To continue this discussion with the professor: "If you're telling me I have to love each student unconditionally," this professor cynically exclaimed, "that's impossible! Too many students haven't earned it and don't deserve it, and I won't do it!"
"No," I answered, "faith, hope, and love are emotions. I'm not one to order you around. In fact, I know it would be silly and pointless of me to think I could 'command' you to feel that way. Anyone who has been told to 'cheer up' in a bad time knows that. Heck, administrators don't know that you can receive policy statements from on high, for example, about receiving, embracing, and retaining students from now until the proverbial cows come home, but the thinning out "keeper of the gate" or "weeder" mentality and actions are still there and won't automatically disappear in a puff. I do, however, ask that you suspend your cynicism or resistance for a moment and 'lend me your ears' because there's a value in discussing the role of love in the classroom." "I'm saying that from reading thousands of student daily journal entries so many students feel that our classrooms are lions' dens in which most professors don't really care about them. I'm talking about how student self-belief has been weakened in those dens. I'm even talking about humiliation heaped upon by those self-appointed 'guardians' and 'weeders.' I personally know what it is like to be alone, to be lonely, to be a stranger, to go unnoticed, to feel unloved, to feel devalued, to feel unworthy, to hurt within, to have weakened self-esteem and self-confidence. I know how all that is a corrosive and disbelieving "what's the use" drag on motivation to perform and achieve. I know what that's all like. I know what it looks like. I know what it feels like. I know. So, constantly being aware and alert to that, recognizing that, knowing that, and especially remembering that, I don't do it! That's all. I....just....don't....do....it! That's the whole of my educational philosophy right there. It should be the whole of higher education right there. So, what does love had to do it, with higher education? Everything. What would happen to academia, if we all prioritized to love and nourish each Billy; if we nourished that "I will be there for you" faith and hope and love, and all they embodied; if we did it; if we kept away the selective gate keeping; if we nourished a weeding out of weeding out? If we created a movement, I call SML: "Students' Lives Matter" that stood for the unconditional respect, value, sacredness, uniqueness, and worthiness of each student, that shined positive rays of light of lovingkindness, loving awareness, loving attentiveness, loving alertness, and loving mindfulness in the world of both the student and teacher, that generated a genuine smile, a friendly word, a soft encouraging touch, a slight supportive glance. Now, that would be a different academia." "I'm saying that the classroom has been stripped of its humanity. It focuses on the outward stuff of subject, skill, testing, grading, etc. It doesn't focus on the inward driving, motivating, and inspiring stuff of the heart. It isn't concerned with such questions as 'Who am I?' 'What am I feeling?' 'Who do I believe I can become?' None of that. It has become droll, materialized, 'thingified,' as a matter of course (pun intended) for acquiring credentials required by job and status. I'm saying academics have to address the human condition and not just be concerned with the subject matter. I'm saying we have to stop thinking about the class as something monolithic and wrap our hearts around the truth that students bring into the world of the classroom a world of diverse stories containing their different experiences and histories, that the real diversity in the classroom is that it is a gathering of separate, distinct and unique 'ones.' I'm saying academics have to learn how to see, listen, and speak simultaneously in universalities and individualities. I'm saying that by ignoring character development, we have left many students unprotected, that the gate keepers and weeders are refusing to search for the potential in people as they could become and are giving up on them because of who they presently are. I'm saying in too many classrooms you can almost hear Toni Morrison say, 'They don't love our children.' At the same time, I'm saying we have control over our internal lives and can choose to disparage or love, to knock down or up-lift, to dishearten or inspire. No one makes you or me do anything without our active or passive permission." I went on to tell her that for me faith, hope, and love created a hunger, hunger for purpose and meaning and vision. It gave me a thirst to help a student become a good person simultaneously--not instead of or at the expense of--to becoming a good student who will graduate to live the good life while having a good job. For me, faith, hope, and love are not antithetical with becoming informed and skilled, but they are at the heart (pun intended) of the people serving business we call education. They all--all--are important to the redemptive foundation of SLM. I told her that as I acquired an educational philosophy of unconditional faith, hope, and love for each student, as it entered my bones, it offered beautiful hindsight, insight, and foresight for the intellectual and character up-lifting and up-building of each student. It forged my vision. It wrote my "TEACHER'S OATH." It inscribed my "TEN COMMANDMENTS OF TEACHING." It gave me a bridging community "we" sight that filled in the separating and differentiating chasm between "I" and "them" sight. It insisted on always seeing and hearing the angel walking before each student proclaiming, "Make way! Make way! Make way for someone create in the image of God." It said, "I will not follow anyone's orders to disrespect any student. No one will coerce me into believing any student is disposable. I will not submit to anyone's demand that I believe any student is not essential. No one will force me to accept that each student is bereft of a unique potential. No one will convince me to give up on or write the obituary for any student." I finished by telling her, "As a result, as I thought and felt differently, over the decades, as I developed a vision of purpose and meaning by which to live, I found real and reasonable ways to do things differently, to merge the traditional with the new into a human wholeness. And, I consequently I jumped out of bed each morning with a "yes," recited my TEACHER'S OATH, and entered each class each day with great expectations. Rare, very rare, extraordinarily rare, was the time I was disappointed." Still more later. 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 /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /^\\/ \/ \ /\/\__ / \ / \ / \/ \_ \/ / \/ /\/ / \ /\ \ //\/\/ /\ \__/__/_/\_\/ \_/__\ \ /\"If you want to climb mountains,\ /\ _ / \ don't practice on mole hills" - / \_ --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@mail-archive.com. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=49462 or send a blank email to leave-49462-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu