Diary, it's the 21st. I did something this morning I have been
resisting since we arrived in China. I went on the internet to check my
e-mail. Well, let's say, I gave it a shot. The computers to which we have
access around here are archaic and slow, that is, those that aren't down. Of
course it didn't help that VSU has converted to a new e-mail system back in the
States since I left and that I don't know yet how to use. But, after an
"adventurous" struggle wading through the obscure instructions, I did manage to
get into what was left of my mailbox.
Anyway, one message I was able to pull up intrigued me. The subject
line read, "Who would believe! You Would!!" It was from a student, Tom, who
was in class in those early years when my personal transforming epiphany was
beginning to transform what I was doing in class. By his own admission, Tom
had "only by the grace of God" graduated from VSU, and that was a long ago.
And, now here he was, an accomplished business executive. He had contacted me
after all these years for a "long overdue 'thank you' for being all over
me...not taking and surrendering to the crap I and others handed out....for
seeing a special, future 'me' that at the time I did not...." and for
"especially kicking me in my ass, respectfully and kindly to be sure, until I
figured out that you saw my ass was worth kicking before I did and that I
should take over from you....Over the years, you don't know but you've been my
guide. When I've had similar personnel situations in my company I found myself
first going to the list of what I thought at the time was your 'bumpier
sticker' Words of the Day that we spent five minutes each day talking about and
relating to the material we were working on. For some reason that I didn't
know at the time, I wrote them down, kept with me, and kept looking at them.
Still do, though I've added my own to them over the years. So, when I've had
to handle someone, as I remembered how you handled me, I always found myself
silently saying, 'How would Schmier deal with so and so?' At the time when I
was admittedly a young and adrift snot, I didn't like that you got in our
faces, on our backs, and on our asses, much less understand why. I never saw
you after that class. I didn't want to. I felt relief I didn't have to. But
there you were, in spirit, always at my side, still on my back, on my ass, and
whispering in my ear like some angel countering the devils temptations in the
other ear. I couldn't get you (I later realized that didn't want to) out of my
heart and kept going back to those Words of the Day time and time again
whenever I was in a jam. You were like an annoying gnat buzzing in my ear that
just wouldn't go away no matter what I was doing or thinking, on or off campus,
saying "you're better than this." And, I don't mean just class work. I'll
leave that at that. Now I realize that I had kept you next to me like some
'student whisperer' interested in helping me become a better person, not
narrowly just as a better student. So, now it's time to say 'thank you' for
your determined caring. I don't think I'd be where I am with whom I am if it
wasn't for you in that one class...."
Diary, I have to admit that I read and reread and reread that message
through teary eyes. I haven't been able to think of much else all day. I've
kind of kept to myself in some reflective, spiritual corner. I've been going
over that one last phrase, "that one class," again and again and again. It was
just fifty minutes, five days a week, ten weeks, so many years ago. Tom
brought home the realization how we academics, like it or not, every moment we
are "in the now" as futurists. And so, as Jon-Kabat Zinn always says, we have
to be "in the moment" with intense awareness, attentiveness, and otherness.
Actually, diary, "that one class" really has gotten to me. You see, diary,
I've been racking my brain, but I just don't remember Tom and I haven't the
foggiest idea of what I said or did! In those days, I was groping and
stumbling on the first legs of my inner and outer journeys as I was coming out
from behind my own self-created and imprisoning walls.
Nowadays, everyone is on the assessment and accountability bandwagon as
if we're merely quality controllers of simple tin cans coming off the
production line. But, that perception restricts us to looking only at tin
cans, only at that which is quantifiable and supposedly assessable. People are
a bit more complicated than tin cans. Wouldn't it be interesting, then, if we
evaluated our teaching effectiveness--as well as slapping labels of "good
student" and "bad student" on people--not on the basis of factoryesque class
grades, GPAs, recognitions, awards, standardized test scores, student
evaluations, and/or on a whole bunch of narrow and shallow focusing assessment
and evaluation tools, but rather on how people fare in their future
professional, social, and personal lives? That is, how and to what purposes
and in whose service the graduates use the information and skills those
traditional indicators say they supposedly--supposedly--acquired.
After all, that is the prize we should have our eyes on: to graduate
students who wind up being good persons, to have academic graduates walk across
the stage who are not moral dropouts. I know. I know, diary, it's impractical
because we may never know how many Toms are out there, that we may never know
how what we have said or done has an impact, for better or worse, on future
lives. But, that's the real proof of the pudding, isn't it? Anyway, it's more
than just an interesting thought. That's not being "soupy," "dreamy,"
"touchy-feely," "Oprah-ish," "bumper sticker-ish," or "harlequin novel-ish."
It should give us great pause.
Make it a good day
-Louis-
Louis Schmier http://www.the
randomthoughts.edublogs.org
Department of History http://www.therandomthoughts.com
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, Georgia 31698 /\ /\ /\ /\
/\
(O) 229-333-5947 /^\\/ \/ \ /\/\___ / \
/ \
(C) 229-630-0821 / \/ \_ \/ / \/ /\/ / \
/\ \
//\/\/ /\ \__/__/_/\_\/
\_/__\ \
/\"If you want to climb
mountains,\ /\ \
_ / \ don't practice on mole
hills" - / \_
---
You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected].
To unsubscribe click here:
http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=4183
or send a blank email to
leave-4183-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
