“Teachers are those who use themselves as bridges, over which they invite their students to cross; then having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create bridges of their own." - Nikos Kazantzakis
For the last 19 years, I have taught in and run learning support programs at a state university, a Big Ten, a private university, a SUNY for non-traditional adult learners, as well as at a college level military academy. In all of my teaching experiences, I have found the students at these institutions to be remarkably similar. Simply put, they are learners looking for where they belong, what they want to do, and who they want to be.
My vocation is to provide some of these wandering and wondering souls with a place to reflect upon their lives in a supportive, caring environment, in a place where they will experience a version of support and coaching that is foreign to them in traditional learning environments.
In traditional college settings, when my students meet me, DocDW, they know they have met a teacher who will know their first names on the first day of class; who will call or e-mail them to just “check-in”; who will “call them out” on the “stories” they tell to get out of doing what is expected of them; who looks at them with an intense grey-blue stare and tells them that she sees the good and the bad and cares about them because of both; who will cry with them when they are hurt or scared; who always has hugs and candy in the office; and who will miss them when they graduate, but they know that I will never forget them. Now with my current adult learners, they meet the same caring person, Lisa, who supports them as they try to claim an education that had eluded them for a long time.
One of the reasons that they and I both know they will not be forgotten are the heartfelt memories we have of each other. For a cherished few, these memories are stronger because we had what I call a “red marble” moment. In order to best explain what a “red marble” is, let me take you through a journey of the imagination ...
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In a long-ago once-upon-a-time place, where anything is possible and everything is probable, picture if you will a small child (either a boy or a girl - you cannot tell and it does not matter). The child emerges from the woods onto the dirt path along which you travel. The child is of four or five years of age, uncombed hair, muddy, dressed in overalls and an old tattered bright yellow tee shirt, barefoot, smiling and utterly charming. You see the child and feel compelled to get to know him or her. You approach slowly and simply say, “Hello.”
“Hi,” responds the cherub, “Wanna see what I’ve got?”
“Sure,” you respond.
Tongue thrust into the side of the child’s mouth, brow furrowed in concentration and anticipation, the small hands dig deep into the back pockets of the overalls and begin to pull out items of immeasurable worth. Carefully, before you on a dry part of the road, the child places: a string, a penny, half a cookie, a carved wooden snake... You make some admiring mutterings, indulging the solemn presentation of childhood treasures.
“No, no, these aren’t it yet!”
“Oh, I see,” you respond - not sure if you understand yet.
The child turns to one the front pockets now, turning out...a well-used and muddy handkerchief, some pebbles, a small toad, a fishing lure, a small Red Cross pocketknife, a dime, a glob of something wet and mushy...
“Darn it, you have to see it!”
Continuing with the last front pocket, out pops a magnifying glass, the core of an apple ...
“What is it?,” you inquire.
...a bent nail, a mashed piece of chocolate pushing it’s way out of the tinfoil wrapping...
“It’s my prized possession! It’s my most favorite thing. I love to hold it up and look at it in the moonlight and sunlight and see how it changes and sparkles.”
...another piece of string, a broken pencil...
“Here! Here it is!”
As the small fist rises out of the depths of the very last pocket of the well-worn overalls, the fist is thrust forward towards you, palm up, fingers slowly uncurling, revealed with great glee and somber pride the most spectacular, perfectly round, and shining red marble you have ever seen. Your breath catches in your throat and tears well in your eyes not because you’ve never seen a marble before, but because the child’s pride, happiness, love, and trust are evident in the way the marble lays there in the palm of the tiny hand, shining in spite and because of the grubbiness of the chubby fingers that dug it out of the pocket’s depths. You feel thankful and honored that the child wanted to show you something so simple yet so elegant, something so ordinary yet so cherished, something so seemingly insignificant to others but of the utmost importance to its owner, something so beautiful that you begin to feel a stirring in your mind and a distant memory begins to come in clearly. You remember your own overalls, your own desperate searches of your own pockets, your own red marble…
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As we grow older and go to school, our red marbles often get tucked away even deeper inside our memories - our emotional pockets. Sometimes they are forgotten forever, but sometimes a stranger, a friend, a family member, a student, a teacher or a mentor might be present, and we let down our guard, allowing our red marble to spill out of our out-turned pocket, hoping that that special person, that caring person, might notice it amongst the clutter, and appreciate its beauty, and its significance.
