"You say you're a 'realist,' this professor fired back.  "I say you are not!  Is it realistic that you don't lecture or give tests?  What do you do to give them a grade?  You're an out-of-touch romantic if you believe that students will learn anything without lectures, tests, and grades.  Where's their motivation otherwise?"  After a few more less than nice sentences came the defensive attack, "And don't tell me how to teach!  I don't even need your advice!  I've been in the classroom for twenty-five years. I know how to teach...."   



	I answered, "In the light of the latest research on learning, it is realism to ask if there is a mismatch on our campuses between what professors do and that the recent brain-based science of learning knows they should do.  It is realism to ask whether there is a basic contradiction on our campuses;  that is, too many professors are forward-looking when it comes to their discipline, are backward-looking when it comes to teaching.  It is realism to question the long-held supposition of the 'if-then,' 'carrot-and-stick' contingent reward and extrinsic motivating force of tests and grades.  It is realism to ask whether Taylorism and Skinnerism are outmoded.  It is realism to ask whether tests and grades motivate students to learn or only motivate them to get grades. It is realism to ask if learning is synonomous with scores, grades, and GPAs.   It is realism to ask, as Carl Rogers did a long time ago, whether we really can motivate or even teach others, or whether we merely facilitate their own motivation and learning.  It is realism to ask whether we academic are in the 'people business' as well as the 'information transmission business.'  It is realism to ask if we professors should be nurturers or weeders.  It is realism to ask if there is more to a higher education than professional credentialing.  It is realism to figure out how to apply the finding of Carol Dweck's 'mindset,' Carl Rogers' 'student-centered learning' and 'unconditional positive regard,' Richard Boyatzis' 'resonant leadership,' Haim Ginott's 'congruent communication,' Peter Senge's 'personal vision,' Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's 'flow.' Robert Brooks' and Sam Goldstein's 'resilience,' Teresa Amabile's 'progress principle,' Clayton Christensen's 'disruptive change' and 'sustaining change,' Ed Deci's 'intrinsic motivation,' Daniel Goldeman's 'emotional intelligence' and 'social intelligence,' Leo Buscaglia,'s 'love,' Howard Gardner's 'multiple intelligence,' Martin Seligman's 'authentic happiness,' and I can go on and on and on.



	It is realism to have a strong perception that you can significantly influence but not control what happens in someone else's life.  It is realism to understand, as Haim Ginott said, you have the power to create the climate in the classroom, to be a pathological or therapeutic influence.  It is realism, then, to exercise "Tender Loving Care" in order to create a "Therapeutic Learning Classroom."  It is realism to know that aloneness, loneliness, and strangeness are education hazards.  It is realism to know that supportive, encouraging, empathetic, kindly, friendly, believing, hopeful, and loving connection can provide educational nourishment.  It is realism to know that a sense of purpose can increase the potential for success.  It is realism to know that autonomy and ownership can increase achievement.  It is realism to know that serious fun and meaningful enjoyment are the antithesis of debililtating boredom, not work."  It is realism to struggle with using all this new-found knowledge.



	It is realism to acknowledge that learning is a process of unlearning for both professor and student.  It is realism to have a strong perception that you can control what happens in your life.  It is realism to assume responsibility rather than assign blame.  It is realism, as Kristen Neff said, to possess "self-compassion."  It is realism to exercise a strong sense of self-control rather than surrender it to others and/or to some entity called "the system."  It is realism for us to replace our own negative or stagnant "fixed mindset" with  a positive, dynamic "growth mindset," and show students the way to do the same.  It is realism to have a true, reflected upon, articulated purpose.  It is realism to follow a sincere and honest path rather than faking it.  It is realism to have a true passion.  



	"As for telling you how to teach, I plead not guilty.  I even plead not guilty to giving advice.  All I'm doing is relating what the hard sciences are discovering lately about learning, what the ramifications might be for our current approach to teaching as well as our teaching methods, how that knowledge has changed what I feel and think and do, and how I apply those findings." 



	"Let me ask you.  Why are so many of us academics, who thunderously tout objectivity, so doggone defensively subjective?  Why are so many of us seemingly afraid of venturing into new ideas?  We should be more frightened by the hold old ones have on us!  Why do we continue to breed sacred cows instead of slaughtering them?  Why does the loud mooing of these herds drown out the latest neuroscientific discoveries about learning with mistaken habits, myths, beliefs, excuses, tradition, and ignorance?  Why is it that the emphasis on education as a "people business" has been condemned as "soft" and "peoplely" when while it is people oriented, it has never been soft.  And, why is it that when the supposed "soft, peoplely stuff," is hardened by the hard scientific evidence in response to the call for "hard evidence," it is still not enough?  Why are the results of such studies cast aside with a host of rationalizing and defending and excusing and rejecting "I've been teaching for X number of years" or "In my humble opinion," or "I believe" or "It has been my experience?"  Or, worst of all, there is that student sacrificing excuse, "I don't have tenure."  



	"Applying Clayton Christenten's concept of "sustaining change" to academia, the only facts about teaching and learning most academics accept as true are those they already subjectively recognize and accept, which are emotionally satisfying and self-serving, which seem to validate what they are already doing, and which they perceive as comfortable and safe; other facts, when cited to contradict their private truths, feel the full brunt of sarcastic condemnation as "touchy feelly" or "dreamy" or "feel good" or "peoplely" or "fluff" or "non-professional" or "subjective" or whatever.  Again, it seems so contradictory that so many of us proclaim ourselves to be "objective" while subjectively disregarding objective scientific findings.  Whatever the reason, all they are doing is reflecting their academic "it's always been done this way" or "this is the way I've been taught and look at me" outlook.  Most people just don’t want to or can't tear down what they help build and in which they live.  Yet, the inability to renovate creates a resistance to change and stifles creativity, experimentation, innovation, and adaption--and excitement.  That's why my ex-governor, Zell Miller, a history professor, astutely observed that it's easier to change the course of history than a history course."



	"I'll continue this discussion if you wish, maybe with a focus on Clayton Christensen's concept of 'disruptive change' and 'sustaining change.'  But, right now I'm off for two weeks of rotten spoiling of my two California grandmunchkins."  



	Let me wish you and your's a deeply sincere merry, happy, and all that stuff."



Make it a good day



-Louis-





Louis Schmier                         		http://www.therandomthoughts.edublogs.org       

Department of History                        http://www.therandomthoughts.com

Valdosta State University 

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