SAM – ENRICHING WANNABE FACILITATORS’ HEARTS
As I drove into the San Marcos State University's faculty parking lot, I realized I was unconsciously singing Oh What a Beautiful Morning. I’m sure it was because I was feeling good about our Christmas vacation. All four of us - me, Alice, Jerry, and Micaela – everyone in the family stayed healthy. And that was wonderful. And I was looking forward to co-facilitating a new group of facilitators for our new Smiles Monte Vista school.
“And if I’m not perfect, only one ball?” I quipped as I closed the door before her shoe hit me. My smile got richer when the princess met me in the hall and gave me a warm ‘I-Thou’ hug and led me to the comfortable faculty lounge. It was far plusher and more comfortable than our K–12 school's faculty meeting room. That one would never pass as a lounge. Three participants were already there, and Patria introduced me to them. Before the others arrived, Patria and I had a brief discussion about who would begin our first session. We had met over the weekend and outlined our first two sessions, and she asked me to be the first presenter. We were both dressed casually, as we usually were. Our Collie-Shepherd guard dog had already given the three early ones a passing grade, and Roaman abandoned them, then came over and gave Patria and me a friendly wag of the tail as a greeting. Anne Janklow, our campus policewoman, had learned that Roaman was retiring from a southern Cal city police force and talked our school council into employing him as our school guard dog in case Bruce Norse, Danny Sherman’s assailant, decided to ‘pay’ Danny back for sending him to the hospital. I think Anne just fell in love with the beautiful dog and planned to keep him at her home when he wasn’t at school. Everyone at school fell in love with him, too. So, it was a win-win endeavor.
We chatted with the first three, two women and one man, who all looked like they were teachers or counselors and were in their thirties. They seemed confident and relaxed as we awaited the rest of our participants. Our fourth arrival was a surprise. He was a gray-haired man who looked to be in his 50’s or early 60’s. He had a friendly, relaxed smile and looked to be a lean, athletic fellow, about 5’10 “, mixed ethnic background and a bit darker than me. His name was Steve Cooper and I hope he was applying for a possible tator position, not for another school position. He took Patria’s hand, and I welcomed two more women – a white and a Hispanic – and both looked relaxed and friendly, and I thought I had seen them before. The darker one confirmed that, as they informed me that they had met me at the Spring California Teachers’ Association Conference a year ago. The seventh one, although dressed in jeans, a plaid shirt, and a khaki jacket, didn’t look like an educator. I have never seen a teacher wearing all new casual clothes and seemed so uncomfortable around other teachers. Even Roaman stiffened in a way he had not done before. The last four were appropriately relaxed and wearing multi-washed clothes, and Roaman wagged his tail in his welcoming manner. We now have 11 applicants in our training group – 5 women and 6 men.
All were present before 9:00 a.m., and that was a good sign, I thought. Patria and I did not want to start promptly, so we could allow ourselves and the others to mix with everyone or not, as they chose. We had discovered in earlier training sessions that those who did not mix easily were not among our chosen tators. Most of the applicants were clustered around Julie, our graduate student and assistant teacher, who had been hired as our ‘gofer’ and helper for the day. She was a gracious hostess and had selected a nice array of drinks and pastries for us. I kept an eye on our stiff new clothes guy as he seemed even more uncomfortable in the relaxed atmosphere and obviously had to work to be one of the teachers, if he was one. Patria asked everyone to take a seat in the circle of thirteen chairs. I passed out a sheet of paper with our six-day schedule – the sixth day would be a time for one-to-one meetings with each applicant.
Patria and I sat next to one another with Roaman curled up between us. We, of course, became the center of the gathering. I began, “As you know, all of you are applying to become facilitators at our new Thousand Smiles school in Monte Vista this coming year. This week, we hope to create a relaxed, open, and friendly atmosphere that reflects the atmosphere of our current two North County schools. Patria has been a tator for six years at Monte Vista Smiles, and I have been a student and a tator for a total of twelve years at Two Thousand Smiles. Her school is almost as good as mine…” Patria punched me lightly on the arm, and I went on…” and honestly, we are friendly cooperators, not rivals, as we want our students to be. I attended Two Thousand Smiles for my last three years of high school, and then served as a teaching assistant during my two postgraduate years after my B.A. work. I can say that I enjoy my time at Smiles. Now, Patria,” I gave a slight bow in her direction.”
“Thank you, Sam, and thank all of you for being here with us today and hopefully for the week. As I hope all of you know, our schools are set up to encourage students to grow physically, psychologically, socially, and to be free thinkers. As free thinkers, we also mean to be critical thinkers who make decisions about nearly everything and to be joyful learners. I’m sure most of you know that we always begin our school day with a few minutes of song and dance. We would like to give you a taste of that now to begin our day. So, please stand and join me. We’ll begin with one of my favorite songs.” Patria nodded to Julie, and Julia pushed the button, and we heard “Getting To Know You” from The King and I. Patria turned to me, and I bowed slightly to her, and we began to dance with the person next to us, and everyone began to move to the rhythm of the song. You can guess who seemed most uncomfortable. Julie added a second recording that had a more rapid beat. When that song ended, Patria and I bowed to each other and the group, and I gestured for all of us to sit. Even our stiff gentleman was smiling as we sat down.
Patria looked over our seemingly happy little crowd and said, “You all look happy and relaxed, and that is our intention – now and every morning of the school year. One of our inspirational philosophers is an early-20th-century figure named Martin Buber, who coined the term ‘I – Thou’. Sam, please tell us the story and experience that inspired Martin.
“Thanks, Patria,” I turned and looked around the group, “I always tell this story when I want to explain the I – Thou concept. When Martin Buber was a beginning professor at a university in Germany in the l920s. At that time, all new teachers were required to be available to counsel students when needed. One afternoon, a very depressed student, about twenty years old, came to see Dr. Buber. Buber counseled the fellow for about an hour, and a few hours later, another student rushed into Buber’s office and told him that the depressed student had hanged himself. He was dead.”
I paused so they all could just feel the impact of this story. and then went on, “Like all of us would have done, Buber endlessly thought of the hour or so he had spent with the fellow and wondered what he could have done differently or better and might have given the guy some hope. Examining the hour, he thought he had been a good listener - he had not over-advised nor acted superior or like a pretentious know-it-all. He had been, Buber decided, a decent counselor. But he continued to be haunted by the boy’s suicide. After several days, he had what we would call an ‘Ah – ha’ experience: Buber realized that he, Martin Buber, remained in the role of counselor throughout the time with the fellow and allowed the depressed fellow to remain in the role of the distressed student. It was an ‘I – It’ encounter, and he should have made it a completely unguarded connecting encounter between him, the older and caring person, and the younger fellow, who was a very distressed young man. Buber realized that he had NOT been himself when he met with the young man. It was not what he later called an I – Thou encounter but an I – It, non-connecting meeting. Buber described an “I – Thou” encounter as one in which a meeting allows loving and enlightening energy to flow between two people. Of course, Buber realized it may not have made a difference, but he didn’t even begin to get to know and feel the energy of the boy.” I looked around, and everyone seemed to understand me, and ten of the eleven smiled but not Jack Ross, whom I had been calling ‘New clothes guy’, who looked puzzled. I continued, “We want all our staff and students to make their communications, I - Thou. And I am doing that now? I hope I am sounding like the real person I am, and not sounding like a professor lecturing you?”
I believe all but Jack Ross shouted, said, or mumbled that I sounded real. I added, "Of course Martin Buber emigrated to the U.S., as Germany was not open to free-thinking people in the 1930's."
I had developed a bit of tension as I told the story, so I took a deep breath and relaxed back into my chair. Everyone was quiet and hopefully contemplating what I was trying to say. Michelle, a dark-complexioned young woman, said, “I think I felt more connected with some members of our group here than others. So, I‘m wondering if that is normal – do we all connect more easily, or openly, with one person than another?”
Patria let me rest and said, “Yes, definitely. Sometimes, it is because of our own prejudice and closed-mindedness- and sometimes it is because the other person is not open to us. And sometimes we encounter someone who is not open to anyone. Young children, toddlers even, are naturally open little creatures; if they live in a safe and comfortable environment, they will let people get close. I’ll give an example; I have an aunt who is a close-minded old fuss-budget. She was visiting us when our daughter was three, and my aunt Hazel. The grumpy fuss-budget wanted to hold our daughter, April, on her lap. April would have none of that. April wouldn’t go near Aunt Hazel, and when Hazel managed to take hold of one of her arms, April screamed bloody murder, escaped and ran to me. Of coarse Hazel informed us that we were raising a child who was now becoming a hell-raiser. I knew that if I tried to explain my thoughts on that, I would not be understood, so I just said, “You really think so?” She responded, “I certainly do!” and left our misguided house.
As Patria continued to share her experience with the I – Thou, I reflected on my first encounter with her. It was in her training week, just like the present one, except that she was one of the applicants. At the end of the week, during a one-on-one with her, she told me she had discovered that her looks had become a barrier to her ability to have I–Thou encounters with other adults, just as they had in high school. She said she had never been asked out on a date until she was in college, when she met a bold foreign-exchange student from Kenya. I interrupted her and told her that I would never have attempted to ask her out if I had been in high school with her. She was shocked by that and asked why. I had said, “Because you are too beautiful and you would not even think about going out with someone like me.” Her mouth dropped, open and she said, "You gotta be kidding. You are a good-looking guy, yourself. I would have felt honored, I’m sure.” That was the first time she realized that her beauty was a problem instead of a gift. Now, I felt proud of her, as I saw and heard her very clear and relaxed presentation on the I – Thou.
We continued to discuss how best to have an informative, personal, and relaxed conversation in our classes and, hopefully, in future cohorts. After our morning coffee break, I was glad to hear Jack Ross begin to talk about his concerns. His first question, “What if a person, or a student of any age, says that he does not want to be open and friendly as you…” He nodded toward Patria and me, “… as we have been talking about? What do you do?”
Patria nodded to me, and I’m sure she thought that I would be
better to talk with Jack than she would be. I said, “Thanks, Jack, for the question. We all have a real and unprotected self within us. I have an infant and toddler at home, and I can already see my toddler, Jerry, learning to cover his inner self when he is around new people until he is sure it is safe. I hope you feel more open and friendly right now than you did this morning at 9:00. Is that right?” Jack nodded, and I continued. “Good, and I hope you will continue to become more open. If you wish to become a tutor at a school like Two Thousand Smiles, or even work in any capacity in any of our schools. I would even like to live in a world where everyone you see is increasingly open and friendly,” I looked around the entire small group and added, “And, of course, that is true for everyone. If a person does not want to be open and develop their connectivity – how’s that for a six-bit word?- then they would be asked to find work elsewhere. We only want to have an increasingly enlightened staff. Does that answer your question, Jack?”
“Then that person would be fired, right?” He paused and then added, “What about the stubborn student?”
I chuckled, “For the adult, I prefer to say, ‘let go.’, ‘Find employment elsewhere.’ Or some such, ‘Fired’ sounds so unfriendly. And if a student seems very reluctant to put effort into becoming more open and respectful person, we provide counseling because we believe the student has developed such a hard crust that he or she is afraid to interact with others and be open to people of all ages. So, Jack, is that better?”
He muttered something that sounded like, “I guess.”
Patria began, “We have been talking about using words to connect with one another. Our bodies, especially our facial expressions, tell the world about how open, warm, or cold, or friendly we are. Now, I would like all of us to mosey around the room, make contact, and/or ignore those around us. Be aware of your own feelings as you mosey around. I like that word, ‘mosey’, it sounds warm and friendly.”
I really enjoyed Patria’s relaxed and gentle manner, and I began to mosey by taking her hands and dancing around the room. We made only a few awkward steps, let go, and went in opposite directions. One of the younger males followed my lead, took Patria’s hands, and tried to pull her close, but she gently pushed him out to arm's length. He grinned and put on an 'oh woe is me’ kind of face. I began to simply enjoy the spectacle of 13 adults, mostly smiling, moving around. Even Jack Ross began to look more relaxed.
No comments:
Post a Comment