As I was saying, so many of us call these first year students
"young adults"
because it rationalizes and excuses the inclination of far too many of us
academics to
follow a "hands off," disengaged policy. If the truth be told and admitted, so
many of us
just don't or don't want to deal with them as sacred, noble, unique, valuable,
worthwhile,
complex, complicated, and individual human beings. We usually have contact
with them in
those nameless, faceless, corralled herds we call survey courses too many of us
feel we'd
be better off without or are beneath our professionalism or are an imposition
on our time
or are palmed off to inexperienced and equally distracted TAs. So, we usually
don't want
to deal with those students in a ways they need and in ways we demand others
deal with
each of us. We take or prefer the easy route of merely depersonalizing,
transmitting,
testing and grading information and skills.
But, those faithful, caring, hopeful, and loving academics I know
in the First
Year Experience programs by whatever name they go by, I so admire them. Since
I, by
choice, handle only first year courses and participate in VSU's first year
experience
program, I see their struggle every day. They are nurturers rather than
weeders. Their
hearts are filled with kindness. They bear the subtle and sometimes not so
subtle slings
and arrows of outrageous academic disdain. Nevertheless, they persevere. They
have such
stature. They find joy where others find nothing. They place no conditions on
happiness,
purpose, satisfaction, and fulfillment. They embrace the uncertainty of each
student and
see in that uncertainly a limitless fertile ground for planting faith, belief,
beauty,
satisfaction, fulfillment. They see the abundant richness in each tiny seed
that is a
first year student who supposedly doesn't belong or can't perform. They are
not only
magicians and servants; they are patient dreamers as well. That is important.
These
first year students are far more seeds than the blooming flowers or ripen fruit
that so
many academics demand they be. One of the great Greek philosophers, Epictetus,
I think,
said that you need time and nurturing. Nothing great, not a beautiful flower
or a
delicious fruit happens in an instant: "If you tell me that you desire a fig,"
he said,
"I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit,
then ripen."
I would add, before all that blossoming, there must be all that constant time
and
effort-and love--preparing the soil, planting the seed, nourishing it, watering
it, and
tending to it.
There are times, a lot of times, more times than most academics
wish to
devote, you have to be the student's dream in order to help her or him out of
her or his
own nightmare. There are times you have to be the expression of her or his
dream so that
she or he has a shot at attaining that dream. There are times you have to give
real life,
color, texture, sound, taste, feel, emotion, and layer upon layer of substance
to
transform a student's hopeless nightmare into a faithful dream. There are times
you have
to demonstrate to a student that there is nothing too far away for her or him
to reach.
There are times you don't accept an escaping "I tried," or evading "I did my
best," but
only, like Yoda, lovingly-lovingly--firmly demand a "Do!." There are times you
have to
urge them to be their own voice rather than an echo of someone else. There are
times you
have to help a student find joy where she or he sees nothing but joylessness.
There are
times you have to help a student see that "hard" is not the same as
"impossible." There
are times you have to help a student see that the impossible is so possible,
that the
supposedly unattainable is attainable, and that the unreachable is within her
or his
reach. There are times you have to bend over and help a student get up when
she or he
stumbles until she or he learns how to get up her- or himself. There are times
you have
to help a student see that not only are those first steps tough, but so are
each of the
continuing steps. There are times you have to help a student realize that she
or he can
be the dream she or he wants to be, that she or he can infuse that dream more
and more
into her or his life, and that by constantly reaching out and touching that
dream, she or
he can become that dream. That's the magician and servant in these first year
experience
people as well.
Don't want to bother being that student's surrogate dream and
dreamer? Fine!
Don't want to be an academic magician? Okay! Don't want to be a servant
teacher? Sure!
Then, understand, all too often you leave behind at term's end a withered plant
that could
have been cared for back to life, an empty shell that could have housed
delicious fruit,
and a hole in the future that could have been darned.
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 /\ /\ /\ /\
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mountains \ /\
_/ \ don't practice on mole
hills" -/
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