A while back, I had just come in from a late, but invigorating,
meditative walk. I grabbed a cup of hot, freshly brewed coffee, fussed about
this one-cup-at-a-time gizmo by Susie had bought, sat down by the computer and
nonchalantly started reading student journal entries. I opened a long one from
a student whose class performance in all aspects hadn't been stellar.
"Abysmal" would be a better descriptive. I read slower, and slower, and
slower. Went cold. Took deep, long breaths. Eyes got watery. It was hard to
read the horrifying words and phrases and sentences of what I would describe as
a "spiritual vomit." Words and phrases assaulted me: "having troubles," "need
to speak about it," "come from an abusive household," "father would beat me,"
"older brother would beat me," "everyone smoked and shot up," "had to fend for
myself," "lived in abandoned stores," "no water or electricity," "disconnected
from everything," "very good at faking it," "did drugs," "took pills," "smoked
pot," "drank," "got away from it," "want to be happy but can't," "detached,"
"can't feel," "dead inside," "got away from it," "see a pattern forming again,"
"terrified," "don't want this to happen again," "can't sleep," "wanted to talk
with someone," "you won't judge me," "thank you for being here."
I got up. Walked away from the computer feeling like a zombie. Left
the room. Went over to Susie in the den and gave her a soft kiss. She knew
something was troubling me. I told her that I just read a gut-wrenching call
for help. We talked. I turned. Went back into the den. Paced the floor.
Opened the class folder. Picked up my cell phone and called. It wasn't long
before I heard "thankful crying." As we talked I knew I had come to the line
which I dare not cross. I suggested to Max (not a real name or gender)
professional help that I could not offer. I desperately hoped Max would agree.
Max did. I asked for permission to call my friend who was head of the
University's counseling service as well as to send him a copy of the journal
entry. Max agreed. I hung up and immediately called. I called Max and said
everything was set up, even offered to go along for introductions Max said
agreed to go. "Thank you for being you. I wasn't sure I could have made it
without you calling." Max whimpered. I hung up with tears in my eyes, slumped
in the chair, emotionally exhausted by those 30 minutes. But, I began to
understand why Max was and was not doing.
Max and an op-ed piece by David Brooks a couple of weeks ago titled "A
Psych Approach," as well as a professor who just condemned me offline as
"touchy feely" has gotten my lather up. So, here goes. And, you're telling me
that we're not in the people business? Read the "fine print!" It says that if
you're interested, truly interested, in nothing else than a student's
achievement, even in grades and test scores and GPAs, you still must be
concerned with that student as a person. You must understand and deal with
what goes on outside the classroom, for it comes into the classroom; you must
take into account and honor that what goes on inside a student has an enormous
impact on what comes out. There is a link between lives lived and performance.
As David Brooks said, we just may have to psychologize higher education. If
we don't, we fall into what the psychologists call "attribution error;" we
misinterpret the reasons for action or inaction. Now, you say, "It's not my
job." Fine. You day, "I don't have the time." Fine. Then, don't say, "I
care." Stop pretending!
You know, if you do read the "fine print," you'll see that school
failure, the drop out rate, flow more from psychological spring wells than have
intelligence roots. Dysfunction comes in all forms, can impede achievement,
and can ruin a student. I read about 120 journal entries a day. I read of
debilitating pain, fear, focusing on short comings, depression, feeling
threatened, spread thin, running helter-skelter, sickness, drugs, alcohol,
deaths of friends, stress, accidents, law-breaking, dying family members, loss,
insecure relationships, abusive relationships, sex, peer pressure, distractions
by rushing and sports and theater and music, feeling lost and without
direction, impatience, quirkiness, pregnancy, abortion, lack of funds, economic
pressures, sadness, jobs, children, husbands, wives, controlling parents,
divorcing parents, vulnerabilities, loneliness, frustration, pressure, cheating
girlfriends, cheating boyfriends, disability, embarrassment, inexperience with
life, rush of hormones, and a host of other slings and arrows. There are a
lot of stressed, unhappy, pessimistic, insecure, disbelieving, confused,
inexperienced young people in our classrooms in desperate need of guidance,
caring, faith, encouragement, support--and love. Their lives are not simple,
easy, safe, convenient, comfortable. They feel they are in an exhausting
three-ring circus. These emotional, social, personal, and economic anchors
produce dragging stress and distraction. They throw the students out of focus,
don't allow them to function, lead to "quirky" and often illegal behavior, and
undermine effort. All that too often trumps intellectual assets, hinders
academic progress, and are barriers to success. Instead, so many of us revere,
recognize, and award the "highest" while demeaning and having little patience
with the "lowest.
So, I ask, "Do you really know each student beyond a name?" "Do you
see the human being within?" "Do you know what and why is going on beneath the
surface?" "Do see such a student in your class from where you stand?" In
your class do you ask students to listen to you, but do you listen to each of
them? Do you get upset and frustrated when they don't listen? Do they have a
right to feel the same way when you don't listen to them and hear each's voice?
Are you engaged? With whom or with what? Are you disengaged? From whom and
from what?
Education has nothing to do with information or technology or even
assessment, however so many focus on those things, unless.... Unless, academics
who "thingify," teaching and learning, and that includes the overwhelming
majority, remember one thing: education has everything to do with psychology.
If you believe you're in the people business, you have to be interested in each
person in that classroom with you; you have to study each person; you have to
get to know each person; you have be aware of what is ticking inside of each
and outside the classroom. You can't just look at them or look through them;
you have to see them and see into them. And, that includes yourself. It's the
only way to truly care, to be truly empathetic, to be truly sympathetic.
What I am talking about is an attitude, a state of mind, that let's you
understand what it is to be human--and alive. Beneath the apparently simple
and smooth skin, which under a microscope reveals its own complexity, is an
intricacy of veins, arteries, muscles, organs, blood, sera, bone, tendons,
blood cells, lymphocytes, t-cells, bacteria, etc, etc, etc. The performance of
each has an impact on all. With a torn rotator cuff, how well I know that.
So, there are complex and complicated and mysterious persons in that classroom,
including you There are thoughts and emotions, and lives going on, including
your own.
Want me to roll your eyes? Watch: "I love what I do and am doing what
I love. I love each and every student unconditionally." See? How many of you
rolled your eyes? But, loyalty to a petrified perception doesn't give you
agility. Now, in academia, it's cool to feel those arctic icy emotions of
hate, anger, resignation, frustration, dissatisfaction, disappointment, hurt,
and even fear. But, to love? We hide from it; we shun its utterance. We
condemned it's use as "touchy-feely," fuzzy, "feel good." And, thereby we
stunt our language of significance, narrow our vocabulary of living
purposefully, and take out a part of the human dimension of teaching and
learning. I mean how far do you really think the negatives carry you? How
much of the "best" in you do they bring to the surface? How much to they fill
the emptiness? How powerful are they to assail inhibitions and destroy
prohibitions? How strong are they to pry away pretenses? How rich do they
make your life? Ask the Scrooge of his "bah, humbug" self-regarded life before
the visit of the three ghosts; ask the Scrooge after his visitations.
You say that warm, lush feeling is quirky, naive, weird, uncool,
off-the-wall? Yet, I assert that love will carry you beyond your wildest
dreams and help you reach plateaus you never dreamed possible. Love is
purpose, a process, a way of living, a constant and unattained quest. It's a
way to a fuller and truer self; the discovery of a more valuable and sacred
self; it nourishes, redeems, endows meaning, fulfills, deepens, focuses,
renews, transforms, sedates. Do you know what love is? Thinking of my feelings
for my Susie and for each student, it's, as someone said, that feeling whereby
the happiness of someone else is crucial to your own happiness. It's an
emotion filled with otherness, service, awareness, attentiveness, alertness,
belief, faith, and hope. So, if you don't want to be starved by an
indigestible self-centeredness, disfigured by emptiness, scared by
purposelessness, be uncool to love, be weird enough to use the word love, be
"touchy feely" to reach out and touch and be touched and to feel, be fuzzy so
to see and listen clearly, be quirky to be renewed, be off-the-wall enough to
have a deeply reflected, articulated, and guiding purpose, be naive enough to
feel a meaningfulness and to feel fulfilled. And, if anyone rolls their eyes
at you, jeers at or mocks you, love her or him. She or he needs it, probably
desperately so.
Make it a good day
-Louis-
Louis Schmier
http://www.therandomthoughts.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" - / \_
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