Well, I'm getting myself in the groove to give a webcam session for Florida Gulf Coast University--you know that March Madness No.15 seed dream team that sent No.2 seed Georgetown packing--and then an all day workshop on creating a motivational classroom environment at Hawaii Pacific University in Honolulu a week later.  Susie insists on sitting next to me on the planes flying to Oahu--with a detour to Maui.  I can't for the life of me understand why.   Anyway, to crack my adrenal floodgate ajar, I've been rereading my heavily notated Richard Boyatzis' RESONANT LEADERSHIP, and reading two books that just came in:  Mark Goulston's REAL INFLUENCE and Todd Rose's SQUARE PEG.  

	As I read these three books, I constantly nodded my head in silent agreement as I drifted back over sixty-five years to P.S. 160 on Manhattan's East Side and into Mrs. Satchel's first grade class.  It's really a challenge for me to think of Mrs. Satchel without grimacing.  Kindliness and Mrs Satchel are not synonyms for me even if I do everything I can to believe that she had my best interests at heart.  But, it's tough.  Mrs. Satchel was diminutive in size and wrinkled in spirit.  She looked like a unwrapped, shriveled escapee from an Egyptian sarcophagus with a heart that was equally mummified.  I can't tell you how many times she angrily rapped the knuckles on my left hand with a wooden ruler during penmanship lessons.  These weren't gentle reminding touches.  They were Simon Legree whacks.  There was no displayed love in any of the hard blows that echoed off the walls of the classroom.   She could tell satan was in the classroom and that I was in danger of being enlisted into his horde of devilish minions.  No, there was no odor of sulphur; there was just my sulfurous refusal to use my right hand as I learned to write my ABCs.   And, she was going to be a Daniel Webster who'd send Mr Scratch packing and save my soul by getting me to write with my right hand.  Now, there was no rebellion in my refusal to abandon my left hand; there was no defiance in ignoring my right hand.   I was and still am totally--and I mean totally--wired as a southpaw.  But, she saw the use of my left hand as a sign of mephistophelean disobedience.  She was going to ram that square lefty peg into a right round hole.  Nothing I could say mattered.  Nothing my parents wrote in their replies to her notes mattered.  The more her yelling, that ruler, and the notes to my parents failed to get me to forego my left hand, the more she became a condemning medieval inquisitor, and the harder and louder the torturous ruler came down.  "Stick out your hand, Schmier" was a stern command that sent shivers through my spine.  I'd go cold, twist my lips, shut my eyes tight, hunch my shoulders, and constrict every muscle in my body in anticipation of the painful descent of that ruler.  Many a day I went home with such swollen and reddened finger joints my parents thought I was in street fights, especially at the times when her ruler had drawn blood--until my father angrily accompanied me to school one day and forcefully told Mrs Satchel in no uncertain terms to back off.  

	In the end, Mrs. Satchel failed.  I write with my left hand.  Mephistopheles won.  My beloved Susie always says that there's more than a little impish devil in me.  But, there is never a day, never a time--never--when I pick up a pen or pencil--with my left hand--that I don't go back to those dark, painful classroom days when I failed penmanship day after day after day.  And, it is because of Mrs. Satchel refusal to accept me as I was that my handwriting has more than a strong resemblance to unintelligible and indecipherable Sumerian cuneiform.  

	Now, before I go any further, let me firmly state that what I am about to say is not only for faculty vis-a-vis students, but for administrators vis-a-vis faculty and staff as well.    

	Many people have asked me over the years why I poured so much time and effort into reading daily student journals, about 160 each weekday.  If I wanted to give a cryptic answer, I'd merely say, "Mrs. Satchel!"  She's a piece of my history that is a reminder to me that I simply wanted to be one of Boyatzis' resonant classroom leaders; I didn't want to be a dissonant teacher such was Mrs. Satchel.    I wanted to walk in "their" shoes; I wanted to go to where Goulston calls "their there."  "There" I could see each student as one of Rose's square pegs.  You see, if you want to exercise the powers of persuasion and influence, if you want to be, as Richard Boyatzis says, an inspiring, magnetic, motivating, influencing, persuasive "resonant leader," if you want to improve lives, if you want to point the way to a kinder and better future, if you want each student to reach for her or his potential, don't fool yourself into thinking, as Mrs.Satchel did, that you will convince anyone from a position of what Goulston calls commanding "our here."  

	No, the key to successful teaching is influence and persuasion, not authority.  If you want to help "them" get the most out of themselves, shake their world in a very gentle, caring, and loving way.  Get to know them, as personally as possible, as much as they'll let you.  Connect.  Communicate.  Create a genuine rapport.  Strengthen personal relationships.   Be in a unconditional "carefull," "believefull," "hopefull," and "lovefull" mode.  Start with "their," not "your."  Don't act as if they're already in on the know of how and the why of things, and are on your side of the podium.  Get out from your perspective.  Back off from your stereotyping.  Let go of your generalizing.  Approach them as the square peg each of them is, as the one size that fits none.   Meet them on their terms, from their assumptions, from their points of view, from where they see things, and from their experiences.  Pick up on things that are important to them.  Get and show a sincere  interest in them.  Drop your defenses.  Listen to them, to what and how they speak with their lips, eyes, and bodies.  See them as they are.  Go to them where they're at.  Go into what is going on inside them.  Get and show an empathy and an awareness, that you understand what they're dealing with, that you understand who they are, that you're willing to connect with them on a personal level, that you're offering opportunities for making things better.  Show them that you "get it," that you "get where I'm at,"  that you "get me."   Strive more for mutual understanding more than agreement.  And, as you do that, you'll have a better chance of minimizing misunderstandings, fears, unresponses, disappointments, frustrations, and even anger.  

	And, I've also learned that it's all about creating a super glued bond of what the Greeks called "philia," love that serves others.  For when you love, you care; when you care, you respect; when you respect, you notice; when you notice, you empathize; and, when you empathize, you put all your heart and head into vitalizing the power of your attention.  Do that, and you're both there and here.   

Make it a good day

-Louis-


Louis Schmier                         		http://www.therandomthoughts.edublogs.org       
203 E. Brookwood Pl                         http://www.therandomthoughts.com
Valdosta, Ga 31602 
(C)  229-630-0821                             /\   /\  /\                 /\     /\
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