Good morning.  Had a nice six mile walk.  The sun was still
groping for the eastern horizon.  Its advancing rays were slightly tinting
small clouds forming pale red and purple puffs that stood as the day's
heralds in dawn's ashen sky.  And talking about ash, I thought I was going
to be burnt to an ash before I finished my route.  The windy and chilly
climes of Newfoundland made the breezeless heat and humidity of south
Georgia seem unbearable.  Coming to think of it, they are--without
Newfoundland's help!!  At 5:00 am after last night's rain the heat factor
was 84 degrees! That is unbearable in anyone's book!!

        As I was "cooling" off with a cup of freshly brewed coffee by the
darkened fish pond, the soothing sound of the waterfalls as the only
evidence of its existence, I was still thinking about a letter I received
yesterday from Japan. It is from an exchange student who was in a spring
semester class.  It is a strong reminder we educators are first and last
in the people business who should be engaged in compassionate teaching.
No, I am not a Bush Republican.  I just have come to see that teaching has
an emotional calibration.  It must, for it deals with feelings--attitudes,
if you will--as much as, if not far more than, it does with information.
You see, we are not just in the information and knowledge business.  We
are also in the compassion business engaging compassionately in works of
compassion.  We are not merely in the transmitting "here's what you need
to know"  business; we are also in the caring "you are worth it" and "you
can do it"  business.  We are not just in the brain and intellect
business.  We are also in the heart and spirit business.  And, I have been
learning this past decade that you can't really teach with your brain if
you have no heart or your heart is not in it; you can't teach to the brain
of someone if you've taken the heart out of him or her.

        Let me tell you what compassion has come to do for me over the
past decade since I have struggled to embrace it in my teaching. It makes
THE difference.  It's that overriding spirit, that single, mysterious,
indefinite, connecting quality that has the power to sanctify, to
transform, and to elevate both me and the person with whom I come into
contact.  It's a deep caring for the dignity, well-being, and respect of
each student. As my e-mail friend, Margo, might say, it washes, clothes,
cures, feeds, and frees.

        Compassion is a love potion.  It takes an otherwise indolent
spirit on an exhuberant daily and endless faith walk!

        Compassion adds dimensions to my teaching.  First, it is my
direction finder: it tells me where I am going and what I am doing; it
helps me help people.  Second, it's is my definer:  it tells me who I am;
it tells me that I can encourage, support, smile, hug.  And finally, it is
my driver: it's my single motivating, stimulating and fulfilling "do
whatever it takes" high-octanle fuel; it's my energizer; it's my daily
pick-me-up; it's my spiritual vitamin regimen; it gets me over the bumps
in the road.

        Compassion is that powerful updraft that let's me feel like I'm
soaring with the eagles.  It the wings that lets me fly into the wind to
find those updrafts.  It is my life force that sharpens my focus, clears
my head, lightens my step, tones every part of me, freshens the air,
provides me a purpose, endows me with eternal patience, manages my bounty.
It keeps my spiritual and physical arteries clear.  It converts any
anxiety I might have into positive expectation, into a positive expedition
into the unknown and unfamiliar that embraces all the possibilites of
today and tomorrows.

        Compassion allows me to be warmed and extend warmth, to be
understood and be understanding, to be sensitive and to extend
sensitivity, to be encouraged and be encouraging, to be open and extend
openness.

        Compassion is the nobler option; it's the worthier choice;  it's
the higher road.  And yet, it is the less traveled road.  But, I'll tell
you something.  Once you've chosen it it, once you've traveled it, once
you feel that high, that goodness, that humbleness, the Ellas in the
class, there's no turning back and coming down.

        And what's really sad, is to think that the one thing that can
turn a student on and around, that can elevate a student, is the one thing
that most students feel they don't receive in the classroom:
compassionate teaching.

        Think compassion is touchy-feely b.s.?  Believe me.  It's not.
Think compassion is watering down. It's not.  Think compassion is being
soft?  It's not.  Think compassion is a weakness?  It's not.

        No, compassion is not for the faint of heart or heartless. It is
for the weak-kneed.  It's the harder choice and the rockier path.  It
comes with inordinate demands, challenges, and difficulties.  Compassion
is a committment!  It is a dedication.  It means to be involved, to get
down-and-dirty, to persevere and endure. Compassion is not an occasional
thing that you pull out for an occasion. It's not a convenience that you
use when it's convenient. It's not something you select selectively.

        Compassion is not a gloriously-sounding and obligatory mission
statement; it's a deep inner compelling sense of mission.  Compassion
demands that you be present every day, that you be in the moment every
moment for everyone, unconditionally. Compassion silences that
exasperating, surrendering, escaping, throwing up of the hands, walk away
"Oh, not again."  Every day becomes an again, and an again, and an again.
Every day is an again, a fresh, new beginning.  It's compassion that's
what keeps you feeling clean like a refreshing and cleansing rain--every
day.

        What I have found it that it is pretty darn hard for anyone to
stay distant or in the shadow in the presence of compassion.  No demon can
stand up to the power of openheartedness.  No anger can be sustained in
the face of kindness.  No fear can withstand the embrace of faith.

        Compassion is the basic pigment with which you paint your teaching
masterpiece every day.  It places you among the ranks of the angels.  When
you feel that kind of power, you can't either lose it--or not use it.
There's no risk, nothing to lose, no price to pay.  If anything, I assure
you, you get paid back ten-fold. For a teacher with compassion, it is
never a matter of win or lose, success or failure, blessing or curse,
darkness or light.  It isn't even challenge.  It is opportunity.  No, no
power is greater than the power of compassion.

        Think I'm crazy?  To paraphrase Pearl Cleavage, what looks like
crazy antics on an ordinary day, looks like compassionate teaching when
the light hits from the right angle.



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                           /~\        /\ /\
912-333-5947                       /^\      /     \    /  /~\  \   /~\__/\
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