Well, I've been gnashing my teeth, snarling little--and not so
little--curses,
and contorting my face into gnarls. It's that time of the term that I despise
with an
unbridled passion. It's when I've got to come up with those very uneducational
and
misleading final grades. To go that, I've been pouring over copious notations
I've taken
over the semester on almost 180 students, reading each of their
self-evaluations,
pondering their evaluations of other members of their community. And,
reflecting both on
their final journal entries and their evaluations of me and my unique no-test,
no-lecture,
no-grades, hands-on-only, wholeness-emphasizing class structure.
One sentence from one first-year student's evaluation so struck me
that it has
been sticking with me as I fought panicking about everything I have to do
before leaving
in seven days (gulp, double-gulp) for six weeks in China. "..You know what you
are?" she
wrote. "You're a caring magician and a loving servant. That's what you are
because you
see and give a damn about each of us, and that's what you see real teaching as."
That's all she said. But, as I prepared to do battle with the
final grade
sheets, rush a host of caladiums into the ground, work on the courses I'll be
teaching in
China, try to calm my Susan down as she frantically struggles to figure out how
to pack
everything she wants for the trip into one light-weighing suitcase, the
counter-balancing
calming effect of those two words worked on me all weekend. Though she left
me to try to
figure out what she meant, I figured out what they meant to me.
Caring magic and loving service. Looking back on this past
semester and on
the many semesters before it, thinking about each student and all those people
who
preceded them, those are two great descriptive phrases for, as she said, "real
teaching,"
aren't they? That's what real teaching is, isn't it? It all boils down to
those four
words, doesn't it? At least, it should: caring magic and loving service.
Real teaching
exists in a mysterious and inexplicable futuristic world of otherness,
awareness, empathy,
faithful loving, and becoming. Without a wand, with no trick hat, without any
rabbits or
doves, without any illusions, a true teacher works creative magic and helps to
create
creative magic. A true teacher is a finely attuned, highly effective,
persistently
imaginative embodiment of creativity. A true teacher also knows that the only
way to
satisfaction and fulfillment is through being aware that there are others in
the classroom
with her or him and both loving and serving those others. She or he sees beyond
her/himself, into the selves around her or him and serves them. Combining magic
and
service, she or he is a conjurer. She or he is there each day to help bring
possibilities
to life in the special lives around her or him. With every thought, every
feeling, every
gesture, every act, every moment, she or he adds her or his own special gifts
to help a
student unwrap her or his own special gifts. With caring passion and loving
empathy, with
an authentic purpose, with uncompromising integrity and tireless service, with
magnificent
vision and committed mission, the teacher continually focuses on and works to
help
transform who a student can become into what a student is. The teacher helps
both to
bring her or his and a student's dreams into reality. Gosh, she hit the
proverbial nail
on the head, didn't she? That is what real teaching is: caring magic and
loving service
Make it a good day.
--Louis--
Louis Schmier www.therandomthoughts.com
Department of History www.newforums.com/L_Schmier.htm
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, Georgia 31698 /\ /\ /\ /\
(229-333-5947) /^\\/ \/ \ /\/\____/\ \/\
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\ /\/
\ \ /\
//\/\/ /\ \_ /
/___\/\ \ \
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/\"If you want to climb
mountains \ /\
_/ \ don't practice on mole
hills" -/
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