Please don’t think that I am flagellating myself when I talk of my 1991
life-changing epiphany. I am not. Painful as it was, I was experiencing that
biblical adage: the truth shall set you free. Boy, did it. It was the
beginning of coming to terms with myself by acknowledging, recognizing, and
accepting the truth that my emotions of insecurity and fear had had a
significant impact on my attitudes, feelings, and actions towards myself,
students, colleagues, and “the system.” In the first half of my career, I
rationalized that the “system” had put me in a damnably untenable position so
that I could not adequately simultaneously serve the two demanding masters of
the classroom and archive; that to research and publish, and secure grants, I
had to give research a higher priority than classroom teaching. I mean how can
an academia, resting on the inordinate prominence of research and publishing
scholarship, not have an institutional subconscious bias that truly minimizes
classroom teaching to all those supposed blank faced, “unprepared,”
“unmotivated,” “unprepared,” mediocre or poor “don’t belongs.” After all, if
you don’t have passion and compassion for each and every students, you’ll
enslave yourself to “the system,” perpetuate it by becoming part of it, and
have little incentive to act on behalf of anyone beyond the select few “good
students,” those “proto-professionals.” How could academics rooted in this
soil, then, not be tainted by disparaging all but the “good” students. How
could academics standing on this ground not feel disconnected by the feeling
that dealing with those less stellar “others” was a waste of their valuable
knowledge and time? Consequently, if we look closely and honestly, most
academics subtly, if not overtly, have a pernicious concept of the priority of
research and publication over classroom teaching. It’s that thing known as
“dedication to the discipline.” If we look closely and honestly, so many
would have to admit that the classroom did not have their sustained and
undivided attention, that they had the constant feeling that while in class
they needed to be somewhere else doing something else to lengthen their resume;
that the demands of classroom teaching got in the way of meeting the more
important demands of research and publication necessary to acquire academic
reputation, promotion, and the acquisition of that protective tenured position.
It’s really a kind of brutality—with all the best of intentions, proper
utterance, aspirations, and latest technologies—for all those “don’t belongs.”
Do you know how the toll that disinterest takes on so many students? It makes
so many students feel alone, disrespected, devalued, and abandoned in the
classroom. How I know that. Not only was I one of the disposables in academia
as a student, but as a teacher I read the students’ daily confidential journal
entries in which they spilled their guts out. And, that’s the thing most
academics are missing: knowing what’s ticking inside each student that’s
having an impact on their time in class.
So, for me, in the years that followed my epiphany, as I honestly read
my past story, I changed the theme of the coming chapters. I acknowledged that
my “I care” was so anemic; that I did not have the emotional fortitude needed
to deal with the depth of the problem. Over the following years, having
heart-to-heart discussions with myself, I broke with tradition; I no longer
would let those who would practice an elitism and denigrate the less than
stellar students teach me how to teach, nor would I follow their lead; I would
no longer be the person others wanted me to be; I would be my own person; I
“decentered,” if not abandoned, “scholar-ness” in my professional life; and, I
no longer saw education as solely a credentialing process. To me, the purpose
of an education was to see each student as a precious human being, to ensure
the well-being of each and every students, to provide each of them with a path
to a sense of fulfillment, to help them be the writers of their own story, to
focus as much on helping them learn how to live the good life as well as
learning how to get a good job.
That exploded my whole sense of what I was doing as an academic. I
became less an academic and more of an educator. I became more of a
collaborator who empowered each student with an autonomy and treated each of
them with respect and empathy than a “I know best and will tell you what to do”
distant and disconnected authority figure. To be sure, it was a huge challenge
to clean the “don’t belong” mud off those gems. First, of all I had to tear
through the opaque curtain of labeling and find ways to delve into the depth of
the real stories of what is happening with each student. I had to learn to
listen and see in order to be guided by knowing and understanding who each
student was rather than merely hear, look at, talk to, and make assumptions
dictated by cardboard stereotyping, generalizing, and labeling. Second, I
recognized my limitations, but, without knowing anything 100% or expecting to
succeed 100%, I kept my options open in order to navigate through those
limitations with each student. And finally, even though I didn’t have all the
necessary information, couldn’t always know my impact, could make mistakes, I
decided that not to give it a shot was worse than taking a chance. Only then
could I live with and learn from the consequences, assume responsibility rather
than blame, throw away techniques that didn’t work, and experiment with new
techniques. It’s the way I have found to aspire and then inspire
Please don’t think I’m being cavalier about the difficult and dangerous
place any attempt to change and buck “the system” can put you in. I was a
victim of academic abuse. Behind my back, I was denounced as “subversive” or
ridiculed as “coddling” or denigrated as “new agey” or dismissed as “bosh” or
demoted as “non-professional.” I was accused by traditional colleagues of
threatening them with my non-traditional methods. And, even on more than one
of those silly and irrelevant post-tenure reviews my changes and methods were
used against me as evidence of weakness and possibly incompetence, and as proof
that I wasn’t a collegial “team player.” I was, however, lucky. Protected
by the result of my epiphany, those slaps didn’t bruise me. I was now secure,
very secure, in my own skin. That strong self-confidence and self-esteem
meant I no longer was looking over my shoulder. I no longer worried about what
other people thought. I no longer sought to please “the system.” Drawing on
the arsenal of the scientific research on teaching and learning gave me a
imperviousness and resiliency against any slings and arrows hurled my way.
They had shown me and anyone who cared to read and listen that unconditional
and nonjudgmental faith, hope, and love for each student were not “soft,”
“soapy,” “fluffy,” or “touchy-feely.” If anything, they were a call to arms.
When something as big as my epiphany happens, when you later “beat” cancer,
when still later you survive a massive cerebral hemorrhage as a "5% walking
miracle,” you know all the subsequent years are on the house. You don’t waste
your precious time pouting or “kissing up.” You don’t dwell. You find
something that is lovelier and higher and more beautiful. You find something
bigger beyond yourself. For me, that bigger something was becoming a servant
teacher, reaching my hand out to each and every student, confidently knowing I
could make a difference; that I could change the world and alter the future.
With that kind of attitude we can get to the higher ground and teach
beautifully each and every student unconditionally, to have faith in and hope
for and love of the “least” of the students, in a far too often tarnishing,
selective, judgmental, weeding out, and snarky academic culture.
Over the years, as I read Rogers, Mazlow, Gardner, Deci, Dweck,
Fredrickson, Goleman, Senge,and a host of others, as I studied the research on
”how we learn” and “why we do what we do,” and “resonant leadership” and
“emotional intelligence” and “social intelligence,” as I experimented with ways
to apply the results of that research, as I weaned myself away from lecturing
and dispensed with testing and grading, as I threw the limiting question “how
do I grade this” into the trash can, as I struggled to help both myself and
each student change from a “fixed mindset” to a “growth mindset,” I realized
that teaching and learning are personal. They are as much, if not more,
soulful as they are informational. They demanded that I get my soul into the
classroom. They required that each day all of me had to be in that classroom.
Putting all my chips to the center of the table was the only way to get into
the soul of each student and help each of them get their own soul into
learning. And, as I began to find ways to help each student believe in herself
and himself, we all found that everyone deserved to be “let in” and no one was
a “don’t belong.” Some, like Dennis, just needed more attention, support, and
encouragement to bring themselves along. When I and the students didn’t feel
marooned alone on an island, when we were aware of each other, when we were
attentive to each other, when our relationship was based on the lubricants of
authenticity, trust, respect, connection, we were at ease with each other. The
imprisoning walls of “strangerness,” “alone-ness,” and “loneliness” began to
crumble before the assault of unconditioned faith, hope, and love.. Nothing
felt forced or threatened, or threatening. There was no constricting and toxic
stress. It created a creative, imaginative, fear-free relationship. It
created a sanctuary for the exercise of autonomy and ownership. Students in
the class grew to be comforting, supporting, and encouraging friends. They
could take risks without fear of recrimination, demeaning, or shaming. In the
classroom they had the opportunity to overcome themselves and see how awesome
and awe-full they could be. They could see what potential lay within each of
them.
The students always celebrated the fact that the likeliest thing to
happen in class is that something unlikely would happen. The unspoken question
in the class was whom would you like to become. The unspoken answer was “let’s
see.” And, as those “others” transformed in both my and their eyes from
“awful” to “awe-full, as teaching became meaningful and fulfilling to me, as
teaching aligned with my personal and professional dreams and visions, as
teaching came into sync with the core expression of my values ultimately
expressed in my “Teacher’s Oath” and “Ten Commandments of Teaching,” as I came
to believe I could make a difference, as teaching became the top priority in my
professional life, as unconditional and nonjudgmental and nonselective
compassion and empathy rooted in faith, hope, and love for each student became
hallmarks of the classroom atmosphere, I became both inspired and, as the
Dennis and that student in the car and a host of others have testified,
inspiring. It was as Dennis said, “I now see that achieving in that class was
almost the same with becoming closer to who you truly could be—for both you and
me. Damn, we could almost taste our potential as you helped us to drag it up
from deep within us ‘unbelievers’ and imagined ourselves being better than we
thought we were.”
That’s what made teaching so damn exuberant, exhilarating—and
fulfilling!
Make it a good day
-Louis-
Louis Schmier
http://www.therandomthoughts.edublogs.org
203 E. Brookwood Pl
Valdosta, Ga 31602
(C) 229-630-0821 /\ /\ /\ /\
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/ \/ \_ \/ / \/
/\/ / \ /\ \
//\/\/ /\ \__/__/_/\_\/
\_/__\ \
/\"If you want to climb
mountains,\ /\
_ / \ don't practice on mole
hills" - / \_
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