I went out this morning just before dawn. It was a little before 5
a.m. I was
passing houses that lined the street. A light went on in one of them. I could
not help
wondering who was awakening? Was breakfast about to be ready. Was she or he
getting
ready to prepare the children for school? Was that person getting ready to go
to work?
What kind work did that person do? Half a block later, a car passed me. It was
impossible not to wonder who was driving. Why was that person up at this wee
hour of the
day? Where was that person coming from? Where was that person going?
It was soon that I was wondering what do we really know or want to know
about whom
is in the classroom with us? All this wondering had been stirred by a student's
daily
journal entry I had read before I hit the streets. She had a big exam coming
up. She
couldn't concentrate. Her thoughts were far away. Her emotions were tied up
with her
distant family. Her father just lost his job. A few days ago, she was all
excited about
the prospect to going to China with me for Maymester Study Abroad. Now, her
excitement is
dashed on the rocks of constant worry. She's putting herself through a
gauntlet of
unsettling questions. How is she going to pay her bills? Where is the money
coming from?
What about her car? Can she afford to stay in the sorority? She's wondering
if she'll
have to get a job. How can she study and work at the same time. How are her
mother and
father faring? What about her brother who is at another college? Will he have
to come
home? She's frightened. The daunting prospect of her dropping out of school
is for her a
reality suddenly looming on the horizon. To this eighteen year old, all seems
about to be
lost. She needs to talk to someone. She needs reassurance amid this
discomforting
maelstrom. She wrote that she wants to call me. I told her that I'll be there
for her
with hopefully a calming shoulder and ear.
So, as I walked the graying streets, I wondered. Do we know enough
about that
person we label "student" to teach her or him and for her or him to learn?
What do we
really know about her or him? Do we know what going on inside her or him? Do
we know
what's swirling around her or him? Do we merely think we know? Do we merely
label and
assume? We professors are human. So often we lessen our unacknowledged
uncertainty with
self-deceptions, perceptions, preconceptions, and misperceptions. We put
ourselves on
firm footing with so many unfounded assuming "In my opinion...." and asserting
"Students
are..." and reinventing "When I was a student...." So many professors are
trained only to
be supposedly objective, disengaged, and clinical scholars. In the classroom,
so many are
so subjective. When things go as they wish, it feels great and they infuse
themselves
with a sense that they've made it and they've got it. When it doesn't go as
they planned,
the feelings sweep the other way and they blame with "Students nowadays
are...." or defend
with "It's not my job to...." or accuse with "They're letting anyone in....."
or dismiss
with "They're adults and...." or attack with "The administration......" or.....
Without
intent, in classes that woefully are being enlarged under economic pressures
and becoming
increasingly distant and impersonal, they so often produce bloodless
descriptions of who
is really in that room with them and what's really going on in the classroom.
They
downplay--if not dismiss--individual emotion, as well as, contagious social
psychology.
The truth is that education is inherently far more of an emotional process then
they wish
to acknowledge, involving flesh and blood fallible human beings we call
professor and
student. And, we don't know all that we should about either of them.
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 /\ /\ /\ /\
(229-333-5947) /^\\/ \/ \ /\/\__/\ \/\
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hills" -
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