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Copyright © Louis Schmier and Atwood Publishing.
Date: Thu 11/25/2004 5:21 AM
Random Thought: Just Some Thankful Random Thoughts
I apologize for sending another Random Thought so close on the heels of the
previous one. I scribbled this down last Sunday night and had forgotten it
until I cleaned out the pockets of my pants last night. I hope you will
bear with me:
Here I am, sitting on the floor at Gate 29, E Concourse, waiting in
Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport. It's an especially reflective wait.
I'm waiting for a flight home into the arms of my Susan; I'm waiting to take
a biopsy on my prostate; I'm waiting for the coming Thanksgiving with family
and dear friends--and some strangers.
I just spent what can only be called four glorious days at the Lilly
conference on excellence in college teaching. It is tempting to think of
the Lilly conference is just another professional conference. That isn't
true. The conference, for me, was about more than sessions on pedagogy,
technology, methodology, techniques, philosophy of teaching. On the
surface, the Lilly conference is one of information, association, education,
and affirmation. For me, as I told many first-time attending "newbies," as
it is for others, Lilly is not just a professional conference. If anyone
saw how many of us hug each at the conference's beginning and end, you'd
know what I mean. It's like a Thanksgiving gathering. It's a feast; it's a
retreat; it's an experience; it's a learning community; it's a family
reunion at which we old timers strengthen friendships, make new ones, and
exuberantly welcome others into the fold.
A lot of us who have attended the Lilly conference year after year after
year talk about something we call the "Lilly spirit," something that
transcends each of us, but few of us have really nailed it down. The fact
that we feel and acknowledge the presence of such a transcendental feeling
is evidence of its existence--whatever that it is--and separates Lilly off
from most other professional conference.
Here and now, feeling that aura still enveloping me, I'd like to take a
stab at it. Lilly is something that lures us. Lilly lets us see how very
rich we who attend are. When anyone is experiencing the proverbial slings
and arrows of outrageous fortune, others protectively hover around them in
support and encouragement. I've seen that occur time after time after time.
It happened to me. Whenever anyone one of us cannot attend they feel an
emptiness and they are consciously missed. Whenever anyone of us dies, we
feel a deep and sustaining loss and mourn together. I remember how we felt
when we lost Beverly Firestone and Tony Grasha.
Lilly is a bonding of friends old and new; Lilly is a sense of belonging.
Here you will not find the flaunting of resumes. Egos and reputations are
set aside, for egos and reputation are incompatible with sharing and
gratitude and humility. In all the years that I've attended Lilly, I've
never heard one back-stabbing word, not one word! Never! Unlike most other
professional conference, unlike the machination on many campuses, Lilly
honors generosity, humility, encouragement, uniqueness, creativity,
imagination, uniqueness, tolerance, respect, kindness, welcome, inclusion.
At Lilly there is plenty for all and plenty for all to share.
Most of the "newbies" don't expect that; upon their arrival they don't
understand that. But, at Lilly there is no cast system as the old timers
consciously make efforts to take newbies under their wings; and most
"newbies" quickly and unexpectedly embrace it and get wrapped up in it.
Few, to their surprise, fight it. It is so easy for a "newbie" to be
transformed into an "old-timer" at his or her first conference. It is
magical; it is mysterious. Then, again, is not when you're in a gathering
where everyone cares for and about each other.
We all find each other in a common effort than can only be described as
courageous. Yes, courageous. Whether those who attend Lilly know it or
not, they are courageous people. They have the courage to change. Most
everyone is there to listen and to reflect far more than they are to talk.
They are there to unlearn as they learn, to break old habits as they find
new ones, to share themselves as others share with them. They was there
because they have a sense of how complicated education really is; they came
with the admission that they know what they've been doing hasn't been
working properly; they come knowing they can do better; they come to find
ways to improve and change; they graciously accept criticism that is always
respectfully given; they come with to find things that make more sense.
So, while waiting in Atlanta as everyone who flies through Atlanta does, I
thought I'd jot down just some, but by no means all, of what I've learned in
formal sessions, at the dining tables, in the hallways, on the steps, and
upon what I must reflect in the coming weeks and months. I offered a full
day pre-conference workshop and a three hour conference session. Yet, I
took so much away from so many people than I gave. On this Thanksgiving day
I am so thankful:
I am thankful to Alex Fancy from Mount Allison, who reminded me, as he
always does, that teachers who know how to give their all all the time are
the ones who have the best chance of getting others to give it their all;
I am thankful to Linc Fisch who shared that the most effective teachers are
not the ones with the longest resume or the greatest reputation. The most
effective teachers' effectiveness is in their attitude and their ability to
energize and encourage others with their optimism, enthusiasm,
encouragement, support, faith, belief in them.
I am thankful to Craig Nelson who said teachers should be lousy poker
players; they should never know when to fold.
I talked with Dee Fink from Oklahoma about things other than football. We
agreed on the importance of purpose and meaning in what we do. Over coffee
we talked about how academics can't be wrapped around their self-centered
"I."
Jim Eison and I discuss that we will not get to the purpose and meaning
driven "why" of all of our "hows" and "whats" as long as we ask
self-centered questions dealing with "my" security, "my comfort," "my
safety," "my ambitions," "my reputation," "my dreams." If you want find
your "why," if want a purpose driven teaching, you have to have an
"otherness," a focus on each student.
Doug Robertson reminded me of what I'll call "the power of new," how we
should do new things and stretch at least a little bit each term. Radha
Gracia showed me that, literally, in her two hour heat Yoga session as we
stretched, twisted, bent, sweated, creaked, cracked, and groaned.
An education should be about respecting freedom. Ken Styer from Stark State
University of Technology and Kathyrn Locke from Shawnee State University
helped me see more clearly that a true education should be about helping
students become thoughtful, about helping students develop the habit of
teaching themselves to think in informed and flexible ways across a whole
range of concerns in life beyond mere employment. Ken and Kathern came as
newbies. They came to learn and I learned so much from them. We came as
strangers to each other; we left as new-found friends.
Pablo Aquino offered me insight that teaching is not primarily a matter of
authority or knowledge, but of the use of authority and knowledge to cause
change. They not only could choose their values, attitudes and behavior, but
they promote changes in their school environments through advocacy and
action. Teachers who simply do that job so well change lives for the
better.
I was told by a "newbie" in hotel management that the taste of a chicken is
determined by what the chicken eats. It's no different than a student or
each of us. So, I ponder the question of what it is we are feeding each
student and ourselves.
There is my good and zany friend, Ron Berk, who unabashedly oozes the
joyful child as we all should. He said in one of his rare sane moments,
attitude is more important than information. And so, when we enter a
classroom, we should think of the student first and the subject second.
Ain't that the truth.
I remember talking with Todd Zacrajsek from Central Michigan about the need
for academics to accept the hard truth that they are not immune to the
affliction of learned fearfulness and helplessness that plagues so many
students.
Teaching is a matter of setting examples, Ken Barton and I discussed, of
modeling principles above convenience and safety and politics, of doing
rather than merely mumbling or saying, of standing up rather than merely
sitting around.
Milt Cox, mentioned in a passing conversation, that teachers, like anyone
else, are going to have precisely what they think they're going to have.
They are going to become precisely the persons they think they are going to
become. So, we each should take heed in what we want and think.
Want to think of something scary? The number 3. My good friend, Luz
Mangurian from Towson State, reminded me once again that a teacher has just
the first three minutes--I repeat that, the first three minutes--of the
first day of class to grab a student; otherwise the student is lost for the
entire term. Want to think of something just as scary? 93% of what
students hear is spoken with facial expressions, body language, and vocal
tones. 93%!! And we academics so love to talk. Luz also reminded me, that
students size us teachers as soon as they enter the classroom, that they are
most interested in who we are than in what we know. It is the students,
said Luz, who are the real experts in who cares about them. The students!
Not us. But, who truly listens to the students. We should however
uncomfortable or inconvenient their words may be.
In sessions after sessions, conversations after conversations, I was
reminded how much in our humanity we faculty are like our students and how
much we faculty ignore that simple but powerful tool of empathy.
Milt Cox, the founder and continuer of Lilly helped to create a paradox. I
left physically energized and bone tired; my brain was bursting, going on
and on and on like the pink bunny, and dead. I was filled and depleted.
All at the same time. Neat trick.
At the end of the conference, we always ask of each of us give a hearty and
deep sincere thanks. And, we do. Here, at Hartsfield-Jackson, for all of
this and so much more, I am so thankful as Thanksgiving day approach to all
of those--Melody, Melissa, Laura, Michele, Will, Gregg, Miami University
student helpers, et al--who worked behind the scenes in preparation and
worked equally hard during this conference. I know a lot of them. I am
grateful to them. The magic of Lilly is that all those chores don't seem
like chores to them or us. The "spirit of Lilly," to me is not conference
we all do everything in our power to attend; it is the idea that we care
about and tenderly nurse.
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