Well March Madness has been upon me for several nerve-racking
weeks. For you who are not up on college sports, that means being glued to
the television into the wee hours of the night day after day watching the
NCAA college basketball tournament. As I mourned my beloved Tarhells
being knocked out of the tournament by Penn State two weeks ago and look
forward to a great weekend of finals basketball, even if it includes Duke,
a bunch of things struck me. Here you have these highly skilled players.
And what to so many insightful coaches and sport commentators talk about:
attitude. It was attitude that was on the mind of the coach of Michigan
State, last year's tournament champion, when he said he didn't know if his
team had the desire to repeat; when a sports editorial talked of smaller
schools from the mid-level conferences being hungry to prove they
belonged; when a lead article of a sports website read, "It's all about
ATTITUDE;" when a Washington Post article headlined, "It begins inside."
"It's all about attitude." "It begins inside." Ain't that the
challenging, hard truth. That has gotten me thinking. A professor
recently asked me why I don't talk about the students as being part of the
educational problem. Well, I think, like the sports article said, it's
begins inside, not ourside. Anyway, I do talk about students a great
deal, but I do not play the blame game. I'm not going to put the onus
"out there" on them until I first see that my problem is "in here." When
we think that the problem is "out there," we've got a problem. The problem
and the solution are always an "inside job." The only one who is going to
come to the rescue with some solution us, our only real white knight, is
ourselves. Wasn't it Gandhi who said that we have to be the change we
seek? Surely, then, we academics have to be the difference we wish to
make.
So many of us don't understand that the only person we truly can
control is ourselves, that our opinion of students is a revealing exposure
of ourselves, that what we see as a problem rests on our private world of
meaning, that how and on what we reflect is determined by our personal and
professional values. Our attitude about ourselves as teachers is mirrored
in how we relate to students. If we don't have a sense of mission, we
tend to blame and accuse students; if we don't have a philosophy of
education we tend to put ourselves up against the students instead of our
potential. To blame, I think, as I once did, is far more autobiographical
than we want to admit. To blame, is to be self-absorbed, self-centered by
measuring the strengths and weaknesses of students in terms of how they
effect us.
So, if you question the comittment, dedication, and competency of
anyone, start with yourself before you get to any student. How do you see
each student? Could your attitude which effects your behavior, responses,
and action be part of the problem? Do you genuinely love this person? Do
you have faith in him or her, hope for him or her? Do you truly believe
this person has the capacity to grow and develop? I don't believe any
student is naturally incompetent or is purposefully deceitful. Many
students just don't have their act together--yet. There are deep secrets
in both their silence and their sound. Assume good intentions. Your
deeply held beliefs about someone will create the tone for any
interactions you have with them.
We academics think we are so cool. We think we are so objective,
uninvolved, unemotional, disengaged, distanced, rationale. And yet,
attitudes, unacknolwedged emotions, are the key to every decision we make
and every action we take. In the intellectual world of academia that may
be heresy. With all this assessment, we're measuring the wrong thing. We
measure what we know. We measure what we do. Maybe we ought to be first
asking what do we feel.
Most of the cottage industry of "how to" workshops generally miss
the crucial point. To paraphase the first Clinton--if you pardon (pun
intended) the expression--presidental campaign: it's attitude, stupid.
I know. A lot of you are rolling your eyes and smirking. Am I
about to get smoked. Here goes. Talent, ability, knowledge, pedagogy,
technology are all overrated. Not because they aren't important, but they
won't take you through teaching's inevitable wet-sand and those unexpected
twists in the road. Using a sports analogy: your ability may say "win;"
your knowledge may say "win;" even the technology at your fingertips may
say "win." If your attitude, however, says "lose," you...will...lose.
You'll be in class without class. Your juices will be stagnant. You
won't be the panachiest person in the room. You will not go anywhere. If
your attitude is a "can't" your feet and spirit will get cemented in your
"won'ts" that will soon cure into your hardened "don'ts." You'll be like
a stranded Ferrari. That very expensive finely crafted machine can run,
but it won't move without fuel in its tank.
It's attitude that fuels us. That's what athletes call "putting
on a game face," "getting the juices flowing," "getting psyched up," and
so on. Attitude determines our approach to teaching; it determines our
relationships with students. The type of our attitude is the difference
between soaring high into the clouds or taking a nose-dive in the ground,
between success and failure; that sharpens or dulls our edge. It's
attitude that will effect the outcome of our teaching more than anything
else. It's attitude that determines whether our problems are blessings or
curses, whether we make the inevitable failures friends or foes. It's
always attitude because attitude is in on the beginning and
ever-presenting in the continuing, and will affect the outcome of whatever
we do more than anything else.
Many years ago, I learned, oh so slowly, that the conversion of my
teaching is a conversion of my attitude into action. I always had said
that at the moment of my epiphany nearly a decade ago, I started changing.
And, I believe that for years. Recently, I realized that I really hadn't
changed. I always had been there. It was my changing attitude about
myself that led to magnificant discoveries about myself and those around
me. No, no significant change in what I did, how I thought, how I felt,
what I noticed, how I taught, occurred only as I started changing my
atttide towards myself. Then, followed changes in my attitude about
teaching and about each student. I'll say this again and again and again.
The most important technique I have at my disposal--and the most
powerful--be it theraputic or pathological, is my attitude. And so much
of my attitude is spoken non-verbally.
And, therefore, I can attest from my personal experience that
attitudes,
unlike diamonds, aren't forever. The long and short of it is, if we can
leave behind the wrong, pernicious, pathological, dark attitude and
acquired the right, bright, therapeutic attitude, if we can let go of the
negatives we so dearly embrace, if we can stop playing the blame game, we
not only will have fuel in our tanks, it will be like turning on our
after-burners.
It is demanding. There are challenges. However, to paraphrase
some old bankers: anytime you bet on collatoral like knowledge and
ability, you'll lose; anytime you bet on the person's attitude, you'll
win. Maybe that's the really lesson of the NCAA tournament, the dot.com
bubble, and everything else.
Make it a good day.
--Louis--
Louis Schmier [log in to unmask]
Department of History www.therandomthoughts.com
Valdosta State University www.halcyon.com/arborhts/louis.html
Valdosta, GA 31698 /~\ /\ /\
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