A New Year’s Resolution

I know, I know, I know. I hate New Year’s resolutions, too. I never make them. If and when I am “forced” to make one, it is not to make resolutions. But, this year I’m going to break with my tradition. This resolution has nothing about losing weight, exercising more, biting fingernails less. It’s a resolution that came to mind this morning as I walked Valdosta’s chilly streets and thought some more about Sarah and Jonathan, and as I read and replied to messages from such sweet and caring people–no, electronic friends–as Joann Ward of Georgia, Deb Zabloudil of Ohio, and Steve Gunter in Arkansas. Each of them reminded me that it is our mission as educators to help fellow human beings get the chance, take the chance, to engineer their dreams, as Joann phrased it, to give them a chance to confront the “What if…what if…what if… and “If only….if only….if only” in their lives. After all, isn’t it the unattempted effort to dream and to make the dream real, that so often acts as a drag on people’s body and spirit, and darkens their soul?

That’s what an education is all about: to give a person a chance to kindle the light in their soul. As I told Joann, Deb, and Steve, somewhere awhile back, I read a proverb from some culture that said something to the effect that if you kindle or rekindle the light in a person’s soul, you will help reveal that person’s hidden beauty, you will help bring or restore peace and harmony in that person and thus you will help bring a bit of peace and harmony in the world.

So, in that spirit, I resolve that in the coming year to help at least one person kindle the light in his/her soul. If I can do that, it won’t be a bad year’s work. Won’t you make that resolution with me?

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

On Courage

I had several greeting cards waiting for me when I returned from spending the holiday weekend in Charlotte. One of them had been slipped under my office door. It was a simple card; it was really a folded 5×8 card, but it held untold value for me. On the outside of the fold was written “Remembering you on this season.” The only thing written inside the fold was, “Sarah and Jonathan” (not their real names). It brought back a rush of memories that I could have drawn on to give an e-mail friend whom I met for the first time in the flesh this past weekend in Charlotte a much better response–well, at least, different one–to one of her statements than I did at the time.

We were talking about the internet, my Random Thoughts, and techniques that I used in class when she said she admired that I had the courage to share myself on the internet and take risks in the class room. BAll I could muster at the moment was a sincere and quiet “Thank you. I really appreciate that.”

Now, I’m not sure what courage really is, and I won’t get entangled in that briar patch. But, whatever it is and if I have it, I think it is because I’ve had and continue to have some pretty inspiring teachers. Let me tell you about one of them–Sarah

Sarah was one of those “developmental studies” students who so many professors whisper in dismay doesn’t belong in college, whom they point at to demonstrate the decline of quality in higher education because as someone on e-mail said, “they’re letting everyone and anyone in.” Aside for the fact she helps swell our body count as we mindlessly race towards that magic plateau of a student body of 10,000, she is an unwanted presence in academia’s womb who so many professors argue should be aborted.

After reading her card, I went over to an old box and I pulled out her journal. I hadn’t read it in a long, long time. Over the quarter, bits and pieces scattered here and there in the journal and passing comments during conversations we had as she struggled, in her words, “to be someone”, conjured up living images of Erskine Caldwell’s _Tobacco Road_. I learned that this 18 year old was struggling to walk a different road. She was the first in her uneducated, poor, rural, clan to finish high school in spite of her teachers’ efforts to convince her to drop out “for her own good” because she got pregnant and had a son while in the 10th grade. Her three older sisters never finished school because they had gotten pregnant or had to help support the family. “They were caught up,” as Sarah wrote, “in a bunch of nothing jobs going nowhere but where they was” and “in worthless marriages” and “had nowhere else to go or any one to help them.” Her older brother had dreams of going to college but had been forced against his will to drop out to get a job “to help the family make ends meet and got to drinking so he could forget his anger about being trapped for life in a deadline job.”

She had written in one of her beginning of quarter “gettin’ to know ya” exercises that I use to start creating an atmosphere of a supportive learning community, that she was not sure she belonged in college or was any better than mediocre. I remember that what got my eye was when she wrote, “I have to find out who was telling the truth, my heart or my kin and teachers. I’m scared to know what’s a dream and what’s real. But I’ve got to know.” She had been troubled by an uncertainty of whether she was doing the right thing. She wrote that “no one ever read to me. We never had no money left over for books and magazines and stuff in my house. We had barely enough to scratch together for rent and food and some clothes.” Elsewhere she said that “books and stuff were no good nohow in my family ’cause there wasn’t much schooling. My mother never went higher than the third grade and couldn’t read much more than a stick. Daddy is a kind soul and does odd jobs and can read just enough to get by but he doesn’t tell anyone ’cause he’s learned how to get around without readin’. It had been a fight for Sarah to finish school. “Everyone in school was telling me that I would be best off if I left school and went out and got a job. They thought I was an embarrassment and sinful ’cause of my son and didn’t want to be around me for fear of something rubbing off their precious selves. What they really meant was that I was white trash not worth caring about.” Everyone back home, friends and family had been accusing her of being “shiftless because I wouldn’t quit school after Jonathan was born and earn some money.” They kept telling her that she had no business in “going off into the world that belonged to my betters” and that she was “uppity in thinking she was better than the rest of them.” The only encouragement she received was from her father. She was the apple of his eye. He never knew–though her mother did–that know she, like her sisters, had been sexually abused for many years by her maternal grandfather that left her soul darkened and deeply scarred with feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and shame .

She had come to VSU with a poor to mediocre high school average, low SATs, a low expected GPA, placed in “developmental” reading and math courses. “Everyone is waiting back home with a bunch of ‘I told you so’s.” Those scores may have said something– I’m not sure what–about her skills, but they couldn’t measure her heart. And, the heart is the wand and top hat of magic. She came to VSU with no goals except, as she wrote in her journal, “to get out and get better.” She displayed so many of what is clinically called “hidden success-limiting factors.” But, she had determination–and courage. She never knew where her drive came from since as she wrote, “except for my father, I don’t remember many kindly words said about me or kindly things done to me.” Elsewhere she wrote that “I have to find out the truth about me. I think I can live with the truth, but I don’t think I can without it. I’m scared to know, but I gotta (sic).”

Then, about two weeks into the class, after we had done our “getting to know ya” exercises, after Sarah had gotten up and sung solo to the class, as the triads were struggling to gel, after we had done one project, what I thought was a small moment occurred. It turned out to be Bone of those great events. Sarah began to find that truth.

It was the first weekly, open, 25-short-answer-question quiz. One of the questions, about the ninth or tenth read:

One of the major differences between the Spanish and
English colonization was that

a. the English colonies were established more as refuges
and business enterprises than were the Spanish
colonies
b. the Spanish came to the New World more as settlers
than as conquerors and plunders
c. the English populated their colonies less than did
the Spanish
d. the availability of lots of gold and silver made the
English colonies stronger than the Spanish colonies
The correct answer, “a”, was taken word for word from the textbook. As I roamed about the class, I noticed that Sarah was disagreeing with the other members of her triad. They said the answer was “a” while she argued that “d” was the correct answer. And though she was finally outvoted, as members from different triads started discussing and debating the answers, Sarah argued for her choice. All of the triads, however, decided in favor of “a.” I remained straight-faced through it all. I was at least impressed with her stand, but thought she had completely misunderstand this portion of the material.
At the end of class, Sarah came up to me and asked me for the correct answer. I told her it was “a”.

“You’re wrong, too” she argued. “It’s a bad question because the answer is also ‘d’ and it’s in the book.

“I copied that answer from the book.”

With disappointment appearing on her face, she requested in a quieter voice, “Show me.”

As students in the next class were filing in, I reached down and open the textbook book. Parting the pages, I pointed, “Right here. It says: ‘One of the major differences between the Spanish and English colonization was that the English colonies were established more as refuges and business enterprises than were the Spanish.’ ‘d’ is wrong because the English did not have access to large amounts to gold and silver like the Spanish. It made the Spanish initially stronger, not the English.”

Then, in one of those moments that every teacher prays for, Sarah asked, “What does ‘initially’ mean?”

“At first,” I answered.

“Right,” she exclaimed. “At first! It also says here,” as her finger followed the words a few lines down, “the Spanish were stronger at first because they had found lots of gold and silver.”

“See,” I interrupted.

“Hold on. Hush your mouth,” she respectfully chastised me as she put her finger to my lips and started tasting the sweet fruits of victory and as the other students who were now listening giggled. One of them yelled out, “go after him.” She turned her head and acknowledged the support with a nod of her head and a smile. Then, she turn back to me with a feigned scowl. “BUT (her emphasis), it also says that in the long run the reliance on gold and silver made the Spanish colonies weaker than the English ones that built up businesses and trade. So, the availability of gold and silver DID (once again, her emphasis) make the English colonies stronger. You’re wrong! Gottcha?”

I thought about it for a few seconds. She did have me. I could feel the audience of students staring at me. “Yep,” I conceded as I pulled out an orange Tootsie Pol from my shirt pocket and handed it to her with obvious excitement written all over my face at both her challenge and use of logic, “you got me. I never thought of it that way. ‘d’ is also right.”

The class broke out into cheers. Sarah turned and took an earned bow, and then turned to me.

With her finger poind at my nose, she once again chastised me, “You forgot the chair (one of the critical thinking exercise we do at the beginning of class). Remember there’s more than one way of looking at things, and they don’t always have to be yours,” she beamed as if she had just gotten a 300cc injection of confidence. “And,” she added over her shoulder as she swaggered out the door, “don’t forget to the tell the class tomorrow. I’m not lettin’ you get away. By the way, watch out from now on. I’ll be lookin’ to nail ya again.” B

She wrote in her journal that day, “Maybe it is true. I ain’t nobody’s white trash. Dare I hope that there won’t be any of those ‘I told you so’s? I almost want to go back and stick in those teachers’ faces. But if I did, I’d be as low as them. I won’t, but I do so want to” As the quarter progressed, as we worked on her study and learning skills together, as we just small talked when she just needed someone to talk with, as she found support and encouragement in both her triad and the entire class to take more risks, her hope became a reality. She slowly, hesitantly, unsteadily started to part the opaque curtain and peek inside to get a glimpse of what potential lay within her. With agonizing, but deliberate slowness, she struggled with her self- consciousness, meekly asking a question here, whispering a statement during a class discussion there, fighting self- consciousness or the fear of looking stupid or the anxiety of facing ridicule. She won herself a few Tootsie Pops arcing in the air headed towards her for that struggle and displaying the courage.

Sarah is still hanging in there, still fighting her demons, talking with a professional, still holding down a job to pay her tuition expenses, still devoted to her son, still cut off from most her family. The only person she occasionally talks to in her family, who will talk with her, is her father. She’s sad about that, but as she says, “sometimes you have to pay a price. But, if you keep looking back, you’ll be sure to trip over something.” She’ll be a Junior soon. She met a guy she likes, but the harsh memories still sometimes get in the way. She comes into the office about once a quarter “just to see what new crazy stuff you’ve added”–she liked the leg sticking out from under the front of the desk–sometimes she has her son whom she used to bring to class whenever she had baby-sitting problems. She reads to him every night. She once dropped him off in the office for an hour when her baby sitter didn’t show because her professor wouldn’t hear of her bringing him to class. We had fun blowing bubbles and eating Tootsie Pops together. I’m not sure who was the kid. When Sarah pops her head in the office, we go out and sit in the hall and lick Tootsie Pops and talk together, not as professor and student, but just as two human beings who care. She’s not tearing up the campus academically. She’s not going to be a Phi Beta Whatever or get any other kind of award or recognition. She’s still not sure what she wants to be. Last time we talked, about six weeks ago, she said, “I don’t want much money more than enough to make sure Jonathan ain’t wanting for nothing (I corrected her grammar). Never had much and wouldn’t know what to do with it. I just want to be something like a nurse or teacher or social worker or someone where I can help others dream and make their dreams come true.”

And if any of you may wonder why I am an avowed educational “Right to Lifer”, just think of Sarah. She has made a difference to me. What a loss it would have been for me, if I had not gotten to know her. I just told someone that teaching is a curious craft. Where else can you help make magic that walks the face of the Earth, helping create a kind of magic that is forever.

Yes, if I’ve learned courage, it’s because I have inspiring teachers.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

The Power of Caring

I had been reading student journals and class evaluations all morning and on into the early afternoon when one stopped me dead in my tracks. I haven’t done much since except read it over and over and over. Each time the tears make it as difficult to read as the last time. I’ve been grasping every word, sometimes touching the page with my fingertips. My office has seemed very warm. How do I share with you how I feel at this very moment. Words like uplifted, fulfilled, satisfied, proud, humble just seem hollow, lifeless, meaningless, maybe even trite. I’m sure there’s a turn of a phrase or catchy word out there for this occasion, but I’m really at a loss of words. So, I think I should just let you listen to my silence as you read this student’s entry:

In all my 16 years of being a student I have never run
across a teacher who thought and treated me much more
than as a piece of black female shit. But you cared
enough about me to give me for the first time what no
other teacher did: respect, a chance to say what was on
my mind and above all else, love. You gave me a chance
to realize I was capable of succeeding and capable of
learning. You gave me confidence that all my other
teachers seemed to suck out of me like blood-sucking
leeches. You lifted me up when so many others stomped me
into the ground. So, I want to personally thank you for
teaching me so much history, for believing in me and also
for teaching me to believe in myself….

Do you know when you did that the most? You probably
don’t remember. It probably seemed so unimportant. But
it was like an event for me. It started when we were
discussing a tid-bit in class that led to an argument
about legalizing marijuana and I got up and told the
class that I smoked to get high and feel good and that
there was nothing wrong with it. A few hours later you
passed me near the fountain at the library. You stopped
and all you said was that you wanted me to think about
that smoking was a roundtrip, you always come back to the
low after the high, you always come back to what you’re
running from. The pain always comes back. But believing
in myself is a high like nothing else for getting rid of
the hurt. You said it with such concern and sincerity
that one of my friends with me called you a soapy sap.
I thought it was so jerky too and didn’t think about it.
Then a few days later when you were walking into the
Student Union and I asked you to have a picture button
made with me, you didn’t run away like you didn’t want to
be seen with a nigger pothead. I don’t think you thought
much about doing it except having some crazy fun. You
probably didn’t think it was all that important, but that
was serious shit to me. You don’t know how much that
picture of us now means to me. After we had it made, I
went to my room and looked at that picture and couldn’t
stop looking and thought that you didn’t have to do
anything like that. You could have thought that I was a
loser like everyone else thought and like I thought. And
I started crying, I couldn’t stop crying for hours. I
realized how unhappy I was and getting high was my way of
getting rid of my pain. I see how the pain always came
back like you said. I want you to know that I realized
I had a problem with drugs, but after I admitted to
smoking a bunch of people came up to me to talk. They
didn’t yell at me or give me any religious holier and
thou crap. They wanted to help and told me about
themselves. And some were white! They and especially
you made me realize that the life I was living was not my
own. I studied, worked, ate and slept around getting
high. I made myself miserable and thought that smoking
would make it all better. It was just making me more
miserable.

I am proud of the fact that I worked hard in this class
and learned a lot. I learned to speak my mind without
being disrespectful and to listen. I have learned to
meet deadlines. I have learned to depend on my triad
members. That was the hardest part for me, depending on
someone else to come through. But I learned to trust.
But, you know, the best part of all that was that they
trusted and depended on me. One time I let them down and
it was the worst feeling in the world. I cried as I
apologized, and they understood and forgave me! Me!!

I want you to know that I don’t need weed now to be
happy. I haven’t had one in four weeks now. I am damn
proud of me and you should be of yourself. You’re right,
succeeding is my natural high. It feels damn good to be
a part of something positive.

If anyone gives you any shit or makes fun of you because
of the way you are and how you teach, send them to me.
I’ll tell them that it doesn’t take a whole lot to open
a book and teach a lesson in front of a class, but it
takes a lot of work, a lot of hard work, and tenderness
to open a mind and educate a soul. I’ll show them know
the power of caring.

I saw her a while ago. We didn’t say much. She knew that I had read her journal. We just hugged and wished each other a joyous holiday. I told her if she ever felt she was faltering she knew where she could come and get a Tootsie Pop. She said she’d come by for a Tootsie Pop anyway. She gave me permission to share her words and feelings in the hope that, as she said,….. Well, you decide what she said.
That picture button, which I thought up until today was cute and which I threw carelessly in my dresser drawer, I went home to retrieve and now has an honored place among my sacred objects of teaching in my office and a reminder of the power of caring.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

Feeling in the Classroom

I wrote this by hand a few days ago in a hotel room. It has taken me this long to translate the cuneiform called my hand writing:

Feeling! It’s curious that I am struggling to write about something I don’t have at the moment. My stiffened, numb, blued fingers much less in my reddened, frozen nose have yet to thaw out. I just shivered back into my hotel room here in Madison, Wisconsin, after foolishly walking blustering, pre-dawn State Street and braving the inhuman cold of a wind-chill factor of 9 degrees without any long johns or a pair of gloves. At least, the weather is inhuman to this ex-patriated yankee whose blood has been thinned by age and thirty years of basking in comforting warmth of the sunny South.

Anyway, as I was losing all sensation in my extremeties, in my struggle to keep my body young–tomorrow it the warm workout room and boring treadmill for mee–I was thinking about a conversation we had in class last Thursday just before I left for the wintery wilds of Wisconsin Aas part of the end of term session of closure I always incorporate into my classes.

In the middle of our give-and-take, a student blurted out, “Hey, Schmier. What do you feel about teaching?”

I replied with something like, “Well, I think….”

“I don’t mean what you think about it,” he intrrupted. “How do you feel when you’re in a classroom?”

“Well,” now a bit unsure what he was asking and watching my words, “I feel you are…..”

“No,” another student stopped me, “he doesn’t want your opinion of us.”

“Then, I’m not sure what he’s asking,” I admitted.

“What emotions do you experience when you come into a classroom or just before?”

Luckily, this exchange came at the very end of the class and I promised I would have an answer, a list of words if you will, when I came back on Monday. On the planes, It was especially helpful thinking about this conversation for keeping my mind off the uncertainty of whether I would survive to return with my answer as we bounced into Madison on that matchstick plane called a communter flight flying through a sleet/rain storm.

What do I feel, what do I experience as opposed to what do I think or do. Hmmmmm. Now that was an interesting question they stuck me with. Feel, not as an expression of opinion of or leveling of blame at something or someone out there, but as a fact, an inner reality, an experience, an emotion. That student’s question certainy touches a belief that is core to my understanding of an education. Namely, feeling may be the essential element of teaching.

I have a sense that there was something more involved in teaching that merely subject. A category-defying mystery under the craft, energizes it, informs it, guides it beyond subject matter and technique. The mystery is what is going on in the inner realm of feeling. In the classroom not too many of us respect the power of feeling. Yet, it has been my experience that the most vital level of communication between the teacher and student , among students, is a non-verbal one, a non-intellectual one, an non-informational one. It’s touching through a wordless statement or gesture. Yet, it is often negelected, seldom discussed, and more rarely developed as a classroom skill or technique, or even more so as a learning skill. But, if teaching and learning are human endeavors, if they are interpersonal and interdependent activities, wouldn’t they require more than technique, technology, and information? Wouldn’t they require relating to people, to onesself, interpersonal skills if you will?

I think it’s feeling that allows a teacher to be so flexible that he/she can tolerate ambiguity, play with a problem, approach a problem from a ne[Aw angle, see the students in new ways, and use a variety of means of expression: poetry, drama, visuals, gesture, movement, art.

I think it’s feeling that allows a teacher to see the richness and complexity of the individuals in any given classroom. It takes creativity and imagination to design words that fight dependency, that encourage personal initiatve, that challenges, that stresses risk-taking, support experiementation, that emphasizes student resourcefulness, that experiences problem solving, values self-expression words that connect in some way imagination, emotion, reflection, creativity, and action, and which allow the student to dream new futures.

I think it’s feeling that let’s the teacher see more than meets both the eye and ear, for feeling is often an unspoken and unwritten language of its own that’s more insightful than words. It’s a language of silence, a language of listening, a language of tone, a language of seeing, a language of clothing, a language of movement, a language of custom and manner, a language of……

So, here the list of words I remember that started dancing through my mind which symbolize the feelings I have as I go to and am in the classroom. If I survive the flights home, I’ll give them to the students to ponder:

engaging
adventurous
uplifting
awe
faith
exciting
lively
stimulating
invigorating
poetry
drama
alive
evolving
visi[Aon
curiosity
challenge
trusting
imagination
delight
fun
pulsation
caring
sincerity
risk
respectful
dignity
uniqueness
surprise
humorous
seriousness
stimulating
questioning
optimistic
exaltation
energetic
patience
musical
respectful
compassionate
encouraging
touched
supportive
encouraging
inspiring
inspired
humble
interested
loving
busy
happy
warm
Tootsie Pop

As I look over this list, I don’t think I remembered all the words that swirled in my head as the wind swirled about and buffeted me, and I don’t think they are grammarically correct. But, that’s not the point. However wonderful words may be, they are not the feelings themselves; they are symbols, but they are not the feelings the words symbolize. Nevertheless, the feeling and responses conjured up not only change, growth and development, but make whatever occurs in the classroom fuller, deeper, more meaningful, more personal, more individual, more human.
Those feelings, when demonstrated, expressed, and felt–whether aloud or silently–are the most beautiful sounds in a classroom–and make both teaching and learning an Event.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–