I got a text from a student who was in class with me a few years ago. It started a brief texting conversation in which he almost played the straight man. Some of it went like this:
“Hey, Dr. Schmier. It’s been a long time. About to graduate this Spring and head out…I just read your ‘A Teacher’s Oath.’ Interesting stuff. Where did this come from?”
“It had been bubbling inside me for quite a while. The Lilly South conference on teaching I had attended last February finally sucked it out of me. Then, I tweaked it on the advice of a few people whom I highly respect. I’ll send you a new copy. It goes deeper than those ‘Rules of the Road’ that was in the syllabus.
“Does it work? Oops, stupid question. I was in your class and it has stayed with me and others all this time. So, I know it works. But, what I really mean, and why I’m texting you, do you think it can and will it work for me when I to into the classroom?”
“That all depends on you. Why do I want it to work? Will I work at it? Those are the questions you should ask yourself. Now, before you say anything, I’ll say that it’s not easy or simple or quick. And, there’s nothing automatic about it. It’s not a magic incantation from Harry Potter. Ideas, ideals, visions, attitude, spirit, and whatever don’t suddenly appear full fledged. They enter the world as struggling hatchlings from peoples’ heart, souls, and heads. They cannot survive without constant care and nurturing. They feed on passion and purpose; and, they grow and mature because of your full attention, patience, and action. That’s what it takes to make visions leave the nest and fly. Sometimes I think it’s not the idea that makes people great, but people who make the idea great. The Oath will work as long as you believe it works, you work on it, and you let it work on you. Swearing to the words counts as making a promise of purpose, which counts as a ‘caring contract’ with yourself and each student, which becomes a way of the thinking, feeling and doing of your teaching. At the beginning, during the middle, and in the end, you have one choice: do you or don’t you want to become the Oath. It’s really both that simple and complicated because once you make that choice, you have a map that leads to the treasure. But, it’s useless if you merely store it in the attic trunk. You’ve got to follow the directions, walk the paces, dig up the treasure, and use it. When you do that, you will endow your teaching with what might have called an heroic and spiritual quality.
“Teaching? Heroic and spiritual?”
“Sure. Hey, you’re going to face more than a few inner and outer dragons. When I talk about the Oath, I’m talking about at least courage, conviction and integrity. What I am saying is that everything you feel, think, and do would be measured against the extent you have unconditonal, UNCONDITIONAL, faith in each student, hope for each student, love of each student, empathy of each student, and compassion for each student–and, helping them to get and live those attitudes about themselves. That’s what I call spiritual because to me spiritual means practicing the art surrendering to what is. What is, is the sacredness, nobility, worthiness, uniqueness of each human being on our campus. I mean, the Oath is an audacious vision that everyone has the ability to live, but not many have the courage live. You have to give up a bunch of preconceptions, beliefs, preferences, assumptions, priorities, and practices that are in the way. You have to be ready to mean it, and, in thick or thin, to stick by it and do it. No convenient and rationalizing conditional ifs, ands, or buts. UNCONDITIONAL!! If you do, it will give you the moxie, the chutzpah, the pluck, the dedication, the commitment, the determination, the strength, the endurance, the perseverance to live it, as well as the humility to feel its all for something greater than me. It will keep reminding you that you’re a candle that doesn’t burn for yourself alone. It’s heroic because every obstacle, rather than bringing you down, lifts you up as you lift yourself over it. Trust me, it will draw out greater qualities that lie deep within your character than you never thought existed, and there will be no stopping you to strive to make the most of yourself and others. Then, slowly you will begin to find the strength and courage you didn’t think you had to live the Oath in the face of testing rejection, cynicism, criticism, attack, and downright opposition.”
“But, it has to drain you after a while. The time you spend. I mean all that energy that it seems to constantly take to stay on top of things! Man, you can easily give out….”
“Sure it soaks up time and demands a lot of sweat, but what significant thing doesn’t. And, no, I don’t get drained. Just the opposite. You breathe in deeply, filling your senses with the fresh, cool sweetness of each moment. It’s like catching energy. You use some energy to generate a lot more energy. But, if you don’t ‘get the goods,’ like a lot of people, you use more energy than you generate. That’s when you get drained, resigned, frustrated, apathetic, frustrated, disillusioned, and burnt out. Living the Oath, being the Oath, doesn’t allow that. You don’t get worn out because each time you see it helping you to make a difference it’s a shot of ‘wow.’ You get stronger because it not only gives you a sense of your ‘self,’ it serves as a witness to your higher ‘self.’ It becomes your “true north,” your moral guide, your ‘inner guide.’ It heightens my “otherness,” intensifies my “awareness,” and deepens my “mindfulness.” That allows me read the clues in the ‘puzzle-full’ class and not miss the details. In another way, living the Oath is constant fuel that fuels the flame and prevents burnout.”
“….But, it can get old and dull after a while, can’t it?
“Old? How can it get old when each day you wake up with a ‘yes’ to a new day feeling blessed to just be here; knowing what a great day it is; knowing that the ultimate sin is not to unwrap the present presented to you by the present; knowing there is work to be done, wonders to behold, artistry to appreciate, fascinating people with whom to connect, lives to be touched, differences to be made, possibilities to be fulfilled. Dull? It’s all self-sharpening. Nothing is a ho-hum ‘just another.’ No moment is ordinary. Nothing is mundane. A kind word, a helpful act, some real patience and understanding only adds to the day’s brightness. You’re constantly energizing and revitalizing yourself.
“Hey, come on. Don’t tell me you don’t get frustrated.”
“You mean does shit happen? Sure. I may not love what a student does or doesn’t do. I may be disappointed or saddened by it. But, I don’t stop loving her or him. That’s where empathy come in. But, shit does happen! You can’t stop that. So, what are you going to do when it does. Let it bother you? Let it shackle you? Let it stop you? Let it determine how you think and feel and act? It won’t if you know its just shit, that it’s going to be coming, just accept it as such, don’t dwell on it or let it distract and deter you. Instead, you accept imperfection. You see it as a learning moment, learn from it, slog through it, and go on, keeping your mind and heart open and free. Living the Oath, then, accentuating the positive but not ignoring the negative, keeps you keeping on. It keeps you from random, meaningless groping. It gets you up when you get knocked down. It keeps you from being pushed around. It keeps you balanced. It keeps you focused so that you “stay the course.” In a sense, it’s a spiritual and emotional teacher. You see you have what it takes to slog through it. The values embedded in it lets you parry all the thrusts, put up with all the static, and makes all the noise tolerable. It lets you smile at life even when it doesn’t smile at you. With it you turn a dreary day into a day filled with sunny promise. It’s the key to your ultimate inner peace and happiness.
“You live the Oath.”
“I struggle to, but you’ve got to. You can completely control the way you perceive, respond, and adapt to people and things around you under the influence of those perceptions. So, I’ve written down my values, read them each day, share them, and am struggling to live a life that matches who I have decided I am and want to become. The Oath becomes a way of teaching. After a while, no other way occurs to you. It becomes the “why,” of the “what” and “how” of your story. It becomes your underlying spirit. And, you become its avatar, that transformation of your vision and values into flesh. I’ve said this over and over and over again to a lot of people. Your control over your perspective makes all the difference. There is goodness, there is beauty, there is love and joy and boundless opportunity when you choose to see it. It’s in Proverbs: “as he thinks in his heart, so he is.” I’ll paraphrase a Zen master who said that you can’t separate the person from the teacher. We teach who we are; we are the perceptions we have; we are the questions we ask. Wherever we go, whatever we think and feel, whatever we do, there we are. And for me, I am intensely and excitedly conscious of the fact that the flowers of tomorrow are the seeds of today.”
“You’re quoting Scripture and Zen? Now, don’t get me wrong. Isn’t this what some around here would knock as impractical, that New Age or ‘touchy-feely’ or airy fluff?”
“New Age? Fluff? Impractical? It’s sound. It’s sensible. It’s feet on the ground stuff. It’s a practical way to feel and behave if we want the students to be more confident, have more self-esteem, be more independent learners, make sounder decisions, and achieve more. Heck, anyone can transmit information to students in a day to be regurgitated on another day in a test as if they were a bolemic. But, if you can teach that person to believe in herself or himself, if you can instill a courage to take risks, if you can teach that person to see there is no failure in failure if you learn from failure, if you can help them make sound social and personal and professional decisions, if you can help that person to see her or his potential, if you can teach her or him to learn by creating curiosity, imagination, creativity, connection, and relevance, that person will be a more productive, well-behaved, more ethical student for as long as she or he lives. So, it’s in everyone’s interest to make the classroom the best it can be so that each student has the opportunity to be whoever she or he is capable of becoming. Anyway, it’s at the core of and as old as every religion and philosophy on Earth. It’s called the Golden Rule. We should demand that each student be treated with dignity and respect, and when this doesn’t happen, we should be outraged. New? Heck, what’s new about all this, is that I’m quoting the latest physiological, psychological, and sociological science!”
“‘A Teacher’s Oath’ is based on all those sciences, too?”
“Yep. But, that’s the rest of the story. We’ll talk more later if you want. Gotta run.”
Louis