ELT News Think Tank

This Month's Think Tank Panel

Marc Helgesen

Peter Viney

Chuck Sandy

Chris Hunt

Panelists: Chuck | Marc | Peter | Chris
Date: April 2004

Topic: "Who do your students see?"

(Baring your soul in the classroom)

Chuck Sandy

My inner world is as rich and varied a place as you can imagine -- no doubt as rich and as varied as yours – yet, sadly, chances are, even though we may meet, neither of us will share much of that with the other. What makes this especially sad is that we are both people interested in education, specifically language education, which means that our real work is making connection with the inner lives of others, and listening, carefully, to what others have to say. Listen:

This is something we don't say out loud very often, particularly in professional contexts, but it must be said: we work in the realm of the spiritual. Teaching is soul work. There is no other way to say it. Though we cloak ourselves in theories, dress ourselves with methods, and carry with us a full range of techniques as accessory, we go into the classroom as naked as we really always are. Nothing can change this fact: not the latest methods or the best textbooks or the most profound hypotheses. When we walk into a classroom, the only thing we have to offer our students is who we are, and what we are, no matter how we are. This is what our students see, for as Parker Palmer writes, "teaching holds a mirror to the soul."

“When we walk into a classroom, the only thing we have to offer our students is who we are, and what we are, no matter how we are.”

Yet, if you are like me, there are times you'd rather be anywhere than in the classroom, and doing anything besides having a group of people see that mirror of your soul and so discover who you truly are. Even on the best of days, this is a frightening prospect, and so, if you are like me, you've sometimes hidden behind your knowledge, stuck to the book, and so avoided making yourself too vulnerable, too open, too human. Still, I do not know if you are like me, for I know nothing of you. I can tell you this about me, though: over the years, it's been the fear of stepping out from behind my carefully written textbooks and deeply held theories of education which has kept me from becoming a truly great teacher. This is the ugly truth, and I share it with you openly, though not proudly. I have not shared enough of who I am nor have I listened carefully to what others have told me about theirs. Now, I will tell you a secret. Listen:

My inner life is a rich and varied place, yet it is not always a beautiful place. I'm wracked by fears and doubts, get caught up in the reworking of past events, and become obsessed with trivial things that do not matter. This is to say, I am human, and like most humans, at least some of the time, it was important for me to project an image of myself as someone professional and reliable, as someone who is in control. Several things have happened over the past years to cause me to abandon this pretense, though, and it would serve good purpose for me to share a bit of this with you. Perhaps you'll see some of yourself in me. More likely, though, you'll simply see me, and that, of course, is purpose enough. Listen:

As some of you may know, I haven't always been the most stable of people. It is no secret that I have suffered from depressions and emotional episodes over the years. Besides causing me no small amount of pain and a great deal of damage to others, this has also caused me to live an increasingly hidden life in past years. I drew clear lines between my public and private selves, and only allowed a small handful of people to have any idea of who I truly was. In class, I became a sometimes brilliant technician, a master of those sorts of lessons which seem to have a lot happening in them, but in fact have nothing at their core. Though, out of class I allowed myself to surf the full range of my emotions, I thought it necessary that I left these emotions at the classroom door. Over time, this became a gap that was as intolerable as it was uncrossable, and as that gap widened even more, it led to a crisis of both personal and professional faith, not to mention an incredible, even existential, loneliness.

This is not too much to say, nor is it too much to tell you that it took finding a true teacher to pull me back across that gap and through this crisis –- a teacher who did not draw lines, but who was the line and lived it. I'll tell you about him: listen.

At the time I met him, this teacher did not have a classroom any longer. Though he had been both a university and a high school teacher, he had given that up many years ago to devote his life to poetry – yet, of course, he never stopped teaching, and his teachings are the same as they have always been: poetry is life and life is poetry -- we have nothing to do with each other except to be with (each other) -- live your life in a way that matters and teach others by being who you are and by making connections both with them and for them – don't draw lines between your inner and outer worlds: be the line and live it. Put another way, as he often said, "I'm not asking you to jump into the fire. I'm asking you to be the damned fire."

As a university teacher, he used no books, assigned no homework, and gave no grades. What he expected of his students was their full presence and the same openness to learning and being that he brought to them. In class or out, he was no different. His classroom was where ever he was, and in one of his many essays, he wrote of the university as the world and the world as the university. He lived his life with this truth in mind: learning takes place wherever we connect, and the way we connect is by sharing ourselves fully with each other.

Though brilliant, you would never guess that this man was one of the 20th century's most famous poets and an editor of an equally famous journal. This man, Cid Corman, was without pretense, entirely humble, and had the amazing ability to make anyone his equal as he embraced them and taught them to give value to their own lives, as he valued his, as he listened. With Cid Corman, there was no difference in ages or intellect, no gap in experience or wisdom. He treated all, famous and small, as equals, and I have had the privilege of sitting with him and being an equal with him at least once a week for over a year, before he took sick on December 31st, 2003. This experience changed my life and not only led me through my crisis of faith, and cured my existential loneliness, but also put me back on the path of all the great teachers I have had in the course of my life.

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Panelists: Chuck | Marc | Peter | Chris

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