By's Musings

Learning

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ATTENTION! BY’S MUSINGS IS BACK!

After an eight-month absence, By’s Musings has returned. Image courtesy of Presenter Media

Did that headline grab your attention? I certainly hope so. It’s not that I love attention. It’s just that I felt I needed to do something unusual to reach out to a new audience, along with my former audience.

Announcing the Grand Reopening of By’s Musings! Image courtesy of Presenter Media

After having been offline now for more than eight months, I definitely needed something to draw in that new audience and alert my former audience that By’s Musings is back in the game.

What in the worlds is By’s Musings? Image courtesy of Presenter Media

You don’t remember “By’s Musings“. You have no clue as to what it is. “By’s Musings” is my personal blog which also serves as an entry to my website Higher Ed By Baylis LLC.

Excuse me, but I have one question for you: If you didn’t know anything about By’s Musings, how did you get here? What made you read this Grand Reopening post from By’s blog?

Check By’s Musings on Monday, September 10, for an important message. Image courtesy of Presenter Media.

My next post will be published on Monday, September 10. You’re all invited to check out that post. It will provide you with a brief description of the extensive damage that shut down both the blog and website for the better part of a year.

Please pardon our dust while our website and blog are under construction. Image courtesy of Presenter Media

In subsequent posts, I will provide a more complete account of the new features of the website and the new threads which will be the focus of future blog posts.

As a quick introduction to the coming changes, suffice it to say that I will be consolidating my efforts in both my blog and website to three specific areas. I will be using an approach that resembles more of a rifle than a shotgun to target the areas of education, organizational theory/operations, and faith/religion.

I will be making a number of other changes. The first change will be an increased emphasis on the use of social media for pre- and post-publication dissemination of information and announcements. I will be using social media as a vehicle to help drive readers to my blog and website.

The second change will be a greater stress on and push for audience participation in both my blog and website. I want to engender more discussion and conversation. In a true learning environment, everyone has something of value to bring to the table. Hopefully, we can enrich each other, by learning and teaching together.  

In the third change, I will be using shorter blog posts to introduce topics and proposals for discussion. I will reserve the longer pieces for the website where they will be offered as resources to individuals and organizations via occasional whitepapers and ebooks. As the site develops more fully and becomes more operational, please check in at your convenience and browse through its contents.

“I’m so excited, and I just can’t hide it.” Image courtesy of Presenter Media.

Borrowing a phrase from the Pointer Sisters, “I’m so excited and I just can’t hide it!” Please join me on an adventurous journey to both new and familiar places. Hopefully, all of us will learn much about ourselves and the world along the way. Bon voyage!  

 

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Education’s Big Lie, Part I: Introduction

I don’t know how to say it any clearer. I have come to the shocking conclusion that the enterprise of American education is doing society a huge disservice by propagating and perpetuating a big lie. Please do not misinterpret what I am attempting to say in this essay. I am firmly convinced that education is immensely valuable. Paraphrasing a credit card commercial campaign, it is “priceless.” For more than 65 years, my life has revolved around faith, education, and family. I am fully committed to the concept of an appropriate education for everyone. However, I am also very certain that education, as it is currently conceived and generally defined, doesn’t and can’t serve everyone equally well. To paraphrase a television commercial for a particular internet service, “Education that doesn’t serve everyone, doesn’t serve anyone.” The simplest statement of Education’s Big Lie is Procrustes’s aphorism “one size fits all.”

Caricature from 19th century German satirical magazine “Berliner Wespen” (Berlin Wasps) – Title: Procrustes. Caption: Bismarck: As I see, Lady Liberty is somewhat too large – we want to change this immediately to her contention. (He chops away her legs.) – Inscription on bed: Socialist Law. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons; in Public Domain

By “one size fits all” I am surprisingly not referring to either standardized testing or the Common Core. Both of these educational fads have their good and bad points. I will explicate my views on each of them in later posts. For this post, I return to a fuller statement of my understanding of the Big Lie plaguing the American educational enterprise. The reality to which I am referring is that the American educational enterprise has pigeon-holed the mental characteristics of creativity, imagination, intelligence, curiosity, ingenuity, reasoning, and problem-solving primarily if not exclusively to the verbal region of the human brain. The Big Lie equates these characteristics with one’s facility with words. Many if not most of the instruments used to measure these mental characteristics are primarily verbally based. To improve their abilities in the areas delineated above, students are instructed to read, write, and speak more.

So many books, so little time! Illustration courtesy of Presenter Media

 

If at first, you don’t succeed, try, try again! Draft; after draft! Illustration courtesy of Presenter Media

Why? Why did the teacher call on me? I don’t know the answer! Image courtesy of Presenter Media

This solution may work for many and possibly the majority of students. However, the problem with this remedy is that for a significant number of students words are more like enemies than friends. Words are at the crux of my argument against education. Ideas are considered the coin of the realm in education. For centuries in education, we have been indoctrinated to believe that ideas are formulated almost exclusively through words.  After ideas are formed, we must then use words to express those ideas, either in written or oral form. We are taught that to think properly we must use a process that is based in and undergirded by the use of words. This process is commonly known as verbal thinking. I grew up with that mindset. In this mindset, words are the cornerstone upon which we build our ideas.

Ideas are built upon a foundation of words, phrases, and sentences. Image courtesy of Presenter Media

This was the way I was taught. It is the way most of our American society has been taught for hundreds of years. I am going out on a limb now and say that this is not the only way we think or must think. It took two traumatic brain incidents (TBI’s) in 2009 to convince me that there are other ways to think.  The first TBI was the implosion of a benign meningioma due to the explosion of the artery which was feeding it. This TBI left me with a mild case of aphasia. As a verbal thinker, I found it difficult to think when I couldn’t find my beloved words.

The second TBI was a series of four tonic-clonic seizures within 30 minutes that left me in a coma for three days. When I woke up, I knew immediately something was different. I found myself no longer going directly to words to make sense of what was going on around me. I saw pictures. At first, I wasn’t certain what had happened. As I reflected on what was happening, I remember several articles that I had read that were written by stroke survivors. I was having the same experiences that they had encountered. I had become a visual thinker.

After 60 years of being a poster child for verbal thinking, words were now my second thought language, Although I was thinking in terms of pictures, I found that it was necessary for me to use words to communicate my ideas. This was extremely frustrating at times. I attempted to describe my feelings in a 2010 blog posting entitled Words Are More Like Cats Than Dogs.

Sometimes corraling words can be harder than herding cats. Image courtesy of Presenter Media

Where am I going with this argument? For centuries in educational circles, words have been king.

I am WORD! I have the final say. You must listen to me! Image courtesy of Presenter Media.

A recent Google+ posting The Importance of Imagination by Elaine Roberts, a former colleague, induced me to write this series of posts. In her posting, Roberts described a situation that led her to an epiphany and two points of clarity. The situation grew out of an attempt by a teacher to test or evaluate the creativity of a class of sixth graders. This teachers’ attempt was not a standardized test. It was a writing assignment. Most educators would label this assignment as an authentic assessment instrument. The teacher gave the children the following set of instructions:

Okay. Students, your assignment is very simple. Just write me a story about anything. Image courtesy of Presenter Media

What do I imagine some of the students heard? “Blah, Blah, Blah!”

Blah, Blah,Blah. I don’t understand what this teacher wants us to do. Image courtesy of Presenter Media

Even though they had previously been given a template to use in writing stories, what were the first thoughts of some students about constructing a story? I think they probably drew a blank.

“The teacher wants us to write a story. What am I going to do? How can I write a story? I don’t know what to write about.” Image courtesy of Presenter Media.

Taking literary license with this scenario, what did I imagine this student wanted to turn into the teacher? Simply, a blank piece of paper.

How can I write anything, if I don’t know what I should be writing about? Image courtesy of Presenter Media

What do I think the teacher’s response to a blank piece of paper woul be? Most likely, he would have said to himself, “What is wrong with this student? The wiring in his head must be all tangled up.” Now the shoe is on the other foot. The teacher doesn’t know what the student is trying to say.

“What’s up with this mixed up student? The instructions were so easy. How could not understand them? How could you turn in a blank piece of paper?” Image courtesy of Presenter Media.

With respect to the spread of the Big Lie, I readily admit that my hands are not entirely clean. Prior to 2009, as I noted above, I could have been considered a poster child for verbal thinking and verbal learning. In all of my recollections of my earliest childhood, I was constantly immersed in books and words.  At the age of five, I won a Sunday School contest for being the first primary student (Grades K through 6) during the new church year to recite 100 selected verses by memory.

Yipee! I did it. I was the first to recite all 100 verses by memory.

As an academic professional, I made my living off words. Even as a mathematician, my training, and education were dominated by words. As an instructor, I constantly fed my students words.

“Okay class, who can explain Zorn’s Lemma and what is it’s relationship to the Well-Ordering Principle?” Image courtesy of Presenter Media.

 

As an administrator, I used words to defend positions and try to persuade colleagues to follow my lead.

Colleagues, I know the message I bring to you today at this faculty meeting will not be pleasant to hear. I want you to know that it is hard for me to have to deliver it to you. However, we are facing a huge budget deficit. I have two proposed solutions. Neither of them will be without pain. But I am bringing them to you today, to get your reactions and suggestions.” Image courtesy of Presenter Media.

With what I have written so far, I should probably call it quits for this first post in this series. If I haven’t done enough to damage my image and credibility within the higher education community, I invite you to stay tuned for additional posts. Although it has been difficult at times, I have learned that we can think without words. In fact, I have subtitled Part II of the series Education’s Big Lie, “We Can Think without Words.” Even though we give lip service to the idea that “A picture is worth a thousand words”, in much of today’s world, particularly those parts of it touching the education enterprise, the most difficult aspect of working with thoughts and ideas is trying to communicate them without words.

 

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The Value of the Liberal Arts to the University

I have invited a friend and former colleague, Erik Benson,  to offer the first guest post on By’s Musings.  I first met Erik when I hired him at Cornerstone University in 2005. I was immediately impressed with this history instructor who brought history to life in the classroom and in the field. Less than one year later when I started CELT, the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at Cornerstone University,  he was an obvious choice to be part of the faculty leadership group.  He has continued to impress students and colleagues at CU, where in 2013, he was voted “Professor of the Year.” He is currently Associate Professor of History, at CU, and Principal of ipsative, a company focusing on educational consulting and faculty development. If you would like to find out more about ipsative, please visit their website at ipsative.

This post grew out of a challenge that I set before Erik. Since I have been working on a project attempting to represent the many cultures that come together to form a university, I asked him to describe the ideal culture of history within the university setting. He eagerly took the challenge and expanded it to set history within the broader category of humanities and the liberal arts. This is the Erik that I knew at Cornerstone University. At least once a month, he would come by my office near the close of the day, stand in the open doorway, and ask, “Do you have a minute?” I almost always said, “Yes”, even though I know that the minute would end up more like an hour. Erik always had challenging questions about higher education in general and our university in particular. Together, we were working toward solutions for the tough, intractable problems facing higher education and our students. Some of those discussions are among my most memorable memories of my days at CU.

Without further ado, here is Erik’s post.

For what it’s worth: the value of the liberal arts to the university.

The last year has seen a seemingly endless stream of controversies in higher education. Among these were proposals to channel more government aid to students studying in “STEM” (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) fields, at the expense of those studying in the liberal arts. In Kentucky, the governor recently suggested that students studying “French literature” should not receive any state financial aid.

Debt, jobs, and basements…
The arguments are pretty straightforward. STEM fields are more promising in terms of jobs for graduates, and there is an unmet demand in the US for people trained in these fields. Amidst public concerns about escalating college costs and the resulting student debt, governments ought to insure that they fund fields best suited to meet the needs of both employers and graduates.
There is a certain logic to this. The public concern about tuition and student debt is undeniable. Furthermore, evidence abounds that there is indeed a demand for workers in STEM fields that promise large salaries upon graduation. (In fact, there is high demand for workers in skilled trades that do not require a college degree at all. A Michigan factory owner recently told me recently that he cannot hire enough skilled tradespeople, even though he actively recruits throughout the US and abroad.) In turn, the numbers are less promising for those graduating with liberal arts degrees. The anecdote of the humanities graduate moving back into the parents’ basement has become popular lore. In sum, the desire to channel students toward STEM majors seems a perfectly reasonable response.

Not so fast…
Yet in fact this response is ill-considered. For one thing, it is based on the premise that US colleges are churning out a slew of (unemployed) liberal arts majors. As Fareed Zakaria notes in his book, In Defense of a Liberal Education, between 1971 and 2012, the number of graduates with degrees in English fell from 7.6 to 3.0 percent; the number of business graduates rose from 13.7 to 20.5 percent. Only one-third of all degrees were in fields that could be classified as “liberal arts,” and this number was matched by business and health majors alone. In short, the stories of hordes of unemployed liberal arts graduates living in their parents’ basements are exaggerated.
Beyond this dubious premise, the fact is that the liberal arts approach in American higher education has served students well. Zakaria contrasts it with European higher education systems, in which students are channeled into specific vocations well before they reach college age; those that go to college are few, and they receive a rather narrowly focused training in a field. In the US, college education has historically been more “general” in focus due to being in a dynamic, changing economy and society. In short, the liberal arts have prepared American graduates to be more responsive and flexible in a changing world.
Zakaria points to a real strength of the American liberal arts education, as both anecdotal and statistical evidence attests. Numerous studies reveal that graduates with liberal arts degrees actually have fiscally rewarding careers. One such study, published in the Chronicle of Higher Education in 2014, found that while liberal arts graduates initially lagged behind professional and pre-professional peers in salaries, over time they caught up and passed them. The study noted that this was due in no small part to graduate degrees earned by liberal arts majors, which enhanced their earning ability. (Interestingly, even in pre-professional and professional fields, a comparable percentage had a graduate degree, suggesting they too received an earnings boost from this.) Still, only the most short-sighted of people would argue a degree outside the liberal arts is a better financial bet; in fact, considering the investment a college education entails, one ought to be considering long-term earnings forecasts rather than merely the entry-level job, which seems to be the focus of the moment.

On second thought…
Why liberal arts degrees offer such long-term earning possibilities is an interesting question. The answer seems to lie in what Zakaria points out—they better prepare one for a changing environment. Vocationally focused educations prepare one for a specific job or career track that can be lucrative at the entry level, but may limit one’s advancement possibilities over time. (Put simply, one might be trained to press certain buttons, but that likely will not lead to workplace advancement.) Worse, as technological and business advances change the workplace, jobs and entire career tracks can come and go. As Thomas Friedman points out in The Earth is Flat, many programming jobs in the US have easily been outsourced to Asia, and won’t be coming back any time soon in light of the cost differentials. This is why many who train in narrowly tailored fields have found it necessary to return to college later in life—their education did not prepare them for the change. Lest we think we can anticipate much of this change, consider how many jobs and fields exist today that educators and politicians could not even fathom 20 years ago. As a senior vice president at the Association of American Colleges and Universities admitted, “We are not good at predicting what jobs are going to be required in five years and 10 years down the road.” It is simply not a reasonable expectation.
My wife’s career experience attests to many of the above points. A graduate of a liberal arts college with a major in history and international studies, she went on to earn an M.A. in Mass Communication. She since has worked in both higher education and marketing, and currently has a thriving business in content strategy and writing. Her mass communication degree offered her hands-on experience in the then-emerging field of web design and development, which cued her into the new forms of media. That said, a significant portion of the technical knowledge she gained is now outdated because of the rapid advances in the last decade. She actually points to her B.A. as being more valuable and foundational for her career. Her studies in history and global culture ingrained in her a broader, more strategic perspective. She also credits them for making her a good writer, which is her “bread and butter” today. Finally, they made her more self-aware and confident, all of which led her to easily transition between jobs and career tracks without need of returning to school. In short, she epitomizes what Zakaria says about the liberals arts—it made her responsive and adaptable in a changing world.

Making the case…
While studies exist of the earning power of the liberal arts, and many faculty can cite numerous anecdotes of successful graduates, there has been a general failure to “sell” this to politicians and the public. Many in “liberal arts” fields lack an interest in informing potential students, their parents, and the public at large the career possibilities (or even proudly resist the idea). Too often, the “case” consists of rather ethereal assertions about the value of the liberal arts, the “life of the mind,” and avoiding vocational obsession, none of which are wrong, but which are not applicable for many considering college, with its expense and commitment. In short, we need to do a better job making the case.
In my case, I have occasion to meet with prospective students and parents who visit our campus. I emphasize that the study of history offers them much in terms of “life of the mind,” but also in terms of career preparation. In addition to citing studies on earnings (which many do not know), I explain specifically what history offers to them—highly transferable skills in research, critical thinking, and communication which will be proven useful over time in a constantly changing job market. I point out that these not only work for someone who might pursue a traditional career in the field (e.g. academia), but also someone working in marketing or government. I encourage them to think of how they might pair the study of history with a major or minor in another field, such as business. I even encourage students in other majors (such as business) to meet credit requirements with an applicable history course; I’ve had a number of graduates tell me this turned out to be one of the most useful things they did in college. In short, I can show them the practical benefits of their study—and they usually come to see the value.
Ultimately, in considering the issue of financing higher education and the liberal arts, the real consideration ought not be mere cost, but value. People will pay more for something they believe is worth it; they are bothered when they feel they have paid for something that is not worth it. We in academics need to make a better case for the value of the liberal arts to students.

References:
Patricia Cohen, “A Rising Call to Promote STEM Education and Cut Liberal Arts Funding,” New York Times (22 February 2016), B1.

Thomas Friedman, The Earth is Flat (Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2006).

Beckie Supiano, “How Liberal-Arts Majors Fare over the Long Haul,” The Chronicle of Higher Education (22 January 2014). http://chronicle.com/article/How-Liberal-Arts-Majors-Fare/144133 (Accessed 1 March 2016).

Fareed Zakaria, In Defense of a Liberal Education (W.W. Norton and Co., 2015).

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What Is the Difference Between Ethics and Ethical Behavior?

from Presenter Media

The past two weeks have been a huge struggle for me. I spent much of that time fighting the pain from an infected tooth which had a broken root. It took me several days to get an “emergency” appointment with my dentist. During that appointment the determination was quickly made that the very loose and painful tooth had to be extracted. Because of the infection, I had to take a full week run of antibiotics. In addition, I had to be taken off my blood thinners slowly. Thus, I had to wait another full week for the oral surgery. During that time, in the periods of calm generated by acetaminophen and benzocaine, I struggled with this post.

from Presenter Media

The question, “Why do people do what they do?”  kept hitting me in the face.

When not sleeping, eating or working at my computer, I watched sports and newscasts on television. What did I see? 1) Two Presidential debates with candidates questioning the behavior of rivals and impugning their ethics;  2) A report of an automotive manufacturer installing software in its cars that only shuts off high carbon emissions when the car is being tested for those emissions; 3)  A report of another automotive manufacturer not acting on knowledge of dangerous defects in its cars for years; 4) A report on dozens of judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys passing around hundreds of emails with pornographic pictures and offensive stories; 5) A report on a State Attorney General indicted for leaking Grand Jury information and the commission of perjury by lying about it; 6) A report on a township supervisor voting positively on a zoning petition and building permit for a family member’s project; 7) A report on what appears to be wholesale, systematic doping by a country’s sports infrastructure in a recent Olympics; and 8) A popular race car driver appearing to intentionally wreck another popular driver in retaliation for a perceived intentional wreck the previous week.

from Presenter Media

I turned off the television and went to my computer. What did I do at my computer? When I was not working on this post, I was cleaning up my email backlog and sitting through three webinars. What did I find in my email newsletters? 1) A report on scholarly authors attempting to “game” the JIF (Journal Impact Factor) by self-citing their own articles, or by bartering citations from friends and colleagues by citing their articles in a pyrimad-type scheme called citation stacking; 2) A report on a scientist who pleaded guilty to fraud for faking data involving a study of HIV vaccine; 3) A report on a recently published article entitled    “The Mirage of Prestige: The educational quality of courses in prestigious and non-prestigious institutions” that attempts to measure the difference in academic outcomes between the so-called prestigious and non-prestigious institutions; 4) Reports on several institutions faking data on campus crime statistics, salary information on graduates and admissions profile data; and 5) A report that estimates the costs of complying with federally imposed regulations across the higher education sector to be $27 billion annually.

from Presenter Media

What did I hear in the webinars?: 1) The first webinar dealt with plagiarism. The primary assumption was that faculty increasingly believe that students do not know what plagiarism is. However, even in the face of that previous assumption, faculty increasingly believe the frequency of plagiarism is increasing and more students are intentionally participating in it; 2) The second webinar was a presentation from the field of professional training. The primary point of this webinar was that compliance training is one of the most difficult areas of professional development in which to produce quality eLearning programs, while at the same time, it is one of the areas of fastest growing demand.  In this webinar one question was continually raised: “Should we train people to act ethically or just to meet compliance requirements?”  No matter how we answer the previous question, the webinar suggested that the CEO must lead the organization by exhibiting a constant pattern of ethical behavior, because the organization will rise to a level no higher than the one set by its leader. 3) The third webinar focused on the teaching of ethics. One of the foundational assumptions of the webinar presenters was that ethics was only a matter of content knowledge that could and should be taught within the confines of an academic discipline. The presenters kept saying that within a given context, there were rules, regulations and obligations that had to be met. The presenters dismissed any comment or suggestion that there were universal principles that applied across disciplines. Ethics were situational and behaviorally oriented.

from Presenter Media

I return to my original question, “what is the difference between ethics and ethical behavior?” I admit that I come down on the side of the universalists on this question. I believe that there are universal rules of right and wrong. In this sense one’s ethical behavior is a result of one living ethically. It becomes a matter of living by principles, not according to specific rules that can change when circumstances change. For students and faculty, honesty requires telling the truth, not lying, not stealing or not cheating, no matter the personal consequence, no matter whether every one else is doing it, or whether you can get away without getting caught.  Living the principled life means doing the same thing whether someone is watching you or not. The second great commandment “Love your neighbor” is a principle, not a rule dependent upon whether the individual in need is “like you” or is “very different.” The great requirement from Micah 6:8,  “what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (KJV) presents us another set of principles. Ethics and ethical behavior are not only matters of content, but of values. They are matters of the head and the heart. They require not only comprehension and accession, but also action by the individual based on the individual’s knowledge and beliefs.

from Presenter Media

Ethics and ethical behavior are not the same thing. However, ethical behavior should be the outgrowth of ethics. One should act based on one’s principles. How do we discover our principles (ethics) and translate those into actions (ethical behavior)? Two suggestions from Scripture provide us guidance in this endeavor. The first is Paul’s admonition to Timothy: “But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them;  And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”  (II Timothy 3: 14-17, KJV) The second is Solomon’s advice to his son: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.  In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” (Proverbs 3: 5&6, KJV)  

If we diligently seek God’s principles, He will show them to us and guide us in the way we should go. We can follow in His footsteps on the path to righteousness and salvation.

My next post continues this discussion by raising the suggestion that the CEO of an organization should be its Chief Ethics Officer and Chief Encouragement Officer in addition to being its Chief Executive Officer.

 

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Teach Me! I Dare You!

Some might say that my teaching career got off to an auspicious, if not unusual start. My first experience in a real classroom was as a senior in high school. I taught three sections of 9th grade algebra for six weeks, as a substitute teacher. This came about when one of our high school math teachers became seriously ill and the district couldn’t find a long-term math sub. I was available because I had completed all the necessary requirements for graduation except three credits. Therefore, I only had three classes and three study halls my senior year. The two remaining math teachers at my high school didn’t like teaching 9th grade algebra. I was an excellent math student who was successfully tutoring a number of students, so they talked the principal into putting me in front of the algebra classes. They provided lesson plans and I taught their lessons. To have the “necessary adult in the classroom,” the district hired an English sub to sit in the back of the room “to keep order.”   I enjoyed teaching. I think I did a good job at it. The students in my sections all passed the district’s 10th grade math readiness exam.

Although it’s been many years, I still recall my first class as a college professor. I remember observing students walking into that class as if it were yesterday. Unfortunately, I have lost track of many of those students. Although I tried to be the teacher that they needed, sometimes I wish I could go back and respond to them differently.

There were two in particular who were as different as night and day. One was from a well-to-do family. This student had everything he or she could have wanted. All this student had to do was ask. The student had a fancy car that daddy bought. The student had the latest in trendy fashions. The student had a job waiting in the family business immediately upon graduation from college. The student was intelligent, good looking, and athletic, a celebrated, all-conference player.  In everything to do with classwork, this student’s attitude and expressions shouted the questions: “Why do I have to study? Why do I have to work in class? I have everything I need.”  Every day this student would walk into class with that attitude that said, “Teach me! I dare you!”

The second student was the child of a successful athletic coach at another small college. However, this student was anything but athletic. The student was unattractive, lacked many social graces. and had a complete lack of coordination. Be an athlete? This student could trip over the sideline chalk. The rumor was that this student was enrolled at our school because the father was embarrassed to have this student around his school. This student threw him/herself into studies and barely got C’s. No matter what he/she did, it wasn’t good enough. So the student developed this enormous chip on his/her shoulders. When the student would walk into class, you could see in his/her eyes the lack of hope. You could almost hear the stutter, “I-I-I can’t do-do-do anything. Go ahead and te-te-teach me! I d-d-dare you!”

Through more than 40 years of working with students, these two students were just two of the many examples I have seen. Student after student would enroll in the colleges where I worked and walk into classes or my office, and by the attitudes they expressed, say, “Teach me! I dare you!” They had many different stories.

“No one loves me so why should I bother?” “My parents were supposed to be this perfect Christian couple. They were the pillars of our home church. I go away to college and they get a divorce. What’s the point? God let my family down. He is not going to care about me.”

“I want to be an artist, but my parents insist that I go into business. I’ll show them. If I flunk out or just barely graduate, nobody will hire me when they see my grades. I will be a failure in my parents’ eyes. However, I will be free to be the artist that I am meant to be.”

“I don’t see why I need this class to be a [fill in the blank]. Why do I have to take it? It’s not important for my major. I’ll never use this stuff as a [fill in the blank].”

“God has called me into ministry. I’m leaving school at the end of the semester to follow His calling, and do His work full-time.”

“I have done something terrible. I can’t forgive myself. God won’t forgive me. I am worthless. What’s the sense in trying to make something out of myself?”

Some were whispering; some were crying; some were shouting. “Teach me! I dare you!”

I was a teacher. What should have been my response to these students? Could I, or should I ignore them? After all, I had 10, or 30, or 90 other students in the class who really wanted to learn. As a teacher, I had a responsibility to help students learn. There were students in the class that really wanted to learn. They did the assigned work. They went far beyond the minimum. Those students expected me to help them. They were grateful when they realized that they had learned something.

Helping students learn is the ministry that God assigned to me. Teaching is what God called me to do. Teaching is what I studied and trained to do. It was exciting. It was exhilarating. (And it still is.) Isn’t it enough to work with those students that really do want to learn?  At the end of the day, I could cash my paycheck with no regrets and no second thoughts. Or could I?

I can’t get the faces of the myriad of students with problems out of my mind. Students that one way or another sat in front of me and said, or screamed, or cried, “Teach me! I dare you!” I had a responsibility to those students to get to know them; to understand their problems; to be engaged with them and determine what they needed and how best they could learn; to value them and help them value themselves; to love them because they were people. If I did that, I would have the right and the responsibility to stand in front of them and say, “Okay, I accept your challenge…if you accept mine. I double-dare you to learn.” With some, I was successful in that classroom scene. With others, I have often wondered if something I said or did planted a seed that would later grow fruit. If it didn’t, was there something else I should have done? I know that teaching and learning are mutual responsibilities, and that students share in the process. However, I was the teacher and that is supposed to mean something.

 

 

 

 

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Experience Is the Best Teacher of Patience and Wisdom

Two of the greatest virtues that humans can possess are patience and wisdom. The following photograph illustrates how the two virtues can be reluctantly brought together. Given the expression of utter frustration on the dog’s face, I am confident that the dog did not learn the patience and wisdom needed in this situation from a stint in obedience school. He knew that he had to give that skunk a wide berth and access to the food bowl. Most likely, he learned the lesson in the experiential school of hard knocks.

 Skunk eating dog's dog food

What’s the relationship among experience, wisdom and patience? Three quotes may help us.

1. By three methods, we may learn wisdom: fIrst by reflection, which is noblest; second by imitation; which is easiest; and third by experience which is the bitterest.” (Confucius)

The expression on the dog’s face reflects a very bitter experience. It certainly helped the dog learn the wisdom of not crossing a skunk.

2.“All human wisdom is summed up in two words: wait and hope.” (Alexandre Dumas).

Although the word patience is not present in the Dumas quote, the close synonym “wait” is front and center. Obviously in the picture, the dog is waiting for the skunk to finish its meal, and hoping that there will be some food left.

3. “Experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you.” (Aldous Huxley)

Your experiences are not the events that swirl around you. They are the lessons that you learn and appropriate.

To summarize the importance of wisdom, let us go to one of the wisest individuals to ever live. Listen to King Solomon:

Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. (Proverbs 4:7 KJV)

I was drawn to the above picture for two reasons. The first reason is my recent experiences with skunks. Since my TBI’s in 2009, I have only smelled the telltale aroma of a skunk once. I no longer “smell” skunks. I see skunks. This is one of my dysesthesia (cross-sensory perceptions). When the aroma of a skunk is in the air, it causes me to see the vision of a dead skunk on an unidentified road. This particular dysesthesia has its own advantage. It protects me from a very unpleasant odor.

The only time I smelled a skunk is another story. One day as my wife and I were riding in our car. I “really” saw a dead skunk along the side of the road. Suddenly, I smelled the pungent aroma. I exclaimed to my wife, “Well, what do you know, I smelled that skunk!” She hesitantly replied, “Honey, I’m sorry but there’s no skunk odor.” She continued by saying that she saw the dead skunk and was very surprised that there was no aroma emanating from it. So instead of ridding myself of this particular cross-sensory perception, I had picked up another hallucination. My memory of skunks had kicked in. The sight of the dead skunk triggered the repressed memory of a non-existent odor.

The second reason this picture fascinated me was the fact that it reminded me of the pet dog I had for 17 years, as I grew up. All he needed was one encounter with a skunk that he had when he was still a puppy. He never messed with one again. Experience was a great teacher, and my dog learned well. Although he was a small fox and rat terrier mix-breed, he was feisty and very jealous of his domain. He was accustomed to chasing any four-legged creature no matter how big or fierce that dared to venture into our yard, except skunks. It was funny watching him trying to herd the cows from our neighbor’s farm back into their own pasture. I often wish I had the foresight to capture the looks of shame and resignation on the faces of the cows as they slowly meandered back into their pasture, and the look of joyful victory on the face of my dog as he barked a couple of taunting “Goodbye and good riddance”  from his side of the fence. He had proudly defended his territory again. He had no fear of huge cows, but he steered clear of skunks.

All of this reminded me of a quote about learning that is usually attributed to Mark Twain: “A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.” Please believe, I am not advocating carrying a polecat by the tail unless you want to learn something you and anyone else who comes in contact with you with never forget. I may not be able to “really” smell a skunk now. However, I do remember what their odor smells like, and I do not wish to tempt my sensory perceptions that far.