I’ve just come back from a rejuvenating lunch with two deligthful, young, colleagues from the psych department that allowed me to weather the one block walk from my house to my office through this blistering 110 degree heat index without experiencing total dehydration. As I walked down the hall and approached my office, I saw a bulky envelope learning against the bottom of the door. I picked the envelope up. On it was hand-written, “You do make a difference.” I gingerly carried it into the office, getting a Tootsie Pop on the way to the desk, sat down, and carefully opened it. Inside was a very small, beaten-up, inexpensive metal padlock with an “S” molded into one of it’s rounded sides. Along with it was a letter from a non-traditional student I’ll call Sarah. She was in the same class as Sam. As I read her letter over and over, it reminded me once again why I teach each day as if I’m going to meet my wife’s family for the first time, and that every moment of hard work is worth it. It’s rather lengthy, but well worth reading. I’d like to share it with you. I hope it inspires you as it does me to realize the sacredness of our mission as teachers of people and that the heart of a true education is the educating of the heart:

Dr. Schmier,
I wanted to give you a “thank you” something so I scrounged about my things to find something, and I picked this lock because it had an S on it. But, it’s purpose is to symbolize, or rather, remind you not of me–but of the impact you had on my life and ultimately the lives of my children by helping me through your support and encouragement, and just listening all those hours to me unloading and almost saying nothing, to unlock a new life. I had such a poor beat-up image of myself that I had difficulty at first understanding the good you saw in me. You know that. You read about all that in my journal. Whenever you gave me a compliment at first I was quick to point out to myself what was wrong. When you first encouraged me, I reminded myself of my failures and guilt. I thought of the times being beaten as a child, of my mother drinking herself into stupors, of my run-ins with drugs and alcohol, of little more than whoring myself to anything that walked when I was a teemager, of my abusive ex-husband beating and kicking and yelling at me, and thinking I deserved it all. I played myself down to such a degree that I knew you would question your faith in me and leave me alone. But you hung in there day after day, shelled out yourself day after day with a smile or a nice word or a Tootsie Pop. I guess I was afraid to _feel_. Hurting became a habit, almost a kind of comfort. It was easier than trying to get rid of the hurt. It was easier to feel guilty and think that I might be innocent. But, I was a ball of feelings, stomped flat, bruised, bent, broken, unhealed. But, I told you all that when I talked your ears off. So I want to tell you now to make sure that you _know_ what this class meant to me and I know to others in the class, and don’t think of retiring because we need the likes of you.

In the beginning with the _getting to know you_ exercises and the singing and the chair, I wondered, “Just what have I gotten myself into?” It all seemd so stupid and useless even though we “debriefed” after each exercise. As time passed, I began to appreciate history for the first time. It became interesting and meaningful. I finally realized why learning history was important. You brought it alive and into our lives through the tidbit conversations and arguments as well as those crazy projects of yours.

You taught me not only a great deal of history I know I will never forget, but also used history to teach life lessons because you were in our faces and refused to let us strive for anything less than our best even if it meant getting angry at you like a lot of us did, me also–at first–saying “who do you think you are.” But, soon I began to do a self examination, almost without realizing it. I began to see my flaws and was motivated to correct them. The activities in class, the skits and games and scavenger hunts, began to bring me out of my shell, and out of my sharade (sic) of being “okay.”

Life’s stresses built up on me until I felt that I couldn’t cope anymore. I needed a different kind of fix than a capsule or needle or bottle like I once used. I needed fixing. My thinking needed reprograming. The day I fell to pieces outside class and collapse in hysterical tears because I was scared shitless that no one would stop by ex-husband from hurting my children and me, and you sat down next to me without saying a word just being there, reached out with a helping hand, not asking questions or making judgements, took me to the school counselor who has been a blessing, and worked with me to make up the work I missed during that week until I could pulled myself together–I remember you saying that right now it was more important for me to get right than doing a project right– was my first step toward putting the pieces back together to find exactly who _I_ am. It has been a life changing step that show me another way and I will be forever grateful.

During this class I have come to realize that I _do_ have the potential to be successful, which is completely opposite of what people in my life had brought me to believe. I found hope which is something I had almost completely lost. I found encouragement which is something I hadn’t never received. I found anew love for myself, a deeper love for my children, and a new love for people. I learned the true meaning of diversity in this class working with African-Americans and males, and what a benefit it can be. I learned more about and gained a greater understanding of the Africam-American race. I learned not to be judgemental, but to look at what is inside a person and to know that the potential for growth is present in everyone and is continuous. I have begun to expect good things from people. I realize that I should not settle for less because I deserve the best as all people do. I’m trying to learn from my past. No, I take that back. You always said that trying is lying. I am learning from my past, to let it go, and strive to better my future, the future of my children, and do my part for the future of this world. I am allowing myself the dream of becoming an elementary teacher, a dream I thought before would be forever beyond my grasp. But now I believe that I can do it, and Lord willing, I WILL!! I want you to know because of you I have changed my major from accounting to elementary education. I want to make a difference in my life so that I can make a difference in the lives of my children and all the children that I possibly can, just as you have done for me. To love them, nuture them, teach them with the same passion for them and the subject that you have, let them know that they are worth something, show them that they have the potential to do great things, and help them become great learners. I see now that there are some caring people left in this world. In closing, to answer the question of what has this class meant for me?–I can sum it up in three words—a new life. Dr. Schmier, Louis, you have made a difference.

That small lock is as valuable to me as the Hope Diamond. It will hang on the wall of my office along with my other sacred objects of my teaching.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

It’s Saturday morning, June 15th, on a plane somewhere over Kansas that’s takng me to San Francisco where I will meet my wife and we can attend our son’s graduation at Stanford.

I’ve just left Ottawa a few hours ago where I participated in the stimulating, exciting, and rewarding annual three-day conference of the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. It was one of those uniquely collegial conferences at which there were almost no egos, where almost everyone shared, cared, listened, and learned. It’s left me on such a high I’m not sure I really need this plane to get to the west coast.

Since the people in the seats next to me have no interest in conversation and I’ve on a thinking and writing tear since I flew out of Jacksonville three days ago–it must be something in the snacks they hand out on these flights–I find myself remembering a conversation I overheard at the conference during a coffee break in which a few people were discussing who they admired most in the field of education. I heard many a prominent name mentioned. I remember asking myself who were my favorite educators, but I train of thought at the time was interrupted and forgot about it until just not.

So, I’ve been thinking about who are the educators I most respect. You might be surprised with my answer. They aren’t the big-name conference keynote speakers. They aren’t those who run the preconference workshops. They don’t hold academic chairs in major research centers or have a mile-long research and publication resume. They aren’t the likes of the Maslows or Ericksons or Blums or Combs or Gardiners or McKeatchees or Piagets or Rogers or Buscaglias or Senges. I certainly listen to the words of experience from these giants. I read the results of their research. I ponder their philosophies and outlooks. I like most their ideas. I appreciate their work and insight into the learning processes. They are important to be sure. With very, very few exceptions, however, my real favorites are not the headliners or experts.

My favorite eduactors are those kind, sensitive, respectful, caring, loving, humble human beings–the proverbial unsung heroes–the real teachers, in the public schools and community colleges, junior colleges, colleges, and universities who unsahkeably believe in their students, practice inclusion rather than exclusion, nuture rather than weed out, see students with their hearts. Day in and day out, against almost insurrmountable odds, they fight for the right of their students to succeed in the face of assaults by bureaucrats, sneers by peers, restrictions by adminstrators, constraints by bean counters, demeaning by politicians, bashing by experts, finger pointing by parents, and accusation by all sorts of people. Bloodied and torn, they fight the demons of cyncism, resignation, negativism, the confining “system”, and mind-dulling routine. They’re the Tim Parshalls and Trev Dickinsons who ignite and keep the fires burning with the students. They’re the Gail Bjorks, Sandra Bergers, Carol Steinhauses, Angela Cliffords, and Paul Forbeses who see a miracle, a dignity, and nobility in each and every student. They’re the likes of an Ann Pemberton and Annie Barnes who teach with a caring passion, no holds barred. They’re Marty Meyer, Ann Boyce and Steve Gunter who know that talking is not teaching and listening is not learning. They’re Wendy Duncan-Hewitt, David Mount, Bill Hunter, Chen Ai Yen and Tim Dalmau who never walk by students in the hallway without noticing them, who walk into a class and see students for the gems each of them is. They’re Don Bass, Bob Pettapiece, Kevin Drumm and Lisa Currie who know that it’s attitude, not grades, that determine a good student. They’re tough lovers like Malcolm Gauld and Ray Rasmussen. They’re courageous, compassionate, creative teachers like Peter Fredericks, Reavley Gair, Tom Powers, and John Lawry . They’re a Judi Neal, a Joe Serano, an Irene Honey, a Ted Pantiz, an Ian Hewes, a Marc Zicari, and a Neal Steiger who know that good teaching is not a destination to arrive at, but a way to travel. They’re a host of others whom I’ve met at conferences, talked with on the internet, and whom I have never met and don’t know. Damn, I admire them.

Some may ask, “what have they done?” or “who are they.” I’d answer sarcastically, “Oh, nothing. They’re nobodies.” Nobodies? They are the likes of Vicki Harvey and Dale Fitzgibbons and Donna Ellis who just set students on the right paths of life; they are the Chris Poulsons and Tim Petersons who merely act as beacons of inspiration to their students. They are only such banners of humaness as Chuck Williams and Bill Hayes. Like the Steve Ahlnesses and Billy Streans, they simply help students to believe and see their inner strength. They’re the Dawn Doles and Joann Stanleys who bring caring into the classroom and the students’ hearts. There are the Bob Cunninghams and Russ Hunts who take the time to make someone smile. There are the Diane Plamadons and Pete Breslins who give students their “other chance.” They’re the Susan Kargins, Jennifer Yees, Mike Lemieuxes and Diane Buchanans who are “all there” when students are in need. They’re the Bill Ferrises, Paul Walkers, Carolyn Seefers, Rick Garlikovs and Herb Rotfelds who know that an education is not the sum of a bunch of largely unrelated credit hour courses. These and untold others dedicated to showing students the way and supporting their efforts rather than blaming them and pointing fingers at them may be who give of themselves, generally go unnoticed and unrecognized. They usually remain faceless, nameless, voiceless to most people, but they’re among my favorites.

Like a Beverly Firestone and a Scott Morrow, they have a vision. Like a Karlie Cook, a Lyn Huxford they assume that each student is capable, valuable and has potential, and find ways to see that prophecy fulfilled. Like a Milton Cox, a Michelle Stacey-Doyle, Lynn Anderson, and Joyn Carta-Falsa, they believe each student is able to learn and worthy of respect, and find ways to help them succeed. They have worked and continue to work to develop their craft, have struggled to grow, have touched students, have been touched by students, and have changed the world. And some will still say, “Who? I never heard of them.” Well, the students have, and that’s what counts. Besides, I don’t think renown really matters all that much. Over the last few years I’ve learned that you don’t have to be a somebody to truly be a somebody, people don’t have to be important to be important in someone’s life, and you don’t have to be famous make a difference in someone’s life.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

A lot of you have been asking me if I know what has happened to Sam. As it happens I do. In fact, I came into the office late this evening to finish pouring over student journals and student self-evaluations as well as notations I made over the course of the quarter, and coming up with those very uneducational things called final grades. But, I’ve been sitting here at my desk for a while now, listening to the haunting tunes of _Les Miserables_, savoring the fresh sweetness of my Tootsie Pops, refusing to let go of a hand-written note I found laying on the floor as I opened my office door, reading it’s words over and over and over again. The note was written on ordinary lined notebook paper, but there was nothing ordinary about it. It is from Sam:

I’m heading home to Eastman today, but I wanted you to know
I admire you so much as a person. I am glad that you
had what it takes to become the person that you have
and that I was lucky to be one of your students. I want
you to know the difference you’ve made in my life. I
have had a shitty life, doing so many things wrong and
feeling that I could never do anything good and feeling
that I wasn’t worth nothing much. You didn’t see that.
You saw me only as a person and cared about me like only my
uncles did. I hope that last Monday when you called and
stopped me from leaving and helped me with with my courses
so I wouldn’t fail them and showed me that you and other
people cared will be the day when I start to turn my whole
life around. It’s still all so confusing. I’m still not sure
why you care. I guess I’ve been in the dark so long I’m
not sure I’ll know the light when I see it. I am still
only at the beginning of my struggle, but I did smile in
your office and you said that was a start. So maybe now
I HAVE SOME HOPE and BELIEF IN MYSELF. I will, like you
and my other uncle said, try to start listening to the other
voices. I hope I won’t let me and everyone else down. Now
it’s up to me. Thanks for giving me another chance believing
and caring and having faith in me I’ll see you this summer
as I work to make up the work in the class.
That note is the result of some responses to my last Random Thought about Sam. I didn’t like Anne Pemberton of Virginia, whom I highly respect, for telling me that I had “pushed him away” and “passed off” to someone else like everyone else had done. And, I wasn’t comfortable when Rick Garlikov, suggested that I knew I deep down there was more I could have done. Rather than “pass off” the words of these two nice people as they suggested I did with Sam, I read their troubling messages over and over again wondering why didn’t I call, as others had also suggested, to see how Sam was doing when he failed to show up for class. I think it was probably the fact that the events with Sam had thrown me on overload, and I didn’t realize it. I just had to practice tough love and flunk another student, a struggling alcoholic, who, having worked hard for three weeks, suddenly gave up on her committment to both the other members of her triad and to herself to see the quarter through, had tried to con me into giving her a withdraw/passing grade, and had cried that I had ruined her life when I held her to that committment and refused to sign the withdrawal form. There was another student, a non-traditional student, who had “lost it” just before class as she buckled–collapsed is a better word–under the pressure of being a student, a single parent, enduring the threats to her and her children from an abusive ex-husband while the county authorities refused to enforce a restraining order, and I had to take her over to the councilor. And there was the desperate student who came into the office asking for help because she was to ashamed to tell anyone else that she had contracted VD. I guess when Sam “intruded” on my happiness I subconsciously hung a sign around my neck, “I don’t want any more of this shit!!” But, thankfully Anne’s words and those of Rick haunted me and helped me to bring myself back. Maybe, I finally admitted to myself, I had unknowingly drawn the line at a place that was convenient for me, but not right for Sam. So, I called him late last Monday afternoon. This is what happened.
Sam told he had been clearing out his dorm room and was about to walk out the door and go home when I called. When he asked why I called, I told him, without any judgemental tone, that I was just checking to see if he was okay and to tell him that I was always available if he wanted to talk.

“Are you in your office?” he asked. When I told him I was, he then asked if he could come over. I told him that I would wait for him. I called my wife and told her that we’d have to push our rendezvous date back about an hour. A few minutes later, Sam arrived and we went out into the hall to sit and suck on Tootsie Pops.

I just leaned against the wall looking at the other wall saying nothing. Then Sam exploded into tears as he struggled to explain between sobs that he not come to class in order to attend his paternal grandfather’s funeral out of a sense of family duty. Then, covering his eyes, he told me how while driving one of his grandaunts home to Florida, during a sudden rainstorm, the car skidded. He came out of the accident without a scratch. She was killed instantly.

“I don’t know why you’re sitting near me,” he sobbed. “Everyone who does gets hurt: my father, my brother, my friend, my uncle, now my aunt. It’s all my fault. I’m a curse to everyone around me like my father always screamed at me.” His chest heaved and then he whispered into his hands. “All I want is for someone to care and pat me on my back and say they care about me.” His lonliness screamed out. There he felt he was, forgotten and alone in a dark, dusty corner crying for help to be found and remembered–and no one answered.

“I care,” I quietly answered.

I had shivers when Sam said that he thought I really didn’t care about him and all that “rah, rah talk in class meant nothing” and was surprised that I had called because he thought “you had pushed me off on to some stranger who didn’t care nothing about me and spoke to me like he was reading from a book.”

“No,” I quietly answered as I remembered Anne’s words, “I just thought the councilors could help you better than I can. They always do. This time that was my mistake.”

“You’re just feeling sorry for me now.”

“I care. I didn’t have to call just now. I could have washed my hands of you. After all, you disappeared without telling anyone.”

“Why do you care.”

“I don’t know. I guess I just am dumb enough to believe you’re worth caring about.”

“Maybe I should die.”

“Hell, dying and running away is easy. It’s living and facing up to things that’s tough. I know. Been there. Done it. Your friend chickened out on his life. Now you’re doing the same thing by running from school?”

He explained that he had no choice since he was going to fail all his courses.

“Not mine. I’ll give you an incomplete and let you make up the work with a 100-item scavenger hunt to do over the summer.”

“But, I’m still going to fail the others and I won’t have any money to come back to school.”

“What if I can get them to give you another chance with incompletes, will you stick it out?”

“How you going to do that?”

“Leave that to me. I haven’t been here 30 years for nothing. You just let me take care of that.”

Struggling to open his eyes to see what he has in him, he asked, “Why are you doing this? Why do you care? I guess you just feel sorry for me after I told you about my aunt.”

As if I didn’t hear him, I asked, “Why did your two uncles take you and your brother in?”

“I don’t know. I guess they just felt sorry for us, too.”

“Why?”

“They’re kindly people who would take in a stray dog, I guess.”

“You sure? Too bad they’re not alive to ask them.”

“One’s still living.”

Then, I got an idea and said, “Why don’t you ask him? You call him tonight and ask him. Meanwhile, I’ll call your professors and see what I can do. You come back tomorrow.”

We got up from the floor. He threw his hands around me and embrace me in a bear hug as he said, “Thanks for carin’.” I walked back to my office wiping my eyes and nose.

I called his other professors, explained as much as Sam had allowed me to say, got them to agree to let him make up the work either during the summer or next fall, and meanwhile give him an “I.”

The next day, Sam returned. He told me that he had a talk with his uncle. This is how he described some of the conversation:

“I said to him, ‘I thought you just felt sorry for me like you would for any stray dog.'”

“He answered, ‘I don’t take in strays.'”

“Then, I said, ‘Well, you just felt sorry for me because I was kin.'”

“And he chuckled, ‘I especially don’t take in kin.'”

“Then, I asked him, ‘Why’d you take us in?'”

“He answered, ‘Don’t you know? ’cause I loved you. Why’d you think? To spite your pappy? No matter what your pappy said, You were worth lovin’. You’re were a hurtin’ child of God in need of love.'”

“Then, I asked him, ‘Why didn’t you ever tell me?'”

“And he finally said, ‘I showed you. No sense wastin’ time with plain words. Talkin’ don’t mean nothin’. It’s the farming that counts.'”

“I still was confused. ‘But, daddy always said,’ I told him, ‘when he’d hit me and did stuff to me that I was an abomination of Satan needing punishment.”

“And my uncle said, ‘Don’t pay his voice no mind. Whose voice you gonna start abidin’ by?'”

“That’s a good question,” I said. “Listen to your uncle’s voice–and your professors.” I told him the response of my colleagues to his plight. He was confused, but happy. “I told them that you would contact them tomorrow and make all the arrangements.”

We talked some more. Towards the end of our conversation he uttered a hesitancy which I pounced on. “I want you to think about something. Think you’ve become sort of comfortable in your pain hiding behind your barricades and walls? Maybe it’s become a habit, an ‘easy pain.’ Think you’re afraid to face some ‘hard pain’, to see whose voice is really the right one to listen to? Listen to your uncle’s voice of light, not your father’s dark voice.”

“How do I do that?” he begged.

“Hear and listen. Talk some more this summer with your uncle–and hear and listen. Talk with your friend and his father who you said befriended you. Talk with me and your professors. Hear and listen to all their voices. Follow them. Let our voices drowned out your father’s.”

The next day, Wednesday, he came into the office beaming from ear to ear as he told me how kind and understanding my colleagues were. “Do you think they really care or are just doing it for you.”

“Just remember,” I quickly answered, “they didn’t have to agree to anything. Just listen and believe in their voices.”

“It feels good to smile. I can’t remember the last time I smiled for myself.”

He talked about many things: having to learn to love himself before he could tell his girlfriend that he loved here; having to learn to care about himself before he could become a nurse to care for and about others; journaling this summer; writing a letter to his father and getting it all out on paper; a bunch of things. I told him again, “Listen to those other voices, those voices of light. Let them guide you away from those dark voices. I hope you have a summer filled with that ‘hard pain.'”

“You know my uncle said something else. He told me I was a good seed, but he said any farmer worth anything knows that even good seed can’t grow in worthless dirt. He said it was about time that I started properly preparing my own ground if I wanted my seed to grow.”

“Wise man.” Sam hugged me again, whispered a “thanks” into my ear, and left the office with an orange Tootsie Pop sticking out from his smiling lips.

Isn’t it strange, but the finale to Les Miserable is playing at this moment on the boombox and the dying Jean Valjean is singing, as my e-mail friend, Gary Brice, had reminded me in his message, “to love another person is to see the face of God.” Maybe Sam now has at least given himself a change to see that face.

It’s dark outside, nearly midnight, but somehow I have a feeling it’s dawn. I’m not in the mood to stay here and wrestle into the wee hours with something so uneducational as grades. I think I’ll just turn off the lights, go home, and end this day by reading Sam’s note to my wife, if she’s still awake.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

Right now I’m feeling my feelings. For the last ten days or so I’ve been saddled with a lot of negative emotional tension, with feelings of inadequacy, maybe even of failure, certainly disappointment, sadness, and discouragement.

It all started about four weeks ago when I was bouncing across campus, Tootsie Pop in mouth, just returning from the manicurist, looking proudly at the coral red painted right pinky nail that celebrated four months of being clean from my half-century long habit of ravaging nail gnawing (by the way, Kim is also still clean from her drinking).

As I was walking back to my office looking forward to reading the week’s students’ journals, a student in one of my first year classes, whom I’ll call Sam, joined me.

“You’re always smiling. How do you get to feel so good about yourself all the time?” he asked in a tone I didn’t at first catch.

“I just work to find something good about each day that I can smile about. Today, it’s my manicure,” I answered showing him my renovated finger tips. “Ain’t they nice?”

“I don’t ever smile or laugh,” he answered with an obvious sadness.

I stopped in my tracks. He mumbled a few more words in such a depressed way that put me on full alert. My smile disappeared. I noticed his sullen eyes and forlorn gaze. And, I realized that in class he never did smile, laugh, or engage in chit-chat.

“Want to talk about something?” I asked.

He hesitantly nodded.

We walked over to a near-by bench in front of the library and sat in the shade of a tree. He talked. I listened. As he spoke, his deceptively roundish cherub face transformed into a contorted, tortured mask. The brightness of the morning slowly was ecliped by what I can only call an darkening evil as I heard a blood-curdling first-hand “tale from the crypt” about a violent, drunken father, uncontrolled rage, constant beatings, and years of unimaginable sexual abuse. With his eyes nailed to the concrete walk, tears streaming down his cheeks, he described how his father threw him out of the house at 13, how he went to live with an uncle, how at the age of 17 he was an unwilling witness to the unexpected suicide of his best friend during a drinking spree, and now he was wracked by the recent death of his uncle, the only person he felt truly cared for him.

I don’t think I can describe how I felt. Every word that comes to mind sounds so melodramatic and trite. But there were no platitudes in about anything Sam said. With every brutalizing graphic word and phrase–“sucked”, “punched”, “butt-f—ed”, “kicked”, “beat him off”, “thrown”–I felt another shudder, another muscle stiffen, another breath tighten, another drop of cold sweat form. With each horrid, graphic description of his hellish childhood, I felt as if I was being thrown down to a deeper, more frigid level of Dante’s inferno. My stomach took count of this unrelenting assault on my spirit as he peppered his tale of atrocities with the names of the pains that stripped of his spirit: “I feel so dirty”. “It was all my fault.” “I shouldn’t be alive.” “I guess I’m just stupid and untalented.” “I’m not worth shit.” “I’m rotten.” “I’m such a coward.” “I feel so guilty.” “It was all my fault”. “I hate living.” “I want to please everyone and not offend anyone.” “I’m afraid to disagree because I think people will hit me some more.” ” I live defensively.” “I don’t want anyone to see me.” “I’m such a screw- up that I even messed up my own suicide.” “Everything I say or do is to get approval of others.”

His times of suffering weren’t just past events. They’re tire tracks left on his soul; they’re life-long struggles. He was holding so tightly onto his weaknesses that he couldn’t find those inner strengths–couldn’t believe they existed–on which to build his life. He couldn’t begin his dreams for fear of having to face his nightmares. His spirit was gasping for the breath of the pure, healthy air of faith and hope. He so desperately wanted his soul to breathe free of the putrid air: to inhale faith and exhale discouragement; to inhale love and exhale hate; to inhale peace and exhale anger; to inhale healing and exhale woundedness; to inhale strength and exhale weakness; to inhale courage and exhale fear; to inhale confidence and exhale insecurity; to inhale faith and exhale doubt; to inhale trust and exhale distrust.

Then he turned to me and just looked as if he was on stage at a revival tent waiting for some miraculously healing words. What could I say? I wasn’t sure what to say. All I could offer him was a sense that he was not alone, I desribed my own experiences stemming from growing up as an ignored, taken for granted, second son in an immigrant influenced family which fawned over the first born son. I spoke of my own insecurities, weakened self-confidence; of, until recently, a strong need to be important, seen, needed; of living a life–until five years ago–without a sense of being wanted, loved, and worthy; of believing that I was a failure. I described the explosive ephiphany I experienced at my son’s school six years ago; my subsequent difficult inner journey, confronting myself, asking myself the hard, honest questions, accepting nothing but the painful honest answers. I told him that he had to see through the scar tissue clouding his soul that just being on campus showed that he was not a loser, that just talking to me revealed a hidden spirit struggling not to be defeated. But, he couldn’t believe he was fighting to fill voids; he couldn’t break the chains on his spirit.

I had hardly finished when he shocked me back with two pleading questions, “I’m twenty-two and I’m just so tired of always crying inside. How did you stop crying?”

I replied with something like: “My journey is not your journey. I can’t just ‘sign you up.’ The only truth that will motivate you is your own truth. You have to find your own values, importance, faith, and hope. You have to have your own dreams. But, I will tell you what I tell everyone who asks: if you find the way to walk that hard, rocky inner road, if you can find the way to asked the painfully honest questions and accept nothing less than the painfully honest answers, you will enter a world deep within yourself in which you will find strength, ability, and a potential you never dreamed existed.

As if he didn’t hear me, he went on. “Tell me how to find that way, how do it.” “Tell me how I stop? Tell me,” he desperately pleaded, “how I get rid of these feeling? Tell me, how I can be happy.”

I knew I had come to the line I dare not cross, could not cross. I told him that all I knew was that it’s hard enough to find happiness within ourselves, but it’s impossible to find it anywhere else. I couldn’t help him answer those questions. I didn’t have the expertise to offer the help he asked for, and that he needed to talk with a professional. He shook his head.

“I can’t say or do anymore. It’s up to you to decide what to do next, but you’ve taken one step. You have to decide if you have the courage to take the next.” I quietly told him. “You have to see a professional. If you decide to go see our councilors, if you want, I’ll be next to you.”

I knew it was no use at this moment to continue our conversation. I put my hand on his knee and gave it a light, caring squeeze. He faintly smiled, but it didn’t seem enough. He had such a tragic stare of disappointment. I wanted to cry with him and for him.

The hot sun beat down, yet I felt cold and numb. It was hard walking to the office. The earlier zip in my step was gone. I was emotionally spent. My muscles were stiff and ached. I could barely move my legs. I remember thinking along the way that Sam had a desperation to understand what was happening within him, a desperation to discover his place of belonging, a desperation to find a home. But, he was living so obsessively in his sordid, vivid childhood he couldn’t see the beauty hidden deep inside. All the memories would let him see was a dark, hard rock core. I wasn’t sure that however desperately he wanted to be somebody else whether he had the courage to risk realizing he was somebody.

When I arrived at my office, I opened a Tootsie Pop, desperate for its sweetness. I leaned back in my chair, closed my eyes, tears drifting down my cheeks, slowly shook my head in disbelief, took some deep breaths, and felt enveloped by a a sense of helpless inadequacy. Then, I called my wife.

“Just say something nice,” I simply begged without so much as my normal mischievous, “hi sexy lady.”

She knew. No questions, no long conversation, no trusims or sophistries, no hesitation. She understood and soothingly whispered in quick response, “I love you very much. I think I’ll take you out for to dinner tonight.” She always knows what to say.

“Yeah,” I gratefully replied, “see ya.” And, slowly hung up.

I called our campus counselor for both comfort and advice about what next do to. She assured me saying that I done everything right: listened, shared, refused to offer advice, admited limitations, urged him to see a professional. “At least, you were there to listen when he felt it was time to talk. You just have to wait it out. Encourage him when he’s earned it, but don’t patronize him. You’ve got the intuition. Let it decide what and when you should do.”

“Why don’t your words seem enough?” I asked even though I knew she gave me great advice.

“They will be,” she propheticly replied, “when you think about them for a while.”

For the next few days, I figuratively took two aspirins, just sat back, watched, and followed by friends advice. Then, Sam came up to me and told me he had decided to go to the councilor. “I’m tired of all the pain inside,” explaining his decision.

As we walked to the councilor I remember phrases that kept pouring out: “I’m scared…..All the guilt has worn me down….I don’t want to hate myself any more….” I left him to make an appointment and fill out the necessary forms, telling him from now on it was between him and the councilor.

A few days, Sam told me he had seen the psychologist and made another appointment. Two days after that Sam and the other two members of his triad had to put on a skit in front of the class to depict what they considered to be a key issue in a particular chapter of the textbook. They did a mediocre job. I told them to do it over and gave them the weekend to rewrite the skit. At the end of the class Sam came up to me and said he had to cancel his next appointment because of the demands of his job. I merely told him he had to do what he felt he had to do. “I don’t want to stir up all that muck. I’m afraid to see that dark pain again. It hurts so much. I don’t know if I can take it.”

That Monday, his triad put on a great skit with Sam, dressed as a woman, boisterously acting out a character. I remember thinking that Sam’s character was so out of character for him and had feeling uneasy about that as if I was witnessing a final nova. I congratulated him after class emphasizing not so much what he did, but how it reflected the potential that he had. But, I guess my gut feeling was right. I haven’t seen him since, nor have his other professors. I can only guess he couldn’t have a love affair with himself. I can only guess he just couldn’t jump off that cliff and develop his wings on the way down and learn to soar. I can only guess he couldn’t take any risk until everything signaled “Go!.” I guess the time wasn’t right for him to begin knowing his dreams. There was a sorrow, anger, and a sense of inadequacy that I could only helplessly watch and not be able to do something to stop someone so precious from being destroyed.

And so, the last ten days have been tough as I kept seeing Sam’s dark, painful, desperate human face. This morning, while sipping a cup of freshly brewed coffee, I turned on the stereo to listen to the soundtrack from that magnificant opera, Les Miserables. As I listened to each song, I noticed something I had not before in the multitude of times I’ve listened the score. The two key characters, faced with a challenge to their principles reacted into different ways. In the prologue song, “What Have I Done?” the convict-hero, Jean Valjean, having stolen from a priest, is forced to take a hard look his calloused outlook of the world which was shattered by the priest’s forgiveness and hauntlingly sings “And I stare into the void–to the whirlpool of my sin. I’ll escape now from the world…another story must begin.” He decides to break his parole to start his life anew under a new identity. In hot pursuit is the unflinching police inspector, Javert. Towards the end of the opera, Javert, whose life is spared by Valjean, himself forced to take a hard look as his unbending outlook of the world which was shattered by Valjean’s mercy, hauntingly sings in his “Soliloquoy”: “As I stare into the void of a world that cannot hold. I’ll escape now from that world….There is nowhere I can turn. There is no way to go on.” He decides to end his life and throws himself into the swollen Seine. That juxapostion offered me some needed and valuable insights.

The truth is that I think I experienced a microburst of burnout because I had for the moment merged the ideals of my vision with my expectation and became disappointed because Sam fell short of both my ideals and expectations; I had over-romanticized what I do and it’s impact, and felt a let down; I had forgotten about the gap between my vision and reality so that I momentarily allowed my vision seem discouragingly and hopelessly unrealistic. I had forgotten that to reach out for a student doesn’t mean I will always reach him or her, that to try to touch a student doesn’t mean I will always touch him or her. And if I do someohow touch and reach a student, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the student will be reached and touched when, where, to the extent and in the manner I want or expect. Unlike Javert looking into the void, though, I’m not going to throw myself into the swollen Withlacoochee. Like Valjean, I can go on because I now realize that this experience can also be a source of energy for change with which to slowly pull reality toward my vision.

I am even stronger in my belief that each of us is an invisible and indivisible whole, that each of is an organic entity of mind, body, spirit, that our intellect and physique and emotion are all inseparably connected and interconnected, that each part has an influence on the others even though that influence is usually unseen, that I can think about, understand, each student– as well as myself–by focusing on the whole person rather than on not any one part at the expense of the others. I have reaffirmed that I have to think of a classroom as an indivdisble whole, as an ecological system in which each person is bound together in a lacework of interrelated threads who have effects on each other rather than as an atomistic gathering of dissociated parts.

I realize even more that wholeness teaching is like a dance, with energy racing back and forth between the partners in which there will always be the emotional stress and strain. I don’t know what this experience meant for Sam–I hope some seed had been planted–but FOR ME at this moment it’s importance rests in what I allow it to do to and for me. I can be a Javert and can take this episdoe either as evidence of powerlessness or unworthiness or inadequacy of both me and my vision and become a “given up.” Or, I can be a Jean Valjean and see my involvement with Sam as an opportunity for me to learn about myself and my visions, and turn it to my advantage to remain true to my purpose: helping students acquire the faith and hope in themselves so that they can weave their own dream catchers and leave the world a better place for having been here.

The question is whether I am willing to live with that tension, with that agony of involvement and use it as a creative, active force to my strengthen my committment, to heighten my sense of mission, to deepen by vision, to sharpen the focus of my energies, to clarify what really matters to me, to continue living my life and profession in the service of my highest aspiration, and to fortify my perseverance and patience. The alternative is frightening. In the name of temporary and imagined relief from frustration and saddness and difficulty, I must lower my tolerance for that agony of involvement, diminish my vision, weaken my committment to the growth of both myself and the students, lose my excitement, undermine my enthusiasm, erode my goals, weaken my sense of higher purpose of what I do, blur my picture of the future, and surrender my dreams–maybe even become disheatened, uncertain and cynical. Like Jean Valjean and Javert, because of Sam, I “stared into the void”, but unlike Javert my story goes on because what I do I must do; it is my work, my mission, my life; it is me. In the face of frustration and setbacks, I must persevere because I genuinely care. And, only when I genuinely care, can I genuinely be committed, doing with excitement and enthusiasm what I truly want to do: develop every student’s vast talents and clear the way for every student’s success.

So, I now know that I will carry something of this experience on with me in ways no doubt I don’t currently realize. There was something Sam said that has been echoing in my soul. As we walked to the councilor, he turned and said, “Thanks for being a river in my desert.” Until today, I felt like a meaningless trickle, but the possibility of being a river in someone’s desert is a goal worthy of commitment, worth the agony of involvement. Now I know that I will lose both my vision and sense of mission, I will no longer take them to heart, only if I no longer believe that I can shape the future. And, I don’t think there is anything more powerful I can do to encourage students in their quest than be so serious in my own quest that my passion rises from my body like steam. So, the students are going to continue to get a flood of my spirit as well as my energy not just in times of crisis, but at all times.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–