Hello Everyone:
This message is a kind of meditation upon the word "enthusiasm" and its
history, upon teaching and learning, and upon my work in faculty
development. It turned out to be pretty long, so if you are not in a
contemplative moment, feel free to delete on by. We can often hear
that good teachers are enthusiastic about their work, their teaching,
their disciplines, and about working with students. What does being an
enthusiastic teacher (and learner) mean?
"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm." Samuel Taylor
Coleridge
"If you can give your son or daughter only one gift, let
it be enthusiasm." Bruce Barton
To better understand how "enthusiasm" may be connected to being a
teacher, it helps me to know that the etymology of "enthusiasm" is a
long and changing one. Coming from the Greek adjective, entheos, it
meant to be in the God, or to be inspired by a god, as with Plato's
understanding of a being a poet. So there was a sense that enthusiasm
had a meaning in reference to being spirited, or being within the
spirit. The word "spirit" may be an uncomfortable or enigmatic or vague
one for some, but that does not preclude it from being a meaning-full
one. It appeared in English in the early 17th century still having this
kind of religious or spiritual reference. In time its meaning became
more generalized and generic and lost the spiritual association so that
for people today it may only refer to heightened feelings or expressions
that can be connected to anything at all. For some it came to have
negative meaning as when one's logic and reason were displaced by a kind
of emotional fervor,even fanaticism.
I think of teaching and learning as spiritual events and experiences and
"enthusiastically" think that there is no need to totally forget the
original spirit of the word "enthusiasm" in connection with working with
students, or with faculty. Thus, while it can not be quantified, I
suspect many faculty know intuitively that in teaching one is in-spired
by the process and the event and is engaged in a kind of sacred ritual
that reaches deep into one's own mind or soul. Allan Bloom said that
"there is no real teacher who in practice does not believe in the
existence of the soul, or in a magic that acts on it through speech."
Perhaps in ways unique, each of us was and is spirited-into teaching.
Teaching well, it seems to me, is about strategies, goals, engagement,
methods, outcomes, etc. But if it is not also the engagement of one's
spirit, then the students are not allowed to experience the teacher's
spirit (or soul) and that affects everything. The enthusiastic
professor is the one, even if very quiet and nondramatic, who respects
the students enough to allow them to be in-spired by the professor's
enthusiasm, or spirited being. Emerson said that "the secret of
education is respecting the student" and to be in the spirit of teaching
and learning, that is, to be fully human with students, is a key way of
giving them a deep respect. It does not require a "true confessions"
approach to teaching, or a "show time" approach, simply teaching with,
in and from one's true identity. As Charlie Parker said, "if you don't
live it, it won't come out your horn" and the students will hear only
the notes, but not the music.
When we teach with enthusiasm / spirit, we are manifesting that love of
teaching that stirred our educational vision quest at its beginnings.
When students experience not only our discipline as we intellectually
present it to them, but our own love for the learning process, then we
help them become responsible for their own learning by placing our
discipline within a living context, right there, right then. We don't
have to make it a goal to inspire students and we should not for that
would be trying to control them and the very spirit of learning.
Rather, we can be catalysts for possible in-spiration of students by
teaching from our love of teaching which is when spirited teaching
occurs.
Horace Mann said that "the teacher who is attempting to teach without
inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering on cold iron." I
think there is a paradox here where one can only really inspire students
by not trying to inspire them, but instead by teaching from one's own
in-spiration, one's own in-sight and passion that lay at the heart of
one's teaching heart.
Finally, I see a connection between this more traditional way of
understanding "enthusiasm" and guiding students towards not only
information and knowledge, but into understanding, imagination and even
perhaps a little wisdom. The well worn words of T. S. Eliot from the
1930s may apply much more now than then: "Where is the knowledge we
have lost in information; where is the wisdom we have lost in
knowledge." With the lingering effects of behaviorism and strict
objectivism upon the educational process, to even talk about teaching
and learning as spiritual or soul-full activities and experiences may
seem odd, or anachronistic.
But speaking only for myself, to see teaching as an everyday and
spiritual process is to avoid the pitfalls of both naive behaviorism and
a fluffy feel-goodism and a deification of self-esteem. Plato wrote
that "At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet." If, as I think it
is, poetry is the mother tongue of humanity, spiritual traditions and of
being human, then the quest for teachers is to be poets in the classroom
in the sense of being aware of the spirit of learning that is, or can,
become present. Without the love, the poetry loses its breath and
becomes only facts without a home. Teaching well is not easy and is a
life-long process... as is living well. Being teacher-poets means the
hard work of learning about teaching and learning is being done, but
knowing that that alone is not enough, while necessary. The spirit of
one's imagination and love for being who and where one is, doing what
one is doing, allows enthusiasm to grow deeper and deeper roots.
Thus ends my too-long meditation on enthusiasm.
Alan
Alan Altany, Professor & Director
Coulter Faculty Center
Western Carolina University
Cullowhee, NC 28723 (U.S.)
Email: altany@email.wcu.edu <mailto:altany@email.wcu.eduFAX>
FAX: 828.227.7340
Web Site: http://facctr.wcu.edu <http://facctr.wcu.edu/>
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