A belated Happy New Year to "ya'll." It's another high 20's
"brrrrrr" south Georgia morning. A thin film of frost covered everything
like a delicate veil of shimmering lace. Those winged hyperdermic needles
we call mosquitoes were grounded by the ice on their wings. I walked
through the tundra this morning with frozen, bleary-eyes. Didn't get all
that much sleep. It was that exciting Miami-Ohio State game that kept me
up late into the night.
Anyway, a belated Happy New Year to "ya'll." I don't know about
you, but I am just about holidazed by the slate of holidays and bowled
over by the spate of bowl games. And the pros are just starting their
four week trek to the Super Bowl! My angelic Susan is not a happy camper
on the weekends at this time of the new year.
Nevertheless, I'm still in a ringing in and ringing out reflective
mood trying to see what the old and new rings look like. It's useful,
maybe essential, for me to reflect on and evaluate myself. I do it every
day rather than merely once a year. I've discovered that if I don't stay
on top of things each day, things we get the best of me. I won't be able
to offer the best of me and it won't be long before I'll be at the bottom.
To purposefully decide, then, what is going well and what is not, what is
worthwhile and what is not, what helps and what doesn't, what adds value
and what doesn't, what to keep and what to modify and what to throw away
is a critical exercise in self-correction, self-improvement, and
self-affirmation. It's important to cut loose the dead weight and haul
out the emotional trash to the curb.
So, as I cut across my memories and take a long, hard look at who
I am and where I am and where I would like to go, I began thinking about
something I read during the reading marathon with which I ended this past
year. Picasso said that a mere painter matter-of-factly takes the
magnificent sun and dolefully reduces it to a mere, lifeless yellow dot.
A master artist excitedly takes a mere, lifeless yellow dot and joyfully
transforms it into a living, magnificent sun.
Not much different with teaching, is it. I realize that the
meaningful teachers are the master artists. It is they who are worth
writing about. It not the "dotters." After all, vital persons vitalize.
And, vitalize the meaningful teachers do. They read the Confusian message
to always have a reverence for each person; they acknowledge it, recognize
it, focus in on it, cultivate it, live it, get going with it; they give
themselves to something larger than themselves; they give their lives over
to others; they teach with their hearts wide open to others in compassion;
they aspire to inspire the realization of possibility; they grab others
inside; they give themselves to the future; they touch eternity; they
engage in no less than heroic deeds; they help others leave a condition of
dependence to discover a richer condition of independence; they alter
lives and make a difference. I would go so far to say the meaningful
teachers' moral objective is to save people. I would go still farther and
say, in the spirit of Joseph Campbell, they are heroic.
So, each day I have to keep in mind what it is I want to say on
December 31, 2003. I want to say that when I entered the classroom each
day this year, I settled even less than I have done to being a mere
painter of dots and struggled even more than I have done to give it
everything that was given me to give and do whatever it took to be a
master artist of suns.
Make it a good day.
--Louis--
Louis Schmier www.therandomthoughts.com
Department of History www.halcyon.com/arborhts/louis.html
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, Georgia 31698 /~\ /\ /\
(229-333-5947) /^\ / \ / /~ \ /~\__/\
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