There is a gentlemen (and I mean that in every sense of the word), Louis Schmier, who teaches in the Department of History at Valdosta State University in Georgia. He regularly posts his "Random Thoughts" to the POD listserv and they are a joy to read. I got his permission to share one of his recent thoughts on the FELC blog today. Enjoy!
I remember from my childhood summer days of the late 1940s, when I was learning to fly fish in New York's Beaver Kill near Livingston Manor and Roscoe. "Ole Tim," as everyone called him, kept chiding me, "Do you want to be a fish catcher or a fisherman?"
He kept telling me over and over and over again that fly fishing takes more than rods and flies and casting. I remember him saying something like, "Be here, in the stream. You can't be in a hurry. You got to pay attention to the details of nature. You got to see the stream and listen to it, and open your eyes and heart to it." He also told me over and over and over again that if I didn't have passion, practice, persistence, patience, and, above all, peace of mind, all the rods and flies will be useless. He was talking about something deeper, higher, and greater than merely holding up a fish for a trophy picture. I didn't understand him. I was only eight or nine. I just wanted to catch a fish. Now, I haven't has a casting rod in my hands for nearly sixty years. Yet, I remember Ole Tim's words. I don't know why, but I do. And, now, as I seek to be an educational fisherman, I know what he meant. I know because what he said about fly fishing, what I now call "my five 'Ps,'" I now see are essential for my teaching, maybe for everything in my life: passion, practice, persistence, patience, and, above all, peace of mind.
Too many of us think there is only one "P" in teaching: pedagogy. But, now always hearing Old Tim's rebuke in my heart and soul, saying, "Do you want to be a fish catcher or a fisherman," I say, "Have all the pedagogical techniques and technologies you want, but if you don't have those five 'Ps'--passion, practice, persistence, patience, peace of mind--you'll not touch the essence of teaching and learning, and make a difference." Those "Ps," not the techniques or technologies, work on us and are omens of our teaching. We've got to be there, focused intently and intensely on the "now" of each day, in the classroom. We've got to pay attention to the details of each student, see each of them, listen to each of them, understand each of them, and open our eyes and hearts to each of them. As I just told some colleagues, if spirituality is something that enriches the soul, teaches someone something about themselves and how they fit into the world around them, as well as hopefully making them a better person, then teaching and learning are forms of spirituality no less than Ole Tim was saying about fly fishing.
These "Ps" are not chameleons; they're not conditional; they don't blow-in-the-wind or change-with-the-weather or change their color according to their surroundings. They steady us in the classroom no less than they do in the stream. They make the difference because what we take the time to understand makes a difference, because what we understand makes the difference in what we feel, what we think, what we say, and what we do. The more we tell ourselves to exercise those five "Ps" and commit to them, the more we move beyond our complaints and attempts to garner sympathy from others toward our vision, the more our labors become less laborious, the more we will smile, the more we reach out to embrace and touch each student, and, then, the nobler our future is likely to be. On the other hand, if we don't tell ourselves "love it," "be patient," "it's worth it," "it takes practice," "keep going," "cool it," "smile," we give our ideals permission to corrode and erode into ordeals; and, as we do, out of resignation and/or frustration--maybe even anger--we'll believe we need or deserve new deals. Then, we will become little more than educational fish catchers rather than accomplished and fulfilled fishermen.
Make it a good day.
Louis Schmier
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