Well, I hope you all in the States had as a delightful Thanksgiving as
Susan and I
had. We had gone "over the river than through the woods to grand-daughter's
house" for a
delightful and delicious Thanksgiving with my youngest son and his family in
Nashville.
For me, it was a particularly special time that eight weeks ago I thought I may
never see
again. But, see it again I did. As I hugged my son and daughter-in-law with a
tear in my
eye, as I held my grand-daughter with more than one tear, I knew once again
that "ah"
feeling that there are only two great and vital things: to live to see the
great day that
dawns and to live to see my world filled by the light of my family's faces. It
was a
dramatic contrast to the two days before our departure. Those were two "ugh"
days for
Susan. She had come down with a bad, grumpy inducing head cold. Her
irritability had
increased when at the same time the inconsiderate heating and air conditioning
system
unexpectedly had to be replaced. Her crankiness went off the charts when the
gas was
turned off most of the very day she had scheduled to bake her renowned cheese
cake for
Thanksgiving dinner. She was not a happy camper.
To make her "grrrrrrr" mood less "grrrrrr-some, Tuesday morning I
secretly went
out into the backyard. In the dim light of the gray dawn, assisted by a
flashlight, I
harvested some beauties from my rose garden with which to surprise her. As I
carefully
snipped here and there to gather a smile-inducing aromatic and elegantly
colorful bouquet,
I suddenly thought of how much my "bed of roses" has in common with teaching.
You do know that teaching is "a bed of roses," don't you? Well, it is.
Of
course, if you know anything about gardening, I'm turning the cliché "a bed of
roses" on
its roots to mean anything but trouble-free, easy, simple, effortless, and
perfect. If
you know anything about roses, they are high, very high, maintenance plants.
And, they
have thorns that prick, scratch, and draw blood. To make roses into an
alluring "bed of
roses" is complicated, challenging, time consuming, and occasionally bloody.
That's why
they're sometimes known as the "temperamental divas of the plant world."
If you want to smell the sweet fragrances of roses and if you want to
be dazzled
by their beauty, you can't take them for granted; and, you can't just plop them
in the
ground and leave them alone to themselves. It's just like being a true
teacher. It
takes a discipline of your spirit, your heart, and your soul. It requires a
feeling of
effortlessness in your efforts. It requires constant attention, engagement and
involvement. It requires at times inconvenience and discomfort, at sometimes
pain.
Sometimes, if you want your heart to soar, to dive deeply into the miracle of
life in the
rose bed your arms and hands have to be cut by the thorns. That is, you've got
to be
prepared to work at it, you've got to want to work at it, and that work has to
be a labor
of love. It has to be a labor that feels like boundless joy and adventure.
There can't
be anything laborious about all the time and effort it takes to deal with black
spot,
powdery mildew, canker, rust, and scale; to fight off aphids, slugs, thirips,
caterpillars, midge, Japanese beetles, leafcutter bees, and spider mites; to
dead head,
prune, water, and feed. And, you have to do all that day after day after day,
for each
day is a new day when something new has to be done. Need I go on?
Now, I've helplessly watched some roses whither from whatever. But,
you've got to
be tough enough to win. You've got to be tough enough to take some adversity,
make
mistakes, and keep on without considering the possibility of losing. Trust me,
you can
allow all this challenging hassle to stop you in your tracks or to urge you on;
you can
allow it either to blemish your heart or to uplift your spirits; you can allow
it to tire
you or invigorate you; you can allow it to tarnish you with snarls or you can
allow it to
burnish you with smiles.
If you can meld the sublime with the mundane, if you can introduce
melodic poetry
into the bland prose, if you can ignite your heart with a burning ecstasy of
faith, hope,
and love, it will open the buds of your roses into magnificent blooms. No,
you've got to
tend intensely to these romantic rascals, just as with students, with all of
your senses
on alert each day as well as with the most careful and loving attention each
requires and
deserves. It's that unconditional love, that unswerving faith, and that
undying hope,
that constant gritting it out, that are in the very essence of both gardening
and
teaching. They are that mysterious stirring in us that spur us on. They are
the power
that gives us the resolve to believe in each student while acknowledging her or
his
imperfections. They are the reservoirs of purpose and meaning from which we
draw our
strength, commitment, perseverance, and endurance. They are the magical
triggers that set
off the explosion of life
So, too, the classroom is a peerless, pleasurable, beautiful, aromatic,
and
dazzling bed of roses. But, you can't only use your eyes and ears. Your eyes
see only
light; your ears hear only sound. It's your listening heart perceives meaning
and
purpose. So, if you constantly tend to each student with all your senses, as
well as with
your heart and soul, if you let yourself be stirred by human emotion as well as
by human
intellect, , if you give to each of them with your empathy, you have a better
chance of
helping each student to awaken her or his too often dormant capacities, to move
toward a
wholeness that melds emotion and intellect and values, to see the light of her
or his own
being, and make her or his educational experience a journey of transformation.
The great truth of all this is that by loving each student
unconditionally, by
seeing in each student a shrine to creation, by lifting each student, you will
rise and
honor your own real self. Yeah, teaching is a "bed of roses."
.
Make it a good day.
--Louis--
Louis Schmier
http://therandomthoughts.edublogs.org/
Department of History
http://www.newforums.com/Auth_L_Schmier.asp
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, Georgia 31698 /\ /\ /\ /\
(229-333-5947) /^\\/ \/ \ /\/\__/\ \/\
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/\"If you want to climb
mountains,\ /\
_ / \ don't practice on mole
hills" -
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