I was sitting for more than a few minutes on the concrete fence of a bridge, my early morning meditative walk interrupted, arms folded, head bowed, eyes closed, waiting for the long and slow freight train to pass, holding my inner silence against invading attempts of the relentless clackity clack of the train’s wheels,  concentrating my thoughts on part of a sneerful message I had received from a professor.  “How could you be so full of awe for a student whose performance is awful,” she asked with obvious disdainful agitation.

Just then, as the last car of the train had passed and the barriers were beginning to lift.  The passenger side window of a near-by car lowered.  The driver leaned over.  “Hey, Schmier!”  I opened my eyes and I looked up.  “Thought I recognized you.  Its been over fifteen years.  I never told you that the only thing I remember from my first year at VSU was all that stuff we did in your class.  Just wanted to say that you were the only professor who made me feel that I was somebody who mattered, and was important to you.  I never let those feeling go.  You made. everyone feel that there wasn’t anything we couldn’t do if we put our head and heart into it.  Because of that I was determined to show you and myself that I was worthy of being noticed.  Do you know that you helped me to stretch myself like no one else has in ways I didn’t know I could.”  He quickly turned his head to see the cars in front of him moving as someone honk a horn behind him.  “Oops, gotta go.  Bye and thanks.”  And, he pulled away with a wave of his hand before I could take a step or say a word.  I felt like the townsperson at the end of an episode of the Lone Ranger wondering who was that masked man.  But, I had my answer to that professor.

“You ask how could I be in awe of a student who was awful?  It’s because I was once that ‘awful’ student,” I answered.  “And probably would have become a drop-out had it not been for one caring professor, Dr. Birdsal Viault.  Having graduated 86th in a high school class of 252, I was told that the teachers had decided that I was the college bound graduate least likely to succeed.  Because they and all my college professors, save Dr Viault, had thought about me and allowed me to think of myself simply in the one dimension of my ‘says it all’ ugly and low—very low, very ugly—GPA.   To add salt to my wounds, would you believe that my sophomore English professor, after I failed one of my written essays wrote on  my paper—and I remember his exact words to this day 58 years later—that I was an ‘appalling blight on this institution?’  How could I nurture who I was if I didn’t feel recognized and acknowledge for who I was, if I wasn’t accorded worth, if I wasn’t treasured, if I wasn’t rendered inherent dignity, if I didn’t matter, if I wasn’t important, if I wasn’t a somebody?   No one knew my story.  No one cared about how my family upbringing had undermined my self-esteem and eroded my self-confidence, both of which had a negative impact on my performane.  No one cared to know that I was working three jobs to get through school.  It was only because ‘Bird’ saw an “awe-fullness” seen by no one else, including me.  Because to them and me, to be seen, and appreciated, I had to be academically ‘handsome.’  And, if beauty exists in the eyes of the beholder, that meant I had to have honors level grades.  Anything less made me that homely ‘don’t belong’ blight, not warranting their time and concern.  Yet, what my transcript revealed to both them and me, was a small fraction of who decades later I discovered I was.  Solely relying on that transcript to define me was like setting a dinner table for twelve guests using only a fork.   Any hidden and potential ‘academic handsomeness’ I might have had was all so hidden in a shadowy mist to both me and them.  That opaque veil, that ordinariness, they and I drew over me now seems so obviously wrong. Well, relying on that single indicator, they and I were not obviously wrong then; the other dimensions about me were just was not obvious to them and me.”

“Now, I admit during the first 25 years of my professional career when in ‘honoring my discipline,’ I dishonored so many students   While putting on the respectful faces of  ‘Doctor’ and  ‘Professor of History,’ I disrespected so many students.   Succumbing to a drive to survive, and with a deep reassuring need to thrive, I succumbed to becoming like ‘one of them.’  If we think about it, and admit it, the academic culture encourages us—demands us—to think that if we conform to do certain things and take certain steps, if we don’t stir the waters and do as expected and toe the academic line, even if in the process we compromise ourselves, we will get to certain crucial milestones of success.  It was an academic version of living the lines in ‘Ole Man River”:  Get that degree!  Get that appointment!  Get that grant!  Publish the research!  Get that promotion!  Get tenure!   I, like so many of us academics, for a variety of deep personal reasons, had succumbed to the enslaving perils of higher education.   I, like most academics, allowed that quest for what I’ll call ‘academic celebrity’ and ‘academic security’ to deafen, blind, bind, confine, and numb me.  I allowed that quest to feed me a diet of playing if safe with dishes of ‘I can’t,’ ‘I’m not,’ ‘It’s not me,’ ‘I’m not comfortable doing that’ and, above all, ’I don’t have tenure,’  I had imprisoned myself with anxious-ridden and submissive looking-over-the-shoulder ‘what will they think” and  ‘how will this effect me acquiring tenure’ and ‘will this help get me that promotion?’   And, while I was looking over my shoulder, I was not seeing each student.  Or, I saw that what I perceived as ‘awful’ students were detractions, if not obstacles, to my quest for academic accolades.  We so wrongly assume that we have total control of  our destiny.  And, when we discover that we don’t, that nothing we can do gives us that total control over students and colleagues and administrators, rather than accepting the truth of that messy reality, we so often wallow in compromising ourselves with ‘enthusiasm depletion’ by resignation, lethargy, reluctance,despair, frustration, anxiety, anger, bitterness, fear, excuse, rationale, and blame.”

“Then, on that fateful autumn morning of 1991, as I have extensively written, for a variety of reasons, I suddenly and unexpectedly had had enough.  I found myself forcing myself to face myself and to face up to myself.   I was at the top of my academic game as an acknowledged authority in my field.  I had a huge resume; I had tenure; I was a full professor.  Yet, I heard myself uncontrollably admitting that while I had it all, I felt I had so little; I felt so hollow.  My outer facade not withstanding, I was sad; I was unsatisfied; I was miserable; I was unfulfilled.  As I uncontrollably exploded, I heard myself revealing the love-hate-fear relationship of pursuing an academic’s version of success that I had allow to be placed on my life.  I heard myself unexpectedly erupting with an admissions that all those grants, conference workshops, or a publications didn’t make me feel all that accomplished as I had convinced myself.   I heard myself spewing out about the internal problem of not being able to serve two masters, about the internal argument between the part of me that wanted to be an unknown but master classroom teacher, a Birdsal Viault to all students, and part of me that had to be a successful scholar to achieve in academia.  The latter had won out for so long.  But, no more.  I decided I had had too many academic face lifts.  Now, I needed a ‘soul lift,’ for I realized that, as Abraham Herschel said, indifference to the wonder in each person is the ultimate sin.”

“So, beginning to connect with and seeing myself in all those ‘awful’ students, I began to move from a strictly defined professorial hierarchical identity encompassing discipline, degree, title, and resume to something of a more freeing, unbounded, and pleasurable sensibility of being an authentic, sincere, caring, kindly, and serving human being.   I began moving from a desire to be visibly important to an overwhelming desire to do out-of-the-limelight important things.  I forsook renown and accepted possible unknown.  I began to ask myself several pointed questions: ‘Is a professional resume of degrees, titles, grants, publications all there is of me?’  “Are they all that they are cracked up to be?’  ‘Is a grade all there is of a student?’  ‘Is it all that it’s cracked up to be?’  I was determined to be someone who, except for Bird Viault, I hadn’t had in my young life.  I was going to give each student the gift of seeing, accepting, validating, treasuring, and embracing her and him for who she or he is, for who she or he can become, and be committed to being with each of them on part of that journey.”

“Beginning to ask such questions was for me at the core of my epiphany in 1991.  It was like a hurricane rattling and then blowing down what proved to be house of cards.  The initial revealing moments that started to lay me bare were tear-filled.  Seeking the answers proved to be heart breaking and heart mending as I struggled for my heart to break out of a shell into the open.  They were the first vulnerable, unsure, shaky steps towards looking at myself, each student, the classroom, as well as everything and everyone off campus, in a different way.  I started trading in the traditional audience-oriented academic brand for a student centrism.  I started a never-ending search of my own authentic, sincere, and honest soul with a “Let’s see who you could be, who you should be.”  It was to be a sharp transition from scholarly professor to loving classroom servant-teacher, from going cold turkey on research and publishing to focusing all of me on classroom teaching.  And,  that ultimately wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be.  That is, once I did the hard part.  And  what was that ‘harf part?’  Well,  to paraphrase Rumi, the Sufi mystic, to both survive and thrive—with the steadfast presence, support, and encouragement of my dearest wife, Susie—I began an excavation project to remove all barriers within myself that I had placed in my way from seeing the bigger perspective that ‘awe-full’ presents.  Over the subsequent years, going through a ton of upheaval, after some heavy lifting, I saw that it is the values, beliefs, and philosophy of both life in general and teaching in particular that ultimately years later I was to enunciate in my “Teacher’s Oath,” was at the root of an emerging guiding vision.  It was a vision filled with the unconditional faith, hope, and love inherent in ‘awe-full.’  It is ‘awe-full,’ not “awful,” that is a schooling of joy with an energetic, purposeful, and meaningful ‘enthusiasm infusion.’  It was in “awe-full,’ not ‘awful,’ that new possibilities and opportunities were born.   It was ‘awe-full,’ not ‘awful,’ that served me and each student best.  It was ‘awe-full,’ not ‘awful, that filled me with gratitude.  It was like being increasingly brightened and reved up by the revealing dawning sun as it edged over the horizon and cut through the darkness.

“Then, I went further.  I asked myself,  “What would happen if I focused on both my and each student’s unseen but unique potential?  What if I optimized my classes—unbound by any professorial ‘how will I grade this’ and ‘how will I be evaluated by students’ by me or by students’ ‘will this be on the test’ and ‘is this important,’—for what I came to see as real ‘life-long learning and living.’  What if I focused consciously and daily on finding ways to simultaneously transmit information, develop critical thinking skills, and build up each student’s character, all of which would increase the possibility of accomplishment and true happiness throughout their lives?  That optimized focus became an explicit part of my individual mission, guided my north-star enunciated vision in my written ‘Teacher’s Oath.’  That is, unconditionally to have faith in, hope for, and love of each student; to help each student help herself and himself become the person she and he is capable of becoming; to help students think about their lives and not just their professions, to graduate as honors persons possessing a moral compass rather than just honor students possessing a degree and a credential; to help them decide who they want to be and not just what they want to do; to help them learn to play the responsibility game rather than the blame game; to know that while things happen to them in unpredictable ways, they have the profound power to choose the effect that has on the kind of people who they become; to help them understand that professional accomplishment, fulfillment, and happiness aren’t necessarily synonomous terms; and to send them on their way with a strength of character and deeply ingrained values that will help them keep from losing their way.  I did just that. I reflected on, articulated, and shared my beliefs, my values, my philosophy of both life them.  And, to my amazement it worked.  That is what being ‘awe-full’ had done and still does for me.  That is why I am in awe of each student, her or his GPA be damned!”

Louis

Boy, did I have to run for my fire extinguisher to douse the searing flames that jumped out from a message I recently received.  “….Emotions have no place in the classroom.  My task is to be totally objective, to be devoted to my discipline, to solely disseminate information, and to develop thinking skills.  I am a professor, not a teacher.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.  I will not coddle anyone who doesn’t wish to acquire a mastery of the subject.  I care about students, but if they aren’t up to it, if they don’t do what I want, I don’t see where it should be my concern.”  Then, in a final flicker, this professor summed up his response to my last few reflections on the role of awe in our lives in general and in the classroom specifically,  “Such foolishness.!!”

The beginning of my answer was in six parts.  First, I said, “If you are turned off by such words as ’soul,’ ’spirit,’ ‘heart,’ ‘hope,’ ‘faith,’ and ‘love,’  feeling that feeling has no place in academia, getting emotional about incorporating emotion in the teaching and learning processes, substitute them with the more acceptable word, ‘brain.’  After all, I have been talking about integrated functions in the brain that are being discovered and described by what is called ‘brain-based research.’  But, when you do, understand two things.  First, as Rabbi Abraham Herschel said, ‘Words create worlds,’  yours and theirs.  What you say and how you say it matters.  And, second, understand that academia, like the whole of society,  is inside something of a cage.  It has traditionally and errantly elevated the intellect to the levels of higher order of human wisdom while divorcing it from ‘emotion’ that was dismissed and denigrated to the depths of a lower, neanthderthal-like, brutish order.  Yet, modern studies reveal that our brain functions as an integrated whole; it isn’t physically divided into separately operating cognitive and emotive compartments or that it functions in a way on one side, the objective side, totally separated from and uninfluenced by from the other, the subjective emotional side, or visa versa.”

Second, I said, “Everyone in that class is alive.  Things are happening in front of us, not in our lecture notes.  So many of us have the greatest disdain for so many students for a minimum number of reasons that closes us to the students.  It’s a barrier to unconditional and non-judgmental connection and commitment, for being supportive and encouraging sources of courage, hope, faith, and love.  The primary test of what we do is how we behave towards the so-called average or poor student, that student who needs us the most.  It is easy to “care about” the good or honors students.  It’s like asking a physician to care only for the healthy.  But, the caring for the ‘lesser student’ is the true judgment of who we are and what we do.  Isn’t it our task to help the supposed ‘don’t belong’ belong, to assist the ‘don’t know hows’ to learn how?  For me, awe doesn’t allow me to get smug by focusing on what I’m doing right at that moment with those particular students.   But, they are changing day by day and term by term.  So, I have to ask myself, everyday and every week and every month: What haven’t I done?  What do I have to do? What do I have to differently?  What can I do better?  Take care, we should be concerned unconditionally for the needs of each and every student.  We should believe in and have faith in and have hope for each student, if for no other reason, then we do not know what potential lies beneath the surface waiting to be tapped.  Callous indifference, bred by selective conditional and judgmental ‘caring,’ and by ‘it’s always been done this way’ habits, that has diminished empathy and compassion, is one of the greatest threats to education.”

The third part of my reply was: “What I am sharing is not foolish, and certainly not useless.  Again, it’s the current science.  So, to repeat what I’ve said in my previous reflection, all the researchers looking into the power of ‘awe,’ whom I have mentioned, have concluded that being ‘awe-full,’ when the rubber of awe hits the road, when putting the pedals of faith and hope and love to the metal, helps you to be able to see the mighty oak in that supposedly insignificance acorn.    If we know that in the ordinary acorn are the beginnings of the extraordinary oak, why can’t we see that in each supposedly unimportant average or poor student are the potential beginnings of importance?  Awe tends, in the words of Keltner,  ‘to increase people’s feeling of connectedness and willingness to help others.’

Fourth, I said, “Keltner and Piff found that when people experience ‘awe-full,’ they tend to cooperate more, share more, and sacrificed more for others who will then achieve more.  And, if achievement is truly your goal for the students, you should be interested, intensely interested, in the stimulating and inspiring power of “awe-full.”   I have found that when you truly care for each student, when a student feels she or he is cared about, you’re never off the hook.  You can’t help but bring water to an arid attitude; you can’t help but feel responsible for helping to mend a weakened spirit.  And, so, I share how awe gave me so much more room to move about than that allowed by the constrictions imposed generality, stereotype, and label; it revealed  the vast complexity in each student that is left out by these dehumanizing and overly simplistic images which misinform and misleads us.  It is ‘awe-full,’ not ‘awful,’ which cuts through that opaque image of the herd and reveals that each person at any given time is singular, exclusive, precious, and sacred with her or his unique, and often untapped, potential.”

Fifth,  “In their research, Keltner and Haidt found that awe—in my words—shatters ceilings, glass or otherwise.  The positive emotions in ‘awe-full’ such as admiration towards others, in turn, heightens self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-respect.  And, they can change lives in significant and permanent ways for everyone.  Don’t I know that!  And, isn’t that what education is all about?”

And, finally, “Now I don’t just talk out of the scientific research.  I also talk out of personal experience.  They both tell me that the term is too short, but, to quote one of my favorite passages from the Talmud,  ‘The day is long, and the work is great, and we’re not commanded to finish the work, but neither are we allowed to desist from it.’   In the spirit of those words, I don’t despair.  I know every word counts; every act is important; every thought has power; every feeling is significant.  I mean I know I have a part to play in a meaningful story that is greater than myself.  Again, to paraphrase Rabbi Herschel, I have spirit, a mind, a heart;  I use them. I have questions; I ask them.  I have challenges; I offer them.  I have learned things; I teach them.  I do things; I share them.  I don’t have set prescriptions; I don’t have specific how-to manuals; I don’t have sure-fire recipes; and, I don’t have guarantees.  I do have is a set of applicable and directing principles.”

Enough for now.  More on the rest of my response later.

Louis

It’s 4:15 am.  Can’t sleep.  Brewed a cup of coffee.  Still thinking about “awful” versus “awe-full.”  There’s a quieting, transcendant feeling in holding a cup of freshly brewed coffee early in the morning, looking at the dark sky getting slowly painted with a palette of color as it passes from night to day, gazing at the graceful curving of the koi, marveling at the echinacea seed transforming into plants,  noticing my garden’s first signs of seasonal change, and humbly marveling at the inexplicable and miraculously rapid recovery of my granddaughter from her near-fatal accident.  At this time of the quiet morning, I can almost feel my blood pressure easing, my heart slowing, and my muscles relaxing.  You know, our perceptions of students take a complex human being with a myriad of roles and identities and reduce her or him to a single over-simplistic, distorting, one-dimensional, placard-like identity.  So, for me,  the early morning hours are important.  It is my time when in my mind and heart I begin to flesh out people with an equanimity of respect, uniqueness, and dignity.   It sets my mood for the coming day, determining how well I consciously and subconsciously will live by and live up to my selected “Word For Today,” which today is “rejoice.”  It is a time I become “more”:  more attuned, more attentive, more alert, and more aware.  It is a time I gird myself against any negative, cursing, debilitating, dehumanizing “awful” with the inspiring, dynamic, blessing—and redemptive—“awe-full.”

You know, long ago I read that in the Talmud, the rabbis asked us four questions:  how much do we owe each other; what does it mean not to stand idly by; how can we find purpose and meaning; and, how much do we choose to be mindlessly shaped by forces beyond us or mindfully shaped by our conscious response to those forces.  Thinking about those questions, my answer for the last 25 years has been to be consciously fueled by an internal empathy and compassion rather than by internal despair, that the first step must be to be in awe of everything and everyone generated by an intense and unconditional faith, hope, and love of each.

As serendipity would have it,  this past couple of weeks, I was doing some back reading of monthly essays by Harvard psychologist, Robert Brooks.  They covered issues pertinent to classroom issues—and life as a whole:  resilience, meaning, purpose, testing, gratitude, connection, compassion, empathy, etc.  Guess what.  Yesterday, I came across his January essay titled, “The Power of Awe.”  I read that essay about “soul stirring wonder” very slowly and closely.  It took me to a host of prominent researchers looking into that power:  Dacher Keltner, Jonathan Haidt, Frank White, David Yaden, Melanie Rudd, Jennifer Aaker, Kathleen Vohs, and Andrew Newberg.    Man, was I awed when I read that being “awe-full” appears “to increase people’s feeling of connectedness and willingness to help others.”

But, serendipity still wasn’t finished with me.  I just read David Brook’s column in the NY Times.  In it he partially quotes Dr Martin Luther King: “Love has within it a redemptive power.  And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. … Just keep being friendly to that person. … Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. … They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load.”

Now, like the problem of the chicken and the egg, I don’t know which came first: love, to which I would add faith and hope, and then awe; or awe, which then manifested and crystalized itself into faith and hope and love.  Either way, I know this, from personal and professional experience with students—or anyone for that matter:

when you’re invigorated, your spirit isn’t worn down;
when you humanize a student, you can’t objectified any of them;
when you see the beauty, things aren’t ugly;
when you see the uniqueness, you can’t label;
when you’re encouraging, you can’t feel discouraged;
when you feel transcendant, you aren’t self-centered;
when you feel connected, you can’t be  disconnected;
when you notice, you’re not blind to;
when you listen; you’re not deaf to;
when you’re smiling, you can’t scowl;
when your heart is filled with the warmth of awe, it can’t be empty and cold
when we’re patient, we have time; and, we make time.

No, when you’re “awe-full,” you can’t disparage with an “awful.”

Louis

It’s dawn.  The sky is greying with the coming day’s light.  I just came in from slowly sipping a cup of freshly brewed coffee by the koi pond.  As I gazed at the barely visible graceful sweeping moves of the koi and listened to the music of the waterfalls, I thought of the urgent beckoning by the pond.  “In the morning, – solitude,” Emerson said, “nature may speak to the imagination, as she does never in company.”  To lose that silence, to lose that ability to keep quiet company with yourself, to fail to be a guest in your own heart, to fail to be more that a passing tourist in life, is such a tragic loss of the opportunity to develop the ability to think and feel honestly.  Without a time and place carved out for personal reflection, our authenticity is challenged; we can so easily get swept up and away by the crowd; we can so quickly lose our uniqueness and individuality; we can so completely surrender to numbing “what everyone does and believes” uniformity and conformity; we can so fail to find the calmness among people and circumstance that we find in being alone.

These last four months or so, when I was uncharacteristically off the grid, have taught me that life is constant improvisation, for, as Robert Burns rightly wrote,  “the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men/Gang aft a-gley.”  I was dramatically reminded  that each day is a time filled with the unexpected, that the only certainty in life is its uncertainties.  I was taught there isn’t a moment that is not an exploration into the unknown with uncertain outcomes.  Nevertheless, as Rumi says, “Wherever you are, be fully present there.”   He means that we can’t be that passing tourist in life in general or anywhere we are or in whatever we’re doing.  Instead, we dauntlessly have to show up and keep showing up.  We have to be intensely mindful; we have to be fiercely aware, alert, attentive, and alive; we have to have a profound sense of otherness and of nurturing others.  We have to constantly tap into that inner authenticity through thick and thin.  There’s no way around it.  To do that, however, is a high order of skill that takes constant practice to reach, a lot of constant and conscious practice.  That’s why, whether I’m standing by the pond or walking the streets, I love this graying time as a time of deep listening.   It’s so important, for it offers the opportunity to transform inattentive thoughtlessness into conscious thoughtfulness; for me, it readies me, emotionally and mentally, for every moment to engage fully and joyfully with every step and breath into whatever this day may bring.  It brings a daily understanding that, as Thich Nhat Hanh said, the real miracle is not walking on the surface of the water; it is walking the earth and relishing in the mirales that are everything and everyone.

These past four months I been thinking a lot of how this is all so easy to do during the “up” times of life, when things are bountiful, when they are good, when they go your way.   But, the real challenge is to hold your own when things turn “down.”  These last four months have been a test to see how committed I am to living Rumi’s words.  I’ll just say that I and Susie have been distracted, redirected and challenged by a roller coaster of family celebration and near family tragedy:  the joyous week-long Bar Mitzvah celebration of my California grandmunchkin, Nina;  the happy days of wine sipping in Carmel Valley with Susie and my sister;  staying for another week of California grandmunchkin spoiling; returning to Valdosta only to be almost immediately greeted with the blood curdling news of the near-fatal bicycle accident of Nina’s older teenage sister, Natalie, that almost took her from us; the two weeks—the toughest two weeks of our lives—of fear, crying, anger, cursing, emotional exhaustion as Natalie lay in Stanford’s pediatric ICU with severe brain trauma, broken wrist and back, and severe internal injuries; the waiting for news during several life-saving surgeries;  the exhilaration and wonderment of her slow but miraculous near-total recovery; two weeks of returning to California to support Natalie, to help to take the load off her exhausted parents, and to help them back into the normality of their lives; the joy of playing tourist for the 13th coming-of-age birthday celebration of my Nashville grandmunchkin, Jackie;  dealing with the constant agony of Susie’s torn achilles tendon, and facing the prospect of  surgery and a long recovery period; enduring painful physical therapy to avoid surgery on my rotator cuff that was torn during a stupid fall in Monterey; and the joyous preparation for celebrating the 51st anniversary of my love fest with Susie in a couple of weeks.  Yeah, the last four months or so have been filled with lots of what Dickens would call the best of times and worst of times.   And, let me tell you what pulled and still pulls me up in those worst of times and lifts me higher in those best of times, what has given me the strength to withstand for better or worse.  Richness!  Inner richness!  The inner richness of a loving wfie, a loving family, loving friends, and having a sense of meaning and purpose to my life—no matter what.  What steadied me in those worst of time, when I was sorely tested and wavered, was gratitude, that constant revelation of how blessed I felt my life was.

Does, this have anything to do with the classroom?  Sure it does, for  life in the classroom is but a microcosm of life’s macrocosm.  The ultimate “upper” or “downer” in the classroom is mood.  It’s not what too many of us solely concentrate on:  information, method or technique, and technology.  No, it’s feeling, emotion, attitude, mood.  I recently read an article by Paul Piff and Dacher Keltner, social psychologists at UC-Berkley.  A while back, they published the unexpected results of a study that demonstrated the pernicious psychological effects of wealth and income disparity, that there was an apparent link between wealth and unseemly behavior; that wealth comes with a set of values that are something less than communal; that the wealthy feel entitled with a deservedness for having “made it;”  that the wealth creates a new privileged aristocracy or meritocracy.  I went back to Piff’s sobering TED talk from four years ago and read some of his writings.

They got me to wondering.  I recalled all the bemoaning and frustrations I’ve heard and read over the years of my colleagues, cynicism about all but the “good” students:  “They’re letting anyone in.”  “They don’t belong.”  “I’m here to ‘profess,’ not teach!” “We’re diluting the value of an education.”  “It’s just plain dumbing down.” “I don’t have the time for them.”  “I’ve got more important things to do.”  “I’ve got to meet a deadline.”  “I don’t have tenure.”  I wondered if all those silent and expressed nasty barbs, sarcastic comments, negatives, lack of appreciation,  the eye rolling sighs, complaints, criticism, finger-pointing, put-downs, demeanings elevate our mood in the classroom?  Once again, that question has gotten me to wonder if Piff’s and Keltner’s findings could be extrapolated to an equally corrosive academia, to the proverbial “wealth of knowledge,” to an attitude of having academically “made it” shown by degree, title, position, tenure, grants, research, and publication.  Would this negative mood towards teaching in general and to the “average” students in particular whittle away a professor’s energy little by little?  Would a habit of naysaying, adding up one small negative behavior, one snide comment, one demeaning thought, one denigrating feeling at a time until they become weighty chains on our attitude and hence our performance?  I mean, honestly, ask yourself:  “How much do I really know about each student?”  “How unconditionally supporting and encouraging am I for each student?”  “How much do I notice each student?”  “How much do I listen to each student?” “How empathetic am I?”  “What is it like to talk with me?”  “How easy is it to meet with me?”  “How easy is it to ask for help from me?”  “Does my attitude hold me back or give me a shove?”  “Do I constantly complain?”

Now, in one of the last responses to my Random Thoughts,  I had been accused of being an “academic wrecking ball,” that talk of faith, hope, and love in the classroom  ”and this constant harping on teaching is silly, dangerous, and beyond stupid.”  No they’re not. They set the chain-breaking, positive mood for both you and each student.  They neutralize naysaying with an unconditional enveloping lovingkindness.  They’re attitudes and actions that I have found is what transforms in our eyes, and the eyes of each student, an “awful student” into an “awe-full” person, and an “awful” classroom situation into an “awe-full” one.  I will assert without reservation or hesitation or equivocation that being a classroom teacher in higher education does not—I repeat, does not—damn a person’s academic soul! Focusing on classroom teaching instead of research and publication doesn’t place you in academic moral danger.  It doesn’t corrupt; it doesn’t harm your character; it doesn’t warp your behavior.

So, I ask, in the spirit of Piff’s and Keltner’s findings, and if we’re honest, I’d ask us to ponder this:  are the more academically renown more or less empathetic and compassionate towards each and every student?  Are they more likely to be engaged with or disengaged from each student?  Are they better or worse at reading each student’s emotions?  Does all that drive to secure grants, to research, to publish, to secure tenure make someone numb to students?  Do we value ourselves and colleagues proportional to the length of our academic resume or extent of our and their academic renown?  Are accomplished professors really so different from students?

My point is that grant securing,  tenure pursuing, researching, and publishing aren’t inherently poisonous, but they are so dangerous that they should be looked at with suspicion and caution.  It’s our choice to allow or disallow them to have a negative impact on our way of feeling, thinking, and acting.   Maybe consciously building connections with all students, being engaged with them, thinking of them as equals, “desegregating” ourselves, breaking down barriers, building chasm-spanning bridges,  bringing about a sense of community can trigger basic empathetic processes.  And, maybe faith, hope, and love are the essential building materials we need to make our lives in the classroom exponentially better.   Caring, without deeds, is meaningless.  Too many find it easy to profess “I care” and then carelessly fail at it.  At least, I have found that to be so.  Faith, hope, and love are the currents that allow me to drift away from impersonal and dehumanizing stereotype, generalization, and label.  They allow me to deal, with an empathy and a compassion and a smile, with the ups and downs in the classroom.   They give me the insight to see that Thich Nhat Hanh is right:  everyone who steps into that classroom is an “awe-full” miracle.

Enough for now.

Louis

I want to back up in this reflection. So, let me remind you of those three penetrating questions that spewed from my epiphany: “Do you want to let go of the influence of those debilitating parts of your life?” “Do you want a new future?” “Do you have it in you to do what has to be done?” The answers beyond my shouted “yes” did not come quick or easy. No, they triggered an emerging and vigorous debate between different philosophical worlds with different premises, different core principles, and subsequently different ways of doing things.

For years following the posing of those questions, day after day after day after day, there was a furious inner exchange. It was actually slugfest. On one side, was the up-and-coming, self-confident, powerful challenger with a new, innovative style, a new outlook, and a new way of moving through the world of academia. He wanted to matter. He wanted to be dedicated, truly dedicated to each student rather than to “the discipline.” Sure, he knew that subject matter mattered, but he wanted to accept the simple fact that people mattered most; he wanted to get out of the publish-or-perish rat race; he wanted to truly value classroom teaching; he wanted to rigorously be taught and learn about learning that was so ignored in his graduate training; he no longer wanted to wield weaponized perceptions and actions that harmed others; he wanted to teach generously, doing the best for each student; he refused to reject or forget or abandon his own story because it allowed him to connect with the stories of others; he no longer wanted to devalue students as impediments to lengthening his professional resume or promotion or appointment or acquiring tenure or broadening his professional renown; he wanted to better understand each student far more than a stereotype, generality, or label would allow; he wanted to get an understanding, get to the true beneath-the-surface complexity of each student that is far clearer and truer than a warping stereotype; he wanted to make a difference in the lives of students; he wanted to be fueled by unconditional faith in, hope for, and love of both himself and each student; he wanted to be driven by a Northstar vision of meaning and purpose that would allow him and each student to help each other become the person each was capable of becoming. And, he saw that when he stripped away the resume, positions, tenure, and titles, something far more important remained. He was willing to take risks. He was willing to take the inevitable punches. He knew that he wouldn’t know what would happen until after it happened.

On the other side, was the defender of tradition. He believed that importance rested on the academic resume, degree, title, position, and renown; that they made the academic person. He, like almost all of his colleagues, felt comfortable using teaching methods by which he had been taught by his professors. He was afraid of altering his tried-and-true and universally accepted style. He was, when push came to shove, he was filled with fear. He wasn’t sure how those around him would greet any change of style. He didn’t know how and if his backers would back him. He didn’t know if the promoters would promote him. He didn’t know if his colleagues would remain collegial. He knew everyone around him would resist any change; they always did. He knew that almost everyone would feel threatened by him if he tried anything new. And, he sure didn’t want to be isolated as someone who was no longer “dedicated to the discipline.” So, he wasn’t sure if there was anything in it for him if he did change his perceptions and ways. He knew those around him wanted to know what any change meant for them personally and professionally. He knew those around him would want to know if any change of style would benefit or be averse to their position. Since any change would take a lot of time and effort, but wouldn’t guarantee a victory, he wasn’t sure if it would be worth it the risk. He wasn’t wild about venturing into the unknown, feeling safer in the familiar and comfortable with what he was comfortable doing. In fact, he really was hesitant until he had guarantees of victory.

For years, inside me, these two debated, day after day after day: research; teaching; publication; teaching; information transmission; character development, promotion and tenure; instilling deep and lasting life-long learning. Vigorously. Furiously. Ferociously. Slowly, but slowly and surely, seeing the richness of love of self and others, I locked my heart on a good solid reason to be willing to change, and to act on that willingness to change. The strength of purpose in soft teaching with its unconditional faith and hope and love of each student proved to be the stronger of the two contestants for my soul and ultimately won the debate.

As I experienced this inner grappling, I came to see that I didn’t have to wait for a Sir Galahad to rescue me. I already had that inner power of intent to change within me. The richness of faith, hope, and love in both self and others was the key. I just had to learn how to bring it out from its hidden place, constantly drawing on its energy, and using it. Consequently, I started daring to have faith, hope, and love for what is. “What is” meant that the essence of the classroom, like everything in existence, is connection and interaction where chasm and distance and disconnection have no place. “What is” meant centering on myself in order to release constraints in order be able to center on uncentering myself to serve each student. “What is” meant putting the magnitude of teaching, rather than ego, at the center of my mindfulness. “What is” meant cutting through the opaque curtains of dehumanizing and impersonal stereotype, generality, label, and superficiality. “What is” meant being a human being next to another unique and sacred human being. “What is” meant keeping myself open, embracing and accepting those around me. “What is” meant an expanding attentiveness, alertness, and awareness of others. “What is” meant not minimizing others, not being distracted from each of them, not letting any of them go unnoticed and unheard. “What is” meant bringing the vibrancy of my faith in, hope for, and love of each of them to each of them, enveloping each of them with it, and helping each of them to help themselves find their own vibrancy. “What is” meant living well, living true, sustained by a vision of both teaching and life. “What is” meant being a person of value, not merely of success. “What is” meant depth, soul, purpose, meaning, legacy. “What is” meant being so emotionally invested in each student that it moves me to tears to watch her or him evolve toward the person she or he can become.

The bottom line is I came to touch the wonder of teaching specifically and life in general that as I learned to live my answers to those three questions. I stopped cheating my self. I learned to love my self. As I learned to love my self, I learned to truly live! And, as I learned to truly live, according to the words of Norman Vincent Peale, I lived my life, not my resume. In every thought, every feeling, every word, and every action, I came to touch the wonder of teaching specifically and life in general every minute of every day.

Enough for now. More later on the lessons I learned over the years.

Louis

So, what were some of those lessons of the transforming process that led me to “soft teach” which I had to learn and take to heart? First, the overall lesson. I had an explosive epiphany in the autumn of 1991 that would turn out to be my springtime only if I admitted that I had to do something with it. It was hard, oh so hard, to learn that lesson, and all the derivative ones to come. I needed to change my personal and professional and social vocabulary and gaits, as well as the entire trajectory of my life. And, they often were learned unsteadily and incrementally over the years to come.

For me, learning about myself was really what I already secretly knew, but had ignored or disguised or rationalized away or buried or locked up. That sudden epiphany erupted with three simple, yet profound and meaningful, challenge questions for me : “Do you want to let go of the influence of those debilitating parts of your life?” “Do you want a new future?” “Do you have it in you to do what has to be done?” To my own astonishment, before I could think about it, I heard my immediate answer was an unhesitant, firm, and resounding “Yes!” So, I tearfully issued a respectful invitation to myself for a deeper and more honest conversation with myself.

The point of that exchange would be to face my inner pain, heartache, fear, disappointment, weakened self-esteem and self-confidence, and subtle sense of failure that was I was allowing to restrict me; to face those who had hurt me—including myself—and to face up to it all in order to face them all down. Slowly I gave my life to become to who I am now and who I will be down the short road that’s left for me to walk. Was it worth it? Boy, was it.

Those lessons challenged me to brave rearranging how I was put together, to break the covenant of the “research and publish scholar,” to move from “professor” to a student serving “teacher,” to move from appearances to authenticities, to transition from being in information business to being in a “people” business, to cut through layers and layers to arrive at liberation and self-empowerment. They were complex self-redefinitions that slowly worked their way from the inside to the outside. I and my inner spirit, who had been somewhat at odds for many decades, slowly came to like each other. We were to become life-long bosom buddies.

I slowly stopped arguing for my limitations, overcame fear, strengthened self-esteem, built up self-confidence, and beheld wonder. It was a wonder that created a sense of connectedness with each student, an attentiveness to the needs of each student, and a desire to be in the service of her or him. I slowly replaced the outwardness of my degrees, titles, and resume with my inward humanity to define the academic me, the personal me, and a socialized me—the everything together me— as well.

It was only recently that I discovered that during all these decades I had been experiencing what the research of UC-Berkeley’s Dacher Keltner, NYU’s Jonathan Haidt, and others had revealed: soul-stirring wonder imbues a person with a different sense of self; with a transcendent, exuberant, imaginative, creative, optimistic, flexible, caring, empathic, sympathetic, kindly, and serving self. From my experience, I would add an overall faithful, hopeful, and loving self.

The bottom line, as the noted psychologist, Robert Brooks, says, is that these characteristics generated by wonder all have a positive impact on our physical and emotional well-being. They are the rock-solid foundations for community and a sense of community; for meaning, purpose, serving. And, it behooves us to learn to be constantly awe-struck by finding, seeing, and listening to such wonder in the most mundane, daily experiences. That describes my mood setting pre-dawn meditative “wonder contemplations,” sipping a wondrously freshly brewed coffee, by my koi pond each morning, my every-other-morning 7 mile meditative “wonder walks,” my awesome conversations with my flowers, my daily end-of-day gratitude exercise, and, above all, my wondrous daily chats with my beloved Susie over a glass of evening wine. As for people in general and students in particular, for me, I have learned to inoculate into our academic “wonder-deprived” culture by constantly seeing and listening to angels walking before each person pronouncing “Make way! Make way for someone created in the image of God.” That powerful and profound image causes me to see the hitherto hidden sacredness, nobility, and uniqueness in each person that in my eyes makes each of them a “phenomenal you.” That’s how I find that exuberant wonder in other people and begin my faithful, hopeful, and loving connection with them.

Louis

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

You know, Cicero said nothing people do that more approaches the gods than being a healer. I don’t think “soft teachers” are far behind. “Soft teaching” is a pledge, a moral act, a value system, a covenant, an ongoing connection, and a “we” consciousness. “Soft teaching” at its core is really about both the flourishing and the transformation of both teacher and student, for the “soft teacher” teaches in a way that brings out the better person in both teacher and student. “Soft teachers” unconditionally love each student not because they want to teach those students, but because they’re loving people. They buy an “all in,” not letting frustration, resentment, and anger dominate their awareness and skew their vision. Their attitudes aren’t skewed by negative preconceptions, generalities, stereotypes, and labels. They just respect and serve whomever enters the classroom. They are nurturers, not weeders. They know that if you want to retain and prepare all students for the future, you have to have a strong caring classroom that enables all students to thrive in it. I found “soft teaching” is a stronger force than academic elitism, proud ego, and self-interest—far more than renown, resume, title, and position. It brings out the deepest happiness, joy, meaning, and purpose. Like I said, “soft teaching” is neither for softies nor pessimists.

You see, to be a “soft teacher,” you have to pass “optimism” and “loving” tests before you can pass over the classroom’s threshold. Your guiding principles have to be empathy and student wellbeing. It takes strength and courage, reinforced by purpose to step back, take a deep breath, and leave negative feelings and thoughts behind. As Abraham Maslow said, it’s easy to stay with safety, but it’s hard to go daringly forward. It’s hard to let go of limiting preconceptions, biased thinking, and fixed feelings. It’s hard to fight the tendency to label others quickly on the basis of superficialities like GPAs. It’s hard to understand some of the dynamics that are happening beneath the surface that come up to the surface in vocal tones, facial expressions, and body language. It’s hard to reject previously held anecdotal evidence that told you your attitudes were warranted. It’s hard to ask yourself honestly, “How much of my attitude toward students is really about my lens on them?” It’s just downright hard to both learn and unlearn. But, what would happen to the environment within you if you brought into the classroom that wonderful feeling of just being alive, of delighting in living, of seeing an extraordinary, staggering, pulsating, sacred, nobility in each person? What would happen if you greeted each person with breathtaking awe? Just think of the smile that would be put on your face every day. Just think of the dance it would put in your step every day. Just think of the fire it would feed every day. That is what I discovered “soft teaching” can do for both teacher and student.

I know. It all happened to me. There I was, in the mid-point of my academic career, an accomplished researching and publishing scholar of some renown—until my epiphany in 1991. In that unexpected and unplanned sudden moment, I zoomed in on who I was at the moment and who I wanted to be in the moments to come. It was an inner upheaval of earthquake proportions that broke the imprinting chains of past personal experiences. I slowly, cautiously, over the years I took those dark memories I brought up from the dark recesses of my soul and made them into a personal story that made sense of my ongoing transformation. It wasn’t something I just figured out or admitted; it was literally a hard to explain feeling of talking myself into a new perception of the world. I learned to draw on the power of love, the power of caring, the power of commitment, the power of perseverance, the power of commitment to myself, the power of faith in myself, the power of hope for myself, and the power of loving myself. I started going from a need to be important and to impress to doing important things, from wanting to look good to doing good works. My first priority shifted from lengthening my resume to developing my inner self. To my surprise, I discovered that deep sense of accomplishment and satisfaction lay in those few moments I tore myself away from thinking about my scholarship, focused on a student in the classroom, and felt myself come alive. The classroom, I had to admit, was the place where I really felt a breathless purpose. That’s where I came to decide to lay my values and my identity. I had to admit that I wasn’t truly getting fulfillment in both my professional and personal life from my books, articles, grants or conference papers. I always felt and knew, though I did not admit it until that moment, that I was being driven to please and cater to others. It was when my search for meaning, for my own reality, abruptly took me out from archive and into the classroom, when I did a “meaning self-appraisal” and a “purpose self-evaluation,” when I consequently broke free from doing what was expected of me and from what I was told I was supposed to do, when I saw I was really in the people business as much as, if not more, in the information transmission and skill development business, when I went cold turkey on scholarly research and publication, and when I voluntarily turned to the classroom whole hog to transform from a researching and publishing scholarly professor to an intensely student-loving teacher.

Over the decades, I’ve discovered several things about what I am now calling “humanization by ‘soft teaching.’” First, to paraphrase Emerson, a person’s opinion of students is a confession of her or his character. We all infuse into thoughts, feelings, spoken words, and actions a sense of who we are, what someone called, a feeling of your spirit or soul. So, it was and is with me. The development of “soft teaching,” revealed a lot about who I was—my fears, my needs, my fallibilities, unimaginable imagination, incalculable opportunities, unexplored potential, hidden truths, untapped strength and courage—and who I could be. Second, I learned that my past, like anyone else’s, was not my potential; it was not a determinate of my future; I was. So, as I no longer needed to hold on to fixed views—including judgments I had about myself, other people, and the world—I could see and listen to fresh and new faces coming on campus every day and every term. In my own little world of the classroom, I could deal with the dilemma of retention by converting what might be called a “crisis of weeding out” with a “blessing of caring and nurturing.” Third, it’s an identity wrestling match: between the researching and publishing scholar and the classroom servant teacher; between focusing on student limitations and concentrating on student potentials; between seeing education as a business of information transmissions and skill development business on one hand and seeing it as a people business on the other; between minimal involvement with students and maximum engagement to them. Fourth, it’s an adventurous venturing out from the accepted, comfortable, known, and safe, as uncertain and scary as that is. Fifth, I’ve found a practicality in “soft teaching.” “Soft eyes,” “soft ears,” and “soft heart” slowed me down and put me into the conscious “now” of things. It makes you to “pay attention,” and you discover that anything you do is improved by paying full attention to it. It is the most basic way to connect with my inner self and with another person. Studies show that attention is one way the brain answers the question, “Is this worthwhile?” Sixth, it changed the way I moved among the students. It gave me a high. I felt feel wonder awaken inside me. I was awed. I thought and felt anew. I noticed my thoughts and feelings daringly moving from the information in lecture notes to the person of the student. My imagination was sparked. I became malleable and adaptable to that student I saw and listened to details or perspectives that I never noticed before or maybe even chose to ignore. Seventh, that slowing down revealed the complexity in the classroom that defies simplistic and distorting stereotyping, generalizing, and labelling. It helped me see myself and students in gentle technicolor instead of stark black and white. That made me more tender towards everyone, marvel how often so many students rose to the occasions far beyond their expectations. And, I learned not to be frustrated and resentful, though sad, when things don’t go right and don’t work. And finally, someone said that you cannot truly appreciate the glory of life until you’ve experienced and acknowledge life’s dark side. Similarly, I’m not sure you can practice the golden rule until you polish your own tarnished self. As Benjamin Disraeli said, “There is no better education like adversity.” Some of the most valuable experiences I’ve had—my epiphany, cancer, and cerebral hemorrhage—were not the most enjoyable, not the most painless, not the most comfortable, not the easiest to deal with, and not the least challenging.

Louis