Date: Thu 6/20/2002 5:45 AM
Random Thought: Say, Do, Feel
As my feet rowed through the heavily humid morning air,
I felt a tinge of poignancy. I won't tell you what triggered these
thoughts other than say that unexpectedly I had an extremely
heart-rendering and highly confidential telephone conversation with an
ex-student. And, then, something happened in class yesterday. At that
moment, the two touched like wires on a hot line. There was a proverbial
spark. A jolt of juice went sizzling through my soul. I was reminded of
how time after time after time students so often will forget what you have
said. They will so often forget what you've done. They never forget how
you've said something or how you've done something. They never forget how
you've made them feel. How you've treated them is burned into the
emotional memory of their souls.
That's the foundation of education. For better or worse,
positively or negatively, the fundamentals of teaching and learning rest
on relationships. Most students don't really care about what you know;
they do care about who you are.
We cannot live only for ourselves. Like a spider's web, a thousand
fibers connect us with each student. And, on those threads our actions
vibrate one way and revirberate as effects and impacts. In one way or
another, we must realize that each of us makes a difference with our life.
Each of us impacts the world around us every single day. We have a choice
to use or not to bother to use the gift of our life; we have the choice to
make someone around us and hence the world better or worse.
Nevertheless, those relationships are pivotal to the climate and
culture of every classroom and are by their very nature profoundly
emotional. I'll go out on the a limb and say that, like it or not, know
it or now, in this human space we call the classroom or campus, we
teachers are emotionally "significant others" to students in a variety of
ways. We so often are looked to by students to set the tone, create the
mood, to be honest, to be open minded, to be fair, to be trustworthy, and
to be concerned. We have an obligation not only to know and to do and to
say, but also to feel. It's the kind of thing that makes the classroom
skies stormy, cloudy, or clear.
Let's be real. To the distanced and disinterested, the climate
isn't always apparent to the naked eye. It takes a discerning observer to
detect the real conditions in the air. Whether seen or
unseen, the
emotions are at the foundation of the way we each experience our
individual realities. Why shouldn't it be as true in the classroom as it
is elsewhere. It is. Teaching is a part of life. It's not apart from
it. Even if we pretend emotions are as wanted in the classroom as
foraging south Georgia mosquitos, they aren't pesky interlopers. They're
imbedded at the heart of teaching just as they are at the heart of any
and all human relationships.
The emotional qualities of these relationships make a great deal
of difference. In evaluation after evaluation after evaluation students
say they did or learned to do whatever it took to accomplish when they
felt "wanted," "respected," "noticed," "valued" "cared about," "listened
to," "comfortable," "belong," "empowered," "at ease," "heard,"
"hopeful," "appreciated," "acknowledged," "respected," "good about
myself," "understood," "worthy," "trusted," "happy," "proud,"
"satisfied," "secure," "unafraid," "noticed," "encouraged," "believed
in," "part of a community," and so on. These interpretations of the
interaction between me and them, as well as among them, as they said,
affected their confidence, creativity, imagination, motivation, passion,
enjoyment, appreciation, enthusiasm, outlook, expectations, growth,
change, commitment, perseverance, dedication, self-esteem, self-confidence,
willingness to do whatever it takes, willingness to take risks, striving
for excellences, and ability to achieve.
There is something very personal in being devalued or values
Teaching is not just a technical or technological or intellectual
practice. It is an emotional practice. It is a human practice. Students
and their future careers are vulnerable to the attitudes and approaches of
their teachers. When we are disbelieving, dispirited, cynical,
pervasively suspicious, distrusting we dim the chances for confidence and
optimism in students. It bad enough that most students come to us in
higher education with the experience of little more than a manipulative
"power over" style of teaching and learning. It bad enough that they
already have deprivating educational battle scars and open wounds from
which ooze their self-confidence. And, then, we professors so often
increase their angst; we freshen up their stale memories and experiences;
we continue their torture of a thousand cuts; we open new wounds with
addition discomfort, unfairness, favoritism, control, manipulation,
disinterest, hurt, humiliation, threat, disrespect, invalidation.
When teachers harm students' belief in their personal selves,
there is fallout. Some dropout; some change their trajectory; some go to
other institutions; most play the game by hankering down, silencing their
voice, keeping their heads down, resignly surrendering their hopes for an
exciting and inviting classroom experience, seeking identity elsewhere
outside the classroom. Too often the music of the educational spheres
resounds with dissonant primal notes of fear and resignation. And, the
entire institution is consequently impovished.
When we balkanize knowledge and technique and technology and
emotion, when we separate student from student, when we build chasms
between us and students, we create an emotional disconnection. It is what
Neitzche spoke of as the "horror of the unobserved life." It is the
pernicious appearance of what I call a hobbling "threatened and pressured
self" that encourages students to hold back, not to take any chances, and
to play it safe. That is, when a student thinks his or hers is the is
"unobserved life"--alone, invisible, unheard, and unappreciated--a
debilitating culture of fear, distance, disconnection, isolation, and
mistrust appears. It can be subtle, masked, overt. However it is
manifested, students begin to act like threatened prey. The eyes start
stealthily moving back and forth searching for way to lessen the threat,
the muscles go taut ready to evade a predator, the senses go on alert to
minimize the danger, body movements are camouflaged to blend in with the
scenery and avoid attention, and there emerges a negative, constricting,
and restricting "what will they think" and "what does the prof want"
self-surveillance. You know, word travels fast on the student grapevine
and "emotional vine." The student who says something in a discussion with
which the teacher disagrees, or asks a question to the dislike of the
teacher, or does an assignment that doesn't meet the expectation of the
teacher and is rewarded with words and gestures of displeasure, censure
and even humiliation, quickly learns a painful and paralyzing lesson from
others and from personal experience: "Don't try anything 'too
imaginative,' don't be 'too creative,' don't take the risk because if it
fails, you will be sorry. Just find out what the prof wants and give it
to him or her."
But, in a climate of closeness, authenticity, personal interest,
appreciation, belief, faith, hope, encouragement where a web of
connections comes from above and beside, where a student knows he or she
is in a friendly community where he or she is seen, heard, approved of,
and appreciated, the bolstering what I call the "blessing of the observed
life"--a culture of courage and creativity-- appears that leads to better
practice and more creative risk-taking based on the expectation that the
student is safe, no matter how what the student does turns out. Where
there are kept at arm's length, where there is what I call an "emotional
embracing," a self-generating, a thriving and boundless emotional energy
"flow" has a better chance of appearing and doing its marvelous work.
Emotion, I have found time and time and time again does matter.
It matters to students. It matters because it should be a matter of
concern to our understanding of learning. The will, the spirit, the
desire to do it, to go on, the personal power to do whatever it takes is
first and last a fundamentally emotion driven phenomenon. The wise
teachers knows this and respects the powerful potential that lies therein.
Students so often will forget what you have said. They will so
often forget what you've done. They never forget how you've said
something or how you've done something. They never forget how you've made
them feel. How you've treated them is burned into the emotional memory of
their souls.