Soft Teaching, V

I just read Parker Palmer quoting a line from the poem by Maya Spector titled “JAILBREAK.” It struck a cord, and I, thinking of this series on “soft teaching” and “soft living,” presumptuously wrote him the following : “You quote the line: ‘Why make a cell your home when the door is unlocked and the garden is waiting for you?’ I couldn’t agree more. Easily asked, however, not so easily answered and done. I don’t think people realize what you ask is not for the impatient seeking immediate gratification. It’s not something that happens overnight. There are no magic hats or wands. There are no short-cut corner cutters. There are no sure-fire tricks. There are no guarantees. There’s just all that putting-your-nose-to-the-grindstone, globs of elbow grease, and a bunch of burning candles. But, it does show why self-imposed or culture-imposed limits are such a mistake and waste. How well I know. Aside for becoming a template of how to live my life, as an academic, it was a guide for a particular journey of discovery, of becoming a student of learning, during the entire second half of my professional career. It had been an unending learning curve, spanning over two decades, of tireless inquiry, constant reflection, endless leaps of faith, daily exercises to develop inner strength, incessant application, persistent risk-taking, and having an unquivering voice to speak out from my depths since I had surrendered to the power of that moment of my epiphany in the autumn of 1991. It was akin to becoming an academic athlete who had to enter that classroom with a mental and emotional preparation and strength of believing in myself, feeling special inside, and accepting that it was okay—if not essential and crucial—to do things differently as I cut a new path to inspire students—to be up on my game–day after day after day, to endure the pressure of “being there, live,” to show a positive example of what is possible. That moment of my epiphany had the sense of urgency of a spiritual drama. It was, as you said, like a breakout from a bleak and wintery prison of my life into a warm and blossoming spring. It was indeed like thinking my inner doors were locked tight only to find that it would take only a push, albeit a heavy push, to fling them open. That push, and the more to follow on several doors, initiated a transforming process of self-examination and self-knowledge that offered the professional consequence of academic justice. That transformation led to an academic justice of inclusion and nurturing that denied selection or exclusion; it ultimately recalibrated my heart and brain that students weren’t in the rigid category of “others,” categorically different from me; it changed cold separation to compassionate and empathetic connection; it welcomed each student, unconditionally; it respected each student, unconditionally; it cared for each student, unconditionally; it emphasized that the moral and intellectual journeys were inseparably intertwined, that for a student to truly succeed and achieve the proverbial “life-long learning,” there had to be a fervent effort towards character education. It made me see my mission in the classroom had to be organized around the first line of what was ultimately to be my TEACHER’S OATH: “I will give a damn about each person in the class! I will care! I will support! I will encourage! I won’t just mouth it, I will live it! Each day, unconditionally!” It made me a friend of both uncertainty and the unknown. It made me comfortable with the discomfort of risk, and there’s no mistaking that I could deal with mistake. Its gravitational pull brought distant horizons near by way of adventure, reconnoiter, invitation, opportunity, possibility, and acceptance. It had been a constant classroom construction project of breaking barriers of aloneness and loneliness and strangerness, of building bridges to span chasms, inviting each student to use those bridges and become part of forging a caring classroom community. It had taken me to a deeper and richer place that does not usually meet the approval of academia’s demands. It gave me a sense of knowing what I was for, and what I was in the classroom for. It gave me a vision that endowed a meaning and purpose that refused to allow any setback to send me into frustration, anger, cynicism, and selfishness. I had become what the poet, David Whyte, called a morphing ‘moveable frontier,’ moving from learned helplessness and fearfulness to learned helpfulness and fearlessness. Every day, engaged in deep reflection, I moved the line and thereby deepened and broadened my identity. Every day, I had awakened wanting to do better, and every evening, as I did my gratitude exercise, I knew I could do still better and thought of how to do be better the next day.”

Enough for now. More later on the several lessons I learned during this transforming process that I had to take to heart.

Louis

This entry was posted in Random Thoughts by Louis Schmier. Bookmark the permalink.

About Louis Schmier

LOUIS SCHMIER “Every student should have a person who wants to help him or her help himself or herself become the person he or she is capable of becoming, and I’ll be damned if I am ever going to let one human being fall through the cracks in my classes without a fight.” How about a snapshot of myself. But, what shall I tell you about me? Something personal? Something philosophical? Something pedagogical? Something scholarly? Nah, I'll dispense with that resume stuff. Since I believe everything we do starts from who we are inside, what we believe, what we perceive, and what we do is an extension of ourselves, how about if I first say some things about myself. Then, maybe, I can ease into other things. My name is Louis Schmier. The first name rhymes with phooey, the last with beer. I am a 76 year old - in body, but not in mind or spirit - born and bred New Yorker who came south in 1963. I met by angelic bride, Susie, on a reluctant blind date at Chapel Hill. We've been married now going on 51 years. We have two marvelous sons. One is a VP at Samsung in San Francisco. The other is an artist with food and is an executive chef at a restaurant in Nashville, Tn. And, they have given us three grandmunchkins upon whom we dote a bit. I power walk 7 miles every other early morning. That’s my essential meditative “Just to …” time. On the other days, I exercise with weights to keep my upper body in shape. I am an avid gardener. I love to cook on my wok. Loving to work with my hands as well as with my heart and mind, I built a three room master complex addition to the house. And, I am a “fixer-upper” who allows very few repairmen to step across the threshold. Oh, by the way, I received my A.B. from then Adelphi College, my M.A. from St. John's University, and my Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I have been teaching at Valdosta State University in Georgia since 1967. Having retired reluctantly in December, 2012, I currently hold the rank of Professor of History, Emeritus. I prefer the title, “Teacher”. Twenty-five years ago, I had what I consider an “epiphany”. It changed my understanding of myself. I stopped professoring and gave up scholarly research and publication to devote all my time and energy to student. My teaching has taken on the character of a mission. It is a journey that has taken me from seeing only myself to a commitment to vision larger than myself and my self-interest. I now believe that being an educator means I am in the “people business”. I now believe that the most essential element in education is caring about people. Education without caring, without a real human connection, is as viable as a person with a brain but without a heart. So, when I am asked what I teach, I answer unhesitatingly, “I teach students”. I am now more concerned with the students’ learning than my teaching, more concerned with the students as human beings than with the subject. I am more concerned with reaching for students than reaching the height of professional reputation. I believe the heart of education is to educate the heart. The purpose of teaching is to instill in all students genuine, loving, lifelong eagerness to learn and foster a life of continual growth and development. It should encourage and assist students in developing the basic values needed for learning and living: self-discipline, self-confidence, self-worth, integrity, honesty, commitment, perseverance, responsibility, pursuit of excellence, emotional courage, creativity, imagination, humility, and compassion for others. In April, 1993, I began to share ME on the internet: my personal and professional rites of passage, my beliefs about the nature and purpose of an education, a commemoration of student learning and achievement, my successful and not so successful experiences, a proclamation of faith in students, and a celebration of teaching. These electronic sharings are called “Random Thoughts”. There are now over 1000 of them floating out there in cyberspace. The first 185, which chronicles the beginnings of my journey, have been published as collections in three volumes, RANDOM THOUGHTS: THE HUMANITY OF TEACHING, RANDOM THOUGHTS, II: TEACHING FROM THE HEART, RANDOM THOUGHTS, III: TEACHING WITH LOVE, and RANDOM THOUGHTS, IV: THE PASSION OF TEACHING. The chronicle of my continued journey is available in an Ebook on Amazon's Kindle in a volume I call FAITH, HOPE, LOVE: THE SPIRIT OF TEACHING. There a few more untitled volumes in the works..

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *