I had to interrupted my response to the professor who was worried about
burnout and go grocery shopping. I’ve been doing that for the last four weeks,
along with cleaning the house, straightening up, doing the wash, cooking meals,
and most important, taking care of Susie. She’s has her right foot immobilized
and has been ordered off her feet. The doctor is trying to prevent a torn
achilles tendon from rupturing and sending her into a surgical room. As the
fates would have it, as I was pushing the shopping cart around, pulling stuff
of the shelves, I bumped into Anthony. He was a student from many years ago,
and I quickly jotted down the words of our conversation on the back of the
shopping list Susie had given me after it was over. It went something like
this:
“Hi, doc,” he said with a broad smile. “Guess what. I’m going to
graduate this year, finally. But, it’s taken me six years to do it.”
“Congratulations. But, ’But?’” I tinted my congratulatory tone with a
bit admonishment. “Why a ‘but?’ Sounds like you’re apologizing. No need for
that. So, it took you longer than others. So, what. The important thing is
that you’re doing it.”
“Yeah. You’re right. Sorry. I guess that shows I’m still not all
‘there.’ I mean, who would have thought.”
“I did,” I interrupted.
“I know you did. You know, you were the first to believe I could do
it, even before me. You what was the hardest thing for me to do all these
years, especially after our class ended?”
“Working and going to school?”
“No.”
“Keeping at it?”
“Close, but no. Believing I could do it so I could and would keep at
it. You know my story. All my life, people—my family and teachers,
everyone—made me feel small by always saying I would amount to nothing. They
made me feel that I shouldn’t be confident. I came to believe that. So, I
never tried to be something, something I didn’t believe I was or could be. It
was like I was making their attitude about me true. I felt unwanted and
discriminated against. Even when I ‘squeaked’ into college, everyone looked at
the ‘squeaked’ part, not the college part and put me at the bottom in the
‘they’re letting anyone in’ category. Then, here you come along. You saw me;
you listened to me. You believed in me, when I didn’t believe in me. The only
one! And, I wasn’t sure why you did. I wasn’t one of those ‘good students’
with a high GPA. Didn’t even have an ‘average’ one. You scared me.”
“Well, you caught my eye when you were the only one imaginative and
creative enough in all four classes to successfully accept the crazy challenge
I threw out to all of you (long story).”
“Yeah. That, and what you told me, after reading one of my journals
entries in which for some reason I poured out my heart. I remember crying as I
wrote that one. Boy, it was long and I knew you wouldn’t read it. And, then,
you surprised me that you even read it. Stop focusing on anyone’s opinion of
me, you told me, that I shouldn’t let them define me, that I must learn to
focus on defining myself. Everything you said and did told me that what I was
believing was wrong, or could be wrong. Do you know what it is like to have to
look at yourself that way? Do you know what it’s like to unlearn everything
you believe about yourself in order to learn who you really were and could be?”
Quickly reliving growing up as an ignored second son, judged as one of
those “will never amount to much’s” in high school, seen as one of “those don’t
belong’s” in college, and my epiphany at the age of 50, I answered, “Yes. Yes,
I do. But, I told you all about that in our conversations. However, I didn’t
push those memories aside. I still remember them. They tell me how far I’ve
come and what I’m really made of. They’ll do the same for you.”
“Yeah, that’s what gave me the confidence to believe that if you went
through that stuff and came out at the end, so could I. It’s not easy though,
is it. It’s downright painful at times. The memories of those dark
experiences. Boy, there were lots of times I wanted to give up and stop
trying, but you were always there in my face with a believing smile and kicking
me in my butt. You kept telling me to believe, have faith and hope, to keep at
it, don’t get tired of struggling to get there; don’t lose heart and give up;
and if I do all that, I’ll get there. You used to say to me and others, ‘if
you want to do it, you can do it; and, if you can do it, do whatever it takes
to do it.’ Now, I say that to myself all the time to kick myself in my butt
whenever I waver. Just yesterday, I had a professor in my major ask what was
wrong with me that I didn’t graduate in four years. Wrong!! He didn’t know me
one bit, and I’ve been in several of his classes. He didn’t know, or want to
know, that I my family refused to help me, that I had to work to make tuition
and living expenses, that I don’t want to graduate with a lot of debt, and I
that with all that I’m still keeping up my grades. After he dissed me, I heard
your voice. Screw him! Here I am, still here, after six years. So what! I’m
going to graduate, and with a damn good GPA. It’s taken me six years, but
I’m—going—to—graduate. I owe you, big time, for that. You taught me how to
put heart into my learning so I wouldn’t loose heart however heartless others
might be towards me, just as you taught. Oops, got to get to work. Have a
happy Thanksgiving. I’m giving thanks for running into you and reminding me
how lucky I am to have you in my life now and always.”
And, I quickly started writing on the back of that grocery list.
Now, while I told that I couldn’t tell her how to stop from burning
out, I did tell her to consider this. Antonio’s “learned growth mindset” is
the fuel that kept my afterburners incessantly turned on full blast—day after
day, class after class, semester after semester. I found that emotions like
disdain didn’t keep my tanks full; they drain them. Haughty emotions based
solely on grades and GPAs don’t do justice to the complexity of the likes of so
many Anthony's. Negative “I don’t have the time for” or “I’m wasting my
valuable time” or “I’ve got more important things to do” impedes a “getting to
know ya” learning about each student. With frustration based on unreal
stereotypes, with annoyance based on denigrating and dehumanizing labelling,
with condescension based on impersonal labelling, with presumptuousness based
on categorization, you go emotionally, intellectually, and morally numb. We’ll
never to pause to understand the likes of Anthony. We’ll merely presume in a
self-satisfying and self-gratifying way that we know what’s going on when we
really don’t, when weu’re merely guessing and presuming from an “on high”
skewed view. The result is that we will never know how to constructively
respond. Getting to know and understand Anthony beneath the surface does.
You see, I reminded her, students are not touched by a discipline, by a
major, by a grade, by a test. The research tells us that students, like all of
us, are touched by relationships, by human relationships. And, faith, hope, and
love are necessary forces that bridge those chasms and forged supportive and
encouraging connections. I know, from 25 years of experience, that when
faith, hope, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, support, and encouragement are dominant in both my teaching and
life, doing good is the inevitable result, and the results are good.
They constantly fed my fires. So, to paraphrase Anthony, you’ve got to
put your heart into teaching in order not to lose heart and fend off the
heartless. Shortly after my epiphany, I took the wax out of my ears and took
off the blinders of fear in order to see and listen to what was really in the
classroom. I found that empathy is not weakness; it is not amnesia. It is
understanding that too many students feel that in the eyes of the profs they
don’t really count or matter. Their sense of being diminutive or nothing in
the eyes of someone is authority is debilitating, even painful. We should
never send signals of disregard. I know that when I helped any student receive
and use the gifts that prevent him or her from treating herself or himself as a
less-than-nothing, I am uplifted and energized. When I practiced inclusion
rather than exclusion and selection, however challenging that may have been, I
was reminded of what was really important, what I cared about, and what gave
teaching meaning.
Of course, frustration and fear and even anger are what makes empathy
difficult. So, we have to figure out how to let go of these negative feelings.
One way is to admit that while students may need help and support, so do we.
I had to recognize and admit how those acidic attitudes ate away at me, how it
was impacting on my perceptions and relationships with the students, how it
frayed connections, how I fled to judgment and conditions for safety and peace.
I found that faith, hope, and love are an intense force. They are reconciling
attitudes that neutralized the eroding acids of negativity. We have to find
faith, hope, and love that are lurking in our hearts and minds. It’s not a
passive act. It’s takes time, energy, and work to acquire a new way of
thinking and feelings and doing. It requires letting go and transforming
despair, disappointment, resentment or, anger into a reality. Closed minds are
open; folded arms are extended; sneers become smiles, inflexible attitudes
become pliable ones; disconnection become connection, chasms are filled,
distances are closed.
Now, before, I say “more later,” as Susie and I prepare to greet Thanksgiving
during this year of our 50th anniversary, we feel such deep gratitude for being
blessed with our lives together, for our friends who are family to us, and for
our family. That our two sons, their wives, and grandmunchkins with gather with
us at the table in celebration of this particular Thanksgiving is very, very
special to us. To all my American friends out there, Susie and I wish you a
joyous and blessed Thanksgiving; may you avoid overdosing on trytophan and
going into a caloric coma. If if you’re traveling to celebrate with loved ones
as are we, be safe.
More later on burnout.
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: [email protected].
To unsubscribe click here:
http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=49954
or send a blank email to
leave-49954-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
