a George Washington, or a Martin Luther King. For me, anyone that leads to something good in another person is significant whether it affects only themselves or one person or one million, whether it is recognized or not with fame and awards. I don’t think you really need to see a name or a description of an accomplishment in print for it to leave an indelible mark. It those supposedly small achievements which for me loom large and for me give teaching a very special meaning and makes the class room a very special place.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

THE INTERNET AND ME

As I left this morning for a walk, I noticed a large, magnificently engineered spider web shimmering in the moonlight. It’s strands were attached to and brought together in common purpose some day lilies, a rose bush, a few purple cone flowers, and an overhanging branch of a Japanese magnolia. And I thought of a brief discussion I had with by an e-mail friend about, from my own experiences, the values of the internet in terms of education, professionalism, and community. Now, I am no guru when it comes to discussing the places you can reach, the things you can see, the people you can meet, the information you can garnished, the education you can receive as you ride on this electronic superhighway. I know tomes have been written on the psychology participating on the internet, the sociology of the internet, and all the imaginable –ologies involved in the networking process. I would just like to offer a sliver of a few quick personal reflections.

First, let me say something I have already said a long time ago. How the internet operates is a very technical thing. What WE do with the internet is a very human thing. I will add, however, using the internet serves little meaningful purpose unless it helps tap our human potential for life-long learning and teaching, and makes us all a bit more humane.

That being said, the internet constantly reminds me that I live in a time of remarkable connectedness, where distance can be close community. Imagine, if I send this message out on all the electronic lists of which I am a member, it will go out instantly to at least 10,000 people around the world! And if some of them strike up a conversation, people will be talking to people from different walks of professional life in different lands who otherwise would never have known each other, cared to know each other, cared about each other, much less known of each other’s existence. One message, to 10,000 readers passing over natural barriers, oblivious to mountains and rivers and oceans, ignoring manmade borders without regard to restricting visas and passports or inspecting customs officials or imposing armed guards! One message, entering into a host of officers and homes as if invited to a cordial electronic cocktail party. It’s exciting, fascinating, fantastic.

I find myself joined globally in a way that I am only seconds away from people on the other side of the planet when I need information, when I need guidance, when I need to share, or when someone needs me to listen. So very few give a flip about nationality, religion, accent, age, degrees, profession, gender, or race. It gives me a stronger uniting sense of human and global bonding and relegates disuniting differences to the musty attic of irrelevance. For me the internet forges a super-classroom or a super campus, and, at times, an extended loving family. On a scale I could not have imagined several years ago, the internet gives me a sense of being a part of something larger than myself; it gives me a sense of belonging; it gives me a feeling in my bones that I am not alone; it gives me a sense that there are extended hands out there ready to help, support, and share in jubilation, and in some cases, offer comfort to ease pain; it is a relationship from which I draw satisfaction, encouragement, perseverance, strength and endurance.

There are people on this list whose voice I have never heard; whose face I have never seen. As a “toucher”, I regret that I can’t flesh them out. But I count them respectfully as my colleagues, as my CLOSE friends, as my teachers, some as my students, whom I would love to meet, with whom to have a toast, and who I would someday love to hug. I am closer to some of the people working on another campus or living on another continent than I am with my colleagues on my campus. And I have had more intimate conversations with both students and teachers across continents and oceans than I have had with colleagues in the next building. That is fascinating, exciting, and fantastic–and in some ways sad. I also have found to my unexpected delight that the internet can have, if given a chance, a leveling and humanizing effect. Think about it. I was just conversing with a high school student whom I have never met and whose very existence I didn’t know about until last week. She is graduating from a small mid-Western high school. Her first message started with a “Dear Louis.” Can you imagine that? Can you imagine her coming up to me on my campus or at her school, before or after I gave a presentation, never having met me however much of my writings she may have read, and greeting me with a “hi, Louis?” I don’t think so. Yet, except for the most pretentious, we all come across on the internet as just people, stripped naked of our positions, degrees, authorities. I constantly talk with individuals on a first name basis. We all do, and it happens almost instantly–and that would rarely happen if we were physically gathered at a conference. Unless someone wishes to tell me, I don’t know if anyone is a college, community college, or university “professor”; I don’t know if anyone is an elementary or secondary “school teacher;” I don’t ask if I am talking with a “student.” The internet allows me with greater ease to ignore these buzzwords, to ignore the barriers of labelling that otherwise interject themselves between people, in which we normally freeze and separate people with de-humanizing “I know all about you” stereotyping and divisive walls. I know we have to use these categorizing words to give us a handle on conversation. But, they are so separating. I’d love to throw them out the window. The internet lets us do just that, to just talk, if we wish, with mutual respect, person to person, without the damn distancing labels. And when we talk people, we see everything from a different perspective; we see that everything is about people, nothing or no one is irrelevant, and the differences are inconsequential compared to the common bonds of interest and humanity.

And finally, when another same high school student ended his message with “I count you as one of my teachers”, or when my favorite fourth graders taught me a lesson in humility, I think how the internet affords me untold and unimagined opportunity to change, develop and grow; to learn about me and others, to learn from and teach others, to learn about and teach about the importance of others, their ideas and efforts, their human dignity and respectability. We cannot grow in this world without taking in other worlds; and the more worlds we take in, the more we become; and the more we become the more we discover we are less then what we thought we were; and the more we discover that we are less then what we thought we were, the more we become far more than what we think we are.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

CAVES, WEBS, AND THE HOMELESS

Well, spring’s lightness zipped through town in a blur like an express train causing me to move on the street like a slow, lumbering freight train. At 5:00 this morning the effort to slog through the overbearing heat and humidity that hung heavy in the air made it difficult to appreciate either the playful melodies being chirped by choirs of singing birds or the back-beat of expectant deep throated mating barks that made the two inch chameleons sound like huge, excited bird dogs. Thinking about something I read yesterday in a student’s journal yesterday didn’t help. It made it difficult if not impossible to think about and share at this moment how excited I’ve been the last few weeks about the talent, ability, creativity, imagination and learning that the students in my classes had displayed in their skits and plays. I still am excited about how students can learn so much easier, better and more if they are afforded the opportunity to braille learning. But, this morning I found myself thinking about caves, spider webs, and the homeless.

Have you noticed lately how our school yards and campuses are overrun with the homeless. Oh, you won’t see outward telltale eyesores: makeshift shanties plaguing the lawns; sleeping unwashed bodies spread out in the doorways or on benches; unkept hair or tattered clothing; shopping carts loaded with society’s junk being pushed around or sacks thrown over shoulders; someone shuffling about with their hand extended. But, a homelessness of the spirit pervades our educational institutions. Look up from the blackboard or lectern and you will see the inner telltale eyesores: hollow stares, smileless lips, blank faces, limp bodies, heaving sighs of boredom, fidgeting of meaninglessness. So many students feel so all alone, so disconnected, while among many. We may be teaching them how to read, write, calculate, spell, diagnose, but I’m not sure they are learning how to be in community with their learning.

By being in community with learning, I don’t mean having access to or possessing information; I don’t mean going to academic classes or engaged in assignments or studying for an exam or roaming the stacks of the library; I don’t mean being surrounded by the latest technological gadgets or by purveyors of information or by peers. We can browse in a store, walk up and down aisles, touch things prettily packaged on the shelves to catch our eye and lure us to buy. But if we do not connect with any of those things in a meaningful and purposeful way because we don’t know what to do with them, why we should buy them, why we should take them home, and how we should make them part of our lives.

Instead students feel threatened, belittled, pushed, pulled, dragged, overwhelmed, starved, ladened, smothered–trapped. Read this eloquent, but bemoaning, passage from this student’s journal: “in your class I feel so free and safe to soar like a bird leaping off a cliff wherever and however high I wish and am able. But, you’re such an exception. Throughout school in all my classes even though I graduated with honors I have felt like a fly snared on a spider’s web. I frantically struggle to free myself from a predator’s trap to flutter how and where I wish to fly only to get more imprisoned in the tightening strands that restrict my movement. I while I fight to live my life, the spider weaves her enclosing silky cell of a cocoon around me to be a meal that it will later devour. It’s not much different on this campus.”

Eloquent, but tragic. Tragic because metaphors for learning should be an offering of life not of death; of liberation, not imprisonment; of opening of visions, not blinding sight.

By community I mean a sense of being comfortable around learning, of feeling supported, fed, nurtured, and informed by it; that offers a feeling of being charged, electrified; a feeling of soaring freedom; a feeling of being changed, enlarged, expanded, stretched, or happy; a feeling drawn to it and other ideas, feeling at home and warmed by the dancing flames of fulfillment, mesmerized by the crackling sparks of growth and development, comforted by the glowing embers of just human thought in general.

In order for our students, to take advantage of the opportunity to be knowledgeable and thoughtful, to want to take advantage of that offering, they have to feel comfortably in commune with, attached to, affiliated with, allied with both our teaching and their learning. Ideas, concepts, principles, issues, and plain ole information have to be brought into their lives in a manner with which they feel at ease, confident, and eager at the prospect of acquiring, learning and utilizing that new information. Their exposure should be a prolonged engaged sip of soothing, cool, delicious water from a meandering brook, not a quick, sharp slurp from a torrential waterfall that painfully rips at your lips. The exposure and display should not create stress and entrapment, but meaningfully stresses release, individual growth, change, development, discovery, and excitement.

All this means that teaching is not easy or peaceful. Forget that the students are different from each other, from class to class, from term to term. In any given class and term, the students are changing all the time. We’re changing all the time. Every time we both go into class, every time we discuss and debate and exchanges we have changed; we have learned something new about ourselves and each other, and thus have become new persons. Teaching is an investment in that change. Teachers must believe in change otherwise we wouldn’t be teaching. Every time we enter the classroom, talk with a student, touch another person on e-mail, we teach something to someone, we learn something from someone. Something is ingested; something is digested; something happens to it; something grows, and a new person emerges. I really don’t know why people aren’t just dying to teach. It’s a fabulous adventure, maybe the greatest. I’m different for having written this to you, for having read what you write to me. Teaching is a matter of becoming, not having been or being. And when you are changing, that means you have to constantly adjust to changing, constantly face new obstacles, constantly have to plot new paths. That’s the joy and excitement of teaching. It’s the real trip!! Like my flowers, every day is new. I don’t think teaching is a drag. I may be the drag. You may be the drag. But, not teaching!! You know, that’s why I can’t really be bothered with retirement. I’m too damned busy having fun teaching, growing because of my teaching, living because of my teaching. You live when you start, dare, to trust yourself, risk yourself and experiment with your teaching.

In the last analysis, however, I cannot teach anyone anything. I can’t sell or impose; I can only share. I can cook up a delicious meal whose aroma would tickle their nasal passages, make their mouths water, and caress their palates. I can make the presentation of each dish eye-catching. I can attractively decorate the table and offer impeccable service. But, I cannot not make anyone eat. All I can be is an excited, wondrous, magical seducer. I can invite them to sit with me at the table and taste what I east. I can take a morsel of that food for thought and soul, alluringly swirl my tongue around, and enticingly wet and cup and curl my lips, move my mouth in motions of ecstacy, sway my body in waves of delight, close my eyes in sensuous arousal, and whisper soft sounds of inner glow and satisfaction. I can make it attractive and exciting and joyful, and lure a student into taking just a taste.

I think there is a table full of wonders out there and inside each of us. Education is a way of leading people to both sites. I think the best way to teach is to model. Without telling anybody anything, without teaching anybody anything, I AM what I want others to experience. I can make people wonder that if I am so crazy about learning, maybe learning is worth learning about. I can have a ball at the ball and entice some to join me on the floor in the dance and encourage them with every step.

Someone said that birds never sing in caves. I think it was Thoreau. Nor do students feeling trapped as prey on webs. We make our classrooms into joyless and silencing caves and deadly webs. So, for me to teach, for students to learn, we both have to walk out from the cave and destroy the webs so that we can be free to experiment, to try, to fail. That’s exhilarating, joyful, happy, wonderful–and scary. You can say that you’re satisfied with your position, but when you decide to change, you’re shaking my complacency; you’re afflicting your comfort at teaching while comforting your affliction to teach.

But we’ve taken the natural joy and excitement out of both teaching and learning. It seems from my experience whenever anyone want to introduce fun into the school experience, they take the students out from the class room. And yet learning in the classroom should be fun and joyful, wondrous and exciting. The class room should resound with the noises of delight, the cacophony of exploration, the din of discovery. For every time you learn something new you become something new and discover something new about yourself. That’s damn exciting. I think we are far too sane on our campuses. I think we are far too rational on the campus and in meetings and in the classroom; I think we are far too ordered, CONTROLLING, organized and predictable. We’re too deep into the cave, too restricted by the web. We are too often practicing the *I* and MY of teaching rather than the YOU and YOUR of learning. Order and predictability and control are not the signs of the faithful, and they only produce bored and pained copiers or memorizers rather than excited explorers and learners. We need to find a place in the class room for spontaneity and serendipity– both for us and the students, a place that is full of surprise and wonder, where ideas and feelings can be freely expressed, a place of joy and fun. All these things are tools for bringing community with learning into the classroom. I think when I feel free and happy I am more open to teaching and people, more capable of seeing students, more able to handle daily tensions. I don’t think fun is the opposite of serious. I don’t think joy is the enemy of significance. I think control and repetition are opiates of the spirit while laughter and smiles are natural stimulants.

The best teachers, the best human beings, are the ones who pay attention to the need for each student to be in community with learning. Their class is a gathering of sacred ones, each of whom has something within that needs to be released that is different that distinguishes him or her from everyone else, that cause him or her to feel differently, hear differently, see differently, who has something different to develop. They nurture their students as people, attend to them, seek them out, see them, listen to them, know that they are people, and treat them as people. It makes no educational sense to have students feeling cocooned, cut off, left out, or homeless. It makes much better educational sense to endow them with a sense of freedom, to bring them in from the cold, and to give them a home in the community of learning. No, the best teachers put everything aside to make the student feel comfortable and at ease first, allow there to be laughter before there is serious practice, community before productivity, insist that the student be human first. That is the hardest of all teaching and learning, to have your students stay human in both their and your eyes.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–