Its 3:45 am. Cant sleep. Maybe I was thinking about a phone
call I got
last night. It was from a student whom Ill call Jane. Her voice had a
trembling,
pleading, desperate tone to it. I could tell she had been crying. Dr
Schmier, I need
someone I can talk to. If I dont, Ill explode. I have so much work to do.
I just
cant do it. It all seems so small. Youre the only one I have to turn to.
Do you have
a few minutes for me? Please. Just a few minutes. Promise. I went into the
dark living
room, sat down, and listened to sobbing, confused words and broken sentences.
The few
promised minutes ran into over an hour. She talked about her semester-long
distracting,
depressing, and near paralyzing agony, and it was truly agony. Thats all
Ill say about
what was tearing out her guts. It was not the first time I had listened to
her, and it
was not the first time she refused to talk with a trained counselor. She ended
with
Thanks. Now I dont feel alone.
That last word, alone, stuck with me. So, as I sat on the porch
in the
rainy dawn sipping a hot cup of freshly brewed coffee, as the beauty of the day
drove back
the dark, I was thinking about Jane, about how the beauty of connection drove
back the
dark of isolation, and about elephants. Yes, elephants. Why? Because there
are
elephants in the room all over our campuses. There is so much isolation,
disconnection,
aloneness, and loneliness on our campuses among both students and faculty.
Rousseau was
right. We humans are wired to connect. We dont do well when we perceive and
feel that
were alone. We dont like isolation. We need and want and seek the company and
companionship of others. Our brains are designed to be social. Daniel Goleman
in his
Emotional Intelligence and Primal Leadership tells us that; Richard Boyatzis in
his
Resonant Leadership tells us that; Edward Deci in his Why We Do What We Do tell
us that;
Jacqueline Olds and Richard Schwartz tell us that in their Lonely American ; a
recent
study by Nicholas Christakis, of Harvard Medical School, and James Fowler, at
the
University of California-San Diego that appeared in the Journal of Personality
and Social
Psychology Learning titled Alone In The Crowd tells us that; the studies on
brain activity
such as that by Gregory Berns of Emory University in his Iconoclast tell us
that. Alone
fires up our greatest fears. The primitive part of our brain, the amygdala,
equates
alone with becoming prey. All this research says that someone who feels
disconnected
and alone has more negative feelings and interactions than non-alone people.
The most
reliable antidote is not academic degrees and scholarly resumes. Its not in
emailing,
texting, or twittering. Its not found on YouTube or Facebook or My Space.
Its not in
the electron communication of distance learning. The true and lasting cure is
in face to
face, eyeball to eyeball, tactile touching the flesh, connection; it is, as
Daniel Goleman
asserts, in an evolved version of primal grooming behavior. Each of us,
student and
faculty and administrator alike, needs and seeks the crucial companionship that
carries
with it the essential youre not in it alone security, assurance,
encouragement, and
support network.
Is it any wonder that threat and anxiety rule the emotional roost
on our
campuses? Yet, its not easy to control these elephants. Students do it
outside the
classroom by rushing to rush sororities and fraternities, to join clubs, to
participate in
theater and bands, to play on teams, to twitter, to Facebook, and to avoid
being single
by hooking up with each other. We academicians try half-heartedly with
occasional faculty
socials or teaching circles, but ultimately too often turf warfare stands in
the way. We
all, students and academicians alike, need, whether we admit it or not, genuine
and strong
connections with others on a personal one-to-one basis. Students certainly
dont get it
in our classes. More often than not, they feel isolated in our classes by both
the
academic culture and physical structure. It's eyes front, spotlight on the
speaker at the
front of the room. It's eyes front, gazing into the computer screen. It's eyes
down,
taking notes. Its eyes front, memorizing the nape of someones neck. They
dont feel
wanted, embraced, noticed, and cared about. And, the result is they just feel
scared,
controlled, threatened, endangered, lousy, and uninspired. Then, we wonder
whyif we
wonder about such things at all--the classroom experience is usually not
memorable to
them. As for the faculty, lets just say its usually plagued with a divisive
and
disconnecting us versus them attitude.
But, when anyone does seriously take aim at these elephants, it's
too often
taken met with resistance. Theyre accused of being un-academic and attacking
academic
freedom; theyre being un-American by attacking individuality; and group
work, as a
colleague on my campus once told me, is a loophole that promotes legalized
cheating.
Students, we, are personally and trained as soon as we come out from the womb
to see
ourselves as self-reliant people who do not depend on others. Were taught to
push aside
Donnes idea that no man is an island. Were told to be self-made men and
women. We are
told to idolize rugged individualism. We're told to be the heroic iconoclasts
who stand
out in and away from the crowd. That's what all this "I don't want to rely
upon anyone
for my grade" echoing in the classroom means. Its what a lot of this call for
academic
freedom means. It's a stigma to think otherwise. Its blasphemy to think no
man is an
island. Because it is socially unacceptable, because it's an embarrassment to
talk of it,
that aloneness and loneliness gets lost in both the student's and our stories.
Let me offer a caveat from the start. I love being alone on my
pre-dawn
walks. Its my time for my inner journey of reflection, contemplation,
self-evaluation,
and connection. But, thats far different from isolation, loneliness, and
aloneness.
Students and academics come on campuses that are balkanized by individual,
departmental,
school contentions over budgets, programs, courses, new positions, grants, not
to mention
professional jealousies and sense of threat. The feeling of being set apart
from rather
than being a part of a groupbe it a department, a school, the university or
college, the
classroomwhere were not in touch with each other, where we cant share the
load, where
we cant get support and encouragement can become demoralizing, paralyzing, and
have an
impact on our well-being and performance.
Those recent sociological, psychological, and anatomical studies
are showing
that this sense of isolation is a major cause of self-defeating attitudes. And,
increasing the size of classes isnt helping. That is why we have to take
community
seriously. That is why we need learning communities among faculties and
administrators.
That is why we need learning communities among students. That is why we need
community in
the classroom. We have to communicate with each other. We have to find common
cause
among each other. We have to pay full attention to each other. We have to
experience
each other. We have to understand each other. Empathy is the key promoter of
kindness,
support, compassion, encouragement, respect, faith, hope, love. We have to
create and
strengthen these meaningful connections to be free and fully functioning
persons. It with
these connections we can deal positively with demands, pressures, prodding,
controlling,
and cajoling swirling around us. It with these connections that we can better
explore,
risk, experiment, develop, and take on challenges. Its with these connections
is what we
can become all that we capable of. We must, as I say in my workshops on
creating a
motivating classroom environment, break barriers, build bridges, and forge
community. We
have to do it throughout the campus. We have to live four simple and profound
words, as
well as helping others learn to do the same: YOU ARE NOT ALONE! That may
sound like a
cliché; it may sound trite; it may seem so obvious. But, Ill tell you this
from having
discussions with faculty and administrators in workshops, having schmoozing
conversations
in hallways at conferences, talking with students, and reading hundreds of
student
journals: those words reverberate to the depths of all peoples soulsall
peoples souls.
That the feeling of being disconnected just might be the deadly
salmonella of
educations food for thought should give us pause and some food for thought.
Make it a good day.
--Louis--
Louis Schmier http://www.therandomthoughts.com
Department of History
http://www.therandomthoughts.edublogs.org
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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