Bird Droppings November 15, 2024

Teachers need to consult their hearts more

I was amazed walking out this morning to the car. It was 45 degrees, and a few frogs were still chirping away. I was going through some research material and pulled out a little book. It has been several years since I found this small book from which I would like to share some passages on my many excursions to Barnes and Noble. I found many of the thoughts and passages to be of interest and significance, and for me, sharing words of wisdom with others is part of who I am. Over the years, I have had many students in classes and advisement who are interested in going into nursing, and many thoughts in this little book relate to health and spiritual care as being the same. Quite a few of my former students are in nursing and health care. The little book Listening with Your Heart was written by Dr. Wayne Peale, MD, a medical doctor and an Iroquois on his mother’s side.

“As a medical student I was being trained to hear hearts with my stethoscope, but found I was missing a great deal by not listening with my heart,” Dr. Wayne Peale

Several years ago, I was proctoring an End of Course Test. One of the questions was from a poem or passage about a colt that was not winter broke. I liked that term winter-broke. For those of us in the south, perhaps it has little meaning and is perhaps a culturally difficult passage. The term winter-broke is about being use to the winter, snowflakes, cold, steam from your breath, and other idiosyncrasies of the cold. Today, in Georgia, many of those who are shy of snow in our area are visible. A baby horse new to the world would be spooked with a new snowfall. Maybe chasing snowflakes or running from them, as in the case of the story.

However, as the question was answered for, one of the answers was the author’s empathy to the plight of the colt. Other answers used words such as was the colt afraid and words similar. One of my students quietly asked me what empathy is. Being a language arts test and such, I could not impart or define an answer. I saw my little book on the table when I returned to my room and pondered as to why it was so hard not to say the answer because I, too, lived by empathy.

“The white man talks about the mind and body and spirit as if they are separate. For us, they are one. Our whole life is spiritual, from the time we get up until we go to bed.”   Yakima healer

It was nearly seventeen years ago that I agonized about a situation and a student who was on the verge of being expelled, and much of it was my fault. The student was refusing to do a required program. In refusing to do the assignment, he was getting irate and argumentative, often to the point of school disruption. When you carefully look at the student’s disability, each aspect of it is in responses that are given, lack of control, obsessive behavior, emotional issues, anger management issues, and authority issues. A slight change could solve the problem. Why not do the same work differently? Of course, it is not in the confines of a “program,” which would upset the administration. Should empathy for the student stand up to, trying to stay in the box? As Dr. Peale learned and points out, sometimes you need to teach from the heart as well.

One day, perhaps I will study linguistics and language. As I looked through Dr. Peale’s book, I noticed that a Navajo word caught my attention.

“Hozho (HO-zo) – A complex Navajo philosophical, religious, and aesthetic concept roughly translated as “beauty.” Hozho also means seeking and incorporating aesthetic qualities into life; it means inner peace and harmony and making the most of all that surrounds us. It refers to a positive, beautiful, harmonious, happy environment that must be constantly created by thought and deed. Hozho encourages us to go in beauty and to enjoy the gifts of life and nature and health.” Listening with your heart

In a recent writing seminar, the lead teacher offered that reading a passage can aid in eliciting descriptive phrases and sentences and encourage students to illiterate and expound on ideas more so. Here is a word that has so many meanings. A simple word is hozho, yet so much meaning. I end each of my daily writings with a Hindustani word and have offered translation several times when people ask. Within its language, there are different meanings for different people. For some, it is a salutation, a simple hello or goodbye. If you go a bit further south in India, you would only use namaste with reverence and literally bow your head, pressing your hands together, honoring the person you are speaking with with your simple salutation.

It has been a few months back since I wrote about making a rope strand by strand. A dear friend from up north wrote back thanking me and later in the day responded with this note.

“Thank you for sharing them with me.  I sent this one on to my husband, my sister, and sister-in-law, and my best friend.  Thru this most difficult year, losing my beloved son, they have been constants in my life; united, we stand thru this valley of darkness. Without their love and support, my grief would be unbearable.  Peace, my friend.“

Empathy is assisted healing from the heart.

“…healing is a partnership with others – family members, community. A Native American healer once paraphrased Abraham Lincoln to me: ‘You can heal some things all of the time,‘ the healer said, ‘and you can heal all things some of the time, but you can‘t heal everything all the time alone.‘ Everyone needs a coach, a family a community.” Dr. Wayne Peale MD

Sometimes, when I receive a note from the heart, it is difficult to answer immediately. I have to sit sometimes, even sleep on it. My dear friend lost a son. Many times since hearing of her plight, I have wondered what it would be like to lose a son, a daughter, or anyone close to me. Empathy is a difficult word at times like this. It is a much bigger word than most would imagine.

Our house is such that two of our bedrooms are upstairs, and two are downstairs; they literally go from one end of the house to the other. I was told that my writing and reading time do not always correspond with normal sleep patterns; the family, when home, will be asleep when I am about to write or read. Hearing the sounds of my family asleep often is a peaceful and wonderful feeling. Knowing they are safe and here at home. Then, so many what-ifs crossed my mind as I walked through the house early in the morning, thinking about what if the rooms were empty.

Lost in a moment of melancholy, I come back to teaching in my thinking. Teaching is about healing, community, family, and, most of all, empathy. It is about seeking and engaging constants in our lives so we can move forward and or change directions if need be. Teaching is always about learning. Sometimes, as I came to realize yesterday and have so many times before, our nice boxes we are supposed to teach from are not always the right ones. Sadly, far too many teachers do not use heart as a teaching tool. Far too many parents do not or cannot use heart as a parenting tool. As I look at the title of Dr. Peale’s book, listening with your heart, I see what a powerful message it is.

I am doing an exercise using a black-and-white picture of a bridge. Most will see a picture, while others have created fantasy worlds of trolls and fairies. Some explain their perception and how we each are different in what we see and hear. Often, I will play the devil’s advocate and argue both sides. Is it just a bridge to elicit responses, or what if it was a work of art created by an immigrant iron worker as a tribute to their new freedom? Thinking back to Hozho, my new word, I should pause.

“Every action should be taken with thoughts of its effects on children seven generations from now,” Cherokee saying

If only we would deal with kids in life that way. What if people, in general, looked at life that way? Please keep all in harm’s way on your mind and in your hearts. It is about being in your heart. It is about speaking from your heart. But most of all, it is listening with your heart and always giving thanks and namaste.

My family and friends, I do not say this lightly,

Mitakuye Oyasin

(We are all related)

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