Here we go again! It’s chilly outside but a fiery message super-heated the inside and nearly melted my computer screen. This professor just won’t give up. She is a pit bull. But, that’s okay. It’s her right. Besides, I’ve got skin like a rhino. More important, she’s still doing me a great unintended service by forcing me to reflect, formulate, and articulate my ‘whys.’ This time, she smoked me with a short and less than sweet message. “The academic world would be a much better place without braggarts like you who pollute the intellectual world of higher education with your touch-feely nonsense and make others feel less than what they are,” she wrote, “I know this cuts you to the quick, but I don’t apologize. You are outrageously selfish to make yourself feel high and mighty at the expense of others. Some humility please.”

I replied, “So, tell me how, then, does lighting my candle lessen the light of other candles. If anything, it increases the ability of the other candles to chase away more and more distant shadows and flood larger places with brighter light. What have I said to make you feel lesser? When I experience a deep sense of life’s harmony, beauty, and awesomeness in the classroom? What have I said that makes you feel low and puny? How I feel when I see students being creative and I feel I am making a difference? How am I outrageously selfish? When I show and tell how my teaching feels purposeful? When am I the braggart? When I work with students and faculty I discover the great potential in each of them?

“I know when I see something that makes me stand silently in awe, I don’t shrivel. When I look up in the skies, I don’t feel insignificant. When I see a great work of art, I don’t have a sense of being diminished. When I read of a selfless heroic act, I don’t feel inadequate. I don’t know about you, if anything, I get goose bumps; my eyes go agog a ‘wow;’ my eyes swell up with happy tears; and, I get an admiring lump in my throat. All that awe and wonder connects me to myself, other human beings, and something beyond than myself.”

“Your blistering comments remind me of a portion of a discussion between Agrippinus and Epictetus, that’s hanging above my computer and goes something like this: ‘….you consider yourself to be only one thread of those which are in the tunic. Well then, it was fitting for you to take care how you should be like the rest of men, just as the thread has no design to be anything different to the other threads. But I wish to be purple, that small part which is bright, and makes all the rest appear graceful and beautiful. Why then do you tell me to make myself like the many? And if I do, how shall I still be purple?'”

“I know I can’t please everyone. I don’t even try. For one thing, it would be a mistake to play the 100% game. It’s a no winner. For another thing, I’d lose my integrity, individuality, authenticity, and freedom. For still another thing, there are so many different people out there with different perspectives I could not write a ‘one size fits all’ universally inoffensive pabulum piece if I wanted to. It would have no true meaning other than attempted pandering. I have often said that sending out a message on the internet is like playing roulette: ‘around and around it goes; into whose mailbox it falls you never knows.’ All I can do is be true to myself and write from me rather than try to kiss up to others in order to gain their favor. You see, I accept the risk of decent and sincere people such as you taking umbrage with my well-intentioned comments. Of course, I am accountable for what I say and do, and I do assume responsibility for my verbal actions. At the same time, we each are responsible for the way we interpret other people’s motives or words and how we respond to them.”

“In other words, we are the blame we level and/or responsibility we accept. We are our responses to people around us and to circumstance.”

“When I act in good faith and without malice, I’m not responsible for the way others feel, for I cannot control how they will respond to my words. How can I worry about pleasing people whom I do not know and what they’re going to think? How can I do anything creative if the whole thing of what I feel and think and do is motivated by trying to please somebody else and worrying about what others think? When a sculptor sculpts, he or she is both pleasing him/herself and hoping that whatever he or she is creating will reach someone else who’ll see it on that level. To worry about someone picking it apart and discussing it element for element, and trying to knock you down or weaken it in any way doesn’t amount to anything but a waste of material. When a master artist panders to others, he or she has reduced him/herself to the depths of being a commercialized technician.”

“Now, let me take this several steps forward. The demand for humility such as the one you leveled at me is often a false accusation that cowers so many into silent corners as safe and disengaged ‘lurkers,’ onlookers, and by-standers. You want to shape the discourse. Why would you deny me that opportunity? I don’t share my experiences to exalt myself. I am truly sorry you interpret my words as signs that I’m cocky, egotistical, into myself, self-promoting, arrogant, self-serving, lacking humility. What would you have me do? My immediate answer is that I’m a guy cut from the cloth of Joshua 1:9, “Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed….” Do you want me to remain silent? Do you want me to crumple the brim of my hat in supplication? Do you want me to hunch over and bow my head in submission? Do you want my knees to buckle under peer pressure? Stare at the ground? Stay in the shadows of the corner? Slump around? Be invisible? Be fearful of what others would judge? Bleach the purple of my thread to white? If I did, that would be false humility. And, there’s enough false humility going around in academia.”

“False humility is nothing less than a dark pretension-ness costumed in saintly white robes. It’s arrogance in disguise. It’s self-righteousness behind a mask. It’s a facade hiding feelings of superiority. It has to do with claiming publicly you are less than you privately believe you are in order to be more publicly more than you actually are, that you can do less than you believe you can, and almost always demands outside confirmation or affirmation as a cover up an inner feeling of insecurity and inferiority. The person with false humility has a driving need to convince others of how unassuming he or she is. It’s self-centered selfishness par excellence. It’s little more than an act.”

“True humility is not self-effacement. It’s not silence. It’s not invisibility. It’s easy to pose as an irrelevancy; it takes no effort to disappear into the crowd, to go silent, and to be one of Agrippinus’ undistinguished white threads. True humility is uniqueness. It is self-respect. It’s courage. It’s seeing yourself clearly both as you presently are, presently can be, and presently should be. It’s putting your values into practice. It’s a feeling of being worthy, but not worth more or less than anyone else no matter your position or renown or length of your resume. It’s a respect that doesn’t come from being high above others on some summit. It has to do with acknowledging and respecting who you are and what you can do and what you can achieve, without any outside confirmation or approval. Above all, it’s a recognition that while you are worthy there is something worthier and greater than you, and that you are in the service of others. It’s knowing, as Epictetus said, ‘When you have gone into your room, and shut the door, you are not alone.’ Humility is a recognized, acknowledged, and activated affirmation that, as John Donne would have said, you are not an island and whatever you do must be a conscious investment in the well-being of others.”

“I am a teacher. Am I supposed to just sit here on my hands, be quiet, be pressured, stay unnoticed, just think about things, be bored, believe I’m a lesser being, be not be willing to dare, worry, be insecure, be overly concerned with what others think, try to impress others, struggle to get the approval of others, not have fun in what I’m doing, not have a purpose in life, not be emotional, not be spiritual–yes, spiritual, be without a vision, be without meaning, not know where my future’s going, not knowing how to get there, not realize that teaching is the greatest thing that has happen to me? Am I to stay in the shadows? Am I not to share my philosophy and my experiences, my outlooks and insights, my successes and mistakes, how I apply that approach to education? Is that how I reach out? Is that how I touch? Is that how I make a difference? Is that how I do important things? Is that how I feel fulfilled? When we make believe we’re small, whom does it serve? Aren’t my gifts and talents and insights and accomplishments meant to help others, just as those of others are meant to help me?”

“I’m a teacher. I don’t seek to impose. I don’t want to coerce. I don’t seek to dictate. I don’t demand to control. I don’t have to dominate. Why would I? If I’ve learned anything since my epiphany, especially from reading student journals, it is three things. First, control, coercion, and domination are merely ways for looking out only for yourself and your own interests at the expense of others. They’re ways to merely to prove you’re right. They’re ways to protect and promote only yourself. Proclamations to the contrary, they seldom consider others or operate for the benefit of others. Second, the more any teacher tries to impose control the more people and situations become uncontrollable. Third, in the spirit of Carl Rogers, I realize that I really can’t control anyone. So, what’s the alternative to control? Persuasion. Persuasion, as Peter Senge indicates, brings people on board, brings them along, helps them buy in, offers them ownership, empowers them, and has a better chance of lasting. I want to persuade people that there is an alternative to coercion and control and imposition. I want to bring others along. I want to persuade you how wonderful each student is. I want to offer you an insight how much hope and faith and belief and love you can feel when you work with students and colleagues whom you care about. I want to transmit the blessings of my realizations of the rich fulfillment from teaching in ways that promote, encourage, and support connectedness rather than separateness. I want to offer alternative views. I want to offer new choices to speak up with confidence, act with courage, and struggle to bring new life to this age old profession of teaching. I want to speak up and affirm my views and choices. My purpose is to be contagious. I want to “infect” you with seeing what I see, hearing what I hear, feeling what I feel, loving what I love, believing what I believe, having hope in what I have hope, having faith in what I have faith. I try to communicate what I’ve learned or the new ideas generated in conversations, letters and even these commentaries. New insights are a great gift, and I think we should open them and share them. There’s that Eskimo adage about sharing the richness of the hunt again”

“Do you know why I throw myself into teaching and do it publicly? It’s not the sin of pride or of feeling important; it’s because of the damn importance to teaching that so many of us academics regrettably don’t accept. It’s the blessing of feeling worthy and of doing important things. It’s not to do anything for my own sake; it’s to do things for the sake of each student. It’s not the sin of material wanting or desiring public adulation; it’s the blessing of having meaning and purpose. It’s because I cannot achieve any sense of fulfillment without having a vision in which I fervently believe and which I vigorously pursue. It’s because I have discovered that only when I have my heart in it with all my heart, live for it, taste it, die for it, that I won’t doubt, fear, be bored, burn out, be frustrated, and be resigned. And, I will find happiness, satisfaction, fulfillment, and a worth that once was beyond my wildest dreams and once thought could never be mine.”

“So many people look high and low, in every nook and cranny, for beauty. They will search it out in gardens, in meadows and forests, on mountain tops, in the great museums, on the high seas, in foreign cultures, and in the heavens. Yet, so few search for it in the classroom; so few search it out in each student and in themselves; so few acknowledge the blessing, dignity, mysteriousness, sacredness, honor, grandeur, nobility, wholesomeness that is each student and themselves. Yet, everyone is a miracle and I have discovered in the last fifteen years that to see each student as a miracle is one of the greatest daily vitamins I can take. What’s wrong with sharing my feelings and the effects of those feelings that makes the classroom for me a dose of delight, a place that makes me feel energized, a place that stimulates my imagination and creativity and that of others, a place where I and others feel hopeful and faithful and believing and loving, a place where I feel in tune with and connected with people, a place where I can’t stop smiling, a place where I feel connected with something bigger than myself, and a place that is a fountain of youth for me where I am young beyond my years?”

“Don’t like what I say? Fine. Don’t agree with what I do? That’s okay. Don’t accept the rules I’ve set for myself? No problem. Reject my assertion that mindfulness, hope, belief, faith, love, passion, empathy creates effective result in constant emotional and physical and intellectual and spiritual renewal needed for enduring teaching and learning? I can live with that. Deny the results of studies and research? I’ll go along with that. But, I ask you. When do you meditate and reflect? What is it that you meditate on, reflect upon, and articulate about? What is the ‘why’ of who you are and what you do? What is the meaning and purpose of what you’re doing? What is your personal mission statement? What personal vision motivates and inspires you? You see I have found that you teach not only from where you are, but perhaps more importantly from where you have been and from where you are heading.”

“Understand this: the ideas I stand for, the vision I have, the guiding credo I’ve devised for myself, I admit are not totally all mine. They’re a mix of superbly tasting ingredients. I’m not all that original. I have borrowed some meaty ingredients from friends and colleagues too numerous to list whom I admire and from whom I have learned much. I have pulled more than a few nourishing tidbits from different disciplines. I have drawn some from Socrates, Aristotle, Rumi, Marcus Aurelius, Maimonides, Aquinas, Confucius, Buddha, Lao Tse, Jesus, Moses, Paul, Isaiah, Micah, et al. I have pulled some spices out from the Koran, the Old Testament, the Talmud, and the New Testament. I have ‘swiped’ some morsels from the likes of the Dalai Lama, Rashi, Locke, Pope, Jung, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Thoreau, Picasso, Shaw, Emerson, Twain, Thich Nhat Hanh, Michaelangelo, Albert Einstein, Elie Wiesel, Thomas Jefferson, and a untold host of others. I have ‘stolen’ a lot from Dewey, Maslow, Seligman, Palmer, Senge, Gardner, Jung, Goleman, Kabat-Zinn, Telushkin, Rogers, and–yes–Dr. Seuss. And I have put them, and a host of others, together into a pot, mixed and stirred and stewed to create a recipe with which I am always tinkering of who I am, what I feel, what I think, what I dream, what I do, where I want to be, who I want to be, and how I get there.”

“So, if you don’t like the rules, values, principles, visions, callings, admonitions, findings of my ‘mentors,’ and my recipe, whose would you use and how would you cook them into soul food that nourishes your feelings, beliefs, faiths, loves, thoughts and actions?”

“It’s a question that even more important in these days. Have you watch the PBS program, DECLINING BY DEGREES: HIGHER EDUCATION AT RISK? Do so. It’s discomforting. Read the sobering editorial in this past Sunday’s New York Times, ‘Proof of Learning at College?’ Do so. It’s disturbing. Consider the recent findings from the National Assessment of Adult Literacy and the suggestion by the chairman of the presidential Commission on the Future of Higher Education that standardized testing of what students learn in higher education should be imposed on colleges and universities. Do so. It’s scary. And, going into defensive denial or silence or even vocal haughtiness won’t alter the situation, nor will forming a bemoaning mutual admiration society. Teaching needs to become a true top priority on an equal plane with research and publication in the higher educational universe. That student out there has to become as important, if not more important, than a book, grant, conference paper, a keynote address, a line item on a resume, and the like. We need to stop treating teaching as a peripheral or marginal or lip service or sometimes issue. Maybe we ought not to sacrifice the student in that classroom in our quest for renown and tenure. Maybe we ought not go into and stay in the classroom as ill-prepared and untrained and unlearned as most of us have done and still do. Maybe we ought to stop accepting an amateurishness of what we do in the classroom that we wouldn’t accept in our scholarship. Maybe we ought to accept our dual role and be prepared to become future classroom teachers as vigorously as we are prepared to become future scholars. Maybe we ought to be required to keep abreast of the new findings about teaching and learning as much as we are required to keep abreast of advances in our disciplines. Then again, maybe we ought to finally seriously think about implementing the recommendations of oft referred to but usually neglected Boyer report, SCHOLARSHIP RECONSIDERED and give unto the teachers that which is teaching equally and as prestigious as we give unto the scholars that which is research and publication. If higher education truly embraces what this means, it will require a complete overhaul of not only how we practice in the classroom, but how we train for the classroom. It all gets down to living and living up to our poetic mission statements. It all boils down to a mindfulness, sensitivity, respect, and being in the service for each student, our disciplines, scholarship, and as well as for ourselves. And, that would make for better education and a better education.”

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

Well, I had just returned from a delightful three day gathering at the Lilly-South conference at UNC-Greensboro. It was impossible to distinguish between teachers and learners. Here was a gathering of over 200 academics willing to come out from their safe place, willing to surrender the security of their place, ready to grow, willingly accepting the challenge to change.

So, it’s time to return to the accusations of the professor from a southern university. I’m really grateful to this professor’s barbs. That may sound strange, but she has gotten me to think, to reflect and to articulate my philosophy of education, my vision of teaching, and why I share my experiences. If you remember, she had called my stories “worthless,” “soft,” “anecdotal,” and, to paraphrase her, Seuss-ish. This was my response to this part of her earlier message that I sent out this morning.

“It is said that among Native Americans the medicine men ask three questions of the sick: ‘When was the last time you sang? When was the last time you danced? When was the last time you told your story?’ I understand the first two questions. We’d all be a lot happier with our lives if we could see the delight in dandelions, the wonder in sunrises, the beauty in a swaying tree, the miracle in a lady bug, and the fun in mud puddles, and the enjoyment of life itself. But, why is telling your story obviously so important? My answer is that we each are someone who has learned something and who, by telling that part of his or her experiences, can benefit others. . It’s a question that asks if you have lived the full width and depth of your life rather than merely its length, what footprints have you left behind, how is the world better for you having passed this way, how have you altered the world and changed the future. In this sense, stories are indications that there is a way or a path that has been cut by someone else’s footsteps. Our experiences, our discoveries, our ideas, our visions are all meant to be shared if for no other reason than we never live or work or love alone.”

“So, to be honest, it is true. I mostly tell stories. I am a storyteller. I plead guilty. Besides, why should I apologize for being one? Why should I buy into the myth that our individual experiences, our individual lives, our anecdotal existence doesn’t count in the statistical scheme of things? You want me to reduce myself to a mere speck? You want me to shirk my responsibility of being significant? You want me to accept worthlessness? I won’t, nor should anyone else. We all tell stories, even you, because we know we’re each worthy of being noticed, because within our gut we know we each are important and that our stories count. Stories are how we let each other know how we feel. They help us form our identities, share our visions, break down barriers, build bridges, forge connections, and spin webs of community. Stories let us and others see what we’re made of in a way impersonal statistics, axioms, theories, generalizations do not and cannot.”

“As I was aimlessly googling the other day, I came across some writings of Ann Foerst, a theologian who talks of human beings as ‘Homo Narrandus,’ the story-telling animal. She proposes that the one distinctive characteristic of we human beings, the one that separates from all other beings, is that in large part we are defined, shaped, and revealed by our own stories that live deep in our flesh and bones and mind and spirit. She says we use stories about how we came into being, how we came to a place, what’s our meaning, what’s our identity, where we’re headed, how we’re going to get there, and what we’ve left behind. Stories are the ‘why,’ as well as the ‘how,’ ‘what,’ and ‘when’ of us. That is, in my words, we are the stories we tell.”

“After watching once again the PBS presentation, “Declining by Degrees: Higher Education at Risk,” while at the Lilly conference, as a teacher, I am more convinced than ever that I am in the ‘people business.’ My concern is to see and listen to and deal with people, fellow human beings, sacred individuals, students, whom too often too many of us treat as clones of each other. I realize more than ever that the most important work for me is not writing this Random Thought or publishing a book or giving a workshop or lengthening my resume. To be honest, as others have noticed, there is something that is random in my Random Thoughts. It is the sharing of stories powerful enough to remind us academics that we, degrees and resumes not withstanding, each are an imperfect but noble person, that we’re in the people business, that there are real young men and women out there, that we not some higher order of human beings elevated there by our degrees and robes. I share my stories as a call to trust our humanness. When you do, you welcome student surprises; you’re curious about students’ differences; you respect them; you delight in their inventiveness; you nurture them; you connect with them. They, in turn, will trust you act in their best interests and that you want to bring more good into the world for them. I share stories in the firm belief that we each carry an inner desire to make a difference, and that it is essential – imperative! – that we call forth, carry forth, and put into action that intense desire in ourselves and others ways to do so. I share to urge you that if you carry this story within you, it is time to tell it, wherever you are, to whomever you meet, whenever the occasion arises. I share my stories to break the silence. I share stories to call forth my dream into being and weave it into every fiber of my being, and to offer others more than a peek at my vision and the consequences of putting it into daily play. I share my stories to tell you that rather than seeing students as problems or obstacles, I realize more than ever that there is an innate human desire for connection, meaning and value in classes and on our campuses.

“The problem, as exemplified by you, is not that you’re hard-hearted. I don’t believe that for a second. The problem is that we live and work in a professional setting where all too often it is impossible to exercise and demonstrate our natural inclination to be empathetic, sympathetic, and compassionate. Storytelling is suspect and spurned as intellectually disreputable. That’s because too many academics act with a particular mindset. The focus on subject matter, the emphasis on assessment, the spotlight on research and publication, and the fearful quest for tenure have an out-of-tune, “dis-connecting,” “dis-heartening” and “un-emotional” impact so that student and teacher see each on differentiated planes. So many of us see through students as if they were made of cellophane. So many of us have lost that ability to walk in a student’s shoes. We seldom give ourselves reflective time to define our relationship to our selfs, to our work, to the college community, and to students.”

“You wish to discount ‘soft’ anecdotes and ban them to the depths of worthlessness because they deal with the murky things that defy those ‘hard’ analytical diagrams; they find the holes of exception in statistics; they go against the current of flow charts, and they complicate the over-simplified. Stories are disregarded because they disregard and deviate from “the norm.” I am all too familiar with skepticism about storytelling. When I tell a story or write up a story, I am prepared for a lot of eye-rolling, head shaking, yawning, accusing, and unread deleting. The academic world is too often a black and white world in which anecdotal is bad and statistical is good. Ask us academics to stand up in front of a professional audience and we’ll put on airs. Tangles of abstractions, theories, axioms, numbers, and jargons will spew out from our mouths. Go to a party, a conference, a coffee clutch, a restaurant, or a meeting, and listen to them informally talking among each other. Guess what you’ll hear from these very same academics? You’ll hear them let down their hair, reveal their humanity, and tell stories to each other. You’ll hear ‘did you hear’ or ‘when I was’ or ‘let me tell you what happened to me’ stories. We live in a sea of ‘for instances’ stories. Why? Because analysis might excite the intellect, but excite the heart it doesn’t. Storytelling is crucial to anyone’s search for meaning and purpose. Storytelling motivates people to action with enthusiasm and energy; it inspires people to enter the unfamiliar and unwelcomed. You think a cascade of mind-numbing numbers does that? You think a flood of coma-inducing Power Point slides read boringly by the presenter like a bedtime story to the illiterate does that? You think a torrent of droll, fact-packed lecture does that? Have you forgotten what it is that moves mountains? It’s not numbers. It’s faith that is more often than not described by a good story. Stories concern the feelings, attitudes, emotions, and actions of human beings.”

“You condemn stories as anti-intellectual anecdotes. You and others condemn them as ‘soft,’ ‘fuzzy,’ ‘fantasy,’ ‘touchy-feely,’ ‘squishy,’ ’emotional,’ ‘childish.’ You accuse me of contaminating the intellectual world of academia with the pollutants of emotions and feeling. You call stories ‘impractical.’ Yet, storytelling is powerful. If you want to be the light to help show others the way rather than merely a light bulb, tell your story to yourself and to others. Telling your story will connect you to others. They’ll be more inclined to trust you because they’ll know who you are, where you’ve come from, why you believe and act the way I do, and that you are there to be in their service. And so, I need as many stories as possible in my tool box if I want to share my values and vision to influence the values of others effectively enough to change their outlook, attitude, and behavior.

“Impractical? A critical step in coping with change is to become aware of your life story, and the fear and doubts and perceptions and habits that have governed your life thus far. I can attest that when you uncover your personal story, you’ve provided yourself a way to change. We all have an “inner story” that helps us explain the past, understand what’s happening now, anticipate the future. I tell you story after story demonstrating that it is one of the best ways to communicate with people and to form bonds among them. It’s the story that has the life-altering power, not the numbers of statistics or the flow of charts. Its stories that make the heart leap and spirits soar, not rigorous critical thinking and analysis. It’s the storytellers who can hold an audience engrossed in what was being said. If you have a new idea and want to change the world, if you want to change the minds and hearts of those around you, if you want to touch someone, tell a story. Tell your story.”

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

I got up this morning, brewed a pot of delicious coffee, sat down at the computer, worked the online Washington Post crossword puzzle, and then went out into the chilly dark before the sun came up. It feels good to get back to power walking even if I can’t as yet do it the entire five mile route. Each step of my walk is a momentary step aside from the day-to-day concerns of life. It’s the quality time I spend with myself. It’s what I often call my “vision time.” It’s a time I re-establish contact with the dreams of my vision and maintain their vibrancy. It’s a time, as Thoreau might say, I rapt in the purpose and meaning of my vision. It’s a time I remind myself of the beautiful possibilities that life holds for me. It’s a time I renew my determination and commitment to do whatever it takes to make my vision come true. It’s a meditative time before the light of day when I commit myself to overcoming the challenges of each day in order to insure that my driving vision continues to see the light of day and that my daytime language is no less than my pre-dawn language.

I came in from my walk, leisurely poured a cup of coffee, ambled to my computer, casually opened my e-mail, and then got hit by the blast of a short, category 5 message. With one exclamation point, then two, then three, this professor at a southern university wrote, “You are so impractical! You’re so dreamy!! Get your feet on the ground!!! You stories are worthless! The ramblings are anecdotal and soft!! Some hard research, please!!! You are as much a Dr. as that silly Dr. Seuss that your stories sound like!!!!”

But, I was in a shelter safe from her gusty sentences. On my walk this morning, I had begun to get myself into the groove, to get my “juices” flowing, to put on my spiritual game face as I began to prepare myself to give the opening plenary address, “It Begins With me” at the Lilly-South conference on teaching in higher education tomorrow morning at the UNC-G.

So, I quietly wrote back, “Thank you. As a devotee of Dr. Seuss, to be placed in the same category as Dr. Seuss is a humbling honor I really do not deserve which I don’t think you had intentions of bestowing. You say I’m ‘impractical,’ and ‘dreamy.'” You know what a dream or vision is for me? It’s a whispered ‘pssst.’ It’s so often an answer to a question you haven’t yet figured out how to ask. It’s trying to get your attention and tell you that there’s more to life and to our profession than just getting through a day. A dream is nothing more than you trying to tell you who you are and can be. Dreams are not practical you say? They’re soft? Well, I don’t think there’s anything idle about them. What do you think pulls you through the things pushing against you? What do you think pushes you past the people who tug at you? What do you think determination, perseverance, and commitment are made of? Where do you think you find your deepest love, your strongest faith, your highest hopes, your most profound purpose, your truest meaning? What do you think is the source of your greatest strength? What do you think you see the sharpest with? What do you think offers you the keenest insight into what is your potential. What do you think entices you to live? What do you think energizes you to move with meaning, purpose, and fulfillment? What do you think makes for those miracles and magical moments?”

“Do you think Dr. Seuss was merely talking about physical places to go, material things to acquire, renown to secure, people to hobnob with, experiences to have in his masterful OH, THE PLACES YOU’LL GO? He wasn’t. The place he was talking about is inside you. When he ended the book with (I’ve virtually memorized it in its entirety), ‘Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So…get on your way,’ he was talking about you and me; he was talking about the heights of our potential; he was talking about limitless possibilities inside us once we eliminate the limiting walls we’ve built around you. He is still talking to me. I see nothing childish about this book or any of his other insightful books. I read his books about Horton, Yurtle, the Lorax, Zax, Gertrude McFuzz, Sam, and the Cat all the time. At least once a week, I read OH, THE PLACES YOU’LL GO. And if I could afford it, I’d give a copy of that particular book to every student in my classes and to every student graduating. It’s the best practical advice for professional and life in general I’ve read!!”

“I remember the days when I merely wished upon a star, sought refuge in flimsy excuses, hid from myself under weak explanations, costumed and posed and postured for the world, stepped all over myself, disabled myself, walled myself in, put what was important to me inside aside, and excused and rationalized away. I see now how the pain I felt when I prevented myself from dreaming and following those dreams had the same purpose as any other pain. It was meant to get my attention and encourage me to correct the situation. But, I didn’t listen what I self-servingly described as outrageous. I now see that there is no courage in spiritual pain. The nightmarish pain I had befriended was no friend of mine. Now, I feel the joy of following my dream. That joy, too, has a reason for existing. It keeps me in pursuit of that dream. I once had thought dreams were so frustrating, put there as a torture. Now I see that my dreams are blessings. They’re energizers. They’re encouragers to reach beyond that resigned ‘ah, me’ and surrendered ‘oh, well.’ They’re driving forces pushing and pulling me to become what I am capable of becoming.”

“When Dr. Seuss began OH, THE PLACES YOU’LL GO with: ‘Congratulations! Today is your day. You’re off to Great Places! You’re off and away,’ he was talking about the boundless excitement of endless possibilities. He was saying that you must listen to your dreams, for only by following your dream do you have the best shot of becoming who you are capable of becoming. Your dreams aren’t important because they may get you fame and fortune. They’re valuable because they express your unique potential. I learned that I’ve got to stop waiting around and start living the dream behind the dream. Dreams do not come true on their own. You have to work to make them come true. You’ve got to get out of your way, on your way, live on the outside the purpose inside of you, live your dream every moment as I do, live your dream in every moment. Do that and you come closer to being where you want to be, being who you want to be, and doing what you truly want to do. Your dreams will not come true in an instant. Sure, there are risks. Sure, you have to be careful. Sure, you’ve got to be prepared for the pitfalls. But, you sure won’t be stopped. I’ll tell you about the practicality of dreams. The possibilities for your life they offer are far greater than any challenge that has come my way. And, if you can tough it out and work at them, doing whatever it takes, being patient, you’ll steadily bring those dreams to life; you’ll enjoy each and every moment; you’ll be fulfilled and enriched; and more importantly, you’ll leave tracks in the sand and will have altered the future.”

“Dreamy? Me? You bet!! I consider that a recognition, not a condemnation. My vision keeps me in emotional, physical, and spiritual shape. I may we walking on the streets, but I’m always running, sprinting, after my dream. If I don’t have a vision, I don’t believe. If I don’t believe, I don’t plan. If I don’t plan, I don’t act. Then, I’d lose my vitality. I’d rust like unused iron, rot like wood just lying around, stagnate like unflowing water, or atrophy like unexercised muscles. Practical? Me? You bet!!! Do you know something more powerful to motivate, inspire, and move people than a vision or dream? Do you know something more that gives you the courage to become? Do you know something that reveals your character more than your dreams or visions? I don’t. You know, those sweet miraculous moments I experience in teaching are little more than those instances when I momentarily catch up with my vision and am one with it. When that happens, I hear that voice telling me, ‘Louis, dream on.’ So tell me, what achievement hasn’t begun with a dream, with running after it, and with catching up to it? You think you could e-mail me if someone didn’t have a dream? You think you could turn on the light in your room if someone didn’t have a dream? You think your could drive your car if someone didn’t have a dream? If their technological achievement began with a dream, why, then, is it impractical for me to dream? You think we’d be closer to social equality if a bunch of people didn’t have a dream? Why can’t what I want to achieve and hope the students achieve likewise be focused and driven by a dream? I put the power of my passion into the day-to-day, sensible and practical struggle to live my dream, vision or credo if you will, to be that person who is there to help myself and another person help us become the persons we’re capable of becoming. In everything I do, I do whatever it takes to give life to my dream and give my dream to my life and to others. And, as I feel the push and pull, the unrealistic transforms into undeniable reality, the unimaginable world metamorphoses into a new world, and miracles happen. That’s the way to learn! That’s the way to teach!! Heck, that’s the way to live!!!”

Dream. That’s a great word for MY DICTIONARY OF GOOD TEACHING. I’ll send this to Kenny for him to ponder.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

Here it is, 4:15 am, and I’ve already hit the streets. A lot of stuff is happening around the house that’s been chasing Morpheus away. This morning’s walk was in one way like all my walks this week. All week I’ve been walking past that spot on Oak St. where I had that conversation with the young lady last Saturday. Today, I stopped for a second to gaze across the street, almost hoping I would see her red truck, wondering how she did on whatever exam she took. I’ve thinking of little else this passing week, thinking especially about parts of our conversation I did not share and the deep lessons I’ve learned.

When I told her that I understand her deep need to change, I explained how I had changed since that fateful October, 1991, day at Hyde School. I told her simply that at first I thought I was simply changing as if I was either a chameleon or an ugly worm metamorphosing into a beautiful butterfly. For almost a decade, Then, I explained, I began to see that it wasn’t me that had been changing. The real “me” had always been there. It was just a matter of discovering and uncovering the real “me” that lay hidden. But, that wasn’t the end of it. About two years ago, I told her, I realized my change was all about my perceptions of myself, that I had been seeing I was worth mining for, and that I had been acquiring a faith and belief that I possessed undreamed of and untapped talents and abilities and worth. And now, I think that the real journey was and still is about discovering the power in “me,” the power that comes straight from the heart..

“Loving and believing in yourself is what creates that power. No, it is that power. You know,” I emphasized, “you can love your neighbor only as you love yourself. If you don’t believe in yourself, as I truly did not, if you don’t love yourself, then you are powerless and you’re going to be at your best. It’s like saying if you don’t believe you’re a good waitress and if you don’t love waiting on people, you won’t love your customers, you won’t love helping them to enjoy themselves, and you won’t be good at waitressing and serving your customers. So, as I started loving myself, I started loving what I was doing, loving the students, helping them help themselves to better themselves, and serving something more than myself.”

“That’s true enough, but how can I change like you did to betterin’ myself so’s I can get to likin’ and believin’ in myself, like you said, to findin’ that gold inside me because I know I can be better than just a waitress.?”

It was a question I’ve heard for many years. Always I answer, “I don’t know how you do it. I only know how I did and still do it, and stand here as an example that it can be done.” And, I left it at that as I always had.

But, she was the first one who wouldn’t leave it that way. “That’s not good enough. You’re leavin’ me hangin’ out there.”

I looked at her in silence and heard she plea, “There must be some way. You must know how. I gotta know. Please.”

I looked at her desperate face. Suddenly it hit me. She was right. That wasn’t good enough for anyone, including me. Laying out some steps are important. To say “I changed” and to describe that change requires some sort of description of the process.

“Haven’t thought about the steps all that much. Let’s see if I can do this,” I slowly started feeling an anxious lump in my gut. “It’s not really like following instructions to put something together You don’t do step one, then go on to step two, then on to step three. I think there about a dozen or so intermingling and intertwined parts to what happened and is still happening to me.”

In so many words, I heard myself explaining that first (1), on the fateful October day at Hyde School, I was uncontrollably overwhelmed by a sense of urgency to heal the festering wounds in my spirit. It was a wish, a need, a desperation, and a willingness to do whatever it took to move on, to go someplace else, to be someone else. It was necessary if I wanted to change, to take myself out from my stagnating quagmire– how I perceive myself, how I expect myself to behave, how I label others, and how that labeling affects my attitudes toward others–to start losing my apparent self and to start finding my authentic self. That’s how to best describe what happened to me at that explosive moment of my epiphany. And, looking back it was a sudden rush, a splash of freezing water on my soul, a grand moment, almost an inner screaming at myself.

In reply to her question whether I afraid of what was happening, I explained that I thought I was more confused than scared. And, it was only when I was confused, when I lost my cocksuredness, did my defenses start to lower and I began to ask myself questions and to start reading myself for the unexpected, unfamiliar, and uncomfortable.

So, the “second” step (2) was that I had to hear and listen to myself; I had to look at and see myself; I had to acknowledge my negative emotions. I could no longer bury them, set them aside, disguise them, rationalize them away as I had for as long as I could remember.

Now I was on a roll as it suddenly the process that I had been and am still experiencing became. Third (3), I had to recognize that they–my fears, sense of failure, lack of confidence, weakened self-esteem– were holding me back and that the walls I had erected which were protecting me were also imprisoning me. I had to recognize as well that only positive emotions–a belief in myself, a faith in myself, a love of myself, a hope for myself–would break those walls, release me, and push me forward out into the fresh and invigorating air.

Fourth (4), I had to acquire a conviction, a conviction of the need to change. I had to convince myself of that the hard work ahead of me was worth the effort. The person I had to sign on to this project was me. Nothing half-hearted about it. No doubt. Nothing haphazard. I had to become my most avid and vocal advocate. I had to have the conviction deep down, in every fiber of my being, why I wanted what I wanted, and that there was both a will and a way to find it.

Fifth (5), that conviction helped create, support, and increase my commitment to find myself. I couldn’t fight against myself. I had to have myself on my side. I had to sincerely put all I had on the table, to put my heart completely into it. I had to slowly abandon all resistance to what was happening if I was going to truly transform myself.

Sixth (6), as I acquired a conviction and commitment, I felt a determination, a resolve to keep going in spite of the roadblocks that lay before me. It is unreasonable to think that the road to feeling good, to becoming the person you are capable of becoming, is yellow-bricked. It’s not. There will be problems, discomforts, inconveniences, distresses, fears, and even pain. Don’t recoil from them. Your conviction and commitment and determination to keep reaching for my goal carried and still carry me past seemingly insurmountable obstacles and makes things real that I once considered impossible.

Seventh (7), as I acquired a determination, a perseverance appeared. True and lasting change, transforming change, takes time. It’s a good thing I didn’t know how much time it would take. It’s a slow and steady, moment by moment, little by little, drip. I learned that any great and extraordinary act arrives gradually, that it is accomplished by a series of supposedly small, little, and ordinary acts. Every public and private feeling and thought and action weaves, unravels, and reweaves the fabric of your life. Every moment counts. Every moment is the finishing line of the last and the starting line of the next. It’s a string of moments you can’t remember and can’t forget, seen and unseen, that take you from where you were, where you are now, and bring you to where you want to be.

Eighth (8), I did a lot of this gazing into my mirror during a “Just to…” time in a “Just to….” place I created. Mine evolved from a reluctant, fearful jogging during the day to a desired, joyful meditative pre-dawn walking. I came to need and love the quiet stillness and aloneness before the sun rose. It’s a period of restoration and recovery, a time of catching my breath, of taking a deep breath, of settling my heart. It’s my time for finding rest and renewal and delight, a time to let everything but my soul lie fallow. I often explain that those five miles and 75 minutes every other dawn is a time of finding myself when I struggle to see more soulfully, to listen more attentively, to imagine more keenly. I find that it is a time of renewal and resurgence. It is a place of such clarity, a genesis place, where I have come to harvest the fruits of an ongoing reflective, exploratory, uncovering, discovering, truthful, and personal conversation between myself and my self.

Ninth, (9) it was there, on the darkened streets that I saw the light. I developed a vision: I would be the person who is there to help others help themselves, as I am helping myself, to become the persons they are capable of becoming. Visions have a power. They provide your meaning, your purpose, your inner motivation, your drive, your strength, your courage, your direction. They focus you; give you an awareness; impose an attentiveness; the images may be ‘fantasy,’ but their effects are real, for there’s an occillation between vision and action. Each has a resounding impact on the other. It’s brought spirituality, something greater than myself, into the midst of my life where I make my moral, ethical decisions and practice my values.

Tenth, (10) was “simple.” As I began to change who I was, as I began to change the questions I asked, as I began to alter my perceptions, as I began to change the feelings and attitudes I had, I began to change what I did. As I began to transform, I began taking my conviction, commitment and determination and perseverance into action. I began to go beyond my thinking, feeling, speaking and writing of words. I began to live them.

Eleventh, (11), somehow I was realistic from the start. Though I “demanded” growth, change, and development of myself, I had this feeling that it was not going to be quick and easy. I kind of knew that any accomplishment without challenge, effort, and difficulty was not worthwhile or long lasting. I knew true transformation came if I asked of myself that which I was capable of doing at the time, and maybe more. I knew the great journey came in small step that were not small and no less great. I knew I could only nourish my spirit one bite at a time. I somehow knew I had to be patient. Patience. That’s the winning slow and steady tortoise word; that’s the long term view word; that’s the it was going to be a long, slow, gradual, and difficult process word. It took me a long time to develop habits of behavior and attitude about myself and others. I had become accustomed to feeling, thinking and doing things in a certain way. I had become spoiled, doing only the things I like to do, that are comfortable doing, that I was used to doing, even if they were negative and perhaps harmful. So, it was going to take an equally long time to unlearn those habits and replace them with new ones that made me satisfied, accomplished, fulfilled, and happy. Patience is crucial to persistence. It goes hand in hand with confidence. Trust me, it will hearten you, deepen your faith, strengthen your spirit, and quiet your soul. It will weaken annoyance and frustration. It puts you in a real position of positive control and effectiveness. It saves a lot of frustration. . It’ll stop you from spiraling downward as your own victim. I understood this was not going to be a “quick fix,” a magically elixir, a mere waving of a wand. This was going to be a gradual process of affirming my inner self, of mining my inner mother lode, of discovering my inner child.

And finally, and maybe the most critical of all the steps (12), it helps to keep at it and to remember to remember it, for none of the above is more than a concept in my mind and a motivation within. I practiced and sustained all this moment by moment, day after day after day. By practice, I don’t mean a rote going over the same thing. I don’t mean being repetitive until I got good at something. I don’t mean rehearsing lines, cues, entrances, and exits. I mean being fully committed, determined, persevering, and patient in each moment. I mean paying attention, being awake, being aware, knowing what I am thinking, feeling, saying, and doing. I mean reminding myself each moment. I mean remembering and checking in over and over and over again. I mean, then, developing a habit of awareness and mindfulness. As long as you can keep all this the driving force of your spirit and keep it at the forefront of your mind, as long as you can remember, with passion and with clarity, the what, why and how of it all, it will carry you forward. Though all this won’t make the changes for you, it can keep you going long enough for you to change yourself. I say the last is most critical because my epiphany was only a splash of cold water on my soul. But, water doesn’t change things like that. If that splash was merely a single downpour on hardened rock, it would have merely slipped off without leaving a trace. Waters carvesonly if it falls and chisels away drop by drop, moment by moment, day after day, month after month, year after year, without a pause.

After I finished the list, she said, “I get the idea..”

So, as she drove off part of my stunned “what in heavens had just happened” was wondering who just had just learned from whom.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–