From an “Awful” to an “Awe-full” Classroom, X

 How to respond to a less than empathetic query from a professor.  I’ve been pondering her dismissal questions for quite a while.  Yeaterday, as I worked to come out from the fogs of my Thanksgiving tryptophan overdose on my 7 mile meditative power walk, I started  thinking about Dennis, and came up with a rather long answer.  Here is the first part of it:
“You know most education happens by contagion of either therapeutic or toxic emotion.   As Sigal Basade would say, if you want to retain students, increase their productivity, and raise the possibility of their success, welcome them, embrace them, love them, encourage and support them, each and everyone of them.  All life in that classroom, and elsewhere as well, is connected however you try to remain disconnected.  To be connected or to be disconnected, says Basade, is an emotional decision, not a technological or pedagogical or intellectual one.  And, however, you decide to feel and then act, as students such as Dennis reveal, your impact, overtly or subtly, expands, amplifies, lengthens, widens, deepens.   It cascades over miles, in lives, through the years.  It effects the world, it influences the future, in ways you don’t know or can’t imagine.  What you can imagine is that unconditional empathy and compassion, gentleness and love, kindness and caring, faith and hope, the intent to enrich the lives of others with support and encouragement, are essential for the nourishment of meaning and purpose in both your and students’ lives.”
“From personal and professional experience, I will tell you this:  there is a connection between service and joy, between empathy andhope, and between compassion and awe.  It is an acknowledgment, as Mother Teresa might say, that we belong to each other.  Human beings are influenced and shaped by kinship throughout their lives, and the classroom is no exception.  Human connection among students and between each student and the professor is the best teaching technique.  I have found a fullness in that connection, a call to delight in each student, a putting of flesh and bones and names and faces on the words ‘faith,’ ‘hope,’ and ‘love,’ and having an ability to be a man of innumerable second chances.  And, I have seen over and over and over again that its absence creates a cessation of caring, a fragility, a fear, a lethal absence of hope, and a cruel alienation.  Disconnection, sometimes called ‘being objective,’ is a form of spiritual ailment, a tiny spiritedness, a judgmentalism.  It’s what Abraham Herschel called an ‘eye disease’ that is a basis for an inability to see the full humanity of those fellow human beings we call ‘students.’  Now, no one can ‘humanize’ students into what they already are; no one can elevate students to the heights they already hold.  No, we cannot do anything to any student; we have to do it to ourselves.  Too many of us have to ask ourselves why do we presume there’s a distance between us and the students; why do we so often so readily hold tightly to impersonal and cardboard stereotypes, generalities, and labels; what is it that is blocking us so often from seeing the full humanity of each student.”
“I remember that in graduate school we graduates would grumble about how the professors treated us as ‘lower than whale shit.’  So, why do so many of us now turn around and treat so many students that way?   My refusal to do unto students what was done unto me  gives me the tools to release emotions.  It arms me with the ability to feel.  I allows me to be able to understand why, as Ed Deci would say, we do what we do—or don’t do.  It’s a constant exercise in increasing empathy and compassion.   It’s the way to becoming wiser, humbler, kinder, and more ‘awe-full.’  It slows; it provokes; it enriches; it uncovers and reveals hidden stories; it honors; it enlivens; it opens the eyes and heart; it recasts the personal we call ‘student,’ and even ourselves; and, it emboldens to break through what I call the ‘devalue line’ and to connect.”
“To do that, we have to focus more on establishing human connection than on changing methods, techniques, or technology.  We can’t practice an elitism that culls out the ‘don’t belongs.’  We can’t just focus on and blame the students.  We can’t place conditions on our caring.  You know sometimes, more often than I would like, think that academia is museum in which we professors practice an obscurantism with resumes, assessments, peripheral matters of pedagogy, assessment, getting promotion and tenure almost at any cost.  We ultimately have to shake out our pedagogical cobwebs.  We have to get expand our knowledge base beyond our discipline, to learn from the scientific literature on learning and apply its results.  And, we have to assume responsibility and change ourselves.  We have to see that that ‘eye disease,’ which demeans both student and professor with fear and disdain, is rooted in a deeper ‘heart disease’ of a disconnection resting on on the exercise of power and authority.  We have to see that our conditional ‘I care, if…’ is thin and imitation caring, a cheap caring that carries no weight.  We have to see and believe, and help each student to see and believe, that  there is so much more in both ourselves and each of them.  We have to see that the cure for that ‘eye disease’ and ‘heart disease’ is community that meshes that professorial power and authority with an unconditional faith, hope, and love.  When we apply that curative, I assure you, it will transform our vision from seeing an ‘awful’ student or class into an ‘awe-full’ one.”
“Now, it is not easy to change.  God, don’t I know that!  To transform ourselves, we have to explore our uncomfortable histories and habit.  We have to admit that they exist; we have to deal with what is it that wants to keep us safe and comfortable by avoiding the risks of adventuring into the unknown.  And, how well I know that kind of self-exploration can be painful and terrifying.  But, we must have it if we are to teach with integrity and wholeness.  We have to confront anything within us that is holding us back.  If we don’t work on our stuff, our stuff will continue to work on us.  It will continue to whisper in our ears; it will work on us however good our intentions may be; it will show up at every nook and cranny in our lives, and that controlling stuff will remain to us the ultimate truth voiced in “It’s not me,” “I’m not comfortable doing that.” “I can’t.” and “I don’t have tenure.”
“Now, this is not highfalutin or wishy-washy or fluff.  Let me go back to the research findings of Sigal Barsade and her 2016 article written with Olivia O’Neill in the Harvard Business Review titled ‘Manage Your Emotional Culture.’   That article led me to an earlier article in the HBR, ‘Employees Who Feel Love Perform Better,’ and then to still another that appeared in  the Administrative Science Quarterly, ‘What Does Love Have to Do With It?’  While they are writing about how emotions play in the workplace, their observations cut across all professions, and certainly are applicable to the classroom.  Two sentences in the first article caught my eye.  The first was at the beginning of the article:  ‘Most companies pay little attention to how employees are—or should be—feeling. They don’t realize how central emotions are to building the right culture.”’ Replace ‘companies’ with ‘professors.’  The other sentence was towards the end:   ‘Most leaders focus on how employees think and behave—but feelings matter just as much.’  Replace ‘employee’ with ‘students ‘and ‘leaders’ with “professors.”

“Between these two sentences, they argue, that what they call ‘cognitive culture’—thinking and behaving —is only part of the story.  The often ignored ‘emotional culture’—feeling expressed silently in unspoken facial expressions, body language, and vocal tones—is the crucial rest of the story.  And, when you gloss over ‘emotional culture,’ you’re ignoring what makes people tick.  That is, emotions determine how people perform tasks, how engaged they are, how imaginative and creative they are, how happy or sad they are, how fearless or fearful they are, how resilient or brittle they are, and how positive or negative they are.   They ask what if students came to class knowing you were really looking forward to seeing each of them and what if they came to class looking forward to seeing you.  They say that love was one of the strongest drivers of satisfaction and commitment and engagement.  What they call connecting ‘companionate love’—caring about and for one another, having a compassion for one another, having a tenderness towards one another, being kind to each other—generated better moods, better performance, more satisfaction, greater achievement.   Love’s opposite, as well as faith’s and hope’s, is disconnecting, objectifying indifference.  That indifference is a toxic attitude; it is a corrosive that makes it harder for anyone to perform.”

“For me, then, the findings of such researchers as Barsade and O’Neille communal ’awe-full,’ then, warms the icy chill of ‘awful.’  With ‘awe-full’ comes broad smiles rather than sneers and frowns, wide eyes instead of drooping eye lids, keen ears rather than deafness, an open and warm heart instead of a closed and cold one, welcoming handshakes instead of fists, embracing arms instead of folded ones, boundless energy instead of  lethargy, and, above all, a meaningful purpose.  Never old.  Never stale.  Never routine.  Never casual.  Never easy.  ‘Awe-full’ is that ‘radical amazement’ of Abraham Herschel.  He said, to paraphrase him, our goal should be to get up each morning and go through the day seeing the world in a way where everything and everyone is incredible.  Yeah, that pretty well sums up ‘awe-full.’”
Louis
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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..

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