This year, in the face of furloughing, absence of raises, and the impending appearance of very uneducational 350 student herd-like mega-classes here at VSU, my spirit, my soul, my heart, my will required me to remember. To be sure, remembering my vision in the face of the clouds that would otherwise obscure that vision is an act of will; it’s an act of faith; it’s an act of strength; it’s an act of refreshment and flourishment; it’s an act of determination, perseverance, and commitment. To forget is an act of disconnect. Feeling despondent saps and deenergizes. Feeling weary and faint of heart is losing hope. Feeling resigned is an act of surrender. Feeling anxious takes out the fun. Feeling resentment is hobbling. Feeling insecure is to falter in the service, in the loving-kindness, of others. Feeling self-pity is not to tenderly cherish.

The problem for many of us, too many of us, is that we have allowed the process of counting our blessings to deteriorate into the habit of counting upon our blessings. We are proud, rightly proud, of our titles, positions, tenure, and resume. But now we are anxious, overly anxious, to maintain our privileges and power. We are proud, rightly proud, of our personal achievements, but we are anxious, overly anxious, to maintain an image of success. When the act of counting our blessings leads to the anxious condition of counting upon our blessings then it is extraordinarily difficult to be grateful.

No, while I cannot control circumstances, I can control how I react and respond to those circumstances. I believe that Thanksgiving is about remembering. Gratitude is attitude, and that makes it more than an American festivity. For me, that means having my empowering words constantly and unconditionally in front of my mind’s eye and my heart’s eye: hope, faith, belief, empathy, kindness, compassion, respect, connectedness, otherness, awareness, awakeness, optimism, renewal, and, above all, love. I have to do more than speak these words. I have to soak them into my spirit, my heart, my thoughts, and my actions. I have to become one with them. I have to declare them to others, show them, and live them. As I do that, meaning, purpose, and significance steady me. I never run scared; I don’t totter and lose my balance; I don’t waiver and lose my sure-footedness; my confidence is not shaken; I handle whatever comes along; I smile; I am kind; I respect; I stay the course; I move gracefully; I feel comfortable in my own skin. I know I’m making it. And, as I am those words and those words are me, I move from merely “making an effort” to be thankful to the kind of thankfulness that’s so much a part of who I am and what I do

In that spirit, Susie and I wish each and every one of you and your families a very happy giving thanks day. May you see that the negativity around you is just weather that will pass. May you see all the sweet, the beautiful, the loving, the abundant, and the joyful possibilities in your life. And, may you experience all the blessings of a grateful heart.

Louis

 

 

     Now, all of the participants will probably think I’ll be focusing on the students. But, in reality, I’m going to put the spotlight on me and them. After all, the only people we can control, motivate if you will, is ourselves. And, as Jon Kabat-Zinn says, wherever you go, there you are. So, if we teach who we are, we have to look at the who of “we are,” not just at the how of “we teach.”

      You see, it is we, the professors, who create the climate of the classroom. And, for that climate to be refreshing rather smoggy, we must have, as Brooks put it, a “molten core” of resolute faith in, hope for, and love of each student. Like the inner molten core that is the source of the earth’s dynamism, our inner core is what drives us. So, before we get to the applying “how” questions,” I’ll ask the meaningful and purposeful “who” and “why” questions: Do we enter the classroom unconditionally loving each student as a sacred and precious gem too valuable to cast aside? Do we enter the present classroom as futurists? Do we enter the classroom with an unshakeable confidence in the potential “becoming” of each student? Do we enter the classroom with a salivating faith in each of them? Do we enter the classroom clearly seeing each as a bright horizon? Do we enter the classroom with a willingness to endure and persevere today because of our confidence in each of their tomorrows?

      There is nothing dreamy, touchy-feely, or ephemeral about these questions. For if our answers are a subtle or resounding “no,” what keeps our inner pack of big bad wolves of fear, lethargy, apathy, and resignation at bay? What keeps them from dousing our fires? What stops exasperation at the doorstep from dimming our inspiration? Where and what is the energizing source of our vision, our trust, our incentive, fearlessness, our caring, our awareness, our otherness, our service, and our enthusiasm? And, if we are not watering at the mouth, what would impel us to an unending and unwavering honest and true commitment to helping each student–each student–find her or his own way to achievement? From whence would come our driving inner “heart power,” what Vince Lombardi called the unstoppable “greatest strength in the world?”

Louis

 

     This morning, on the chilly, damp, misty, pre-dawn streets, I started getting into the groove, to go inside myself, to put on my game face, as I begin to prepare for my workshop on creating a motivating classroom for the Lilly Conference on Collegiate Teaching next week at Miami University.  That getting into the mood also took me back to the surgery that expunged my cancer.  I’m not sure what took me back there.  Maybe it’s the fact that the fifth anniversary, that magic five years of being cancer free, is approaching.  Anyway, my hospital stay was in some respects a tale of two nurses:  witches and angels.  On one hand there were a couple of Nurse Ratcheds, the cold and indifferent witches.  They were good with the equipment, but not good with people.  These professional harpies kept me at a distance.  They didn’t talk to me.  They parked their brooms and entered my room as muted, expressionless, animated hypodermic needles.   They treated me coldly as a “case” rather than warmly as a “person.”  They whipped through their tasks with a kind of disconnection.  At times, they were stern, almost gruff.  If I had let them, they would have been depressing, demoralizing, and dehumanizing.  I’m not sure I would use the words “kindness” and “dignity” to describe their treatment.  They had been assigned to care for me, but they didn’t act in a caring way as if they cared.  If their behavior wasn’t toxic, it wasn’t comforting; and, it certainly wasn’t therapeutic.  Then, there were the angelic nurses.  Ah, the angels.  I could have sworn they had halos and wings.  They understand that their mission was not simply to care for my post-surgical recovery; it as to care for my overall well-being.   They understood that they were at their best when they treated the whole me, when they both helped me feel better and get better.  Their treatment wasn’t confined to a silent, matter-of-fact, sullen change of IVs, or checking my catheter, or taking my temperature.  The angels were good with the equipment, but they were also good with people.  They uplifted my spirits with simple acts of human decency:  a caring word, a smile, a kind word, a soft touch, a compassionate expression, an engaging conversation, an assuring tone.  They not only cared, they acted caringly by conveying with their eyes, mouths, faces, and bodies that they truly cared.

             In many respect, each is a product of what has been made into a heavy weight title bout in our educational system.  In one corner, champion of the world, in purple trunks, are numbers, precision, information, technical know-how, and objectivity.  In the other corner, the challenger, in white trunks, are empathy, compassion, kindness, and caring.  And yet, it is a slug fest that need not be, that need not be. The competition between the two should be replaced by a cooperation because it’s not really a competitive boxing match between either/or.  It’s not a matter of concern for one detracts from concern for the others.  It’s a matter of a collaborative “and” of all these critical skills.  Each in their own way is vital.  I wonder how many academics outside of psychology and business have read, really read, much less applied the lessons of Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence,  Social Intelligence, Primal Leadership (with Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee), as well as Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee, Resonant Leadership, Ed Deci’s Why We Do What We Do and Gregory Berns’ Iconoclast.  Based on studies of the brain, they talk of our capacity and need to be empathic, to manage our emotions, and to connect with others as key ingredients of sustained purpose, meaning, achievement, sense of satisfaction, sense of accomplishment, and happiness in both our personal and professional lives.  That includes the classroom as well. 

             Read about what’s going on at the Stanford School of Business, at MIT, at Harvard Medical School, and other institutions, and you’ll see that technical skills, critical thinking skills, and people and social skills are not antagonists.  To the contrary, they’re comrades in arms.  The real enemy of education is a one dimension focus of far too many academics. Education’s enemy is almost sole concentration on information transmission and on the development of technical skills and on what’s called “critical thinking” skills at the expense of grounding students in the actual practice of working with and relating to others.   Higher education’s enemy are those credentialing boards, those pervading, high-stakes standardized exams for entering college or a profession that don’t approach measuring the social and emotional skills needed to separate the witches from the angels.

             That being the case, it’s a matter of academics realizing that not only are they in the “people business,” but every profession, every job, for which they train students is a “people business.”  It’s a matter of finding ways to intimately merge the training of both technical skills and thought skills with the development of both emotional and social skills.  It’s a matter of inseparably meshing both the teaching and learning of what I called long ago:  know, think, do, and feel.  We need a partnership of intellectual strength with emotional and social strength; we need to nurture the “whole person;” we need to graduate the person who has the information and thought skills at her or his finger tips, who is mindful, aware, kind, caring, compassionate, empathic, willing to take risks, courageous to take initiative, capable of deciding without guarantees, resourceful, flexible, adaptable, fearless, sustainable, respectful, moral and ethical, trustworthy, trusting, able to relate to others, supportive and encouraging of others, be able to see and listen without judgment.  

             It can be done.  It’s just not quick, easy, or neat, and takes lots of practice.  No, education’s enemy is lack of concern for cultivating inter-personal and intra-personal savvy, of realizing that communication skills and people skills–feeling skills if you will—are just as important as information and thought skills, that educating the heart as well as the mind are critical for unlocking the love of learning, a fearlessness to change and grow, which are, in turn, so essential for meaningful and purposeful success and achievement in all professional, social, and personal walks of life in this rapidly ever-changing world.. 

 Louis

Well, the semester is coming to a close. November is just beginning and it’s almost gone. The flow of my November is always disrupted by five “high” days at the Lilly conference on teaching at Miami University and the equally long Turkey Day break. Then, the students return in the daze induced by a caloric overdose with only a week before classes come to an end. So, up to now, by my count, I’ve read about 2400 daily journal entries over the past 12 weeks for each of my four classes. Among those almost 10,000 entries, aside from constant revelations of the humanity of each student, one thing jumps out. I’ll frame it in the form of a few questions. Why is it that almost all students are surprised that a professor cares about them as persons? Why are they stunned when a professor notices them? Why are they floored when a professor respects them? Why don’t so many of us fathom the almost immeasurable impact of caring? And, what does that say about far too many of us academics?

I know most of us do care about students. But, that’s not enough, for while we are all proclaiming “I care about students” with our lips, are we careful to be caring in our hearts? And if we are, why are far too many of us displaying a limited caring that waits for a few of them to come to us and isn’t reaching out to all of them? Why is the caring of so many of us selective or highly conditional? Why would we hear if we listened closely to both ourselves and others the culling out phrases “they have to deserve my…;” or, “they have to earn my…;” or, “they have to work for my…;” or, “they have to show me that….;” “if….”

As we are in our brain, so we are in our thoughts and attitudes; as we are in our hearts, so we are at our core; as we are in our souls, so we are in the soles of our feet. So, do we live those words of care? The true answer is not found in whether we care, but rests in whether the students feel cared about.

That matters. In the people business of education, what matters most is the attitude of the teacher. Trust me; there is nothing more magical than that. There is nothing more powerful than feeling you’re cared about, then feeling you’re noticed, then feeling you’re being valued, them feeling you’re wanting; then feeling lovingly embraced; then being made to feel that you’re important. There is no teaching method more influential than what I call “caring lived.” If I am right, the positive impact that acts of caring have on students should and must provoke us to reflect upon what is it that we can do to reinforce this impact in order to feel it, smell it, taste it, live it, and keep it alive and well each and every day. We have to acquire and live an intense awareness and a deep otherness that will not allow us to let opportunities, large and small, pass by in which we can help others feel welcomed, special, cared about, noticed, valued, and appreciated. Don’t underestimate the power of caring, for time and time again I see seemingly small gestures of caring leaving indelible memories and having lifelong impacts.

But, from my experience there is another side, a by-product, to “caring lived.” Our own self-worth, dignity, faith, hope, significance, meaning is cultivated as we live caring. The more we live caring, the more courageous we become to reach out; the greater our daring, the less we’re inclined to be discouraged by an overwhelming sense of hopelessness; and the less we’re inclined to be discouraged, the more resilient we are. “Caring lived” is a fuel for the fires of our inner strength that in itself drives our faith, commitment, determination, perseverance, endurance. At the end of the road, and it is a high road, “caring lived” nurtures emotional security that creates a greater chance of touching both yourself and someone, and both changing the world and altering the future. And, when you do touch someone, when you change the world and alter the future, I assure you, there is no greater “high,” no greater exhilaration, no greater joy, no greater feeling of accomplishment, no greater sense of significance, no greater addition of value and meaning to what you do.

Ah, wouldn’t it be lovely if unconditional “caring lived,” rather than merely “caring spoken,” was so commonplace, so integral to what we feel and think and do, that it would no longer be a surprise to any student.

Louis

      69! Yesterday! Ugh. Double ugh! At least, I got to dive into Susan’s deliciously wicked birthday cheese cake it took her two days to bake. Yesterday shouldn’t have been. My three mile power walk this morning shouldn’t have been. By all odds, I should be dead from a massive cerebral hemorrahage not many survive. But, I’m not. Here I am, alive, as one of those very lucky ones. Of what and of whom is there to be afraid after surviving something like that? What today is there not to appreciate after that? For what today is there not to be grateful? And so, though I just turned 69, I don’t feel–I refuse to feel–in any way spiritually, emotionally, mentally, or physically decrepit. I pride myself that I am keeping my body and soul in peak shape. I feel, as I impishly label myself, that I am a spry “experienced teenager.” I’ve learned from experience, whether it was my epiphany in ’91 or beating cancer in ’04 or coming out from this hemorrahage as if nothing had happened, that the greater part of happiness or misery depends on my dispositions and not on my circumstances or on others. Oh, sure, we can and do blame students, administrators, colleagues, something called “the system,” something equally ethereal called “society,” and now the economy for a “the devil made me do it” attitude. It’s easier that way. The problem with blame is that you surrender your independence, your sense of control, your self-control, your inner peace, your inner harmony, your self-respect, and enslave yourself to the beckoned call of circumstances and others. You make yourself into the proverbial leaf helplessly thrown about by the wind. But, in the end, attitudes and feelings and actions are all us. Situations and other people do not create feelings. Nothing or no one can make us mad, for example, we do that to ourselves. We each have to take the responsibility for whom we are; that we create whatever feeling we wish to feel, whatever attitudes we wish to have, whatever actions we wish to take, in each particular situation with each particular person. Why are some people happy and other people sad, determined or resign, in the same circumstance? It’s because that is how each has chosen to be.

       The problem or the solution, then, is that when we respond the same way often enough, it becomes an unthinking habit. Feelings seem to come automatically, even though they never have to be. We can unlearn, break old habits, learn, and acquire new habits. The way we feel about what we do, about the purpose and meaning of what we do, about students and colleagues and administrators was and is and will be a choice, conscious or otherwise. When we do take that responsibility, we acquire control over ourselves and, more importantly, find an inner calm. And, then, we can choose to change, to let go of, to create, and/or build upon what we feel.

      I once said that growing pains aren’t only for children. Ph.D. isn’t Latin for “Complete.” We each should walk around with a sign hanging around our necks reading, “Under Construction.” Why? Because who we are is not determined and defined by what we have accomplished and already know; who we are is determined and defined by what we’re willing to learn, reflect about, and change toward. Surviving my hemorrahage has taught me that my feelings profoundly influence the life I experience and I am responsible for the selection that gives real power to the purpose and meaning and significance that lives within me and what I wish to do. I define me by what I love to do, by my curiosity and imagination and creativity, by my personal vision, by my sense of purpose, by my sense of meaning, by my sense of significance, by the difference I strive to be, by whom I have become, by whom I strive to become, not by what others think of me or want me to do.

      I define myself by reaching out to touch a student, and thereby change the world and alter the future. To do that I’ve said over and over and over again that I want to be that person who is there to help a student help herself or himself become the person she or he is capable of becoming. It’s a feeling that stirred when I had my epiphany in 1991. It is even stronger now that I’ve survived unscathed that cerebral hemorrahage. When you’ve done it, when you’ve smelled it, when you’ve felt it, when you’ve tasted it, it feels so significant, so satisfying and so fulfilling, that you want to do it again and again and again. What drives me is an unquenchable thirst for adding value to the lives of others. It is that sense of significance, that sense of mission, that purpose, that sense of meaning. I’m as much if not more passionate; it drives me to work harder, to find new ways, to do more, to give more, to be more dedicated and focused, to be more aware, to be more alive, to be more empathetic, to be more compassionate, to have a greater sensitivity to those around me, to have a deeper sense of otherness. I consciously work every day to be sure that I am proud of what I do and of who I am, and that I hit the sack at night with a satisfied “yeah.” I’m always adapting, adopting, reshuffling, reloading, retooling, especially this semester when I unexpected got blind-sided by a change in copyright laws that nearly gutted all my classes. It’s not easy; it’s not quick; it’s not automatic. There’s no rabbit to be pulled out from the hat. There’s no magic wand. It’s challenging; it’s not neat; it’s not even pretty; it’s a never-ending story; it’s demanding of time, energy, and attention. How long will this elation and dedication last? I don’t know. But, I do know three things. First, I learned that fulfillment is in the creating, doing, and giving. It comes from having–no, making–an opportunity to make a difference, and doing it generously and with abandon. Second, curiosity and imagination and creativity are more than looking at stuff, dreaming about stuff, making stuff up, and making stuff. They are about expressing, in all sorts of limitless ways, what it means to be immersed in a limitless set of challenges, opportunities, and possibilities, and putting your own special stamp on them. . And finally, I learned from my cerebral hemorrahage to concentrate only on today. So, as long as I am in physical, mental, and spiritual shape, I’ll keep enjoying the dickens out of whatever and whoever are today.

     Think about it. This morning after the birthday before, I got out of bed, jumped out of bed, as I do every morning and will in mornings to come, ready to dance with Susan and then skip to class, with an invigorating, meaningful, purposeful, and significant “yes!” Today, I get to do what I love doing and doing what I love with people whom I love.

     And, this pre-dawn morning, after a cleansing three mile power walk, I had the added pleasure of downing a huge smile-inducing, artery-clogging, caloric overdosing slice of Susan’s scrumptiously sinful birthday cheese cake.

Louis