Ideals, Obstacles and Achievements, keynote address to Psi Chapter Initiates to Kappa Delta Pi International Honor Society in Education, University of Northern Iowa (1999)

When we join the Kappa Delta Pi honor society, we pledge fidelity to four ideals:
Fidelity
 to humanity
 science
 service and
 toil

The interesting thing about ideals is that they only really take on personal meaning when we are faced with a challenge, a goal, that is not immediately attainable.

By their nature, challenges require an extended effort, providing for lots of opportunity for obstacles to interfere.

And by their nature, obstacles often require us to consciously embrace, or consciously ignore these ideals.

By their nature, obstacles can make ideals seem superfluous, even impediments to progress, to achievement.  We can lose sight of the type of progress and the type of achievement our ideals would normally prompt us to pursue, when we are challenged by and we are focusing on the obstacles rather than on our goal.

Obstacles come in all forms
 - students who cannot comprehend our messages
 - colleagues who aggressively compete with us
 - professors who do not understand us
 - supervisors who interfere
 - bureaucratic setbacks
And we al know it's difficult to keep up with the stress of a hectic schedule.

Obstacles interfere with our idealized view of how life should be treating us.

When obstacles interfere with forward progress, the less ambitious of us tuck away achievement into a subconscious place where we keep an idyllic vision of how life will be, once we arrive.

One writer talked of this subconscious place in that collection of inspirational stories called Chicken Soup for the Soul.

This writer tells of "The Station" that in our mind's eye we are traveling to, always traveling to

Perhaps we are traveling by train, and out the windows we can see
 - children waving at a crossing
 - cattle grazing on a hillside
 - waving corn and bean fields
 - flatlands and valleys
 - rolling hillsides

But uppermost in our minds is the final destination.

On a certain day, we decide, we will pull into the station, just not right now,
 later, after the obstacle has passed.

Bands will be playing and flags waving
 - once we get there
The pieces of our life will fit together
 - once we get there
But all we need to do is sit by and wait for the destination to reach us. . .

"When I'm 21"
"When I'm big"
"When I get married and have my kids"
 that's when I'll have the focus I need to reach the destination
"When I win the lottery" . . . I'll stop trying.  Buy a cabin in Minnesota for summers and a condo in Florida for winters.

Sooner or later, though, we must back out of the daydream and realize there is no station, no one place to arrive.

The station is only a dream.  It will constantly elude us.

That's when we get back to work.

We have already touched a part of this vision every time we have faced an obstacle and used that obstacle to renew commitment to our ideals, in the process of getting something tangible done.

But I'm thinking of the times that we who have achieved a goal, we who know that there's lots of little destinations,
we who know the pleasure of getting in and getting the work done.
. . . what happens when our energy and spirit is so flagged that we can't remember how to achieve the little destinations?
. . . what happens when we can't remember where we got our fire and our energy to achieve those other goals?

That's when we need to reach out to friends, colleagues, family, for a reminder of how to forge ahead.

 . . . I want to tell you about an internet friend of mine and how he helped me through one of these patches, and how I helped him.
 - along the way, let me tell you of my deepening relationship with the wild wild web

 Researching this talk, I came across the Kappa Delta Pi web page at <www.kdp.org> and found a great link to a teacher somewhere who has created “Mrs. Harland’s web page.”  Great graphics.  But even better ideas.  Mrs. Harland’s personality shows up all over that page.  You can tell that her goal is truly what she says it is,  "I want to help new teachers.”
Check Mrs. Harland out at  <www.iloveteaching.com>

I found Mrs. Harland’s page through a link on <www.kdp.org>

And that’s a second web page treasure:
kdp.org also taught me some things about KDP that I really “heard” for the first time.
 I learned them for the first time, because I was curious, and because I sought them out, and because they was there, . . . after I had looked for them.

I learned that
 - Kappa Delta Pi was created in 1904 in Illinois
 - that in 1912 KDP tried to join another educational society but was rejected beaus KDP allowed women to be members
 - that in 1924 John Dewey was KDP's first laureate.

BUT I digress.  The internet is a great place for random thought.

The focus of my talk is on an insight I gleaned from an e-mail discussion list and a personal e-mail correspondent.

The focus is -- how to get back on track, back to the work, when the spirits flag.  -- when neither the spirit, nor the flesh, is willing, to tackle the next obstacle.

Here's the story  . . .

 About a year ago I got a message from a discussion group for legal research and writing teachers.

 In this discussion group, we have random conversations.  And many of our conversations sound a lot like conversations I heard when I was a public school teacher --

 I'm not teaching in the public school now, . . .
But our law teachers' discussions of law students, sound just like the junior high student discussion I had back in '80 - '83.

 their frustrations and limitations,
 and the frustrations they cause us . . . are really the same

Law school does that to grown-ups.  Brings them down to ground zero, makes them adolescents again.  Achievements before law school have no bearing on their success in law school. -- only the work ethic they developed does . . .  law school rewards those who continue to confront obstacles; it does not reward those who want to get back on the train and dream . . .

 When the law students realize this scary truth, they run for cover -- or to their writing teachers.
 We are the home room teachers, the psychologists, the coaches, the moms.

 The law students' frustrations and limitations
 and the frustrations they cause us . . . are the same ones they faced when they lurched through adolescence.

 And for their teachers . . .

 It's the same conversation.  The same challenges.  The same traps for the unwary.  And the same opportunities

 About a year ago, this group of law teachers had a good long "teacher's lounge" chat on the topic of "teacher burnout."  Actually, we have this discussion every time we are loaded down with paperwork and student contact time,  generally the same times for all of us across the country each semester.

 The last time we had the conversation about teacher burnout, I saved a little snippet that expressed an insight that wanted to explore more fully

 The snippet was:  "you burn out slowly if you don't have a source to renew your spirit and your energy."

I had a very specific response to the comment and developed the question:
    what sources exist to renew our spirits, to renew our energies?

I didn't look for somebody's web page on the subject.  How would you search for that?  It would be much easier to find tons of web pages on grasping for power in workplace politics.

Instead, I asked a well-trusted and well-respected friend
 former colleague, regular e-mail correspondent, and efficient person who does not spend a lot of time listening in on e-mail discussions,

I suspected he had a reliable source
 - for renewing his spirit
 - and for renewing his energy.

 He responded with a beautiful message that began,

"The span of a human life is not infinite.  We are all allotted our time on earth, and then our day is done.”
 "The point is," he said, "we burn out slowly."  Anything less than the entire time spent on earth "living," however, is tragedy.

 Then he reminded me of a philosophy that educators share, at least those educators who aspire to achieve the Kappa Delta Pi ideals of
 Fidelity to Humanity,
 Science,
 Service, and
 Toil

 He said that the real cause of what we know as "burnout" is a lack of integration and wholeness.

 We compartmentalize ourselves, as we must, when we take on things that we do not like or that do not suit us
 Once we commit to things that we do not like or that do not suit us, we try to balance those things –
 with recreation,
 with amusements,
 with intoxicants.

However, if we take a holistic approach to defining life.
 If we are consistent in approach.
 If we take responsibility for constructing our lives.
 If we actively and affirmatively live our lives.
 We make good choices.
 We choose things we like.
 We choose things that suit us.

How do we know what things suit us?
Sometimes we don’t . . . until we find the things that do not suit us.
Experiments and explorations and failed attempts are all part of the integrated life.

Recently the friend who sent me this message asked me for help in renewing his spirit and his energy . . .

For lack of better words, . . .
I sent him back his own message, the one that began, “The span of human life is not infinite . . .

His own obstacles had caused him to temporarily lose sight of the sources for renewal he had with him all along.

* * *

When we are discouraged by obstacles, we need to find a way around, over and through them.  They prompt us to do so.   Actually, they require us to do so.  sometimes the look around for a way around the obstacle reaffirms the choices we have made.  Sometimes it does not.
. . . .

The obstacles serve another purpose.
They demand that we act.
We cannot get on that train, and dreamily look out the window, waiting to reach a destination.
We only get to lots of little destinations, through our own efforts.

And, if we maintain an openness of mind and spirit in face of obstacles
our search, our effort, becomes more fulfilling.

That openness of mind and spirit helps us see that the obstacle is what makes us live.  Having the problem FORCES us to think, to change, to experiment.  That's the great truth John Dewey, KDP's first laureate, had expressed.t

Working through obstacles, we find the questions that help us
search for a new idea or a new answer;
search for increased understanding;

If we affirmatively engage in that search-- we find a way around, over, or through those obstacles.  .

It is this willingness to confront
 to directly respond
 to master the difficult
 to commit and not to quit
that we hope to teach our students
that we hope to remind ourselves.

When we remember the meaning and the utility of the obstacle, then we avoid the "burn out"

The search around, over and through the obstacles
is the search we hope to teach our students.
For it is the search that prevents us from,
 or eventually carries us through,
the burnout and weariness
that accompanies disappointments
 and demands
 and unfairnesses.

Learning something new,
mastering something new,
exploring new possibilities
seeking out new experiences . . .
all are sources for the renewal of one's spirit and the renewal of one's energy.

It is the pursuit of the possibility in human understanding and experience that sets members of the teaching profession apart
 - as a truly honorable
 - and a truly fulfilling vocation.

And sometimes we are successful at communicating these ideals, these principles to our students,
  To our children
  To ourselves

Sometimes we need to be the one to sit back and be taught, because sometimes we lose sight of the goal.  That is when we need to return to return to the well, the sources we have found for the renewal of spirit and renewal of energy.

KAREN EWOLDT KRUSE (memorial)
 I know Karen Ewoldt Kruse, back when I spending some time sitting on the train, waiting for the destination.
 I was drawn to Karen because she was mastering lots of little and big challenges, arriving at, by forging toward, destinations she had created.  And she did so on a regular basis.
 Karen Ewoldt Kruse understood that challenges are exciting and fulfilling.  She used the time allotted to her well.  She was an example of an integrated and whole life.  She understood, at a very young age, how to cling to ideals, WHILE SHE WAS GETTING SOMETHING DONE, while she was pushing toward a goal.

And she understood that
 Education
  -  encourages universal welfare
  -  encourages individual progress
  -  serves as a foundation for personal fulfillment

She had faith in the potential of human beings, through education, to experience more meaningful lives.

She had an honest faithfulness to the ideal of science, maintaining an open mind and not assuming she had it all figured out

She understood the privilege of serving learners of all ages, classes, and races.

And she had the will, and the ability, to do what must be done.

 Much of what she knew she was born with, and gathered from her parents and family.  But much of what she knew she also developed through her KDP experience, here at the University of Northern Iowa, as a member, and as president of Psi Chapter, guided by one of the most integrated teachers I know, Dr. Fortgang.

 I am proud to share that UNI Kappa Delta Pi, Psi Chapter heritage with Karen, I am proud to share the teaching vocation with her, and with the members and initiates present here today.

 Together, we have a well to which we can return again
 - to renew our spirit
 - and our energy.

That well is expressed in our ideals to which we have pledged, or renewed our pledge, today.

Fidelity to Humanity
 Science
 Service, and
 Toil

In search of an ideal, we have found ourselves.

Thank you.