After all these weeks, I still can't get Shawn out of my head? Well,
for one thing, like him, I, too, was once considered a weed, labelled by my
high school teachers as the "graduate most likely not to succeed," persecuted
as a student by many professors in academia and even executed by some, but
saved by one. From that, I eventually learned that being "dedicated to my
discipline" is a piece of cake compared to being "dedicated to a student."
For another thing, I've been working inmy garden is starting to be an
explosion of color. But, some of those touted flowers in the garden centers
and welcomed in the gardens were once persecuted and executed as weeds. Chief
among them are daisies.
And, for still another thing, it is the Shawns on our campuses who
remind us that the true center of education is not only "white collar"
vocational training and credentialling. It is also, and maybe more important,
character building. Those fours years, especially the crucial first year, are
still the time these kids, these "protoadults," these "adults-in-training" make
their adult-shaping mistakes. Yet, it's tough on them because they can't really
make honest mistakes when they're in an environment that doesn't allow them to
make mistakes.
Shape shifting education occurs widely open our arms with so much
hospitality, when we embrace with overwhelming welcoming, when use a language
that is so benevolent, when our actions are so giving and serving, when we feel
nothing is restrictive, when we defy and even defeat confining perspectives and
expectations imposed by stereotypes, generalities, and labels, when we use the
spirit of faith, hope, and love to overcome the darkness and conquer disdain,
when we and student call forth the potential in each other to mirror the good
and beautiful in each other.
Then, it happens when we help students to have a better chance of
saying to themselves, "I'm not going to believe in the same old story." It
happens when students who have been treated as unworthy are helped to come to
believe in themselves; it is when they are helped to begin to speak in their
own voice; it is when they are helped to act as though their lives truly
matter; it is when they are helped to demonstrate a faith, hope, and love in
themselves; and, then, they will have a better chance of developing the
strengths they wish to develop and believe are both within them and within
reach.
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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