A Zen master held up a flower for his disciples to see and asked them
to say one word of relevance--just one word--about it. The disciples vied with
each other to outdo each other to come up with something profound as a
demonstration of their insight and the extent of his learning. They offered
names, symbols, emotions, descriptions, caricatures, metaphors, images,
analogies. One disciple said nothing. He just looked intensely at the
flower, nodded, and smiled. And, the master nodded in return as he, too,
smiled, for that disciple was the most learned of all the disciples.
And, do you understand why the silent, smiling disciple was the more
learned? The others were naming, typecasting, labeling, judging, choosing,
selecting, limiting, grading, rating. Each word they threw into the ring
carried with it a host of perceptions, presumptions, assumptions, and
expectations. They were making choices between like and dislike, good and bad,
ordinary and extraordinary, right and wrong, perfect and imperfect. Every word
they threw out had everything to do about them. Every word they threw out had
nothing to do with the flower. The silent disciple knew what the Master had
held up was just "is," a living entity, and nothing else. What matters is that
something is and what it is, not what it is called or what people believe about
it. He was echoing Shakespeare who has Juliet saying, "Tis but thy name that
is my enemy; Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What's Montague? It is
nor hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man.
O, be some other name! What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any
other name would smell as sweet." We look at something and say, "This is a
flower;" we give it a name, "This is a rose;" we endow it with qualities, "How
beautiful" or "It smells delicious." But, is it a "flower?" Is it a "rose?"
Is it "beautiful" and "delicious?" And that becomes our reality. But, who says
all this? And, why?
Sounds like a bunch of silliness, doesn't it. Let me make a tad more
complicated. Take another something that is. We call it a "dandelion" and it
conjures up inferior images compared to those generated by "rose." Is it
inferior to a rose? Or have we placed them into separate, separated, limiting,
graded categories which we invented according to our likes and dislikes? But,
what is a dandelion and what do say about it? Find it in a manicured lawn and
we angrily condemned it as a pernicious weed; put it in the hands of a child
and we delight in it as a plaything; and, see it in a forest clearing, we swoon
over it as a pretty wild flower. It is all of these things and it is none of
them. Are we, then, merely expressing our selective, judgmental tastes, or as
John Locke said, impositions of the mind of man on Nature in a quest for
intelligible order? In reality is what we call "flower" simply "something that
is," simply intricate and complex, miraculous, without the confining,
valuations, definitions, and names imposed by us? Perception doesn't change
circumstances, it changes the meaning of the facts to us. Our perceptions are
the result of our dominant experiences and memories, feelings and thoughts that
have created our presumptions, assumptions, and expectations which, in turn,
show up in our mental, emotional, and physical actions.
Now, replace "flower," or better yet, "dandelion" with "student." See
how "student" morphs when we say "jock," "Greek," "honors," "non-traditional,"
or "probation." What is our reality. What is that person's reality? Does
labelling each person prevent us from having a full experience with each of
them? Does it strip each of them of her or his humanity? Does it turn each of
them into plastic or silk flowers? Do we know what is happening between the
lines? Do we know of each person's back-beat or stage scenery? As I once
asked long ago, does it put us out of touch with the myriad of human struggles
around us. Do we need in the classroom a more humanizing understanding and
deeper vision of those individuals in there--including ourselves? So, let me
ask you the unspoken question: do you know the neighborhood you're living in?
Do you understand that each of them, no more or less than us, is not
emotionally sterile, that each of them is not a tranquil corpse, Do you know
all that much about each of those people from labels, from appearances, from
behaviors, from performance records, from assessments; from gender, sexual
preference, ethnic background, skin color, religious affiliation? One set of
answers is "You don't know how really diverse it is, so diverse it defies
label, stereotype, and generalization." How much of it is invented? How much
of it is looking with eyes, mind, and heart closed?
By what criteria, then, do we answer those questions? How will we
wrestle with the conundrums between dealing with the many and seeing the
individual; between institutional governing and really gritty, eye-to-eye,
first hand, classroom grunt teaching; with ethical ambiguities and messy
compromises; with the complicated questions of economic realities and faculty
self-survival and serving each student? It's important to understand the
problems and challenges are as complex as individual human beings themselves
because we're dealing with human beings we call students, faculty, and
administrators. Nevertheless, we have to have our informed--informed--reasons
for believing and acting as we do. With what knowledge of each student, as
well as of the latest research on learning, do we respond? According to what
purpose do we select our replying words? Be careful. Your answer, as with all
but one of the master's disciples, is a window into an inborn attitude; it is a
mirror of what you believe about students, what perceptions with which you come
to the table, the extent of your unconditional dedication and commitment to
each student.
Our focus should be not just on seeing possibilities, but creating
opportunity; and not just on creating opportunities, but on creating an
environment that leads at least the most malleable people on our campus--the
students--to seize opportunities. Our focus should be on creating an
educating, humanizing, and humane institution. The complicated realities
insure that there are no silver bullets, no magic wands, and that helping
people to help themselves is hard. It's a sociological, psychological,
philosophical, and civics lesson wrapped up in one governing and educating
lesson. It's a Rorschach test with different participants seeing what they
want to see. Nevertheless, we still have to be careful. Those answers
determine the extent to which we look or see and hear or listen or are mindless
or mindful to the truth about an individual student.
So, I've got a radical idea. Let's look that reality created by
labels, stereotypes, and generalizations right in the eye and deny it. Like
the most learned of the disciples, let's go "label-blind" and
"stereotype-deaf." Let's take and live my Teacher's Oath. Let's just care,
give a damn, believe in, have faith in, be hopeful for, love, support,
encourage without any qualifying ifs, ands, or buts. Let's open the flood
gates and believe each person is a sacred soul and has a unique potential; that
she or he is an important thread in the fabric of all that is and will be; and,
that you should teach "all in" with your whole being, using every ounce of your
creativity. Let's start being the person who is there unconditionally to help
each person help themselves become the person each is capable of becoming. If
you don't, you lose sight of the opportunities before you; you won't have the
will to seize opportunities; and you won't want or be able to place yourself
in the right place at the right time with the right stuff.
Make it a good day
-Louis-
Louis Schmier
http://www.therandomthoughts.edublogs.org
203 E. Brookwood Pl http://www.therandomthoughts.com
Valdosta, Ga 31602
(C) 229-630-0821 /\ /\ /\ /\
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/\"If you want to climb
mountains,\ /\
_ / \ don't practice on mole
hills" - / \_
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