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Copyright © Louis Schmier and Atwood Publishing.
Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 10:29:18 -0400 (EDT)
Random Thought:"How Do you Really Think About Teaching"
I arrived home Sunday night to find a challenging e-mail waiting
for me. It was from an education major at a northwestern university, who
had been reading my stuff on the website. It was the first time she had
contacted me. But, what a first time. She threw a gauntlet down at my
virtual feet. "How do you really think about teaching?" she asked.
Not, "what," but "how." Great challenge!! She's got me brooding
about it these past few days.
"How do you really think about teaching?" It is important
question, you know. How do I think about teaching? Maybe "dream" is a
better word than "think." That's for another time. Anyway, how?
Intuitively. Meditatively. Secretly. Privately. Silently. When I am
walking; when I am flying alone to or from a workshop, address, or
conference; when I am silently driving with my angelic Susan sleeping in
the seat next to me; when I am quietly sipping a pre-dawn cup of coffee or
early dusk glass of wine by the fish pond.
It's those swim deep "below the waterline" moments when I am most
open to myself and most closed to others. I have to watch out for those
little, unnoticed whispers to myself about teaching--or anything else in
life for that matter. I have thousands upon thousands upon thousands of
thoughts each day. The most important are not the surrogate quotes pasted
on my office door or written each day on the blackboard as the guiding
"words of the day" or exchanged during e-mail and on-campus discussions,
or even a shared Random Thought.
No, the most revealing one are the most hidden, the unmasked ones,
the unguarded one, the ones I privately say to myself where no one can
hear, those silent, free-roaming, soul-storming exposures, uncensored by
logic or criticism or judgement. The ones that let the whole sense of the
situation speak are especially important. More so are the ones that
generate an intuitive response. Even more are so the ones that trigger a
dialogue with myself. They are all so very important; they are sidewalk
peepholes into the goings-on in my soul. Like it or not, conscious or
otherwise, they are the true source of an essential chain reaction that
emerges from the private to the public, from thought to action. They are
my true attitudes; and, my attitudes will determine my actions; and, my
actions will determine my habits; and, my habits will determine my
character; and, my character will determine my relationships.
The real questions should be "Do I learned to listen and listen to
what is splashing around inside?" Do I not just hear, but listen to what
I am really saying. Do I not just look, but have learned to and see what
is really there inside me? Do I smell and feel whatever is in these
depths. Do I take in? Do I follow Saint Francis' petition to understand
what must be dealt with? Do I accept?
My authenticity is not, however, when I withdraw; it is when I
deliberately brave the return with my inner voice. It is when I dare to
open my closedness. It is when I speak and act "above the waterline" from
"below the waterline."
Some would say that is impolitic or impulsive, or impetuous, or
just plain impish. I find most students don't think so. They don't want
snappy proclamations or tailored conversations or guarded statements too
often handed out on a dish like some PR release for public consumption,
They and a lot of others most crave and most appreciate, when, to quote
Popeye, the Sailorman, "youse gets what youse sees," as I find the daring,
strength, and courage to let go, to be public with these private whispers,
to let them be an open secret, to be honest, to be sincere, to be real.
And it has taken me many a struggling year during many a private
and often not very comfortable discussion with myself on many a flight,
drive, sitting, and walk to get this far on the journey.
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