Just Think About It

It’s a crisp dawn. A new day is being born. Each ray of the rising sun is a magic wand waving today alive. All possibilities are opening up. There’s something of a sacredness to this new day. It’s like watching a reenactment of “in the beginning.” And yet, so many people sleep through it, both literally and figuratively. It never dawns on them–pun intended–to offer it a thankful, tip-of-the-hat “hi there.” For me, there is no overlooking, no taking for granted, no ho-hum, no “just another,” no “nothing much,” and speeding by. No, each dawn is for me an invitation, an inspiration, a consecration, a witnessing, a revelation, a thanking, a privilege, a hallowing, a freshness, a beginning, an opening, a newness, and a command to “go forth.” Having had cancer will do that.

Well, I was “hello-ing” this only day I have on the front stoop. No walking for me for a while. Can’t do much else either. I’m under virtual house arrest for a month! Just resting and recuperating. I had a hernia operation last week that was the result of my prostatectomy in January. They had to do it, as my surgeon smirked, “the old fashioned ‘cut and slash’ way” because of the scar tissue inside. To get even with his humor, I drew a smilely on my groin before the operation. So, now, with a 4 inch line of surgical stapes, my right groin has the look of a puffed-up zippered pocket. My angelic Susan has become something of a combined hovering mother hen, loving and caring wife, and inflexible drill instructor. Achy. Stiff. Bored. When I can do something, it’ll take me months to get back into physical shape. No complaints. I’ve discovered there are a whole lot of worse things than receiving proper and needed medical care.

As I leaned against the cold bricks, on the chilling tiles, sipping some freshly brewed coffice, and thinking about enveloping darkness and sparks of light, I found myself going back to a conversation I had with someone a few weeks ago at the Lilly conference. I was hosting a luncheon “presenter round table.” One of those professors who had signed up to sit and chat with me professed how much he cared about students and how he wanted to do so much for them, but was restricted at his institution’s policies. I had met him last year. He is thoughtful, generous, well-intentioned, and caring. Yet, he, for all his verbiage, like so many others still served his own self-interest while his serving interests in students had their limits. I was listening to him defend his decisions and explain why he couldn’t or wouldn’t do this or that. “I’d love to, but….” “I really want to, but….” “I agree with you, but….” “I’d rather teach and put all my energies into helping students, but….” “I feel a need to, but….” His “buts” sounded as if he was taking his “butt” out from harm’s way in the battle zones on his campus. “It’s too risky to be different. I wouldn’t get tenure. Then, I’d lose my job. I’m no saint. It’s purely a practical decision.”

I appreciated his position. But, just think about it, the decision isn’t so pure, is it? Think about what he said. Think about the broken connection between his value system and his actions. Think about the disconnect between him and others around him. Think about how alone he feels in a too often haughty and unforgiving and inflexible academic world. Think about how joylessly tinny his words sound. Think about how he feels his actions are losing their sacramental possibilities. Think about his depth of distrust and the breadth of his fear and width of his resignation. Think about how he is literally ”being lived’ and is acting out scripts written by others. Think about how he’s unwittingly focusing on himself and putting the students out of focus. Think about all that draining energy he is using to constantly convince himself he’s in the right, that he can’t change the system, and that he can only swallow whatever it handed to him. Think about how his own feelings and fears quickly became the issue. Think about how quickly he made his feelings seem so altruistic, how those feelings had eaten at his reserves of hope, how they had depleted the wellsprings of his commitment, how they had disoriented his heart and soul, how they had become a civilized distraction, and how they had drowned out the hard question.

Just think about, then, how this extraordinary person has allowed himself to be cowered into a going-along-to-get-along dance of “ordinarianism.” Think about how self-interest has a powerful tendency to disable our objectivity and befuddle our ability to live up to moral principles. And when we think our financial or physical or professional security is at stake, the best of us are vulnerable to reason-crippling self-rationalization and self-delusion and self-righteousness. The greater the threat to our self-interest, the more likely it is that we will slam our minds shut to other perspectives and defend our positions with ferocity, as if the intensity of our convictions makes them more valid.

Just think about how he reflects the extent to which our educational culture has imprisioned the vast majority of its adherents. And, just think about how that may be the real dumbing down of contemporary education.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

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About Louis Schmier

LOUIS SCHMIER “Every student should have a person who wants to help him or her help himself or herself become the person he or she is capable of becoming, and I’ll be damned if I am ever going to let one human being fall through the cracks in my classes without a fight.” How about a snapshot of myself. But, what shall I tell you about me? Something personal? Something philosophical? Something pedagogical? Something scholarly? Nah, I'll dispense with that resume stuff. Since I believe everything we do starts from who we are inside, what we believe, what we perceive, and what we do is an extension of ourselves, how about if I first say some things about myself. Then, maybe, I can ease into other things. My name is Louis Schmier. The first name rhymes with phooey, the last with beer. I am a 76 year old - in body, but not in mind or spirit - born and bred New Yorker who came south in 1963. I met by angelic bride, Susie, on a reluctant blind date at Chapel Hill. We've been married now going on 51 years. We have two marvelous sons. One is a VP at Samsung in San Francisco. The other is an artist with food and is an executive chef at a restaurant in Nashville, Tn. And, they have given us three grandmunchkins upon whom we dote a bit. I power walk 7 miles every other early morning. That’s my essential meditative “Just to …” time. On the other days, I exercise with weights to keep my upper body in shape. I am an avid gardener. I love to cook on my wok. Loving to work with my hands as well as with my heart and mind, I built a three room master complex addition to the house. And, I am a “fixer-upper” who allows very few repairmen to step across the threshold. Oh, by the way, I received my A.B. from then Adelphi College, my M.A. from St. John's University, and my Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I have been teaching at Valdosta State University in Georgia since 1967. Having retired reluctantly in December, 2012, I currently hold the rank of Professor of History, Emeritus. I prefer the title, “Teacher”. Twenty-five years ago, I had what I consider an “epiphany”. It changed my understanding of myself. I stopped professoring and gave up scholarly research and publication to devote all my time and energy to student. My teaching has taken on the character of a mission. It is a journey that has taken me from seeing only myself to a commitment to vision larger than myself and my self-interest. I now believe that being an educator means I am in the “people business”. I now believe that the most essential element in education is caring about people. Education without caring, without a real human connection, is as viable as a person with a brain but without a heart. So, when I am asked what I teach, I answer unhesitatingly, “I teach students”. I am now more concerned with the students’ learning than my teaching, more concerned with the students as human beings than with the subject. I am more concerned with reaching for students than reaching the height of professional reputation. I believe the heart of education is to educate the heart. The purpose of teaching is to instill in all students genuine, loving, lifelong eagerness to learn and foster a life of continual growth and development. It should encourage and assist students in developing the basic values needed for learning and living: self-discipline, self-confidence, self-worth, integrity, honesty, commitment, perseverance, responsibility, pursuit of excellence, emotional courage, creativity, imagination, humility, and compassion for others. In April, 1993, I began to share ME on the internet: my personal and professional rites of passage, my beliefs about the nature and purpose of an education, a commemoration of student learning and achievement, my successful and not so successful experiences, a proclamation of faith in students, and a celebration of teaching. These electronic sharings are called “Random Thoughts”. There are now over 1000 of them floating out there in cyberspace. The first 185, which chronicles the beginnings of my journey, have been published as collections in three volumes, RANDOM THOUGHTS: THE HUMANITY OF TEACHING, RANDOM THOUGHTS, II: TEACHING FROM THE HEART, RANDOM THOUGHTS, III: TEACHING WITH LOVE, and RANDOM THOUGHTS, IV: THE PASSION OF TEACHING. The chronicle of my continued journey is available in an Ebook on Amazon's Kindle in a volume I call FAITH, HOPE, LOVE: THE SPIRIT OF TEACHING. There a few more untitled volumes in the works..

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