PART I: INTRODUCTION

 

“We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.”

Joseph Campbell

 

I

 

Faith. Hope. Love. They are possibility for all individuals. They give voice to the unique potential in each person. They change how we feel, think, and act. If we have unconditional faith, hope, and love of each student, what does that mean for individual students? If we have unconditional faith, hope, and love of each student, what does that mean for each academic? If we have unconditional faith, hope, and love, what does that mean for each educational institution?   Taken together, they mean a whole host of “what does that mean?”

Unconditional faith, hope, and love mean each of us is going to stand on the side of student. And, human to human, if you are with somebody in whom you have unconditional faith, hope, and love, you have a better chance of making a difference and transforming her or his life.

Education, then, is a faith-based story; it is a hope-full story; it is a love story. I call these three words “three, little, big words.” I say that because if faith, hope, and love are applied just a little, they collectively or individually can have big results.

Over the past twenty-two years, those three words have rung in my ears and have swirled around in my soul. They’ve infiltrated my spirit, have profoundly transformed my self-perception, my perception of others, my sense of the value of teaching, my understanding of my craft’s mission, my purpose and meaning, my vision, and my actions. They have been the bobbins around which I have spun my personal and profession life. They have been sledgehammers that I have swung to shatter the dehumanizing scaffolding of classification, labeling, ranking, disconnecting, tagging, pigeonholing, separating, dividing, stereotyping, and generalizing.

I came to see that education means to dream dreams while you’re awake.  It is an act of faith. Faith is “I believe you can do it” confidence.  It’s faith that affirms human beings have the capacity to change and to grow; and so, as human beings, we can become better.  When faith is present, hope thrives.  Hope is “could be” possibility.  It’s “this is not all there is” determination. It’s “keep going” dedication, and “there is more to come” commitment. When hope thrives, love appears. Love is the first principle of teaching.  It is “you’re somebody” concern, “you’re worth it” respect, “I care” empathy, “I see you” encouragement, and “I’m here for you” service.  It’s love that says each person is too valuable, too unique, too noble, and too sacred to lose without a fight.

Faith stimulates. Hope sustains. Love sanctifies. They never take a holiday; they are never selective; they are never conditional; they are not judgmental.  They are mind expanding, heart unlocking, eye opening, arm extending, embracing, spirit raising, firing up, and driving.  They’re “never give up;” they are never “don’t walk away;” and they are never “don’t despair.”  Taken together they assert that each student has a unique potential and the ability to reach for it.

To talk of faith, hope, and love in the same breath with teaching is to create a habit of the heart that practices inclusion, that makes the classroom into an inviting oasis which welcomes all to come to nourish their souls, spirits, and minds. Over the past twenty-two years I have shared how I felt about the important role these values play in education; I have shared in a way I hoped would move people. I have seen how faith, hope, and love are the cause of more miracles than are lecturing, testing, assessing, and grading. Yet, faith, hope, and love weren’t in the original title of this book. That is, until….

II

 

It was a sunny, balmy April 7, 2015, morning. I had hit the streets for my 7-mile power walk at 8:30 a.m. I was a tad later than my usual pre-dawn routine.  But, I was about to learn that not being on the streets at my normal wee hour was going to prove to be one of those “you just don’t ask” serendipitous moments.

I was in deep thought, looking at the passing cracks in the sidewalk, trying to solve a long-standing problem of coming up with a satisfying and guiding title for a unique lexicon-like anthology of my selected Internet essays on teaching, known as Random Thoughts, that I was currently putting together.  The best title I could come up with was, A Dictionary For Teaching.  But, it just wasn’t grabbing me. The words just floated away; they had no flesh on them; they didn’t have heart and soul. They just weren’t acting as a viable guide for which Random Thoughts I should select from the 1,000 or so choices for inclusion in this anthology.

All that was about to change.

About a mile into my walk, as I wrestled with words and phrases, I momentarily looked up. Ahead, coming towards me, was Venus. It had been three years since she and I had had any contact. She had been in class during the last semester before my retirement in 2012. Now, surprisingly, there she was, heading for a class. She stopped, blocked the sidewalk .and stopped me with a shrieking “Dr Schmier!” She ran to me and gave me a hug. We stood there and talked. She told me a tale of being “not sure I belonged in college,” our encouraging conversations, of being “big time sick,” of dropping out of school the following semester, and of “settling” (her word) for a “good paying” job as a waitress.  Then, she hit me square between the eyes and said something like:

“But deep down I wasn’t happy.  One day after my shift I dug out my date book for that semester with you.  I began reading all those ‘Words for the Day’ you wrote on the board and we talked about.  I copied every one of them.  I read one entry that said these words weren’t just words but ways to look at ourselves and ways to live.  Then, I read two that said, ‘Your greatest enemy is your own fear,’ and  ’Faith means not worrying.’  I heard them speaking to me.  They suddenly opened my eyes to myself.  ’Settling’ meant running away, being stopped by my fear and worrying I couldn’t do what I wanted, and not having the faith to give myself a chance.  From that time to today, every time I wanted to stop, every time I wanted to settle for something, every time I worried what others would say or that I couldn’t do something, I heard you say from one of our conversations, ‘You’re better than this and you can be better, if you’re willing to do whatever it takes to become better.’  You were living faith, hope, and love to me.  So, because of you I slowly stopped settling for things I didn’t want.  I soon stopped being afraid.  I stopped worrying about whether I could do what I wanted to do or not.  And, I decided, as you once told me, to put all of me on the field.   I took off my apron, went back to college, first at near-by ABAC (Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College), and now here.  I’m surprising myself that I am doing whatever it takes to become what I really want to become, and it’s working.”          

At the end of our short conversation, when talking about her future plans, she said,

“….To be the good clinical psychologist I can be.  I want to help people have faith in themselves, have hope for themselves, and love themselves.  I want to learn to listen to people so I can help them learn to hear the truth about themselves and their abilities.   Just like you so did for me. And, I want to be the good person I can be.  I want to be for others what you were to me:  walking faith, hope, and love.”

I stood there momentarily stunned.  It was like getting hit with a proverbial ton of bricks.  Three years later, and she’s feeling, talking, and acting like this! She’s continuing a conversation with herself that she and I had started three years earlier. Touched. Transformed. Uplifted.  Believing.  Achieving.   From my heart to hers; from my vision of her came her vision of herself; from my faith, hope, and love of her came her faith, hope, and love of herself; from my helping her to help herself came her helping herself; from my daring to support and encourage her came her daring to encourage herself.  From reaching out and touching her came her reaching in and finding herself.  It’s not an exaggeration to say that my lungs expanded and my heart pounded to the point they felt too big for my chest.

As we departed and I continued my walk, some words written on a piece of paper taped to the shelf above the computer kept flashing across my mind. They were from Pericles: “What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” There was Venus, the embodiment of Pericles’ words. I had been staring my legacy in the face. There she was, the living one sentence eulogy I would want someone to give of me:  “He reached out and touched one student, and he both changed the world and altered the future.”

I hadn’t gone too far when suddenly I had a title that embodied my values and beliefs, my identity and integrity, my authenticity, my sincere intent, my educational vision and teaching philosophy, that reflected and connected with my lived classroom experience:  Faith, Hope, Love:  The Spirit of Education.   I turned and rushed home.

Yeah, I know. I haven’t shared a reflection in almost four months. There are reasons. First, I was concentrating on putting together an Ebook, a tome-like anthology of selected Random Thoughts that I’ve decided to title “Faith, Hope, Love: The Spirit of Education.”  I just finished proofing it for the umpteenth time, sent it off for Eformatting, and freed myself up. Second, I was putting a lot of attention and energy into making sure that the launching of my and Susie’s year of our golden jubilee, a two week trip to Tahiti and other islands in French Polynesia from which we just returned, would be as perfect as perfect could be. I had been in constant contact, and I mean constant contact, over the last six months, with tour guides on Tahiti and Bora Bora, the hotel on Tahiti, and the cruise line on which we would sail to other islands in French Polynesia, Those two reasons sound good enough to explain my hiatus, don’t they? But, to be honest, they wouldn’t be any of the real truth. That truth is the third reason. I was beginning to feel stale. I felt what I was sharing was being forced, out of focus, on an expected schedule. I was beginning to feel that my words were getting wooden. So, not sharing just for the sake of sharing, I backed off.  A few days ago, I was jolted back by a conversation I had with a student from the distant past. She broke the dam and got my juices flowing again.

Out of the blue, I got a FaceBook message from her. Goodness knows how many years ago she was in class. She’s a high school teacher and came to me for some guidance. We messaged back and forth. Parts of our conversation went like this:

“Schmier, need your wisdom. I’ve got to be reminded what’s important in teaching. I want to know what was most important in your teaching?”

Without thinking more than a second, I shot back, “Me.”

“You? I thought you’d say each of us was?”

“Nope. ‘Me!'”

“Then, you mean what you know and the skills you possess, all that is in your head. Right?”

“Not entirely.  There’s also all that is in my heart.”

“Then, you mean how you teach, all that class room community building exercises, ‘The Chair,’ ‘The Story,’ journaling, those hands-on ‘serious fun’ projects, issue papers, “Schmier’s words for the day,” the one word “how I feel,” and so on. Right?”

“Getting warm.”

“What do you mean??”

“‘Me.’ The inside ‘me.’ Not what I do, but who I am. My inner character; my values, heart, soul, spirit, attitude; my emotions; my philosophy of education; my vision.”

“Isn’t the other content and skill stuff important?”

“Sure it is. I told you that they were. But, that you have to have something to do with them. It what you do with what you have, not just what you have. You asked what was most important. It’s me: my expressed vision, my conscious values, my reflected purpose. It’s my emotion. It’s that burning deep down. It’s that being fired up. It’s what’s in my bones. It’s a conjoining of my inner life with life in the classroom; it’s living my life in both a classroom and campus community.  I know,” I told her, “in the intellectual culture of academia, that’s heresy. But, heresy or not, what activates, arouses, drives is what all people on this and other campuses don’t talk about: emotion. You don’t just advocate and argue for what you value. You have to live it. You don’t just wish upon a star or just dream. You have to live them. Every minute of your life you have to devote to and live what you sincerely care about. If you don’t focus on and live your love, hope, dreams and values, that is, what really matters to you, they won’t exist. And, there are lots of things and way to meaningfully do that.”

“You sure about that?”

“Look. It’s how I meet the challenge and seize the opportunity. Look. I know I cannot ‘fix’ anyone or ‘save’ anyone. But, I can have faith in her or him; I can believe in her or him; I can have hope for him or her; I sure can love her or him; and I can, I should, do all this without any conditions. So, it’s how I meet the challenge and seize the opportunity. It’s like it’s not enough to count your blessings; you have to make your blessings count. So, without any conditions, I welcome each student. I trust and value each student. I love and feel and hope and have faith and believe in each students. I care about each student. I am patient with each student. I’m a listener and see-er. I’m an optimist. I am happy. I am confident. I take risks. I am authentic and honest. I don’t run away from a challenge. I am upbeat. I’m not afraid to make a mistake. I’m not governed by what others think. I am lots of other stuff. I keep what I do in sync with what I feel in my heart. My thoughts and feelings are driven and guided by the person I really am. I am not just who I say I am. Like it or not, I am who I truly am. And, that’s what shows up most and has the most impact. That’s the difference between settling for being a talking head or being just a good teacher.”

“But aren’t you afraid you’ll fail or something won’t work or you won’t get to one of us?”

“Let’s take fear, fear of failure. If I have a fear of failing, if I use that fear to build a protective wall, I’m also building an imprisoning wall. I will hesitate, maybe even won’t. I’ll want guarantees of success before I proceed. But, if I I am not afraid of failing, I won’t run away from a challenge. And, the only guarantee I will want is the assurance to myself that I will learn and better myself for having failed. So, I will trust. I will trust and value myself. I will trust and value each student. I will love both of us; I will have faith in and believe in both of us. I not only care about each student, I caringly engage with each of them. Remember, I am patient with each student. I’m a listener and see-er. I’m an optimist. I am happy. I am confident. I take risks. I am authentic and honest. I am upbeat. I’m not afraid to make a mistake. I am lots of other stuff. I keep what I do in sync with what I feel in my heart.  And, that’s what shows up most and has the most impact. It’s my ‘significant other.”

“Significant other?”

“Significant other. The one whom you know, really know, know deep down, wants to make the real difference; the one who reaches out, touches, and helps change. Everyone one of us, one way or another, is going to make a difference today. It’s the ‘me’ that decides what kind of difference that is going to be. My ‘significant-other’ means making the positive difference in someone’s life, obviously in your life, and, therefore, making the world a better place.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What I do with what I have comes from who I am: from ‘me.'”

“I still don’t get it.”

“Let me put it the way someone put it to me. If I give you a block of steel worth five dollars, you decide it’s a good paper weight. So it just sits on your desk.”

“So?”

“You can also take that five dollars worth of steel and see something more valuable. You can forge it into the finest horseshoes and sell them for $50. You can also take that same five dollars worth of steel and see something even more valuable. You can put in extra time and effort to learn how to make the finest sewing needles worth $500. Or, you can see something even more valuable, work even harder, and learn how to make Swiss watch springs worth $5,000, and make them. Same block of steel; three attitudes; three uses; three values.  Our teaching is like that block of steel. I’ll say it again. What I expect to happen will happen; what I see in that block of steel is what I’ll have a better chance of getting. It’s like being Michelangelo who said he saw a perfectly shaped statue in a block of marble and all he had to do was chip away to reveal for others what he saw. We each have the ability to refine and fashion ourselves in different ways. Who we are, our character, who we decide to be, how we will combine our intellect and heart, will decide whether we’ll settle for horseshoes, needles, or Swiss watch springs. It’s not the block of steel I have. It’s ‘me.’ It’s what I see in it; it’s what I wish to do with it; what I learn how to do with it; and, then, what I do with it.”

And, we talked a lot more.

Louis