I was thinking last night, driving home from a very quiet celebration
with close friends, what is with all this huppin' it up on July 4th with
picnics, flags, Sousaphones playing "Stars and Stripes Forever," crowded
beaches, parades, fireworks, and a host of other festivities throughout
the country.  What is the Fourth of July really all about that people are
willing to endure being bloated with watermelon, over stuffed by picnic
fixings, blinded by "the rockets red glare,"  deafened by the "bombs
bursting in air," drained by marauding blood-letting mosquitoes, driven
mad by annoying gnats and flys, cooked well-done by the sun.  What is it,
really?  An event celebrating the birthday of the United States?  Yes, but
I don't think that is good enough.  A call for an annual booster shot of
flag-waving love of country?  Yes, but still not good enough.  A
commemoration of freedom and independence of thought and action?  Yes, but
even that isn't really where the rubber touches the road.  What, then, are
all the celebrations really about?  What is the best word we can come with
for the true meaning of the Fourth of July if not freedom, patriotism,
independence?

     Read the words of the Declaration of Independence.  I read them this
morning.  They are about an idea, a then revolutionary idea and in too
many circles today still a revolutionary idea, an idea that is this great
country, that makes this country great; an idea that has carried this
great land all these years, an idea which has spawned every vast social
movement during the 223 years since that first glorious July 4th; an idea
which we have refused to let die and with with we have wrestled and fought
resolutely and perennially to expand and to become more including and to
bring to full realization.  Read those rhythmic, unhesitating nad
penetrating words of the Declaration of Independence.  I realized that
they don't excitedly talk about patriotism or love of country; they don't
tell us to overeat hot dogs, hamburgers, and potato salad; they don't give
up the day off and tell us to go on holiday.  What does our great flag
stand for; to what are we really pledging our allegiance; about what are
we singing?  What did John Adams think when he predicted that the day of
that great signing will be celebrated forever more.  Read those words. 
They quietly but firmly talk about first principles--laws of nature: 
individual inalienable rights, self-evident truths, equality, governments
formed of men, equal justice for all.  Taken together, they talk of a
sober, simple, profound, compelling word: respect.  They talk of
unreserved and unqualified respect for each and every individual, a
respect rooted in the unequivicable dignity, nobility, and sacredness of
each and every individual.

     I live many decades without respect.  And I can tell you that without
respect--accorded by others or my yourself, a person feels isolated or
demeaned or dominated or assaulted or abused or ignored or neglected.  If
respect is not at the center of a person's life, if is not the focus of
all his or her relationships, if respect is not the highest of our values,
we abandon life.  It is respect that makes us human; it is respect that is
at the core of our identity. It is respect that is the foundation of our
personhood, dignity, sacredness. It is central to committed and trusting
human relationships.  It is the essence of caring and love.  It is hope. 

     Now you might ask, "What does all this have to do with teaching?" 
Well, I think everything.  Respect should be a stranger to our educational
systems; it should not barred from our campuses by high walls or razor
barbed wire.  There should be no stop signs for it posted on the doors
of our classroom.  This word-respect-is
planted in our collective and individual souls.  It should resound
wherever we are; it should resonate in whatever we do; it should peal with
whomever we associate.  It should permeate, therefore, the classroom and
govern our relationships with each and every student--and colleague--for
we are creating the future to make the dream of Jefferson and those who
followed come true. 

     I can hear a loud cheer going up.  "Yes!  This country is declining
because there is not enough respect for authority."  Maybe.  Or maybe we
don't accord enough respect to each other.  You see, I am not using
obedience or submission as synonyms for respect.  Understand that the
respect I am talking about is not a cement to build or reinforce a
hierarchu or caste. I am not associating respect with a submissive bow or
a courtesy in action or thought. I am not thinking of an approval from,
acquiesence to, domination by, being lesser to someone just because that
someone is more knowledgeable, better educated, more skillful, more
renown, more erudite, more authoritative, more powerful, more influential,
richer, and/or more whatever. 

     The respect I am talking about would cast off caste and tear
at the rungs of the hierarchial ladder.  Even if there are differences in
knowledge and status and power and resources and skills, the respect I am
thinking about is a great equalizer. It is the ways in which we can be on
a common plane with one another, and it comes again through this sense of
connection in relationships where we treat and think of others only in
ways we others to treat and perceive us. 

     What does this have to do with education.  Too often we
teachers/professor are among those "someone" on the higher level of the
hierarchy demanding to be treated with total deference; too often we
assault students with dismissing, demeaning, disrespectful comments and
behavior;  too often too many of us act as if we are acolytes of the gods
before whom all must humbly prostrate themselves; too often we act as if
we are doing kowtowing students a favor by allowing them to grace our
presence and sip a drop or two from our well.  Far too often respect, in
the educational structure, is a one way street.  It is the
teacher/professor who is the one demanding and receiving respect from the
student served.  But, respect must be a two-way street if the relationship
between teacher/professor is to be a truly committed and trusting one. 

     For me, core of respect is not offering skills, resources, knowledge. 
And this may surprise you, but for me the central dimension of being
respectful to a student--or to any person including myself for that
matter--is wonder.  And if I hadn't completed the task given to my by
Kenny, I would offer him WONDER as another word for my dictionary of good
teaching. 

	I wonder how many of us have ever really wondered about genuine
and authentic wonder.  I have, and it's one of my favorites.  I have
discovered during the past decade that wonder picks at you; it's like a
vacuum that sucks you in; it's a magnet that pulls at you; it makes you
look about, peek in, glimpse curiously around the corner. It it wonder
that every day makes the bumpy, rattling, dusty, choking road under
construction into an alluring, scenic road.  Wonder truly creates an
appreciation of every moment, every living thing on the trip, sincerely
seeing and interacting with every person and every force of nature. Wonder
is the seedbed of faith, belief, and hope.  Wonder is born in the unknown,
in mystery, in curiosity, in the question.  Wonder is a can opener that
allows new insights to spill out. Wonder is rooted in beauty, in
conviction, support, engagement.  Wonder is filled with awe.  Wonder oozes
with the miraculous.  Wonder nourishes creativity and imagination; it
suppressing scorn and ridicule; it breeds optimism and suffocates
skepticism.  Wonder places each student in the company of the beautiful
waterfall, that wondrous star sprinkled night sky, that breathtaking
mountain scene, the majesty of a snow capped mountain, those awe-inspiring
ocean waves crashing on the beach. Wonder is rooted in beauty and
sacredness; it promotes conviction, support, encouragment. To wonder about
people, then, is to be sincerely curious about who each of them is, what
each is about, what each of them dreams, what each of them fears. 
Relationships are at the center of my teaching, and for me students are a
awesome wondrous greeting card to wonderment. So much of my teaching takes
place away from the text book and classroom, and in proportion very little
of it in the classroom.  Wanting to know who each student is in his/her
life, wanting to know what each feels and how each think is really a
very, very important dimension of good teaching.  And, to get to know each
student, you have to talk less and listen more, be seen less and see more,
be heard less and hear more.

     This brings me to my next point.  People say that the root word of
"education" is " the Greek "educare:" to draw out.  I also believe
education means being willing to listen.  We teachers work a lot with
people, young and non-traditional, who are often the least listened-to
group in our society.  Students who are told over and over and over again
in word and deed, "Wrong!!"  "Be quiet!"  "what do you know,"feel as if in
general academics don't listen, but have agendas for them which they too
often impose and too often dictate lives for them to live . To respect a
student, to wonder about him or her, to ask the question, "what will his
path be, where will he go," you have to be silent. I have discovered time
and time again, each and every student has a voice.  Not many have the
courage to let that voice be heard; not everyone has the courage to say
"this is me" or "this is what I feel" or "this is what I think."  Many
have been disrespected socially or personally or both so many times in so
many ways in so many places that they have taken in a sense of
worthlessness, disrespect, insignificance, and have become fearful and
their voices goes silent.  And it is this silence that leads too many of
to believe that the only way students can be educated is if teachers
actively draw and students passively are drawn.  I understand that.  Until
ten years ago, I lived in that depreciated place where so many students
presently reside and, like them, so camouflaged it with an "that's me," or
"I've always been like that" I didn't recognize that it was a terrible
place to live.  I don't want that to continually happen to any student;  I
don't want to do that to any student; I don't want any student to do it to
him/herself, and I struggle to figure out a way really of developing a
very different sort of relationship with each students and other people
that offers up respect. So, part of wonder is to help everyone find his or
her own voice, and to help them to use it.  And I have discovered, as I
have said many time, good, respectful, wondering, curious teaching means
"shhhhhh."  It means to be silent four more time than I talk, listen four
more times as much as I speak.  I have discovered that when I am silent at
the right moment, the moment explodes; when I don't use my voice at the
right moment, a student's voice thunders.  It is wonderful thing to see
when the good teacher is truly interested, quiet, attentive, open to what
a student is saying rather than throwing his or her own agenda over who
they think that student should be like the proverbial blinding and
stricting wet blanket, which is what too many of us do as teachers.

     But respect, I have learned the hard way over the last decade of my
inner journey, with its components, also comes back to the point that you
cannot give what you don't have to give, that you've got to be 
secure in your own core, that you have to work on that before you can give
in the way you need to give, that you have to respect yourself, that you
have to wonder about yourself, that you have to love yourself, that you
have to be curious about yourself, and that you have to listen to your
true self, that you have to find your voice, and that you have to use your
voice. Self-respect, not just respects of others, is really a central
dimension of the kind of respect for the individual about which I am
talking. 

     True teachers are those who truly respect and love themselves, who
truly love what they do, who are then giving respect and love to each
student regardless of race, age, birth, place of origin, physical ability,
gender, religion, ethnicity, skill, knowledge, etc.  They have a dream of
building communities of equality for a future in which no one is allowed
to fall by the wayside.  And it is that continued dedication to bringing
that dream to realization as others before have done is the true meaning
of July 4th celebrations. 



Make it a good day.

                                                       --Louis--


Louis Schmier                     [log in to unmask]
Department of History             http://www.halcyon.com/arborhts/louis.html 
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, GA  31698                           /~\        /\ /\
912-333-5947                       /^\      /     \    /  /~\  \   /~\__/\
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                        -_~    /  "If you want to climb mountains,   \ /^\
                         _ _ /      don't practice on mole hills" -    \____





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