And, the conversation continued:
“You want to know how to prevent burnout? Based on recent research and
my experience, I say: bring the classroom down to earth. Listen to Carl Jung
and put aside your formal theories and intellectual constructs and axioms and
statistics and charts when you reach out to touch that miracle called the
individual human being. All struggles and anxieties and frustrations come
from clinging tightly to images of students and yourself, as well as to ‘it’s
always been done this way’ classroom rituals. Let go of those attachments and
rituals to how you want students and yourself to be. Be real. Engage reality.
Accept yourself and them as the flawed human beings you and they are. So, the
simple answer to your question is loosen your hold on those attachments and
rituals. Just let go. We have to understand the angst comes from not wanting
to let go for fear of going into a free fall with nothing to break your
descent. I submit there is a saving parachute: faith, hope, and love. Of
course, that’s easier said than done, for letting go is not an event; it’s not
a ‘poof, I’m better;’ it’s a process, a journey of working on our own hearts
and minds.”
"How well I know that it is a long and hard and risky—and
unending—journey. Now, what I am about to say makes me feel like I am a
stranger in a strange land . But, here goes. The classroom is complex, if for
no other reason than teaching and learning are about people as much as, if not
more than, information or skill; and, that it is pious prattling to say ‘I
care about students’ when the students don’t feel noticed, valued, and cared
about. I believe in the power of faith, hope, and love. Too many people
acquaint faith, hope, and love with a passiveness that let’s others push you
around, that allows others to walk all over you as if you’re a doormat, that’s
’touchy-feely posh.’ Nothing could be farther from the truth. Faith, hope,
and love are truly a forceful team with which to be reckoned. I’ve seen their
power, both in myself and in others. But, if they are without truth, if they
are hamstrung by dehumanizing statistics, by stereotyping or generalizing or
categorizing or labelling, if they are blocked by frustration or resentment or
anger, if they’re empty li-service, there is little or no faith, hope, love,
caring, and kindness; there’s just pious self-deception. And, as Virginia Wolf
said, ‘If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about
other people.’ That is, we have to be real with ourselves.”
“Let me tell you about the truth of myself as I told students during my
‘What Do You Want To Know About Me’ exercise. I told them that my epiphany
took me deep inside to reveal pains of aloneness, of being devalued; that I had
buried and disguised pains I knew lay in my dark inner recess; and, that while
I preferred not to face them, they controlled me. But, my epiphany came as a
bright light that lit up my pain. Boy, was that frightening at first, Seeing
that pain, giving it a name, facing up to it, facing it down, draining it of
its strength, and broadening my vision, however, proved to have a strong,
relieving, beneficial, and freeing influence. We have so much potential power
when we realize how our interpretations and assumptions and perceptions affects
our experiences, and that we don’t have to be stuck in old ways of feeling,
seeing, and doing. The academic culture had told me what to feel, what to
believe, and what to do. My journey, beginning with my epiphany, has kept me
honest. I stopped, almost went cold turkey, allowing others, past and present,
to remotely controlled me. I stopped letting ‘the system’ determine my
expectations, control my moods and emotions, and dictate my behavior. I began
to push back and push my own buttons. And, as I did, I would learn from the
chiding and snide comments of colleagues and superiors the true extent to which
I once had succumbed to the uniformity and conformity demanded by ’the system’
that had ultimately stifled my attempts at originality, imagination, and
creativity; that had diminished the value of teaching; and that had elevated
the scholarly resume at the expense of the students.”
“Now, I didn’t do this because I was a goody-two shoes. I just had it!
I didn’t want to feel and do what I was feeling and doing any longer. And, I
discovered that I first had to change my feelings and thoughts that had been
setting my course for decades. I knew that if I wanted to transform my
relationship to ‘the system,’ to myself, and to those around me, I needed to
take responsibility for my behavior. I had to let go of those finger-pointing
and exonerating ‘they made me do it’ and accept that only ‘I made me do it.’ I
had to realize that it was I, not the students or anyone else, who made things
difficult. Responsibility was the secret key. I could not change the ‘they,’
but I could change the ‘I.’ So, I became adept at taking responsibility for my
words, thoughts, actions, and the energy I transmitted. I began to see and
listen from both sides of the podium; I began to let go of what the classroom
was supposed to look like; I engaged what was actually happening. It released,
cleansed, and detoxified an energy that drove out self-deception, complacency,
and indifference. It made me deeper and more authentic. I began to learn to
practice what I call ‘joyful teaching,’ ‘empathic teaching’ and ‘companionable
teaching,’ all of which were filled with mindful support, encouragement,
kindliness, and caring. I began to step outside my own selfish imaging and
make room for the students. I began to understand that if I had hurt, and that
hurt had restricted me, so do others hurt and are controlled and restricted by
it. I began to learn how to consciously practice what became my three ‘A’s.’
I became more aware of the feelings I felt, more alert to the thoughts I
thought, more attentive to the words I spoke, and thus more mindful of the
actions I took, all of which made me more aware of, alert to, and attentive of
each student. As I came to truly care about each student, they started to
care. It created a supporting and encouraging classroom community, a caring
and kindly community, in which strangerness, and aloneness and loneliness lost
their footing to togetherness and friendship whereby anyone in that classroom
could reach out to anyone for affirmation, help, and support. And, they, as
did I, entered an inner world filled with abilities, talents, capabilities,
and potentials I and they hadn’t known existed. "
“That’s what faith, hope, and love do. They cause a mind shift, a
heart shift, and an enthusiasm shift. They fill the tank with lovingkindness
that practices generosity. It’s a generosity of the spirit. It’s a generosity
that comes when you no longer feel frustrated, fearful, or angry. The truth
is that when we feel controlled by these negative feelings and attitudes, we
are not going to have the sense of caring about anybody or even to notice them
all that much. Everyone wants happiness and accomplishment, by realizing this
truth while acknowledging my hurts, I consciously chose no longer to hurt
myself and not to hurt others. As I began to see the good in myself, I began
to find the good in others; as I found the good in others, I felt a sense of
connection, a kinship with them; as I felt that kinship, I began to see them in
a different way that spanned the previous gulf of separation. I saw that my
human uniqueness and sacredness was the human uniqueness and sacredness of
others. All that decides whether what you do in class has a tasty spice of
life or is tasteless. When you honor that reality, you are obligated to break
down the walls that have been built between you and yourself, as well as
between you and each student. If you don’t, therein lies a joylessness that
creates a disconnected, turned-off ‘empathy gap’ which washes-out vibrancy,
narrows the capacity to imagine and create, which diminishes the opportunity of
discovery, which lowers the decibels of enthusiasm, and which, then, puts
burnout into play. So, the truth is that the classroom is a gathering of what
I call ‘sacred ones’: sacred, noble, unique, imperfect human beings, each of
whom has walked her or his own road, entered through her or his own door,
carrying her or his own baggage, and defies category. So, the threat of being
burnt out may come the attempt to look for sure-fire formulas that do not
exist, for easy answers that do not exist, and to have simplistic perceptions
and expectations that don’t fit reality.”
"That complexity means teaching is tough. I’ll say that again:
teaching is tough. That’s a great and often ignored truth in academia. In
fact, it’s one of academia’s greatest truths that is most ignored. To prevent
burnout, I got my head out of the lecture, test, grade, and assessment. I
learned to abandon the urge to simplify with distorting and unrealistic
stereotype, generality, category, and label. I learned to appreciate the fact
of the classroom’s complexity. I learned that placing myself in the service of
each student was an awesome responsibility, I had to be attentive to, aware of,
and alert to who that student was. And, that is so complex, I had to do it
with a genuine selfless faith in, hope for, and love of that student. That was
when the student became so important to me that I invested all of me into each
one of them, one at a time. Once you see that, once you understand that, as. I
did, you transform challenge from objecting barrier to accepting opportunity;
you see that indifference and complacency are not options toward the most needy
of students. When you can do that, teaching is no longer draining because
once you accept the truth that teaching is difficult, it just doesn’t matter.
You’ll just do what matters. Then, the frustrated, depleting ‘aarghs’
transform into confident and fulfilling ‘aaahs.’
Now, that’s not sugarcoating, for I discovered that it offered an
excitement, a motivation, an inspiration, and positive perspective that were
all so empowering for both me and the students. The bottom line is that
‘joyful teaching,’ ‘empathic teaching,’ ‘companionable teaching’ are the cures
for the diseases of ’they don’t care,’ ’they don’t do what I demand,’ ’I’m not
comfortable with,’ ’I’m too busy for,’ ‘I can’t,’ ‘it’s not me,’ ‘I don’t have
the time for,’ and ‘I have better things to do.’”
Still not finished. More after the holidays. Have a merry, happy, and
all that.
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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