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Copyright © Louis Schmier and Atwood Publishing.
Date: Fri 6/11/2004 6:12 AM
Random Thought: Touch: A Word In My Dictionary of Good Teaching
Yesterday, I was walking the mall "messing around" with my angelic
Susan like the "experienced teenager" that I am when a student I hadn't
seen in a year or so approached me. She was with a friend. "Hi, Dr.
Schmier." Before I could give her a return "hi," she came up to me, put
her arms around me, and gave me a big hug accompanied by an equally huge
"thanks." She turned to his friend and said, "This is Dr. Schmier. He
was my teacher. He's made all the difference. If you haven't had history
yet, you should. You learn so much more than history. You really learn
about yourself. He's why I don't do stuff any more." Then, after a few
sentences, with a wave and a smile--and a departing hug--they disappeared
into the crowd.
Then, this morning there was an e-mail waiting for me from another
student who was in class a while back.
At these two moments, I felt I had just rolled a string of
sevens that would have broken the bank at any Las Vegas casino. You
know, everyone honors the number seven. It's a cultural inheritance from
the Mesopotamians that has been passed on to us by the Hebrews, Greeks,
Romans, Egyptians. It is a mystical number, a magical number, and
religious number, a mythical number, a winning number. It's a wondrous
number. That's why there are seven days in a week, seven deadly sins,
seven blessings, and seven wonders of the world.
I want to talk about one of what I think are the real seven
wonders of the world. No, I'm not thinking about pyramids or hanging
gardens or collossian statues or lighthouses. The seven wonders are those
of my teaching world. They have such often underestimated and lasting
power: a soft smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an encouraging
gesture, a small act of caring, a gentle touch, and above all, lots of
love. If we want to have a truly meaningful life of teaching, as Leo
Buscaglia would always say, we need to teach with these wonders as often
as possible for something greater than and beyond ourselves
At one time or another, I've talked and written about each one of
these great magic and miraculous wonders with one exception: touch.
Why? I guess cowardice is the better part of discretion. Touch is as
touchy a word as you can find nowadays.
That's too bad. Scientific research has long since proven what
each of us knows in our hearts: touching, and being touched by others is
necessary for health and happiness. We need each other. We are meant to
be in connection physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually.
We're social entities. We're hardwired to connect. It's been found that
even a brief touch, as in a financial transaction where just fingers meet,
the actual touching is comforting and lifts the mood. Remember, the skin
is our largest and most sensitive organ. There is a consoling power in
touch; there is a healing power in touch; there is a detoxifying power in
touch; there is an assuring power in touch; there is an "I notice you"
power in touch; there is a connecting power in touch; there is a loving
power in touch; there is a strengthening power in touch. Touch is a form
of hospitality, and hospitality is a lively, courageous, and convivial way
of association that challenges our compulsion either to turn away or to
turn inward and disconnect ourselves from others. A touch expands the "I"
into a "we."
Nearly from the beginning of time, the human touch has been
acknowledged by most cultures throughout time for its power. A touch
provides warming comfort in a freezing night. It makes us feel secure
because it unites us with another affectionate, loving, and feeling human
being. The warmth it brings is better than the warmth a fireplace can
provide. A touch shields us from the worries of today because of the
confidence it brings. Like the internet, it allows high-speed access to
another soul.
I have been wanting to use this word, "touch," in my Dictionary of
Good Teaching for Kenny for a long time. I just didn't have the guts to
do it. There seems to be an unspoken, but universally known social taboo
against closeness and touching of others. The less you know someone, the
further away you must be. The irony of this social behavior is that it is
contradictory to one of our most fundamental needs: the need for closeness
and contact with others!
Nevertheless, in today's litigation-gone-mad society "touch" is a
dangerous word, a suspect word. I can see the words, "grab," "taking
advantage," "fondle" and "grope" pop up in some politically correct mind.
I can see derisive "touchy feely" appear in some A-Type mind.
Nevertheless, for me "touch" is a partner with loving. I'll say it again:
we all need each other. Without open arms, we only hug ourselves. As my
friend, Anne Pemberton, once said, "....now and then, at just the right
time, a gentle caring touch is priceless to a student." I couldn't agree
more. So, looking at the lines of the poem "Anyway" I think it's time I
sucked it in and touched upon touch, anyway. Here goes.
I feel my fingers tightening up and resisting. My palms are
beginning exude a cold dampness. I can just hear the nay sayers inhaling
air for their exhaling screams. So, let's get this out of the way. I
realize that I am about to get into real trouble with some of you. I
realize that some of you will only see the word, "touch," and go off the
deep end. With issues of clerics being pedofiles, teachers engaging in
sexual relations with students, I am going to talk about "touch?" I must
be nuts or a masochist! I'm not neither. I'm not because I'm not talking
about exploitation or abusiveness or oppressiveness. I am talking about
connection, relationship, and respect. I have found that there is
extraordinary power in a sincere, genuine, believe in, welcoming, hope
for, faith in, trust in touch. We do it everyday. We call it a
handshake, a back slap, a shoulder clasp. Let me repeat that. SINCERE,
GENUINE, BELIEVE IN, HOPE FOR, FAITH IN, TRUST IN. I think we've too
often gone to the extremes of isolation and disconnection to banish touch
in the misguided, but understood, effort to abolish patterns of abuse,
suppression, and oppression. The fact that I feel I have to repeat myself
in upper case lettering shows how up tight we've become about touching.
We've hung a cloud over our heads. We've become hostage to a fear of
acting with reasonable judgment. We've become paralyzed by that legal
fear. We walk around off balance. We walk on proverbial eggshells. We
have lost the art of drawing the line. We've lost the good sense of being
sensible.
Fear of touch is a big-time thief. It steals our peace of mind.
It hijacks relationships. It robs us of our balance and puts us on edge.
It turns us inward. It throws us into a dark corner by ourselves. It
makes us uncomfortable. It turns us into nervous lurkers. It prevents us
from being ourselves. It doesn't allow us to show our emotion. It
disconnects us from others. It closes our heart with suspicion. It shuts
doors and doesn't let us entertain in an open house. It puts up no
trespassing signs. It sets the alarms. It whispers of possible
calamities looming on the horizon. It doesn't let us be present for
others. It erects barriers to keep others away. It makes us paranoid
when all those strangers on campus approach. It keeps us hermetically
sealed up in a self-centered plastic world with a fragile and false sense
of security. It isolates, isolates, and isolates.
And yet, the human touch is something that people need on a
regular basis, and so many of us are so skin deprived. I always talk
about reaching out and touching a life. Sometimes, that is literal.
Everyone has the ability and opportunity to transform someone's life by
giving and it can be done by something as simple as a loving tap on the
head. It closes distances, de-toxifies relationship, it bonds together.
Touch says, in the words of Ghandi, "I offer you peace. I offer you love.
I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your
feelings."
Touch is a formidable teaching tool. Do you know what the
greatest "disease" a student suffers in most classrooms? Being lonely,
being alone, feeling unnoticed, feeling unloved, having no one, especially
feeling unwanted. We live in a very small world. Everything we do effect
someone for better or worse. I prefer the better stuff. When we care
less about our feelings, our rights, our happiness, our needs, our
security, our fears, and begin to be concerned with the feelings, rights,
needs, happiness, and security of others, we will have found the true
power. Like the flowers in my garden, few people can truly grow in the
shade, and growth is the real result of learning. I think that people
need to feel good about themselves and I see my role as offering caring
support to them. Caring always creates because it always promises. It
has the magic of helping students discover their own magic, of starting to
transform their capacity and potential into ability. So, listening to
Ghandi and Buscaglia, beginning on the first day of class, I offer. I
offer one curing treatment for students' isolation and aloneness. I offer
my warmth and humanity. I am touching. No, I'm not Leo Buscaglia, always
hugging. I'm not there, yet. However, I am standing at the door,
greeting each student with a smile, an extended hand, and "Hi, I'm Louis.
Who are you... Welcome...Glad to have you in the class. Do you know...."
I grab someone else's hand, have them shake hands. We're all three or
four touching. "Why don't you sit together and talk..." I shake their
hands. Touching. I'm smiling and laughing. Maybe, holding an elbow.
Touching and laughing. Draping a hand over my shoulder as I drag a
student to meet another. Touching and smiling and laughing. Grabbing
hands of two students and putting them together. Touching. Gently
pushing students together. Touching. Asking them to shake hands.
Touching.
I am convinced that touch is a very integral part of wholeness,
for to touch is to risk living and teaching fully. There's an incredible
feeling that comes with respectful touch. There's an incredible feeling
of community that comes with respectful touch. We human beings were not
meant to go around in disaasociation and isolation. We were not meant to
be disconnected in a classroom while we're meant to be connected outside
the classroom. Maybe that's why the classroom feels so unnatural, so
uncomfortable. In there, we're out of touch.
Understand that in the classroom or anywhere for that matter,
there are two underlaying "A's" of touch: appropriate and acceptable. I
think I should repeat that. APPROPRIATE AND ACCEPTABLE. Again.
APPROPRIATE AND ACCEPTABLE. Still again, APPROPRIATE AND ACCEPTABLE.
When we touch with the proper intent--WITH PROPER INTENT--its intention is
acceptable and accepted. Yes, touch does require intention. If you're
going to go beyond a handshake and you want to hug someone, you should ask
permission. There are a lot of people who are real huggy and they just
reach out and touch people. There are some who are not huggy and recoil
from such attempts. Its really important to ask permission. I'll say it
again: it's really important to ask permission. Touch breaks through the
barriers that can be hidden in other ways. I have never seen a touch that
is intended respectfully to bond result in anything other than a smile.
With that understood, there are the three other "A's" of touch:
attention, acknowledgement, and affirmation. I think its something that
we have lost in our educational culture. When we touch someone, however so
slightly, we give him or her attention. Sometimes not even a spoken word,
but just to put a hand gently on someones shoulder, head, or back, they
know you're paying attention to them. When we touch someone, we
acknowledge him or her. Sometimes an acknowledgement of someone is a pat
on the back, its a shake of the hand, its a slight grip on the shoulder,
its a hug, and it's a tap on the head. There are many ways to acknowledge
people, and touching is one of the ways. When we touch someone, we say
"yes" to him or her. It's a great thing to affirm people by saying "You
did a great job today." "Good comment." When we touch, we should hope,
believe, faith, love. That's important. Within the boundaries of
appropriate touch it is good to have that kind of affection between
people. I think its something that we have lost in our educational
systems.
I once read a poem. I don't know who the author is. I printed it
out and it's taped on the wall. I'd like to share with you:
The power of touch is profound.
The power of touch is healing.
Touch brings comfort, concern, and care,
touch conveys nurturing,
touch is instinctive,
touch is love.
The power of touch cannot be overstated or
underestimated.
To be permitted to touch another being
with respect and concern is a great privilege
the softness of a baby, the worn hands of the aged,
the comforting arm around a shoulder,
the embrace of our loved ones.
Touch is crucial to growth and expression
and is as natural as breathing.
Touch is the medium through which we express
our humanity
our attachment to all life around us.
Touch is life.
Maybe one of the reasons for so much lifelessness in the classroom
is there's so little lifefulness touch.
Am I in trouble? My fingers think I am. They're are fighting my
command to hit the "send" key.
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