Education’s Future, Now

For many of us, March 13^th is a day that will live in infamy.  It’s a day when life jolted us, at least on the East Coast, awakening us to a new way of life, a life now immersed in a pandemic.

Shortly after, and moving back home as I job searched myself, I started connecting with both college students and recent graduates, including many who found themselves graduating now as their college experience was cut short along with a tanking job market.

I was not only listening to their experience, but also reflecting upon just how much it hasn’t changed since I graduated from Bloomsburg University 26 years ago.  Despite the advancement of technology, dwindling computer labs, and vast growth, the experience had not changed much at all.

This, more than anything, kept me researching for answers as to how this can be.  The brilliance of marketing allows anyone to rebrand something outdated, even if, in many ways, it’s exhausted its value.  The first real change was seeing The University of Notre Dame beginning classes in early August and finishing at Thanksgiving.  All of us who have lived through the “college experience” could appreciate the genius of ending then rather than returning for the rat race which follows!

Don’t get me wrong.  There are aspects of college I wouldn’t change.  I’m still a believer there is great value in young men and women having the opportunity to move away for the first time, into a new environment, which still allows room for mistakes and ill-advised choices.  It’s how many learn, for the first time, how to navigate adult life.  It could, though, be more.

Nearly thirty years later, though, it seems as if we still refuse to ask what students need.  It seems as if we still choose not to listen to the actual people we are serving, young men and women embarking on a lifelong journey, and give them what we had.  I heard many say they need to know how to network, learn about themselves (EI), how to navigate relationships, etc.

It often appears we fail to see the continuum of education and the development of young people.  It often appears as a “stop and start” and this reality being the only continuum of the process, rather than seeing one as building on the other.

One person in which I’ve had conversations had commented about general education classes we all took in college.  Most of us are left wondering are left wondering the same question.  He simply asked the question regarding the observation, “Why can’t high school be general education?”  I didn’t have an answer other than, you’re right.  Why not?  It generally is anyway.  However, we lack the cohesiveness when it comes to our thinking of education and development.  What’s needed is an integrative approach. 

It’s also not to say all gen eds are bad.  There is room for them if they’re teaching necessary life skills.  I wouldn’t have said it at the time, but I do believe there is a place for philosophy and learning the art of critical, deep thinking.

There is also the issue, and discouragement, of gap years.  It seems, for us adults, there is a rush to get young men and women somewhere, to the next step in life.  I have known many who just didn’t know what they wanted to do with themselves and yet felt continuous pressure to advance to college or work life immediately after completing one step.  Is there a way to modify the “first year” experience which encompasses both aspects, the freedom to explore while learning life skills?

This may not be entirely bad, quite frankly, if young men and women were given proper tools to truly self-reflect and become more conscious of the lifelong choices they are making, there is a greater chance of success and not merely surviving.  Over the years I have listened to countless young people, now professionals, who were going into a particular field for no reason at all other than this is what was expected of them.

Whether we care to admit it or not, we adults don’t always know what young men and women need.  We give them what we think they need or want, colleges and universities then find themselves catering to the parents of young men and women, and we consistently leave out of the conversation the one who were serving, as if they don’t exist and as if their voice doesn’t matter.  It’s not to say they always know what they need, but when we listen, we can begin to discover the deeper longings.

The current model will consistently leave us with generations who rely on others to tell them what they want and need, lacking the skills to think critically and self-reflect.  It leaves us with large portions of a population depressed, feeling disconnected and lonely, and outright miserable, feeling the pressure to continue to chase the American dream, a dream which isn’t there’s in the first place all while feeling like they don’t belong.

I may have been most troubled after speaking to a young man who just graduated two months ago from my alma mater.  I simply asked, as I asked most of them, “So what’s next?”  He simply said, “I don’t care.  I’ll worry about that then.”  Here he was on the brink of a college degree, graduating, and still hasn’t taken any time, as he told me, to really consider what he wanted to do with his life or what life was asking of him.  All I can think of is how we failed this young man in some way.  It’s ok to not know what you want to do, but when self-awareness is lacking, the step forward can seem insurmountable.  It would appear the university doesn’t care much either.  It appears it’s not about what’s best for the student at all.  Are we listening to the people we are to serve?  Once he’s gone it’s someone else’s problem.

Even for someone who has studied theology, the gap between the intellectual side of a study and its practical application is baffling.  I’ll be the first to admit, I loved the theology and the intellectual formation.  However, there was not even a desire to close the gap.  Many of whom I spoke with the past months speak of the same reality in their given fields and as newly minted young professionals.

I can only speak of my own experience when I say this, but it’s often because of the lack of practical experience the “experts”, “specialists”, and professors have in the given field.  I’ve been there.  The theoretical side of education was one thing but stepping into a classroom of human beings is another.  It’s not to say the gap won’t exist.  It will and needs to for growth.  It is, though, a disregard for the gap and pain point, in our fields of study.

It is also our attachment to binary thinking.  The classroom is one thing.  Your work is something different.  We see it happening now.  We either open or we stay closed.  Now I’m not purvey to internal conversations, but I would hope there are conversations happening as to how we grow and change this system to better serve in the 21^st Century.  Is there a question beyond open and close?  How about, how do we do this differently?  We’re being given a golden opportunity to change antiquated systems which no longer serve nor listen to whom they serve.  How about, “What do the people we’re serving need?”

It seems to me, listening is key, along with the ability to think critically.  It would appear the only one being listened to often is the dollar.  It seems to drive most today, but money isn’t going to tell us the real needs of who we’re serving.  Institutions tend to get it backwards, money driving mission rather than the mission driving the money.

How do we do that?  Well, we start by listening to people, to the one’s we’re serving.  The fact the system has not changed dramatically in the past thirty years is still hard to imagine.  The one place where we’d expect creativity and innovation seems to lack it.  This time should cause pause for any institution to ask, “What’s our purpose?”  “Have we moved away from our mission?”  “Are we really listening to the people we serve?”  For in the end, it’s about service.

If the response is simply to return to what we know, I’d suggest you begin to look for a new avenue to learn and be trained.  Institutions need to do the hard work necessary today in order to remain relevant into the future.  It doesn’t mean the message or mission changes, but the means of getting there are beyond ready for change.  There are plenty of avenues popping up to fill these gaps and why?  Because of a refusal to change.  There are people who understand what the people they serve, need.

If education is to continue through the 21^st Century, it’s time to listen, change, and over and over again, ask, are we meeting the needs of the young men and women we serve? It’s time to see it as the continuum it is, even beyond our college years.  It’s not hard unless we make it hard.  At this point, though, there’s no looking back but rather discovering a new path forward.

Summoned Home

Welcome Home! Anyone who has been to Bethlehem Farm will silently smile when they read those words. For anyone who has never been there before, it can be a bit unnerving. I still remember being greeted by Farmer Tim upon my arrival on a balmy April afternoon with a welcome home and a huge bear hug. Having never been before, it seemed rather odd but became a source of joy as I watched countless faces over the months give the same reaction, wondering, where the hell am I and what have I gotten myself into?!?

It was at one of the most turbulent times in my life. As my health had declined, I had stepped away from ministry. I had just resigned, packed up my belongings after dumping a lot of it, felt quasi-homeless, my dad was admitted to the hospital, and there I was venturing hours away to a place I had never been. It was so outside my comfort zone but at the time needed something to keep me engaged, even if it was for a month. It’s only in retrospect I can see just how much my foundation had, with each given choice, falling apart, at least what I believed to be my foundation as a person. It seemed as if everything I had known was slipping through my fingers and I was doing something absolutely ridiculous, heading to a farm in the middle of nowhere West Virginia. Just about the only thing Alderson, WV is known for is the prison which housed Martha Stewart, and well, The Big Wheel! You really have to go to truly appreciate the milk shakes there!

 

After leaving the Farm (even though I’ve returned a few times since), Colleen asked me if I’d be willing to put a few thoughts down on paper describing my experience, as a man who had planned on staying a month and extended it to include the second half of 2019, as someone searching for meaning in a life seemed void of it, someone learning to trust on a much deeper level than ever before. I still believe the words to be true today as when I wrote them a few months back.

“I believe the novelty of the Farm, when it comes to faith and trust, is that it assists in revealing a deeper part of yourself that has always been in existence. As you well know, the act of simplicity, which so many speak about when they arrive, for me is central. As you begin to let go of the trappings of life, which are often reduced to phones and electronics, the deeper parts finally have space to surface. I believe, in my experience, the trappings include what others think, outside authorities, comforts of home, routine, etc. They are what I found myself trapped in when I arrived. If the Farm is truly of the Spirit, and I do believe it is, it simply begins to reveal the deeper truths and you begin to trust that instinct, that voice, that Spirit (whatever you call it) and your deepest identity (in God) is not only revealed but you learn to live by and through it. It would explain the change from restlessness to peace that I learned to live.”

If I had to sum it up, the extended time at the farm was about finding this sense of home in myself. It’s not just a cute little saying mentioned to pilgrims as they arrive for their experience. No, it’s an invitation into something much deeper than a mere welcome to a property. More often than not we are unfamiliar with the vast landscape of our interior home. We live in a world with so many distractions and ways to avoid the deeper crevices of ourselves where we seem like a foreigner, and even a fugitive, in some sense, from our own selves. We do everything to avoid and are often convinced of others they know what’s best for us and can define us in their way, we lose sense of ourselves.

It’s not until we can begin to silence the voices of the “authorities” around us when we can finally begin to hear our own voice, silently waiting for us to listen and consistently inviting us home. Whether we can admit it or not, we all wander beyond ourselves looking for answers to many of life’s complex questions. However, the answers to our deepest values and the meaning we thirst for have always existed deep within us. Like any of us who travel to the ocean for recreation, from the time we are kids we’re told to stay in the shallow waters. However, shallow waters will never fulfill this thirst. We eventually need to go out into the depths of the ocean, confronting our fears, or dig into the deepest part of the earth, in order to find what we’re looking for most in life. We eventually need to be called “home” to begin to accept and settle into our own skin for who we are, not who others want us or expect us to be.

The wayward path varies for all of us and some choose over and over to never engage it. We see the negative energy within many people who have been unwilling, and sometimes, unable, to enter into the journey “home”. We refuse and shut down rather than dealing with the necessary pain we confront along the way. We, as a society, have lost our larger story of this journey in order for personal gain and short-term success. However, this time of pandemic is inviting us into the deeper journey, the long-term journey, through the recesses of our hearts and souls beckoning us home, maybe for the first time in our lives. Beyond basic needs, if there is a push within you to return too quickly to a life which was, that restlessness is a summons you’re being invited into. You may ask the same questions, “Where the hell am I and what have I gotten myself into?”, but this is only natural arriving at an unknown place in yourself. Somewhere, deep within you, there is a voice saying “welcome home” wishing to embrace you with a bear hug reminding you of the value you are not by what you do but because of who you are.

 

An Instinctive Call

More often than not, we can learn more from watching the natural world in all of its complexity than we ever can among humans. We’re too invested in our own to often see clearly and freely. There appears, although there’s not, a separation providing us the space we need to look with a “third eye” and to assess our own ability, or even lack thereof, to lead in various ways through the multifaceted social structures of the natural world. In 1903, Jack London published Call of the Wild, now a major motion-picture starring Harrison Ford, depicting such a reality after spending time observing in the Yukon and writing a story around the Klondike goldrush, sending worldwide travelers to embark in search of riches in contrast with finding what matters most, his own inner voice, witnessed through the wild.

Like humans, dogs become domesticated once out of their natural habitat and begin to live an enclosed life. Buck, an overzealous and oversized dog not only has the issue of being enclosed, but also has the energy of a toddler, wreaking havoc wherever he goes. A nuisance, as he’s treated, Buck is stolen and sold only to find himself in the natural habit of Alaska and the Yukon, both of which more ideal for an animal of such presence and stature. Once free of the contained life he lived, something begins to change. Despite his unruly wild side, Buck begins to find a pack, a team, better suited for him in a dog-sled team delivering mail throughout the Yukon and matures beyond that of the humans whom he comes in contact.

In the story, and cinematic performance, Buck begins to reveal his natural leadership capability. Over time he no longer needs to run from his wild side, his risk-taking instincts in which he was punished in the enclosed and tamed life. He’s aware of the other members of the team and the lack of care given them by their supposed leader, Spitz. Spitz stands in contrast to Buck, one of greater servant leadership, putting the team before himself. Spitz, on the other hand, ego-driven and all about himself, fighting off hungry and thirsty dogs for his own nourishment, consistently slowing the team. Of course, like any great story, it culminates in conflict between the two only to find Spitz humiliated by Buck and the other dogs who once feared him. Shear jealousy on the part of Spitz reveals his own ability to lead, managing simply to keep the others of the group in line out of fear and by holding them back, wanting to be centerstage. The irony, they were never on-time.

If there is one element missing in our world it’s true leaders. We typically settle for the Spitz’s of the world because it’s all we really know, pushing demands on others rather than assisting in helping them find and pull out their own inner authority. It seems unfounded to us when a true leader steps up who doesn’t use fear to hold back the masses simply to make him or her-self look good. That, however, is not a leader. As a matter of fact, it’s antithetical to what makes a true leader, one who leans into the fear knowing how it obstructs. Buck does nothing extraordinary to step into the role as leader of the pack. If anything, he simply seems to be aware and care about the other dogs. He doesn’t do it to show off to Spitz. He does it in such an innate way that it comes from a place deep within himself, as if he can’t help himself but to put others first, making the pack, the team, successful. It’s what the other dogs admire. Yet, they don’t know what they’re missing until they experience it through Buck. In a single moment, we know things can be better and we can no longer settle for mediocrity at best when someone, a true servant leader, begins to reveal the deeper parts of ourselves.

I dare say, we starve for such leaders today. They are a rare commodity within our institutions. We settle for a mentality ingrained in us of needing to working harder and longer while often deeply rooted in fear of the loss of work, lack of trust, inability to please or keep up, or whatever reason resonating within us. All of which are good indicators we are operating in an environment that lacks real leadership. It’s an environment lacking a courageous leader who’s willing to deeply trust while being open to change in order for the good of the people. An environment leading to unhealthy behavior and mindset lacks real leadership. Period. When we’re so invested in the culture, though, we succumb to it, feeling we have no other choice, often out of fear of retribution for “Bucking” the system. Unfortunately, there are many out there who settle for such an environment. It’s a product-based environment rather than one rooted in value, most importantly, value of the human person.

Leaders know what they know but also know what they don’t know. They rely on the expertise of the team to shore up in the weaknesses of others in order for the whole team to succeed and avoids our reactionary nature to blame everyone else. When we have a need to believe we are the true expert in all, we suppress others for our own good, as Spitz does in contrast to Buck. When we fail to recognize our own limitations, we incur a debt in our lives and the places we are expected to lead. We see it incurring at rapid rates when we separate from that inner authority for the simple reason of trusting so many external authorities who may have positional power but are all but void of inner authority and lack real leadership ability. It’s a sad state of affairs in our institutional worlds, worlds which have become so consumed with holding on and control, power rather than the good of the people. The debt continues to incur and the price will be heavy.

We always have the option to change. It’s the way we break the cycle of insanity we’ve come to expect in our lives and workplaces. It begins, though, with learning to lead ourselves. It begins when we begin to expect more of ourselves than what any job or employment often demands of us. It must begin with our own examination of fear in our lives. Fear is a powerful factor and can be harnessed to invoke change rather than succumbing us to being backed into a constant corner, taming our own inner authority often squelched by so many who feel they know better for us than ourselves. It begins with us, each of us, wanting more out of our own life. When we find ourselves working ourselves to death, lacking balance and variety, having no sense of adventure out of shear exhaustion, we’re not leading ourselves in a healthy way and nor can we lead others. It all begins with one step, a seeming risk, one choice a day changing the trajectory to a healthier and effective life. We may fail and it’s ok. We won’t have the fearful regret and it becomes a learning experience enabling us to grow. Paradoxically, we’ll actually be able to work smarter and better simply by taking charge of our own lives and learning what it really means to be a leader, pulling the best out of others rather than pushing down. We need leaders now more than ever.

A Servant’s Heart

A stare into the camera, not for him to be noticed and seen, but to be aware of who’s on the other side watching, and better, feeling something within them that may be beyond words. Keenly aware of the negative feelings, as children, that tie in with self-worth; anger, sadness, hurt, pain, all of it there staring back into his eyes. They are the eyes of Mister Rogers, trying to understand all while carrying the burden of others on a daily basis. A man, a leader in his own right, who never forgot what it was like to be child, evident with the eclectic gathering of characters that engaged him, King Friday, Lady Aberlin, Daniel Striped Tiger, or the countless others that visited the land-of-make-believe, all a portion of the complex self of Mister Rogers that fascinated children and adults for decades.

The newest film, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, starring Tom Hanks as Mister Rogers, gives us a glimpse into a man who seems almost unbelievable. How could a man exhibit such kindness and authenticity without becoming jaded like often projected by the world around him? How could such a man survive in a “business” that loves to chew people up and spit them out? As is well known, the man that we all saw with our own eyes through a screen in some far-off neighborhood was no different than Fred off camera. He found a way to transcend the expectations of so much media and technology just by being himself, even while holding a disdain for television. This freed others to do the same, in particular, children, and even parents who had to sit through what, for an adult, can seem, today, like a rather mundane experience of television.

Now decades after the program first appeared, Mister Rogers still has a great deal to teach the world about the human condition and a cultural shift needed, certainly in positions of power, business, school, and so many other facets of life. What Rogers has to bring us back to is not a day gone by, but rather a reminder of who we are as human beings. He knew, undoubtedly from his own experience, that people tended to self-identify. We identify by our negative feelings, which he so often spoke of, but also by the countless labels that are thrust upon us that box us in. We’re classified as consumers and customers, we’re clients, even liabilities at times. All of which sells ourselves short from, as he pointed out, that we are special and unique.

When we think of great leaders my guess is Mister Rogers wouldn’t be the first to come to mind, even for those of us who grew up in his neighborhood. Some would write him off as silly or unrealistic, maybe too religious and living with expectations that are impossible, someone who represents the past. Nonetheless, Rogers points us to what matters most in leaders and what is needed now more than ever. More often than not, leaders are reduced to authority figures or someone who has all the answers, the money, even if a mere perception. If leadership is simply reduced to an authority figure there automatically sets up a hierarchy which in turn leads to a separation and gap that becomes difficult to overcome. We begin to believe more in our position being our identity and seeing others as such, sacrificing our deeper selves and the human connection that binds us. We begin to see customers, clients, consumers, competitors, affiliates of political parties and religions, the countless other ways we try to stroke one’s ego, and ourselves as something other than the “special” that Rogers speaks of, losing our greatest gift, as he points out, our humanity. We begin to believe and are often led to believe that it is that label that makes us special, and worse yet, right.

In the age of reality television, 24-hour news cycles, ever-expanding technology, all with the original intent to keep us informed and connected has done just the opposite, Rogers greatest concern about television and technology. It has fragmented us beyond imagination and separated us to a point where we no longer see ourselves in the other or honestly, only within the people we agree. I don’t know how many times I myself have said in the past few years, “I don’t even know that person anymore”. It is a society and media world that has become heartless in many ways, ego-driven to the point of fanaticism. Everyone becomes a specialist and expert and we become lulled into believing, while at the same time becoming more bankrupt of our humanity at the expense of deep pockets for others. Rogers warned of such a reality, a warning that still rings true to this day.

Our financial, institutional, political, ecclesiastical, and consumer-driven worlds are starving for leaders and leaders in the sense that Rogers not only spoke of but mirrored back to us. No, it’s not a sense of perfection or utopia, but rather leaders who never forget their own humanity, have the ability to empathize, to understand, to see people not first as the customer or consumer or anything else, but rather a brother and sister of the human family. When we lose sight of that we too become ego-driven and at times heartless. It’s not only the world that becomes fragmented, it’s our own hearts and souls as well. We move towards acceptance of manipulation, retaliation, narcissism, revenge, heartlessness, and write it off as, “well, that’s just the way it is.” We live in an age and culture that has separated from the heart of who we are, in Rogers’ words, special and are in dire need of such leaders.

He never says it’s about the elimination of pain and suffering but rather recognizes it in the faces of the people he encounters and how we often inflict it upon one another. Great leaders know how to speak below the surface of all and recognize the greater good that we all bear, sometimes seemingly heavier than the pain at times. Rogers, in his modeling of servant leadership, never lost sight of our essence and how we all fit within the larger family, even when we are at odds or disagree. Servant leadership is needed in all facets of our lives. It is the model of leadership that can redirect companies and institutions that have lost sight of who they are and their original intent. Servant leadership has a way of pulling us back into the tension of our own humanity as to not to lose sight of who we are either. I may, over the course of my day, act as a consumer, client, employee, customer, and even liability, but must never lose sight of being special, connected with head and heart, joy and pain, hurt and care, just as the person next to me. A servant leader, in other words, isn’t quick to avoid pain, suffering, challenges, difficulties, impossibilities, but rather steps back, puts them in perspective, and then faces it head on. This type of leadership is not about quick fixes to problems to try to avoid pain. Rather, it’s about playing the long game and consistently connecting us to our very essence, our specialness.

The world could stand a few more leaders like Rogers, the one who goes under the radar and yet is making a difference in people’s lives and not just because of position, power, or money. A leader may have them all, but leaders today need to respond through acts of service, being authentic and genuine, actively listening with the heart, and always remaining connected to the essence of who we are, recognizing our own commitment to change and grow. Servant leaders remain connected to the grittiness of their own life and the lives of others. Servant leaders strive for the best and yet always remain grounded in reality. Servant leaders serve with an iron fist while draped in a velvet glove. The land-of-make-believe was a world of puppets, cardigan sweaters, cardboard sets, and ringing trollies, but for Rogers it was reality. It pointed the way to a neighborhood that was safe to be who you are, where you felt what you felt, a place to love and to seek truth, and ultimately a place of service. No matter who walked through that door they were met where they were. Undoubtedly, we all arise and descend into varying positions in life; all of which are often necessary for order. Such positions, though, do not define us, especially as servant leaders. Rather, as was taught and is needed, it is our true specialness, our essence, that forms us and makes us the leaders the world needs today. When we embrace that, we will then understand what made it such a beautiful day in Rogers’ neighborhood and why we strive to do the same.