Well, after being passionate about special students and the need to
accommodate to their special needs, it's back to hokey pokey teaching. I see
teaching with passion is composed of five basic elements: work, vision, "wise
reflection," imagination and creativity, and love. So, let's start with a
couple of reflections on work. Substantive hokey pokey teaching without
exertion is unbridled excitement and optimism. It’s just Disneyesque, Jiminy
Cricket lying on a window sill, staring out at the dark sky, "wishing upon a
star." Someone said to me recently, "You know, so many students are just plain
headaches. They demand so much of my time. It's too much work." Well, you
know, your head aches only if you do not want to work at offering aid and
comfort to a student. But, when you gladly and willingly do, no student is a
headache. It's as Richard Bach wrote in Jonathan Livingston Seagull, "You are
never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true.
You may have to work for it, however."
To be sure, sometimes the effort seems effortless, and the labor
doesn't have the texture of seriousness. Sometimes, it looks like play; and,
sometimes it looks like it's nothing more than impromptu. Sometimes, all
people see is the madness, but don't understand either the structure or the
method to the apparent madness. But, hokey pokey teaching it's not just
walking into a classroom and magically letting it all happens by itself,
although at times others may think so.
Hokey pokey teaching, truly caring about each and every student, is
serious and demanding on. Make no bones about, it isn't a something "I can do
in my sleep;" it isn't one of those "anyone can do it" things; it isn't simply
"if you know it, you can teach it." The knowhow of teaching does take a lot
of time; it does demand a lot of constant effort and commitment; it does need a
lot of incessant energy; it does require persistence and patience. Why should
that be such a surprise to so many? After all, some academic arduously
researched, gathered, and organized data, and then wrote it all up for
presentation or publication. Someone poured a lot of sweat into every made
fortune. A lot of weary searching went into every important discovery. Behind
the magnificent work of art is an artist who spent hour after hour, month after
month toiling at tedious and seemingly endless tasks. Behind the beautiful,
soaring music is a composer who struggled to arrange carefully each note, each
chord, and each tempo. Behind every book is an author who struggled with
rewrite after rewrite to insure every word fit precisely into the prose.
Should teaching be any different? It takes a lot of work to live,
care, and love; it is a lot of work to reflect, articulate, imagine, devise,
activate; it is a lot of work to prepare, design, deliver, evaluate to what
extent it worked or needs reworking; it is a lot of work to get to know each
student, to be in their thoughts and emotions; and so, it is a lot of work to
know of the currents students are swimming against in order to offer the
support and encouragement for each of them to have a chance to make it.
Make it a good day.
--Louis--
Louis Schmier
http://therandomthoughts.edublogs.org/
Department of History www. therandomthoughts.com
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, Georgia 31698 /\ /\ /\ /\
(229-333-5947) /^\\/ \/ \ /\/\__/\ / \/\
/ \/ \_ \/ /
\//\/ \ \ /\
//\/\/ /\ \_/___/__
\_ \_\/__\
/\"If you want to climb
mountains,\ /\
_ / \ don't practice on mole
hills" -
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