I fear I am about to get myself into trouble with a compendium to my
latest
reflection on what students need. It's about what so many faculty need.
Perhaps,
desperately need. Why trouble? It's because while so many of us academics are
so quick
to talk about students, we are so hesitant, to say the least, to talk about
themselves.
Nevertheless, here goes.
After a month, I still have a "Lily hangover." I guess it's because
Lily-South
was my first outing, since my cerebral hemorrahage, reminding me "gratio ergo
sum," that
is--if my Latin is correct--loosely, "I am thankful, therefore I am." That is,
how
grateful I am for each breath I still take. Anyway, being a Lily old timer, a
professor
e-mailed me asking, why I talk so much about the Lily conferences and what was
the one
thing that stands out most from my years of engaging in the national and
regional Lily
conferences on college and university teaching that makes them stand out. I've
been
pondering an answer for days. Actually, there are two things that stand out.
The first
is the creation of an uplifting and empowering environment for information,
affirmation,
education, and especially for edification that is the beauty of the Lily
regional and main
conferences. Over the years, they have done so much for me. Magically and
miraculously,
there's no need for entry signs to read, "No egos allowed." Uplifting is the
name of one
Lily game. Nourishment is the name of another Lily game. At these gatherings,
you can
see all around you, whether in formal sessions or schmoozing in the halls or
talking
around the meal tables, in the early morning and late into the night, the
people offering
positive support and encouragement for each other to engage themselves as
strangers
quickly become colleagues and friends.
At Lily so many people feel it's a safe place to let their guard down a
bit,
momentarily come out from behind their pretenses, and let their inner selfs
briefly rise
to the surface. So few of these often surprisingly open and honesty
after-session,
over-the-table conversations center around classroom teaching methods and
techniques.
And, those which did, were always peppered with such hesitating and even fearful
utterances "Oh, I'd be scared to death to try that" or "I don't have the
confidence for
that" or "Oh, I couldn't do that" or "They wouldn't let me" or "I don't have
tenure" or
"I'm too shy" or "That's not me" or "I have a family" or "I'd die" or "I don't
believe" or
"Do you know that they would say?" All this brings me to the second thing
about Lily. I
had had a quick, few seconds exchange with Stewart Ross of Minnesota State at
this past
Lily-South conference during a plenary presentation by Ed Neal of UNC. I
whispered to
Stewart, "A lot of what he's saying is so spiritual."
Stewart quickly replied, "Maybe people need spirituality to fill the
vacuum."
I've been thinking ever since about that comment and some things said
by Todd
Zakrajsek of Central Michigan during his presentation on classroom apathy and
motivation,
as well as by Bill Johnson during his presentation on dreaming. It's the
heretical
thought that we academics are just as human, just as fallible, just as
suffering the sling
and arrows of outrageous fortune, as the students. So many academics come to
Lily looking
for methods and techniques and technologies, and so many find, often to their
amazement,
that they want something more. They're seeking something beyond themselves
because
they're feeling forced to settle for something that is less than themselves as
they get
caught up in the trappings of assessment, accreditation, tenure, research,
publication,
promotion, and a host of other academic rites that give at best lip-service to
classroom
teaching. The "got to" chase for academic recognition and security seems to
instill so
little joy in so many of them. It's like, as it is said in Ecclesiastes,
chasing the
wind. In conversation after conversation, people whispered, almost as if they
were afraid
others would hear them, that they have a "clone-ish" feeling, that they are
losing that
war e.e.cummings described against others who are fighting to make them into
people those
others want them to be.
Empty and meaningless institutional mission statements aside, in often
fearful
resignation that embodied Thoreau"s "quiet desperation," they sighed that they
are void of
an inner happiness and serenity, that they are being "forced" to compromise
themselves,
that they're looking over their shoulder when they enter the classroom, that
they really
did not want or want to do what the academic tradition and values were
dictating to them
what to want and to do, that they really didn't want to focus on what the
academic world
was spotlighting, that the quest for the demanded generic academic achievement
of degrees,
tenure, and promotion--and even mandatory scholarship--did not really bring
very much
lasting fulfillment, that in reality most institutions aren't as open minded as
their
mission statements state and are too often inhospitable to those who challenge
old ways of
thinking and doing things, that the stress has made them impatient with
students--and
others, that the pursuit of those off-the-shelf achievements and recognitions
left so many
of them hopelessly frustrated and/or even fearful. There was a realization
that standard
definitions of academic accomplishment that satisfied recruitment committees,
tenure and
promotion committees, administrators, as well as accrediting agencies, were not
truly all
that personally satisfying.
I have heard so many people say in so many words that even if they
successfully
had struggled academically to survive, they really didn't know what they had
survived for
other than a guarantee of a job, a title, a salary level, a publication, a bit
of
reputation. So many people realized that though they may have acquired the
means to live
academically, they lacked a meaning to live for. In many ways, they are
reflective of
what was reported by PBS' in its indicting "Declining By Degrees": life without
living,
means without meaning, having while having not, being owned without owning.
They
forlornly revealed that inner vacuum they themselves had created by
surrendering their
selfs and their responsibility, often at the expense of students, with blaming
accusation
that the devilish "system made me do it." And, perhaps worst of all, they
sadly and
haplessly had convinced themselves that they could not do anything about it.
Vision! Difference! Integrity! Purpose! Meaning! That's what so
many who
attend Lily, and those who don't, find themselves looking for. They have a
yearning for a
clear personal vision, an almost desperate hunger for meaning, an inner burning
desire to
make a difference, a thirst for authenticity, and a search for a connection
with a real,
meaningful purpose that would yield joy, excitement, satisfaction, and
fulfillment.
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 www. halcyon.com/arborhts/louis.html
Valdosta, Georgia 31698 /\ /\ /\ /\
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