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Copyright © Louis Schmier and Atwood Publishing.
Date: Fri 8/29/2003 3:58 AM
Random Thought: I Was Conned
I just discovered that last year I was conned by a student. Boy,
was I taken in--big time. My response to her heart-rednering story had
been dictated by my heart. I believed a clever and dishonest student who
went to such great pains to pull a sting on me. I was set up. She had
made false entries in her journal; she had others pretend to be someone
else on the telephone; she had believeable reasons for missing class and
not participating in the projects; she lied to the other members of her
community who in support of her became unwitting accomplices; she lied to
me. Like Jabez Stone, she had traded her soul. She had devalued and
disrespected herself in quest of the holy grail of a lousy grade she
needed to transfer. Too bad she didn't apply her energy to better
purposes. I gave her another chance at another place. I acted with
sympathy, understanding, and generosity. I had misplaced my trust. Some
would say I was dumb to do it. She would sneer that I was a push-over.
I discovered that she had duped others professors. That didn't ease the
feeling of having been violated. I have to admit that I didn't like my
life being invaded with a lie. It was like the feeling when our life
savings were embezzled by a friend a few years ago. And yet, I honestly
felt more sympathy and disappointment for her than anger towards her. I
honestly am saddened for her and not for me. She hurt herself, not me.
She lost her integrity, I didn't and won't. This lousy habit of deceit
she is developing will come back to bite her in one way or another. That
I guarantee.
Would I do it again? Would I give another student a second
chance. You bet. I presently am, and their continued commitment to their
promise is making it easier. I'm not pursuing perfection or waiting until
I'm perfect at what I do and what I believe. I'm not waiting until for
students to act perfectly as paragons of virtue before I risk making a
mistake in judgement. What she did has bearing on me only if I give her
permission to grind down my bearings. I cannot and will not. However
tough it is at this moment, I won't let her have a bearing on another
student at another time in another situation. I must take one person at a
time without listening to the whispers of her ghost in my ear and without
letting them push me over the edge into the black abyss of insulating
preconception about and stereotying of "all students."
This isn't the first time and I'm sure it won't be the last.
Whenever we extend our hand in encouragement and support, we take the risk
of getting it slapped away--or bitten off. But, if I kept my hand in my
pockets, I'd stop being a teacher. There'd be no relationship, no
friendship, no connection, no hope, no faith, no belief, no love. I'd
violate my promise to Kim and the nail polish on my right pinky would lose
its meaning and be reduced to mere gaudiness. No, my hand will continue
to out there. It must. Think how darkened I would be, how less my world
would be, if I no longer set out each day to make it a "make a difference"
day, if I no longer set out to lighten the life or brighten the day of a
student. That horrible thought gives me strength to handle this without
surrendering; I can rebound from disappointment. I'm not going to
over-react. I'm not going to let her shake my faith. It's not easy.
It's a challenge. It's tempting to take the easy way out of this and
protect myself from the next time. Then, if I did, I might hurt some
needy student just because I didn't have an emotional resilence, an inner
strength to cleanse my inner self of some toxic feelings, and a bounce to
rebound back from disappoint.
I think if I let her make me into a cynic that would be a far
greater tragedy. I would be defeated rather than merely having lost.
I would get stuck rather than sucking it up and moving on. I would choose
to cling to dejection rather than merely accepting rejection. No, my skin
is thicker than that. I'll trust the Chinese advisers to the Emperor,
"And this, too, shall pass," and continue to believe truly that most
students out there are good people. I refuse to become so suspicious of a
student's plea that I refuse to help for fear of being fooled again.
Surely, that would be foolish, for if I did, I'd have a bigger problem
than being occasionally taken in. I am not going to let a coldness and
distance creep into my soul and make me so cautious and callous that I
will turn a deaf ear and blind eye to a plea for help. If my free-flowing
kindness keeps a less than honest student in business, so be it. I can
live with that. I can't live with being a person so on guard that my
caring and compassion shrivels and puts an honest student out of business.
Ms Trombly, my high school secretarial arts teacher, would have
told me to listen to my compassionate instinct to be empathetic and
embracing, not to listen to any egotistical instinct to be outraged and
disengaged. "Louis," she once told me, "learn shorthand, not shortcuts.
They're not the same."
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