Master of Something

Chapter 30

Graduated.  How am I supposed to feel?  Am I supposed to feel elated and informed?  Do I feel better about myself?  What is a Masters Degree graduate supposed to feel like?  In my world, it is an expectation.  I want to celebrate, but then I look at my amazing peers and almost everyone has one.  It’s not that I didn’t do what I was supposed to do to be even by this time in life, but quite the opposite.  My journey here was the absolute opposite route.  I feel like it’s one of those tales of legend where you seek the lost pearl in the jungle, find the eye diamond at the highest summit, or discover some sunken treasure after traveling across the globe facing life ending adventures that would make Jerry Bruckheimer blush.  No, no… I don’t get that much credit.  Actually, I don’t need that type of fan fare but when I was younger, I felt like accomplishing a Masters Degree was something special, something unique.  Look around the room, most people have one in my profession.

In my house, we have such a wild and dynamic nature about us.  Secretly, I feel pulled in so many directions that I don’t know how to rest or understand what presence in the moment is, even though I preach it to others everyday.  Why do I feel like this?  Is it my life?… or is it education in general?  Poetically, I am beyond blessed in my life and I thank God every day for it.  I summon my inner feelings at what my true disappointment is, and as a teacher, I believe education is failing not only our k-12 learners, but our advanced education ones as well.  Just the other day, not only my wife, but several other peers and students asked me how I felt about the whole process.  The main question was do I feel like it was worth it beyond the bump in pay that educators receive for owning a higher education degree.  I did not hesitate long.  The answer was no.  In order to pursue a higher education degree at an older age, there are many sacrifices that someone has to make: time with family, their kids, themselves; finances, going into debt because no one normal just carries around thousands of dollars eager to pull it out of their pockets and hand it over to policymakers, and FOMO on almost everything because there is not enough time in the day to get a good grade and choose personal happiness.  Some critics would say, “Well, that’s what it takes to accomplish something like this!”  Uggggggh.  Why?  Why does it take all those adverse possibilities to achieve educational greatness?  Do we really have to crush our inner peace to achieve?

If you ask me, I have been in thousands of classrooms at all levels over the years, and one of the very first things I hear from teachers is complaints.  They whine about how students don’t listen, aren’t cooperative, are selfish, and unmotivated to do classroom work.  I don’t know about you, but I am a different breed.  I understand that I am an adult peer, and magically they invisibly assume that I am going to agree with them because they are talking about students: their subordinates.  That is not the case here.  Actually, my thoughts go into overdrive and I silently in my head want to challenge my peers.  Why don’t your students listen?  Is it because you aren’t supplying them valuable information or the learning that is necessary for them to succeed?  Are you looking at how you want to teach, and not how they want to be taught?  Are you meeting their communication needs?  If not, then how can you change that to get more attentive students?  Don’t assume so quickly!  Why do you feel like your students are not cooperative?  Is it because you use a command and compliance style of teaching?  That crap went out in like 2005, and you are still using it?  Two decades have almost passed since the emergence of performance psychology and servant leadership entering into education, and educators in control are still demanding control.  Flip it for a second, would you want someone telling you must do this or must do that with restrictions and the saying it is for your benefit.  From a therapy session standpoint, that is not an open relationship; it is a one sided relationship with partners that are unwilling, where one is controlling and the other is the controlled.  I think it is so simple to see this pattern, but yet it still exists and is an accepted form of leadership in the classroom.  Really?  How about when teachers say students are selfish and unmotivated?  Shouldn’t they be selfish and look at their own needs when we are having a serious conversation about their future?  Maybe they’re unmotivated because what you are giving them has zero value to the real world, when they know this, and want to try to get out of the situation as quickly as they can to get to work on things that will bring value.  Obviously, I am not talking about students who are just plain lazy or whatnot, but it is interesting to ask students of all ages what is important to them.  Once you find that out, that is your starting point to getting them to come around and engage in the process.

Why is it that I use these examples?  This is the dilemma I believe is striking a high failure rate in our education. Our teacher’s perceptions.  We are not asking the right questions and targeting the right learning objectives with those we are trying to teach.  The concern is with what we have to teach, not what we should teach.  We are answering to the wrong people.  We are answering to consulting firms that are backed by big business and getting entangled with them to earn their business so they can push curriculum that we buy from them at millions of dollars (really billions if we are being truthful, because it is a global epidemic), and then we turn it over on our innocent learners of all ages saying that it is mandatory, being that it will lead them to success.  How do we define success?  Is it prosperity, inner peace, or something else?  Who defines that?  I understand there are global monitoring systems that score our relationship with academics in context of economic superiority, and here in America they do not triangulate or match.  We have one of the most burgeoning and powerful economies in the world, yet our education scores in comparison are mid to low range against our competitors.  Why is that?  How does that relate to those in control promising our students “if you do this, then you get that”?  It’s not true.  This is where the pursuit of higher education loses value in my eyes because it is a bureaucratic socio-political money grab that actually negatively affects our people.  I can tell you right now, even though I will make more money annually, I also owe the federal government close to $50,000 in debt now.  When I started this process, I had zero debt.  Is it worth it?  Am I more empowered, or am I serving someone else (…and not in a good way)?  Isn’t this a crazy thought?  It should be a time of celebration, not contemplation, right?  But here we are.

I think with the combination of being placed in a system where requirements are so hard to get into school, then you have to pay for the school, and then listen to someone “who knows everything”, and then come away less financially empowered, just to say “I’m highly educated and here’s my advanced degree to prove it.”… I am not sure if that is the reason to pursue learning.  Learning is never ending and has a lot of value.  I love it when people find their passions and pursue them, while finding a wealth of joy and fulfillment.  But the problem is, we have transformed that model into a money and power grab, and students are the loser in it.  I really wish it was different, and I am super proud of my accomplishment, but wish it was different.  The full answer to everyone’s question, which I have been delaying on, is that I believe based on my life experiences, there wasn’t anything introduced that challenged my advancement in learning.  In most of my classes, I had a certain added perspective that other students had yet to learn in life which greatly affected my ability to communicate in work and research.  While I enjoy the satisfaction of obtaining a higher degree, I have a true disdain for professors that have unrelenting expectations and profess that certain things are important in the world, when in actuality in about eight to ten weeks what was important to the professor, the students in that class will never actually use again in their life.  It is a sad state of affairs for education because we allow these types of educators to exist, destroying the love and critical thinking skills of our future leaders, and they don’t even know it because they were warped by someone before them.  It’s such a vicious cycle that is occurring.

We need to change the rhetoric.  Let your students explore, give up your mandates and personal preferences for the allowance of student voice and discovery.  Students still need to have boundaries, assignments, papers, projects, and academic things to accomplish in your classes, but stop… Please stop being so one sided and ridiculous in ordering and striking fear into your students with punitive tactics with grading and other outlandish nonsense.  There is perfection within imperfection, and if your students didn’t make mistakes, you would not have a job.  Educators should rethink this before designing their next class.  Your job is to build better people, not put yourselves on pedestals to follow.  We need more leaders with sound minds.  Not more followers with fear and insecurities who cannot manage challenges in the future, because they weren’t fully prepared properly.

What is fascinating about this… is I was not of this strong opinion before going through my education process.  Isn’t that crazy?  But here I am suckas… I have a Masters Degree just like the rest of them!  The real privilege of this responsibility is that I get to go out into this world and help others.  You should too.  Lift people up.  Listen to their needs.  Do exactly what Ted Lasso said, “Be curious, not judgmental.”  If you take the time out to help, then that is where your influence begins, and real change can start – with yourself and others.  You have the power to do that, you don’t need someone giving you permission to do it, and you definitely don’t need a Masters Degree to make it happen.

On a personal note:  I graduated with a 4.0.  Incredible.  Throughout the process, I was one of those students who made it a priority to achieve personal greatness because I worked hard and wanted to model appropriate values for my kids, my students, and anyone else I serve.  I went almost my whole grad program without missing a single point on any of my assignments, something that I am really proud of.  While I am not perfect, and there is no perfection, the type of leadership (or lack of) that I had to learn from in my experiences was atrocious in situations.  For example, my last semester in school, imagine having your professor tell you that met and went beyond the rubric, gave incredible examples, eloquently written, and was a perfect paper (or assignment) but then takes points away because they are the one in control and quotes scripture to not even attempt to challenge authority if you have a problem with it.  You are told that you deserve the score but it wouldn’t be fair to others if you got the perfect score even though it is what you earned.  

Imagine being told this?  How and why are we doing this to our students?  This is a prime example of what I have seen and heard in classrooms.  If you are an educator like this, you need to stop this.  At minimum, you need to leave the profession because there is no longer space for you.  You are absolutely destroying the future minds of this world, and you should be ashamed.  If you are willing to change and improve because there is goodness inside of you, then make the change.  It is okay to love, show kindness, and understanding to your students – you will be a better teacher for it.  For Pete’s sake… if someone earns something, then why do you care about controlling what is theirs, not yours?  Do what is right even when it is unpopular.

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Written By Chris Hulme ( aka – Coach Hulme ) #CoachHulme #ChrisHulme #TheHulme

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