Copyright © Louis Schmier and Atwood Publishing.
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2001 06:40:20 -0500 (EST)
Random Thought: I'm Positive
Negatives and positives. Obstacles and possibilities. Problems
and opportunities. I was thinking about these couplets as I waltzed
through the dark this crisp morning.
Late Monday afternoon, as the fates would have it, a bunch of
stuff came together like tributaries at a confluence: the moaning and
groaning of a lot of faculty about students, getting ready for the Lilly
Conference where the participant do anything but complain, my return from
an exciting meeting about finally being allowed to get involved in the all
too little known but exciting learning community on campus, and most of
all getting tackled in the hall by a student, by what some would have
called a "problem student,' who had taken a class with me a year or two
ago.
Our conversation went something like this:
"Hey, Dr. Schmier," Rita (not her real name) greeted me, "glad I
bumped into you. I've got an assignment for one of my classes. Can
you help me?"
"Sure. What is it?"
"I want to find out what teachers think their biggest problem with
teaching is."
"Okay. I was just talking with another professor about that."
"Do you have teaching problems?"
"Of course. I teach. You're asking me the wrong question."
"I am?"
"Sure. It's not having problems that you really want to know
about."
"It isn't?"
"Nope. It's whether I see the problems as obstacles or
opportunities."
She hesitated for a second. Then she asked, "Well, then, what is
your biggest problem?"
Without missing a heartbeat, I quietly smiled and replied, "Me!"
"You? Isn't it the students? That's what everyone has told me."
"You asked me and I answered you. I guess I'm not everyone.
Nope. The biggest problem I have to face in the classroom is not any
student. It's Louis Schmier. I struggle to be negative or positive. It's
up to me whether I see a 'problem student' as either as an 'obstacle
student' or a 'possibility student.'"
"Huh?"
"It's a matter of whether I see a hidden devil inside a student
who I let give me hell or I see a hidden angel who I let bless me."
"What are you talking about?" she smiled.
"You. Go a few minutes?"
"For you? Yeah."
"So do I. Come here and let's sit down."
We sat down and talked about how in the context of the classroom a
problem student becomes an obstacle to me only when I am so attached to a
way of thinking or a way of doing something that I am inflexible, have no
room to maneuver, and am not prepared for surprises. "A problem
student--like you were--is an obstacle when things don't go the way I want
or a student doesn't do what I want, and I demand that they do. Then, I
put myself through hell and believe I am in hell."
"So what do you think a problem is," I asked Rita.
"What you think is it? How you decide to look at the situation?
"But aren't problems, especially problem students bad?"
I asked why she thinks she works problems in her math class or
science classes.
"It's supposed to be a way to learn how to apply what we know in
all sorts of different ways and different situations."
"Neat! They're 'a way to learn.' An opportunity. What if I do
the same thing with people? What if I see a 'problem student'--or a
'problem situation'--as 'a way to learn?" What if I see those situations
and students as positive challenges and not as negative barriers? What if
I see a 'problem student' as an opportunity and not as an obstacle?"
She looked at me.
"Remember all those talks we had, all your problems, the stuff you
got into?"
"Don't I ever. I was that 'problem student.'"
"You were that 'problem person.' Remember what I did?"
"Sure do. You were in my face and on my ass so that I could start
getting in my own face and kicking me in my own butt. But, you never were
negative. You were kindly. You so believed in me that you wouldn't let
me not believe in myself and fail the class. You let me take the class
again without anyone knowing it. You said I just needed more time to
see that real face in the mirror."
"That was the first time I ever did it. You were a 'problem
student' which I chose to interpret to mean an 'opportunity student,' not
an 'obstacle' student. I was flexible; I gave myself room to experience
new challenges, to figure out new approaches, to learn from these
experiences, and to grow from what I learned from these situations."
We talked some more. At some point I remember saying, "You want
to be a teacher? Don't just talk in your classes about developing skills
in problem solving, maybe even problem perceiving when it comes to your
subject. Practice what you preach when it comes to people. Don't forget
all those problem-solving and problem-perceiving techniques when a student
problem pops up."
"So that's why you say you are your biggest problem with
teaching," she said as if the light had come one. "and why you are also
your greatest opportunity. It's your choice on how you look at things.
You make it happen or not happen. You decide if things stand in your way
and if they show you the way."
I paused. Slightly stunned. "Damn!! That's beautiful. Wish I
had thought to say it that way. I've got remember that....."
As she left, I sat there thinking about her last words. Such
poetry. Sightful. We notice things the way we are, that we think about,
and that reflect who we are. Every situation we create is first a thought
within us, starts with us, and emanates from us: I imagine, which leads
me to create my words, which leads me to generate my emotion, which leads
me to energize and direct my action. It's that "simple." We choose to
have nightmares or dreams--and live them, have fear or have faith--and
live it, be distant and inactive or engaged and active, be anxious or
calm, mistrust or trust, negative or positive, see obstacles or see
opportunities, see situations and people standing in our way or showing
the way.
If I have learned anything in my decade long journey, it is that
nothing is perfect. Life is messy. Life in the classroom is messy. I
have to deal with it, get over it, roll with it, use it, guide it, get on
with it. Nothing really works out the way I want. I can't really control
anything beyond me. That's the nature of life; that's the nature of life
in the classroom. I always am tested--every minute, every student, every
class. And, my test scores can be negatives or positives, barriers or
opportunities.
I also have become positive about the limits imposed by negatives.
We just can't build with can'ts. When we send out negative energy, all we
will get an echoing negative energy bouncing off the classroom walls, the
students, and our spirits. And, we will eat at ourselves. If we choose
to be negative, to be naysayers, to be academic Henny Pennys proclaiming
that the academic sky is falling, then we will meet students with
emotional clenched fists, attitudes of folded arms, and spiritual stern
faces and sneers. And, all we can do in our hearts is tear them down--and
tear our hearts out. And, all we will see are unwanted, discomforting
problems--and we won't want to be there among them. We'll be blind to the
opportunities and eaf to possibilities. Negatives impose a dormancy and
unfulfilled existence, a foundering in the everyday stuff of the
classroom, failing backward. They prevent us from stretching forward and
out to be the teacher each of us is capable of being. We can't be
negative, pessimistic and critical and expect to be happy, positive, and
excited; we can't expect students to be happy, positive, and excited.
Seeing the worse in people will not evoke their best. Being judgemental
and criticizing will not lead to understanding and support and
encouragement. You don't have belief that way; you don't have faith and
hope that way; you don't love that way.
I'll repeat what Rita said with such poetry. We choose what we
let stand in our way and we choose what we let show us the way.
So I say to myself and you, with unapologetic passion: make it
happen. We let students be a series of obstructing problems or we see each
of them as an opportunity. We have the power to change the face of faces.
We have the power to enliven lives and enhearten hearts. We have the power
to awaken in the minds and spirits of students the same beliefs we have in
them. We are the designers of our today and tomorrows. We get what we
choose to expect. We choose to see the handwriting on the wall is a
forgery or not. What shall it be: negatives or positives. Tomorrow is
pure possibility. The only limits that exist for our tomorrows are the
doubts and negatives we have today. And, I am positive that we have the
power to create a positive tomorrow. If we expect the positive, if we
speak it, if we act it out, we will be a force for and set the state for a
promising possibility.
Make it happen.
Make being positive and acting positive a habit of your spirit.
Making see possibilities and opportunities a habit of your heart. Forgive
students' weaknesses; seek out and build on their strengths; commit to
serve rather than be served; greet each student in your hearts and minds
with open hands, broadened smiles, extended arms. Do that, and you will
work to bring them up and help them reach for their potential. Then, you
will seize the tremendous opportunities before you. So, if it is
positive, excited, engaging students you want, focus on the positive,
excited, and engaging
Make it happen.
No, the students are never the real obstacle. We are. It's our
relationship to and attitude towards and interpretation of them as either
obstacle or opportunity. We choose what we let stand in our way and we
choose what we let show us the way
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