I just received a message from an old student reminding me that it’s not enough to have faith in, hope for, and love of a student. It’s something I think about every day. Is it enough to have faith, belief and hope for each student? My answer to that question is a resounding, “No!” But, they are not trivial. The ability to have unconditional faith in, belief in, and hope for myself and each student is what gives teaching and learning their deepest meaning. It’s not inconsequential to be inspired to awaken each morning with a “yes,” to want to do something for someone else, to inspire someone else to want to get up and to do something, to want to make a positive difference in someone’s life other than your own. So, I never forget that the greatest importance of faith, hope, and love is not to utter words, but to live by them. Living my faith, belief, hope, and love can make a difference in someone’s life as well as my own. And when all is said and done, a century from now what’s going to be important? That I earned so many degrees, that I had acquired tenure, that I had so many publications, that I had reached a certain salary scale and standard of living? Or, that the world is different because I was somehow important in a student’s life?

Louis

      Last week Susan and I went off to a restaurant on a romantic date to forget that we’ll be apart for the month I will be teaching in China. She ordered a glass of red Zin we had never before tasted. I watched as she held up the goblet against the light to gaze at the clarity and color, swirled the wine in the glass, put her nose delicately into the goblet for a sniff of the bouquet of aromas and scents, took a sip and swished the wine in her mouth. She closed her eyes for a moment as she tried to distinguish the olfactory, papillae and tactile nuances. I could see her briefly thinking about its lesson in history, geography, anthropology, botany, culture, and so much more. I followed her lead, but only with a slight dip of my tongue since I never drink when I drive. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught some people staring at us with that “they look foolish” gaze. We didn’t care how we looked. We were sipping wine; we were having fun; we were in a loving mood; we were in a festive and celebrating spirit; we were having flights of fancy; we were tasting the stars, as Dom Pierre Perignon might have said; and, we were enjoying the moment with the wine and so much more with each other.

      You know, there is a vast difference between just drinking wine on one hand, and tasting and savoring it on the other. Wine should glide, not glug. Wine isn’t the result of some efficient factory bottling production line. When you eyeball, swirl, sniff, and swish wine, you’re pausing for a moment to stop and to be aware; you’re lingering about to think, see, feel, and sense; you’re slowing down to pay attention to and appreciate the ways that wine is impacting on all your senses from sight to scent to taste to feel to aftertaste, as well as the feelings it leaves behind after you’ve finished. The time that you take to enjoy the wine celebrates the time and art that went into the making of it, as well as the time for the fruit, spice, tannin, and acidity to attain their full harmony. To savor wine is to feel its texture, to see its rich and brilliant colors, to touch its elegance, to smell its bouquet. To delight in a wine is to let it come alive. If you do that, the wine conjures up a feeling of respect and awe. The whole idea is to slow down, relax, be attentive to, have fun with, reflect on, feel what you’re tasting, and to understand that the wine in that glass at that particular time in that particular place is but one of an infinite variety of possible winery colors, aromas, flavors, textures, and weights. Wine is more than just grape juice and yeast. It’s mysterious. It’s intriguing. It’s complex. It’s fascinating. It evolves into complex new characteristics as it decants. Over time, as it ages, it shows new dimensions. It summons images. How the wine is handled can make the difference between a sublime nectar of the gods and a bottle of flat pop that has stood open. No one can really tell how a wine will age, but you never give up on a wine. Wine, then, should appeal to the intellect, the physical senses, the emotion, and the spirit. You put it all together in your heart and head, and in your thoughts and feelings. As we do that, we should follow several rules: think about wine; feel the wine; know that no two bottles are identical; and, keep opening bottles as a way of learning about wine and its enormous diversity.  Commercials not withstanding, you won’t get all this out of a mere thirst quenching soda, even if Coke “is the real thing” and you’re part of the “Pepsi generation!”

      All this is a good metaphor for teaching. We should enter the classroom as if we were vintners and sommeliers rather than some gin mill bar tenders or soda bottlers. We should use all of our physical senses, our soul, our spiritual senses of awareness and otherness, rather than only our mouths. We should enter the classroom as if we were savoring and tasting rather than drinking, guzzling, or chugging. We should be aware of and sensitive to the subtleties, for there is rarely anything obvious, simple, and straightforward about a student anymore than there is about a wine. Yet, each fine detail, each nuance, adds a small but significant element to a larger pattern, as a single colored thread that highlights a woven cloth or a single note from a violin that might add texture to an orchestral piece.

       And, like any good wine, teaching and learning should have a fluttering foretaste, a delicious nuance, a unique experience, a lingering sweet aftertaste, and both a satisfying and fulfilling feeling when all is done.

Louis