C. Jamie Edwards

I spent the afternoon reworking my syllabi template for Spring Semester and attempted to transform my dry educational philosophy statement into a meaningful disclosure.

What I Believe About Learning…

Most professors (including me:past tense) provide long descriptions about their educational theory and approaches.  Instead, this section is about what I believe about learning and how we will approach the semester together.  Bottom line, the following are ideas that lead my course design and instructional decisions.

I believe in order to grow as a student of life we must be willing to be out of sync or off balance with what we think we know.  We must allow preconceived ideas to be proven correct or incorrect and avoid being personally offended at the challenge. 

I seek to have conversations and meetings with students that are ‘fully there’, one in that I am listening and contributing.  I seek to be a professor that is engaged with my audience and the topic.  I strive to be committed to the moment, committed to being in class and my students at that particular place and time.

I do not believe technical skills by themselves create opportunity; opportunity must include the development of the whole person.  Technical training is important, but technical training is something acquired and will always have the feel of being artificial unless one develops self awareness.

If we approach a task with the beginner’s mind, we are not afraid of being wrong. The fear of making a mistake, of risking an error, or of being told you are wrong is constantly with students and our society.  The power of education really becomes understood when we leave our innate fear of being wrong behind.   If our state of mind is coming from a place of fear and avoiding risk , then we will always settle for the safe solutions — the solutions already applied many times before…this approach fails at implementing the grand ideals of higher education.

I have a high level of expectation for my self and my students.  Students will not be asked to do something I am not willing to do.  I am honored by the presence of students who make the choice to register for my courses. 

Education is a conversation, not a one way lecture.  I avoid formal circumstances and standing behind podiums.  Humans make emotional connections with people, not abstractions of individuals behind a podium. When possible, I hope to place my ideas in human terms.  We will not agree all the time, for one purpose of education is to develop and evaluate the merits of competing arguments.  Expecting agreement is a limiting factor and fails to develop personal and societal growth.  Academic debate and discourse is encouraged.  I expect students to challenge my thoughts, ideas and perceptions as I will theirs.  

What is more important today than ever before is the ability to synthesize the facts and give them context and perspective.  I am one that believes clarity and simplicity is needed in this world and is growing so rare and the only way students can develop these skills are through the classic liberal arts.

Life is short. I encourage students to avoid people who dismiss the idea of enthusiasm, or worse still, those who try to kill it - especially about educational hopes and dreams. Trying to impress others or worrying about what others may think of your enthusiasm or passion waste talent that can be directed toward personal growth.

Finally, I strive to let go of my sense of self. I am not here for me:  I am here for my students and my community. I have no personal aims or cares other than to communicate my message effectively.    Education is teaching and learning that happens at the same time for all involved.

I expect mutual respect in the classroom.  I will model positive professional, moral and personal behavior.  

We will learn together and success will be defined by developing many more questions about our topic than we initially started with.

Today I had the wonderful opportunity to lead a conversation about quality of life issues with a group of citizens at the Crossroads Higher Education Center in Galax Va.   We discussed ageism, perceptions of aging based on generational cohort and recent data focused on the older adult population. Near the end of the session a call to action was voiced to evaluate how livable our communities are for citizens of all ages, but especially older adults.  

Items presented today, peppered with lots of humor and examples of positive aging included the following:

• Session Slide Deck
• AARP Livable Communities Guide
  This guide provides instructions on how best to complete a environmental scan for communities that support healthy aging
• Pew Research Center - Growing Old in America
  The June 2009 publication outlines the expectations and realities of aging across America

During the past couple of weeks several students asked about the Missing the Target post that I assign as part our Introduction to Human Services Course.  The actual post can found found online via a October 9, 2012 entry I made on my blog.  This story has served as part of the course for the past four years.

Why didn’t you stop the meeting?
The meeting was not mine to stop.  I was an invited guest, and this was my first meeting.  Did the meeting go as it should have?  No.   Do I have regret about interjecting more than I did for that particular session?  No.  I pointed out the positives and negatives in the client’s behaviors while refusing to jump on the bandwagon.

Why not, isn’t failing to speaking up unethical since you (as a instructor) talk about creating safe environments for clients all the time?
Yes, I have an ethical obligation to protect the client and ensure their safety.  Even from fellow professionals.   Yet, the lack of communication that I described was occurring due to the actions of the professionals and the family.  The professionals at the table lacked the empathy to acknowledge the status of the family.  The family lacked the ability to recognize the concerns and needs of the helping professionals and systems around them.

So what, you should have said something.
No, not me.   Okay, let’s suppose I do speak up.  The conversation given the current tone will lead to one of a couple of outcomes.   First, regardless of my careful attempts to remain impartial and kind, my comments are taken out of context and I divide the treatment team and face expulsion, whether it be intentional or unintentional.   Second, the family will sense the division in the team and may try to take advantage of the circumstance.   My comments then could become fuel for more negative reactions and plain excuses.

So, you speak up and things get worse, isn’t taking this risk and speaking up better than doing nothing?
No.  My goal is to never make a circumstance worse for the client.  Sharing my concerns about the meeting in front of the client and his family about the professional behavior of others in my world is never acceptable.  I have a higher level of expectation for myself, those I work with and my clients.  

Did I do anything?
Yes. After the session I discussed the process and outcome of the meeting with the professionals present.   More importantly the next time I met with the client we processed the meeting without blame, just the two of us.  We talked about the pros and cons of the meeting in question, his options and what might happen next.   

The moral of the story is that is that we as professionals cannot get caught up in the emergency of the circumstance.  The long term growth of the client and our therapeutic relationship was much more important than the emergency that was happening in that moment of time. 

Many years ago I was involved in a treatment team meeting that I have never forgotten.  A treatment team, or in the respective state, more formally known as Child and Family Team Meeting.  These meetings were designed to act as was a way of getting all the players at the same table to discuss client progress (including the client and their families).

The meeting I was involved in was a textbook case of how not to run a human services appointment. The client was on juvenile probation, had been for several years for multiple crimes, while his mother also attended, who has also been involved in criminal court. They both possessed a drug history and the client’s father was in prison for selling drugs and serving a long-term sentence. The juvenile probation officer attended, as well as the community service coordinator for the county and myself. The client recently spent 14 days in detention for failing to comply with probation and two days after being released from detention was charged with underage drinking in adult court. My role was to provide Cognitive Behavioral Sessions based on effective problem solving techniques over a eight week group process. Also in the meeting was the substance abuse counselor from another agency.

Several issues were up for discussion during the meeting. Recent detention, and of course, the new criminal charge led the agenda. The inability of the client to complete required community service was another topic. Failure to attend substance abuse treatment sessions and subsequent positive drugs screens were in play. As one can see, multiple challenges and topics were present.

The mother did not seem very concerned about recent events and the client himself said that it “was now time to clean up his act and be man since my baby is now three months old and I cannot afford to leave the baby and my girlfriend if I goes to prison” (the client himself just turned 16 years old).

The meeting went on and on for almost one hour. The substance abuse counselor was concerned with missing appointments and positive drug screens. The court counselor was upset over having to send the client to detention and the new criminal charge. The community service coordinator wanted to know why his community service was not complete. I was the only person setting at the table representing a program the the client was on the verge of completing.

Since I was the new addition to the table, I took a backseat and observed as well as attempting to point out positives in the client’s life situation.

During the process it became apparent to me that most of the people setting at the table got so caught up with all the symptoms and totally forgot about the person setting in front of us. Failed drug tests, non-compliance, new charges, acting out…the list goes on and on.  The conversation bothered me greatly that day.

The before mentioned negative actions are serious and needed addressing, yet shouldn’t we spend more time actually communicating with the client, actually have a conversation about the reasons behind the actions, instead of talking at the client and offering punishments that are not appropriate? I left the meeting with a knot in my stomach. Another example of professionals setting around the table practicing bad interpersonal and counseling skills, not practicing what we preach and failing to provide the client with a environnement that Carl Rogers knew we should over 50 years ago. Have we learned nothing in the field?

Thus, here is the moral of my story; that day there was over 45 years of human services experience setting around the table and a couple of licensed counselors and in-effective communication still happened. Building a trusting environment with clients is hard work, it is difficult, it takes patience and sometimes never happens. But we must try. We must remain focused. We must know who we are and we must allow clients to find solutions to their problems, not threaten them or ignore their circumstances.

This meeting was another example of how the strongest words a client ever says are generally unspoken. Teaching human services skills in the classroom is not that hard, implementing those skills with clients and staying focused on ‘do no harm’ is much more difficult.

Tis the part of the semester that wheels begin falling off the academic wagon.  Students begin missing assignments (and dare I say), not even come to class!   Motivation weans as the season changes.

We must stop this cycle and return to our work until we reach the end. The lizard brain must not win!

Seth Godin describes it well.

Seth Godin: Quieting the Lizard Brain from 99U on Vimeo.

Every semester is like a long bicycle ride, we must have the stamina to see it through.

This summer my longest bicycle ride was a 36 mile trip on the New River Trail between Galax and Fries Virginia.  The ride started nice early that Friday and seemed normal.  I had lunch in Fries before turning around to head back to Galax.  About 10 miles from Galax the clouds grew dark, rain starts to fall and the sky is bright with lightening.  

The ride that was uneventful and quite relaxing only a few hours before turned a little scary and much harder.  Nothing like pedaling through rain, mud and trail limestone dust.  When I finally reached my car, my bike and skin looked like that of a coal miners after a long day.   

This ride was really a tale of two fortunes.  The beginning was great, the trip home was tough, discouraging and dirty…and when I finally made it to the car the last thing I wanted to do was ride again anytime soon.

In retrospect as the weeks passed I am thankful for this experience.  Besides getting very wet and dirty I learned allot about myself.  That medium distance rides like that should be a little shorter next time.  That a good day can suddenly turn black.  I learned that if needed, I could do it again.  My rides after this one have been much shorter, but stronger.  Bottom line the rain and mud made me a better rider.

While thinking about the academic year, my experience is this: a semester is one big bike ride for both students and the professor.  The first couple of weeks are bright and shiny, full of hope.  By October clouds set in for many students and we start feeling doubt, or simply getting behind in our work.   

A successful student and employee strives to overcome these struggles and periods of self doubt.  This does not mean that we will be left unscathed and untouched from the experience.  The experience may not be what we exactly want.  The experience can make us better.

I have taught thousands of students the past 12 years.  The semester goes fast.  My hope and suggestion to all students is that they embrace the educational journey for what it is, a long bike ride.  Sometimes we have a good ride, sometimes we fall off.  When we fall off don’t be afraid to get back on and ride some more.  Before you know it, the semester will be over and if you give your self a chance, you will be better for the experience. 

Anything that is worth doing and is life changing, must also be a little hard.  Believe you have the stamina for the ride, and let those of us on your campus help be the guide.   

We (incorrectly) indicate to citizens that bureaucracies guided by scientific knowledge are efficient and benevolent - Ivan Illich in Deschooling Society.

This statement directly relates to my experiences attempting to apply evidenced based practice to human services. We are playing shell games with families in need all with justification of some greater good, “that we as professionals know better”, simply because we were enlightened enough to “listen to someone else, who knew better”. 

Who knows the client better than they know themselves?

“Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue… Temperament is the iron wire on which the beads are strung.”