So, as I was saying, I was talking to this professor after my presentation at Lilly-North about professors assuming responsibility for shaping the way they and students see education in general and the classroom in particular. Our continued exchange went something like this:
“Keep in mind,” I told her, “believing is seeing; you have to believe in each student in order to see her or him. That’s what living the ‘Teacher’s Oath’ helps you to do. You can put yourself in an inspired, encouraged, enthusiastic and effective place. You become the message.”
She thought for a few seconds and then said with a somewhat unenthusiastic tone, “You’re asking me to change everything?”
“No,” I quickly answered. “If you’re thinking in those terms, nothing will happen. It’s too much. You’d have wide-eyed REM with your mind, heart, and eyes darting back and forth so rapidly everything would be a blur; you’d never be able to fix on anything or anyone. You’d be quickly overwhelmed. Yes, you do have start changing the code of your actions, but, no, “everything” would be too hard to do and too easy not to do. No, I’m talking about starting with just ‘one important thing;’ I’m saying to start changing only that which you can change: yourself. But I’m also saying start to rebalance by being patient with yourself and taking just one small step, remembering, as I always say, a small step on a great journey is not small. That being the case, what would that that ‘one important thing’ be for you?”
“I don’t know. I’ve got so many ‘important’ things on my plate. I feel so rushed so much of the time, running around from one thing to the next. I have to do so many things at once. You have no idea. I’m so tensed up and worry all the time that I’m not doing everything I have to do. Remember, I don’t have tenure yet. I don’t know what that ‘one important thing’ is.”
“I think you do.”
“What’s that?”
“You just said it. ‘So much;’ ‘so rushed;’ ‘running around;’ ‘so many things.’ Concentrate on that, on stop–slowly–being frenetic and frantic and panicky, on relaxing, just on that one thing. If nothing else, calm down, take a deep breath, slow down, listen to the silence, look around and inside, and smile at everything you have and are. I bet everything else would slowly improve. You know what I do? I take a deep, coma-like, twenty minute, refreshing, and recharging power nap every day. And, when I begin to feel that energy starting to pent up and the angst building up, I clear my mind by “wandering aimlessly” about the campus or through my garden talking to my flower or sitting silently by the koi pond or doing whatever it takes to get away…..I know. Some people would find that hard to do as if they were wasting valuable time. But, it is an appreciating ‘be present in the present’ rewarding, refocusing, revitalizing experience. And, that was my ‘one big thing’ a few decades ago immediately after I had my epiphany, and has been ever since. But, I didn’t stop or turn on a dime. Slowly, I did become audacious and my god what surfaced. I established a new value system for myself even if it ran counter to that of the Ivory Tower. I shed the skin of the scholar-professor; I became a loving teacher. But, you know, I discovered what my life would be like as I made the breakthrough change. And, as I worked that change, I felt more honest with myself; I relaxed; the pressure eased; the risk taking experimentation increased; I listened more; talked more; reflected more, sat by the fish pond more, gardened more, cared more deeply, judged less, bemoaned less, enjoyed each student more fully, took more risks, thought less about what others thought, had less fear, worked in my flower garden more, felt less a failure, got more confident, acquired more balance, got more thoughtful, got stronger self-esteem, got less frustrated and disappointed, became more aware, sharpened my sense of otherness, saw more keenly, choose better on what to focus and what to ignore, took more small steps, and tried less to make leaps and bounds. In fact, all that has culminated in my slow shift from ‘professor to ‘teacher’ and in developing the ‘Teacher’s Oath.’ I know, it’s so counter-intuitive. The more relaxed I got and the more I slowed down, the more effective I got and the more I loved each student; I gave each day in class and each student my full attention. Over the years, that quickly became second nature and reinforced my commitment to it. It’s a balanced way of being that gives you a new way of doing. You go at life from the inside out. That’s where the ‘Teacher’s Oath’ comes in. It translates caring into behavior, acting as a signpost to compassion. It offers–adds–a set of moral norms as a counter weight, not as a replacement, to the often immoral imbalance of research and publication in academia that demands sacrificing students at the altar of resume and tenure; it introduces and adds the values of a ‘people business’ that should be academia’s undergird to a world that focuses on the business of information transmission, skill development, and credentialing; it demands the possession of emotional and social skills in a world that concentrates on intellectual skills.
“Even that small step is still asking a lot.”
“You wouldn’t accept that from a student; why accept it from yourself. Think of it this way. Achievement is built–slowly built–only built–on the long haul yin and yang of challenge, opportunity, obstacles, advances, setbacks, intentions, failures, commitment, falters, perseverances, uncertainties, dedications and devotions, difficulties, desires, frustrations, distractions, focus, plain ole slogging through it hard work, and above all, wanting to do something significant and to make a positive difference. The ‘Teacher’s Oath’ can be used to offer all this and more because as you build achievement, as you improve the lives of students, I assure you, it builds you and enriches yours life as well….”
We talked still more. So, still more later.
Louis