God, these last few weeks have been a struggle. Things have a way of arriving unannounced. But, there is an upside to this inner and outer struggle. It has made me look deeper into myself as a teacher and ask, "As a teacher, who am I?" Here's my answer. If I am merely a classroom manager, I accept the status quo of a host of "I am." On the other hand, if I see myself as a classroom leader, I dispute the validity of the status quo and refuse to become like or submit to "the system" with a host of challenging and often annoying "You can become" and "You are better than that" and "You can do it." I don't clutch "this is how it has always been done" so tightly that I can't embrace newness. As a teacher, I am a discriminating iconoclast. I have a selective irreverence. I am restlessness with the paralyzing "I can't," discontent with the atrophying "I am not," unsatisfied with the halting "It's too hard." My refusals to accept those fearfully disguised "no's," my beliefs in "yeses," as Thomas Edison might have said, are the necessities for getting out of the ruts of complacency, certainty, resignation, sedentariness, and stasis--and even despair. And, if you're worrying about critics, about what "they" will think, well, they just prove you're doing something worthwhile.
I mean, damn! Rumi said, "Observe the wonders as they occur around you." Not to be filled with joy in that classroom is one of the great sins in academia. In that classroom before us are potentials so many and so great we and they can't imagine them. This is a place overflowing with possibilities. This is a place heaped with opportunities. This is the future! To know all that,to understand that, to be understood, my teacher's eyes, mind, and especially heart, have to be like parachutes, for they function properly only when they are open. And, when they are open--open to all without exception and without condition--they offer faith, hope, support, encouragement, and love. I know when I am open, I am assured that I'll never grow old; I may die of old age, but I'll die young; and, my teaching will never get old. We have to open our inner tap and let that faith, belief, hope, and love flow vibrantly out from us. To succeed, we first have to believe in each student--in each student; we have to help each student--each student--believe. No teacher has the right to give up on any student. I'll repeat that: no teacher has the right to give up on any student. Wasn't it Buddha who said, "If we could see the miracle in single flower clearly, our whole life would change?" What if we saw such a miracle in a so-called "average student?" What if we saw an angel walking before each student, proclaiming, "Make way! Make way! Make way for someone created in the image of God?" A strong positive belief in a student will create more miracles than any "wonder" technology, publication, or grant. That understanding has to be lived, not merely spoken. St. Francis of Assisi was right, it's no use preaching unless our walking is our preaching. After all, reputations are not built on what you say you should do or what you're going to do. If we fail to embrace the opportunity, we lose the prize; we lose the student. We have to focus on that place, on the classroom, not just on the lab and archive and publishing house. Why? Well, "What the mind of man creates," said Edison, "his character controls." Because that's the prize: to do whatever it takes--whatever it takes--to help each student open her or his eyes, mind, and heart so she or he can see where she or he will be, not where they have been or are; that there are no short cuts to any meaningful place; to help them see just how noble and sacred and valuable they are whatever their GPA, their gender, their religion, their race, their ethnicity, their sexual preference, their whatever; to help them see that living a life of integrity is the greatest lesson to learn; to help them to understand that the whole of existence is change and process, that life is change and process, and each of us is change and process; but, also understand that while achievement is not certain, failure is not final. As I have said so often, we have to help them learn that they are "human becomings," not just "human beings. The most important thing I, as a teacher, can do in a classroom, then, is to do something that will outlast and go beyond both me, the physical confines of the classroom, the restrictions of the class subject, and time limits of the term. And, that is to show that belief is more powerful than interest; that all in life is an experiment; that all in life is choice; that while you seldom get to choose how you die; you always choose how to live; that there is no guarantee and absolute security; that there is no perfection; that there is only opportunity and possibility; and that with self-confidence, self-esteem, self-respect, commitment, dedication, perseverance, and sweat supposedly average people can do the work of supposedly superior people. Make it a good day -Louis- Louis Schmier http://www.therandomthoughts.edublogs.org<http://www.therandomthoughts.edublogs.org/> Department of History http://www.therandomthoughts.com<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=19795 or send a blank email to leave-19795-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
