Susie and I were in a local restaurant the other evening. We were sitting there, looking at the menu. A server from another table looked at me and asked, “You Dr. Schmier?”

“Last time I looked,” I answered with an impishly grin.

The server smiled back. “That was some class we had the last semester before you retired (Fall, 2012). Never had another one like it. It really got to me. You really got inside me and somehow saw what I needed, like no other professor has. Because of that class and the way we learned about the history and ourselves, I now have such confidence in myself and believe I can do anything I want. That’s all because of you.”

“Thank you, but it’s really because of you,” I quietly replied.

It was TJ. He’s a psych major. I could feel the latent teacher within me rise to the surface when I asked him what he was going to do after graduation,

“I’m going to be a physical therapist, but I have to take physiology classes and the like after I graduate.”

I burst out with something like, “You’re going to be a teacher, then. Psych’s a great major for that.”

I startled him. “I’m not going to be a teacher,” he quickly and nervously exclaimed. “No, sir. I am going to be just a physical therapist.”

“Really? How is what you want to do so different from what we did? You want to help people, don’t you? You’re going to treat whomever walks through the door with respect and without conditions or judgments, aren’t you? You’re going to have to deal with your patients, not just their aches and pains, aren’t you? You’re going to have to show them, teach them, how to properly do their exercises, aren’t you? You’re going to have to convince them, give them confidence, help them overcome their fears, that they can get through the often agonizing exercises, aren’t you? You’re going to have to listen to them, aren’t you? You’re going to have to be understanding, especially if they don’t do their ‘homework,’ aren’t you?. You’re going to have be understanding if they don’t do all the reps of all the exercises, aren’t you? You’re going to have to be patient with your patients, aren’t you? You’re going have to put them at ease, encourage them, support them, and help get them through their pain. You’re going to have to push them slowly and caringly beyond what they think they can do or want to do, aren’t you? You’re going have to focus on the humanity of those people, get to know them, to set up an individual plan of therapy taking into account who they are, not just their malady, aren’t you? You’re going to have to have a kind and caring and believing and reassuring ‘you can do this,’ aura about you, aren’t you?” You’re going to have to help them believe that you believe they can recover if they do whatever you asked them to do, aren’t you? Sounds like what we did in class, what you just said I did with you. As I see it, you’re going into the people business, not just the physical therapy business. You’re going to be a teacher.”

“Yeah, never thought about it that way. It’s that faith, hope, and love, it’s that teaching with ‘lovingkindness’ with each person you always showed us.”

I nodded. We talked a few more minutes before he had to go to his tables. I turned to look at Susie with a Cheshire smile on my face.. She was smiling at me with that “once a teacher always the teacher” smile. I must have nodded at her with a slightly tightened lip showing a combined sadness and warmed joy.

All this jogged my memory of another serendipitous moment that occurred a few weeks back as I was walking Boston’s Heartbreak Hill when I came up with the statement that a vision of teaching and philosophy of education is not what you have, but what you do. More on that later.

Louis