The Best Teaching We Do

I had a student come to my office today who, already in the fifth week of classes, was considering dropping my class along with his other classes and leaving school to find some work and make some money.  It's not the first time a student has come to do this in my years of teaching; I'm sure it will happen in the future as well.  I don't blame them.  The economy is tough and school is expensive; they feel that school just didn't provide them with what they wanted, but the prospect of an inopportune minimum wage job for this person over the next few years just makes me feel ill.  I see many former students (who left college early to find a job) at the superstores and food chains who are always friendly when they remember me, but I feel as though in some way I let them down. 

It's always difficult initiating the conversation with someone whose mind is pretty well made up, but I always try to explain that the best course of action may indeed be the one that seems the longest way around.  That's not what they want to hear.  They want to know that they're not right for school; that they're decision is the right one and things will eventually work out.  Of course, I often tell them of the students that I've had return again after having been out or school three or four years because they aren't improving their lot and finding success, but at this point they're often settled on self-apathy. 

If I could enunciate to these students how I truly feel in these moments, it would be something much like this:

“I have said that a high ideal is essential to a completely successful life. But in the realization of our aim it is quite necessary to form an ideal commensurate with our abilities. Many a man has failed in his life-work because his notions of what he ought to do were marvelously beyond his power of execution. Such a man forms so high a conception of what he would like to accomplish that he has no heart to attempt anything in earnest. . . This intense burning desire on the part of common people to become millionaires, or merchant princes, or railroad kings, or something beyond their powers and opportunities has filled our American communities with hundreds of restless, discontented, useless men.
One of the most valuable lessons for the young to learn is that it takes a great man to accomplish a great undertaking, and that both are necessarily few in one generation. If this lesson were learned and heeded half the heartache of our mature years might be avoided. Effort, and high resolve, and noble purpose are excellent qualities of character; but they can never enable a man to lift himself by the boot-straps nor accomplish the unattainable. It is at once the weakness and greatness of some to conceive what they attempt to do of so high a degree of excellence that no human power can reach it. The natural effect of this is a restless desire to accomplish something far beyond what is ordinarily attained even by surpassing talent. When such a desire has taken possession of the heart, the usual achievements of men seem poor indeed. With their broad views and far-sighted stretch of thought, it seems trivial to come down to the common affairs of every-day life. It is to them a small thing to do good and get good in the plain old common-sense way. J. Clinton Ransom, The Successful Man, 1886

Read more: http://artofmanliness.com/2009/07/20/modern-neurasthenia-curing-your-restlessness/#ixzz1EBNDdl3x

Brett McKay's Art of Manliness site is not so much a "man cave," steroid-pumping, testosterone site as it is an emphasis on what most of us, especially men, should remember about self-awareness.  Brett and his wife touch on some very interesting questions we all ought to be asking ourselves - especially now as our technology seeks to de-personalize us and make us all "friends."  This might be as political as I'll ever get in this blog, but my hope is that I live the above quote and that I'm teaching my children to do the same.  

My question to the student who's considering dropping is typically this:  What if you simply came to one more class?  Just gave it one more shot?  Would there be anything to lose in doing so?  I want them to discover that their ability may simply be to focus on finding the discipline to get up and go to class.  I've met very few students who were incapable of thinking about the work; they simplly couldn't focus on figuring out how to complete it.  In most cases these young people are wandering, looking for a quick answer when they need to realize that each moment provides an illuminating lesson. 

I often joke that I'm compulsively obsessive when it comes to projects and ideas I get in my head, but I am constantly driven to simply find success (not equivalent to money or accolades although the dollars do come in handy) in the accomplishment of the task.  For me it's the completion of a learning cycle; it connects and completes prior knowledge and reconnects me to lessons learned when I was much younger.  Without this I do feel restless.  

What's the best teaching I can do?  Define the spirit of restlessness to my students.