Abundance.  I was thinking about abundance what with Thanksgiving being but a few days away.  I was also thinking of the "bah, humbug" Scrooge-like impoverishment of that professor's attitude about whom I wrote last Thursday.  I always say that in the classroom, supported by such research as that of Chicago's Anthony Byrk and Barbara Schneider that I just came across, there should be laid the foundations for three goals of attitude before anyone gets near the material to be learned:  break barriers, build bridges, forge community. All three are designed to begin to create what researchers call:  "relational trust," that is, reliance on others and being open with others.   It's an impersonal term for something that is very personal,  I prefer to call it "community."  I know, "community" and "trust" arent' words that sits well with most in academia.    Nevetheless, those words in action support and encourage; they create communication and connection; they take the grimness and fear out of learning; and, they feast on the too often hidden abundance in the classroom, in both each student and ourselves.  I've found it is so crucial to learning that, in the spirit of Abraham Mazlow, Ed Deci, Carol Dweck, Barbara Fredrickson, Teresa Amabile, Howard Gardner and others, I always took the first ten days to two weeks of class to engage students in "getting to know ya"  exercises to start the demolition of separateness and aloneness and strangerness, and to begin the construction of supporting and encouraging togetherness.  And, then, organizing the class in such a way that constantly and explicitly I made supporting and encouraging communication a major "how it works" theme throughout the class's term.  As, I've said in the syllabus for the past 20 years:   "On the first day of class or so you and two others will create what  I call "Communities of Mutual Support and Encouragement.  You will create your own communities according to three rules:  (1)  Each person must be a stranger to each other; (20  Each community will be gender mixed unless the class makeup does not allow; (3)  Each community will be racially mixed unless the class makeup does not allow..You and the other two members of your Community will sit together in a little cluster facing each other.  In this class you'll NEVER see the back of the head of the person in front of you simply because there is no front or back in this class. The governing principle of the Communities will be "one for all and all for one." That is, you and the others in your Community will mutually support and encourage each other and work together as if you were one person.  I hope you will become friends, or like family, and learn to love each other.  You are not in competition with anyone else in the class.  This class is a cooperative "family" effort.  You will learn to respect, trust, support, and encourage other people.  You will learn to work with other people. You will learn to communicate with other people.  Remember ONE OF THE INVIOLABLE CLASS OPERATIONAL RULES:   YOU WILL SIT IN CLASS ALWAYS LOOKING AT EACH OTHER.  NO ONE WILL LOOK AT THE BACK OF THE NECK OF ANOTHER MEMBER OF THE COMMUNITY."  

	You see, the real scarcity in the classroom is not ability or potential; it is attitude.  It is an impoverishment of perception and assumption, a scarcity of notice, a short supply of attention, a dearth of faith, belief, hope, and love.  That scarcity weakens stamina and breeds the deadly diseases and infirmities of fear, anxiety, joylessness, disbelief, resignation, blindness, deafness, apathy, and a host of other killers of spirit.  That impoverishment is uneducating of all those in the classroom.  The idea of the power of the inner dynamics of emotions on performance is squashed with assault of being soft, squishy, irrational,sentimental tosh, and touchy-feely.  They're accused of being alien in a place whose drivers are information, tests, grades, GPAs, scores, and credentials.  It is this myopia that leads to self-fulfilling prophecy because we don't ask the right questions to deal with this drought.  We always ask the debilitating questions:  Is what were doing going to succeed?  What if it doesn't work?  Where's the time?  How are we going to grade it?  How will we be assessed?  What will others think?   

	We should be asking ourselves two questions:  What is the right thing to do?  What is required of us if we want to make a positive difference, a transforming difference, in someone's life?  I've found that the answers to these questions brook no compromise, for lives are at stake.  They opened my eyes to the abundance within each of us, how to break free of the drought; and,  to educate in the classroom you must cast out the harbingers of blame and become a prophet of responsibility.  You believe.  You have faith.  You have hope.  You love.  You care.  You respect.  You trust.  You are respectful.  You are trustworthy.  You take the time and banish that thief of connection:  "busyness."  You travel the galaxy of nurturing.    You do whatever it takes so that a student survives her or his greatest fear, her or his more defenseless and vulnerable moment,  her or his most unloved feeling.  You nurture unceasingly.  You show up for each of them time and time and time again.  You're there time and time and time again.  You are loving beyond any assessment instrument.  You have an endurance for care.  You draw from a deep well of selfless serving.  You create a serum that kills all pernicious killers of spirit, self-esteem, and self-confidence.

	What I am more than suggesting is challenging, painful, scary, time consuming, and difficult.  It means taking risks, become vulnerable.  It pushes to the brink of change.  It means doing a whole of things we'd rather not do.  It means we have stop blaming.  It means we have to close the distance.  It means becoming involved in the responsibility for others.It demands an investment of the heart.  Sure, it's a lot easier to get a grant or bring to campus the latest overstaged performance of pedagogical or technological experts.  

	But, there is research demonstrating the emotional component in any classroom is both real and strong, and influential.  That is to say, if you're truly interested in improving educational outcomes, read the research on "relational trust" or "community."  The researchers found that if a classroom is full of strangers, they won't trust each other.  You can throw a lot of state-of-the-art technology and pedagogy on them, but not much will change.  On the other hand, as has been my experience for two decades, if a classroom is full of people who respect and trust each other, who invest themselves in that which is communal, they will come into supporting and encouraging community; they will love each other, and you're going to get great results.  
Make it a good day

-Louis-


Louis Schmier                         		http://www.therandomthoughts.edublogs.org       
203 E. Brookwood Pl                         http://www.therandomthoughts.com
Valdosta, Ga 31602 
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