Yesterday was hot, hot, hot, hot.  Like either a mad dog or an
Englishman, with the sun beating on my bent back, I was on my knees edging
a flower bed in my front yard.  The sun was beating on my bent back.  The
sweat pouring off my face so fast that I knew I wouldn't have to water the
flowers that night. I could hear the mosquitos, Georgia's state bird,
laughing above my head at the insect repellent that oiled my skin.  I was
fearful of breathing, knowing each inhale would suck up a high-protein
mouthful of gnats.  Those gnats, they whiffed at my whiffing.

	Just then, as I swore under my breath at a bite from a scouting
piss ant, a car slowly drove up and stopped. I stopped. Got up and walked
over, trowel in hand, rubbing the little appearing welt on my thumb,
thinking they were lost and needed directions. A woman lowered the window
letting out a refreshing blast of cool air-conditioned wind. "Your yard is
so beautiful that we just had to stop and take a look.  You surely love to
'play' in your garden, don't you." 

	"Yes, ma'am," I appreciatively answered.  "Thank you."

	We chatted for a few minutes.  With more than a little pride, I
answered her questions and identified flowers blooming and yet to bloom. 

	As she drove away, I went back to my edging and useless swatting
and fruitless whiffing, and constant dripping.  It wasn't long before I
stopped, learned back, placed my hands on my haunches, and thought of that
one word that woman had said, "play."  "Neat word," I whispered to
myself.  Yeah."  And, I thought about it as I continued to play in my
garden for the rest of the day. 

	That stranger unintentionally had hit the nail on the head.  She
had given me my fifth word for Kenny.  You see, I hadn't finished his
assignment by semester's end and he graciously gave my an "incomplete" 
grade on the promise that I would e-mail him the completion of his
assignment. 

	When I e-mail him today, I will ask him, "When you awaken, will
you say to yourself, It's playtime?'" "When you go to school, do you say
to yourself, 'let's Play?'"  When you are walking to the classroom, will
you get yourself into a playful mood.  When you are in the classroom, will
you play?"  I'll tell Kenny that I want him to play with that word: PLAY. 
It **is** a neat.  It's an essential word.  It's, as the students say, "a
deep" word.  It's something superfluous to be relegated to the sandbox or
jungle jim or seesaw.  It's a word that gets you up each morning with an
enthusiastic and joyous "yes." It lifts you out of bed and out of the
doldrums.  It place you above the mundane.  It doesn't let you sleep while
you're awake.  Teaching can be a dream, but you have to be awake to live
it and appreciate it.

	So, I'll tell him that the good teacher has some fun each day in
in his or her classroom.  I'll tell him to let his teaching become more
playful and enjoyable, and the students' learning more playful and
enjoyable.  In playfulness and enjoyment there **is** deep play when
altered states are more likely to happen.  Every day be sure to play in
the classroom. But, don't play at it. Play is not a goofing off word; it's
not a superperfluous word; it's serious stuff. Play is a paradox. Good
teaching takes long hours, hard work, and risk-taking.  To be sure,
teaching is serious business, but it's rarely deadly serious--literally
life and death serious--like some people think and act.  And yet, they're
uptight, somber, and some seem to approach their teaching so often as if
it is a literal life-or-death struggle.  I wonder if when entering their
classes their students are reminded of those horrible days when they were
met at the door by their prom date's father.

	I have found that dour and sour will get you less than smiling and
sweet laughing. Makes sense.  I think playfulness is itself a creative,
emancipating state. Play makes you freer of the risk with a less risky
"what-the-hell;" the time passes faster, the work goes smoother if you
take it lightly.  You almost trick yourself into working hard and the
students into learning hard. 

	Play is an essential nutrient.  It doesn't just feed.  It
nourishes your spirit with inner satisfaction.  It sustains imagination,
creativity, innovation. It evokes that urge to tinker, to explore new ways
or different ways of doing things. 

	Play kinda greases the wheels, it kinda disarms the inner fears
and makes things enjoyable.  It makes the hard things soft, the harsh
things gentle, the stressful things pleasant.  It includes when you want
to exclude; it shortens distances; and it embraces.  Play will lead to
another charming word:  enjoy----being in joy.  If you work at play and
play at your work, you'll enjoy your classroom each day whatever the
challenges may be; you will enjoy yourself; you'll find joy in each and
every person;  you'll enjoy spending time with students, "good"  and "bad. 
Playful enjoyment will keep you upbeat, will accenuate the positive and
eliminate the negative as the 1940s song says, and will sew a silver
lining on just about everything. 

	Live joy, give joy, receive joy, you'll have a ball.  Lose that
playfulness and you may as well pack it in.  Keep it, and....ah....there
is that perennial inner and outer smile. 

	And you know that you can't sneer or jeer with a smile.  Like I 
just said, you can't
be sour with a sweetened smile.  You can't be a "yukker" with a smile. 
You can't just plod along with a smile. Those powerful little muscles on
our faces that are able to lift the heaviest of hearts and feet; they are
spotlights that can lighten up the darkest of places.  A smile is a
flashlight that lights up spirits; it plays like a symphony.  A smile is
compelling, healing, soothing, encouraging, calming, loving, and above
all, infectious.  A smile is a gift.  It's the beginning of peace and hope
and belief, and faith, and optimism.  Can't measure the physical,
emotional, and spiritual power of a smile.  The best thing to wear into a
classroom is a smile, not a tie or suit or dress. Try it.  Go into a
classroom laughing.  Leave it with a smile.  The more you smile, and have
fun, and play, the better you feel and the more you will enjoy teaching,
and the more students will enjoy learning--and the more they will learn. 
And if you tell me a smile doesn't work, I'll just smile back.  When you
exercise those muscles on your face, you are building up your body, your
spirit, your emotion, and everything you do.

	That single word--PLAY--is a loud, applauding high five that stirs
the inner embers, sets you on fire, and creates altered states. 

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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