Most of my regular readers know that I not only write this blog but I also lead a church (Numinous), travel and speak some (hit me up…I’d love to speak to your group) and also work as a history professor at Valencia College. For the past 10 months, I have been serving as the President of all the Faculty at the College. It’s been an honor and yet, at the same time, I am eager to return to the classroom. Students are our future and I believe that my ideas and philosophies about life are crucial lessons to help guide them into the rest of their lives.
So, you can imagine how excited I was when I recently got the opportunity to be a substitute professor for a peer who just had her third child. For a five week period, I get to teach again in the classroom and man, am I having fun. But, to the students, it’s been a shock to the system. Now, to be clear, my peer is an amazing professor, someone whom I have mentored some and find to be as eager for her students to find life-success as I. But, as you know, no two people are the same.
After the first day, I told my wife Kim that I thought several of the students seemed to enjoy my style. Others, however, had this panicked look of fear, a dear-in-the-headlights stare of “oh my gosh, what nightmare has just invaded my peaceful history class.” LOL It was a shock to their system.
Perhaps no where has that been true than in what is my very high expectation that each student value their own learning, value their own future goals so much, that they put a personal investment into the work. We, as a country, have so doomed ourselves by acting as if academic learning is something that is easy, and that the student has no reason to put a personal investment in the story. Case in point…year after year, and in this class right here, I find a somewhat stunned reaction when they understand that I won’t spoon feed them the answers to the exam. They can’t believe that I actually expect them to take notes, that I won’t merely give them my notes or my powerpoint slides.
One of the lessons from Mexico that stuck with me was how far we, as the USA, have grown away from the land. While there, many moments demonstrated how Mexico is still (at least where I was) mostly an agrarian society that understands one cannot lose touch with the land. When you know you worked all year to grow and harvest a certain crop, you don’t later turn your nose up at a meal comprised of that crop, nor do you only eat half and throw the rest away. When someone provides you with fruit from their trees or even a cow for meat, you realize that is a huge gift from their own “savings,” their own investments.
That idea of being distant from the land has had many impacts on us, none less critical than we no longer value the hard effort it takes to accomplish something. Oh sure, many still get it….they spend hours working to perfect a trick on their skateboard or to become an amazing photographer or to play the guitar well. Yet, by and large, we have become a society that is indulgent (merely giving in to whatever whim or wish we have), expecting others to do for them, to give to them….entitled. When you are close to the land, realizing that whatever future success you are going to have will come due to diligent effort now, you don’t approach things with any sense of entitlement. Rather, you know whatever you face, it will take hard work.
This lack of comprehension about hard work is what these students are now facing. Unlike my peer, for me the students have to prepare for class every day and bring that work with them to class as proof that they were ready. It’s a simple thing….just like going out every day to pull weeds in the garden or sitting down to practice scales on the piano….and yet, if you have grown up thinking you can pretty much get a passing grade simply by showing up…..well, it’s a shock to the system.
I know these kids will do well; already most seem to have geared up in the work. And, I believe my peer does push them in her own way. But what about you? Are you pushing yourself? I hope so….or at the very least, my articles are for you a shock to the system.