I went out walking this morning for the first time in two weeks.  The temperature is a sane 59 degrees.  What a shift.  Recently, as I told a bunch of people, despite the November election results, the spate of icy days in the mid to low 20s  had turned Georgia into a blue state.  Pun aside, 150 of those very uneducational, anti-learning things we call final grades are in; I’ve been talking with a few students who, in spite of my efforts, are just now realizing that to get something out they had to put something in, and that I was serious about holding them to the honor statement they had signed; I’ve been learning about and practicing with “clickering” as an experiment for portions of my classes; I’ve been putting together a huge book/DVD order for my Holocaust classes; I’ve been working on my syllabi for both Spring semester classes and study abroad classes in China and Russia this coming May and July; I’ve been calendaring out assignments for the differently scheduled classes this Spring semester; I’ve done three batches of my holiday rugalach baking; Susan and I have been running around buying, wrapping, and distributing Christmas presents–and my rugalachs–to those on her list; I’ve been futilely trying to shortened Susan’s long honey-do list; this weekend we’ll do our family present wrapping and start packing.  Then, Wednesday it’s over the hills and through the woods for a couple of spoiling rotten weeks to our grandmunchkin’s houses in Nashville and San Mateo with suitcases filled with belated Chanukah presents and large tins of ruglachs.  What a”whew” pace!  What a rush!

Talk about racing, I had a few separate yet connecting enlightened thoughts racing through my heart and mind like dancing sugar plum fairies as I walked the dark streets.  I suppose I could just have jotted them down for a later series of “quickie random thoughts,” but, then, the normal spontaneity would have been lost.  Besides, I think they’re really backdoor New Year’s resolutions, “keep on” reminders if you will, triggered by some “extra” journal entries I have been receiving from a student who just needed a listening ear.  So, I decided to gather together these few “quickie ‘shouldn’t we, thens.'”   And, lo and behold they mysteriously plug into my selected word to live this day:  hospitable.  So, for this last time in 2010:

For the “hidden” classroom master teachers, there will most likely be no ticker-tape parades, no monuments created in their honor, no buildings bearing their names.  But that does not lessen their possible impact, for there are scores of people waiting for someone just like them to come along; people who will live bit happier lives merely because they took the time to share what they had to give:  a faithful smile, a kindly eye, a believing word, a hopeful touch, an encouraging ear, a supporting shoulder, a caring minute of their time.  Too often we, but not they, underestimate the enormous potential impact the seemingly smallest act of caring can have on a life.  In my religious tradition, we are told that if we save one life we have changed the world and altered the future.  Shouldn’t we, then, consider the continuous opportunities there are to make our faith, hope, belief, and love felt; to want to be a difference, to be a difference, and thus make a difference?

Some people need pace makers to keep their heart pumping.  I think we all need a peace maker to keep our hearts pumping, for education is not an exercise without human beings.  The rhythm of the classroom is the heart beat, not the clicking of clickers, not the tapping of computer keyboards, not the turning of lecture pages, not the scratching of notes, not the squeaking of markers or chalk, not the movement of PowerPoint slides.  There is a yiddish toast that toasts it all:  “L’Chaim!”  It means, “to life.”  Shouldn’t we, then, make the guiding toast in education not “to pedagogy,” not “to technology,” not “to standardized tests,” not “to research,” not “to assessment,” not  “to grades,” but just simply and profoundly “To life?”

There is the tradition of hospitality in all religions.  It says, that all travelers are guests of the Divine and that by helping the traveler, you are on the journey yourself.  And, therefore, no one truly travels alone.  Hospitality, then,  is not simply a matter of good manners; it is a moral institution to provide safety; it is a sacred obligation to offer sustenance.  In my religious tradition, it is the good deed called hachnasat orchim, literally, “the bringing in of guests.” The patriarch Abraham is the biblical exemplar of hospitality; it was said that he kept his tent open on all four sides so that strangers would always know they were welcome. We are told in Genesis that inhospitality was really the great sin of Sodom.  In Leviticus, we are instructed to have extraordinary concern for the welfare of strangers and to treat them as members of our family.  Shouldn’t we, then, look upon each student as a traveler on life’s journey to be treated as if she or he were family?

If you want to go on a gold rush and discover a mother lode of life’s untold riches, rush into a classroom.  Trust me, you won’t be sorry.  It’s overflowing with golden nuggets of hidden discoveries, hidden futures, hidden gifts, hidden talents, hidden potentials, hidden possibilities, hidden opportunities.  And as you engage in the backbreaking work of panning for them, you’ll find the biggest nugget of them all: your caring heart filled with inner joy, an inner pride, an inner sense of goodness, an inner sense of fulfillment, an inner significance, an inner happiness, an inner peace.  Shouldn’t we, then, want to be able to look in the mirror and see reflected a meaningful nod of a head, an enriching wink of an eye, and a fulfilling tip of the hat?

Once again, Susan and I wish each and all a joyous holiday season.  And, to paraphrase Irving Berlin, may all your coming days in 2011 be merry and bright.

Louis

It’s a “brrrrrrrry” low 20s south Georgia morning.  I just came in from the frigid streets after freezing my peaches off.  My nose is still as Carolina blue as my grubbies.  People in these parts may not know much about cold, but we do know a lot about warmth.  So, I want to talk about a student whom I’ll call Sandra and a warming talk I recently had with her.  Sandra had text me last week as we brought the semester to a close:  “Finals for us students, Schmier.  Why should you be any different.  Here’s yours, a ‘take home’:  ‘In one sentence, tell me what you wanted each of us who leaves your class to become?’  ONE SENTENCE.! You have one week.  I want to hear from you or you’ve failed.  REMEMBER THE CHAIR!!”

“Damn,” I had said to myself with something less than a calm feeling.  “I’ve got to come up with about 150 final grades, start learning how to use clickers as an experiment in my first year classes, revamp all my syllabi for next semester, work on Susan’s honey-do list, and now this, all before we leave on the 22nd for our two week holiday grandmunchkin-spoiling escapade to Nashville and San Mateo?”  Seriously, I could feel the fearful energy in her question.  Sandra had struggled to come from her joyless shell and start being in community with her class community, with herself, and with me.  Now, I sensed, she was afraid it was all going to slip out of her hands.  Back in August, this first year, first semester student had come into the class smileless, with a blank stare, refusing eye contact, with a disbelieving soul, with a distrusting spirit, and with an empty and disheartening heart.  You could almost smell the fetid toxins flowing through her spirit.  Her stiffened body language spoke of being on full alert for lurking predators. Then, slowly, over the semester, I read in her journal about chips, small and guarded to be sure, she courageously had started making in her wall, about flecks of light she gallantly was slowly shining in her dark corner, about heroically slightly cracking open her closed gates, about guarded steps she bravely was taking as she slowly volunteered bits and pieces of her horror story and told some of her dark secrets.  It began surprisingly about ten days into the semester.  It was just after I did the last of the “Getting To Know Ya” classroom community building exercises, where I put myself out there in what I call my “What Do You Want To Know About Me” session.  That evening she wrote an entry that brought tears to my eyes and laid a heaviness on my heart: “The pinky.  Hope you’re really for real and not a phony like all those others.  Not sure I believe you.  Are you blowing smoke or do you really give a damn?  I want to be another Kim.  I do.  Thinking of doing something I haven’t done in years after all this hurt:  trusting, trusting that you can help me fight the demons tearing at me that have torn me down. Don’t know why this time. Don’t know why it’s happening.  I’m scared.  Don’t want to be used again, don’t want to be hurt some more, but then again, not much room left for new scars.  God, I don’t want to be pissed on and shitted on again!  Don’t know if I can take being let down again.  Oh, well, what do I have to lose.  It would be like just adding another beating or just another rape to all those other times.  Can I do it?  I want to.  Please, be real.  Care!”  I knew, I hoped, I was going to be witness to something magnificent.  And, it was.  It was truly the beginning of a daily titanic and transforming struggle for her.  In journal entry after journal entry she showed that she wanted to trust.  She wanted to believe.  She wanted to be noticed. She wanted to be respected.  She want to be validated.  She wanted to be heard.  She wanted to feel special.  She wanted to be joyous.  Now, at semester’s end, I sensed from her challenge that she was struggling to figure out how to continue what had started happening to her inner self in the class.  So, I answered with an “okay, you’re on.”

For a week, I had her question as my backbeat.  A few days ago, I came up with my answer.  “Here’s my ONE SENTENCE ANSWER,” I nervously wrote to her,  “‘I want you to become shipmasters who can skipper your own ships.'”

It was admittedly a deliberate lure.  She soon replied–with something more than an reprimanding tone of irritated surprise.  “I’ve been waiting, waiting, waiting.  It took you long enough.  But, Shipmasters?  Skipper? Ships?  You once wrote on the board, ‘Beginning is tough, continuing is just as tough.’  I needed something to help me with the continuing stuff, and you’re talking about joining a friggin’ yacht club?  Don’t be cute with me.  Get serious.  I’m disappointed, really disappointed.  More than annoyed.  Pissed off!  You let me down!!  And, don’t give me that ‘I was busy’ crap.   As you told me once when I told you that I forgot to hand in an issue paper because I had a hell of a busy week, ‘this assignment was part of “busy.”‘  So, is mine.  You fail, you failed me.”

I had her attention.  I quickly answered, “Whoa.  I took your ‘final’ seriously, very seriously.  I met your deadline, and not because I waited until the last minute. I thought long and hard about an answer all week. You told me ‘one sentence.’  I did ‘Remember the Chair.’   I did followed the rules.   Now, in my defense, character is the most important thing in a person’s life.  Moral fitness shapes a person; the grades, degree, titles, or honors do not.  So, yes, I want each of you to become a good person who lives the good life while making a good living; I want you to become the person you’re capable of becoming.  To do that, you ultimately have to be able to sail what I’ll call the ‘Seven C’s’ in total command of your own vessel, of yourself.  What I mean is that the real struggle in our daily lives is not to apply just the information and skills that you’ve learned to use.  It’s how you use what you know and to what purpose that is just as, if not more, important.  It’s the struggle to be a good person as you make your choices each day, to have the wisdom to know what is right and to have the strength to do the right things in the face of pressures and temptations those demons are whispering in your ears to do otherwise.  So, to be able to do that, or, at least, to start doing that, or to continue doing that, you’ve got to continue to learn how to sail those ‘Seven C’s’:

1.  You have to be able to nurture your Conscience, to acquire an internal ethical and moral compass that keeps you heading “true north,” on the “straight and narrow,” on the high road, that helps you find and keep your honesty, authenticity, and integrity.  Sound character gives you a powerful stroke to swim through crises instead of being drowned by them.  It is the foundation for daring to sail the other ‘C’s.’  Using your knowledge and skills without infusing kindness, dignity, respect, integrity, and service into your character is not only a waste, it’s dangerous.  Without values and moralities and ethics to chart your course, you’ll flounder on the soul-robbing reefs of expediency, dishonesty, fakery, and insincerity.  After all, conviction means nothing unless you put the words into action;

2.  You have to have a Compassion, an acute sense of “otherness,” a full heart, a generosity, a kindness, a helpfulness, a sincere respect of yourself and others, a genuine concern for the well being of yourself and others, an understanding of yourself and others, and a willingness to act on that understanding.  Understand that every ‘no big deal’–a kind word, a soft touch, a gentle smile, an encouraging gesture–is a big deal; it will have a big influence on your world as well as that of others.  Just feel, think, and do all things with endless unconditional love and you’ll be more than okay;

3.  You have to be Considerate, to be kind to yourself and be kind to others, to be good to yourself and be good to others, to love yourself and love others, to have an intense sense of “awareness” of how what you feel and say and do will affect both yourself and others in a way that while you strive to achieve, you don’t do it over someone else’s body.  If you want to live in a beautiful world, be beautiful and create that world for yourself and others.  It will all radiate out from you and reflect back to envelop you.

4.  You have to possess a Confidence, a self-assuredness, a self-esteem, a trust in, a belief in, a faith in, a hope for, and a love of yourself.  You have to know that you are sacred, noble, and worthy; that you have abilities, capabilities, and talents; that you have a unique potential; that, as I wrote on the board one day, ‘you have to untie the knot in your “cannot,” and kick yourself in your “can;”‘ You have to believe are valuable enough and strong enough and capable enough to withstand the potential consequences of staying the course and holding to principles; you have to fortify your sense of self-worth so you can have an armored thick skin which can deflect insults and sarcasm.  When you think of your own beauty, you’ll think of the beauty in others, and you’ll find untapped reservoirs of strength and purpose;

5.  You have to have Courage, to change and grow, to endure growing pains, to take risks to believe and hope and love and trust, to make mistakes, to risk failure. You have to do the right things the right way even if it costs.  You have to have the strength not to be stereotypical, to have the conviction to stand up and stand out, to be your own person rather than allow others to make you into the person they want you to be, to be a voice and not an echo;

6.  You have to exercise Control, to manage yourself;  to assume responsibility for your feelings, thoughts, and actions rather than level blame, to see mistakes as something from which to learn rather than be diminished or defeated by, to resist temptations; to restrain your emotions, appetites and urges that might lead you astray and blur the difference between “need” and “want;” to minimize the temptation to compromise your ethical principles in the name of expediency; to know that you choose every thought, every feeling, every response, and every action; that no one or no circumstances ever “made me do it;” that while you cannot direct what goes on around you, only you decide how to react to those circumstances;  and, to understand that your character is both revealed and developed by how you choose to behave under those circumstances;

7.  And, you have to be Competent, to know the stuff of your major and later your profession; to be able to use the “critical thinking skills” of logic and analysis; and to have a self-awareness that makes you mindful of your principles so that you can make good decisions and take the right actions in the face of whatever curve balls life might throw at you; to be able to sacrifice who you presently are for who you can become; to combine who you appear to be, who others think you are, who you think you are, who you want to be into who you really are.  By ‘who you really are’ I mean you have to be emotionally smart, socially smart, morally smart, and not just intellectually smart.   Every moment of every day you are exerting a powerful and effective influence on your world. Whether that influence is positive or negative depends entirely on the choices you make.

But,  these seven ‘C’s’ are really artificial distinctions, for they’re actually all just one vast ‘C’: Community. Sometimes people might call it Connection. Others might call it Character. Whichever grand “C” they use, education can be a crowning glory if it is used in the service of others and not only for yourself at the expense of others.  I’ll paraphrase Paul from 1 Corinthians 8:1, ‘Grades, degrees, honors, positions, titles puff up; but, community builds up.’  You are not wired to be alone.  Think about the time you were disconnected.  Didn’t you feel at war with yourself and others?  Wasn’t your world a dismal place?  But, as you made connections, as you entered into a trusting and loving–yes, loving–community with yourself and others, you felt more at peace.  Your world brightened.  Keep it up and you will feel a safety and a freedom that will allow you to live a life of significance filled with meaning, joy, purpose, fulfillment, and happiness.  You see, life at all levels is best when we’re connected together, when it is shared in the spirit of trust, respect, love, joy, and friendship; when it is lived true to a set of mutually supporting, encouraging, and enhancing high values.

Sandy, isn’t that what this season of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Chanukah are about, calls to birthing values and kindling of light and renewing of oaths, the nurturing and healing and enriching power of being in community?  This time of the year is a powerful reminder that each day is precious; that we should be grateful rather than resentful, appreciative rather than thankless, together rather than apart, serving rather than merely being served.  It’s a time that tells us how good it can feel and how much good we can do when we do good for each other, when we connect with others in a genuine, personal, and heartfelt way.  What you do is what you get; what you put in, you get out.  When you give, you receive;  when you do good, good comes back to you; when you support and encourage, you are supported and encouraged; when you touch, you are touched; when you nurture people who are low, you get a “helper’s high.”  Now, all this doesn’t necessarily make life easier, but it always makes life better–and happier.  Never forget, if you don’t sail the ‘Seven C’s,’ you have very little, maybe nothing; if you don’t sail the ‘Seven C’s,’ you are very little, maybe nothing.”

Sandy answered and we chatted some more.

And, while I’m at it, Susan and I would like to take this moment to wish each of you and yours a most sincere merry burning of your Yule Log, a belated happy lighting of your candles, and a joyous turn of the calendar.

Louis