To Russia, With Love
I always wanted my students to be my friends. If my students liked me, the classroom was a safe place. If my students liked me, I was doing my job. I’ve worked with teachers who were disliked by their students, and I always felt sorry for them. I felt they weren’t reaching them. That they were stepping behind them, instead of steeping in front of them. I was jealous. And it’s difficult to get a room full of actors to like you. I mean, really, actually like you. It’s a tough job and it requires maneuvering and constant attention. If they’re to be your friend, when a student gets a look in their eye and their work starts to flail off into the unknown, you have to run towards them with open arms, no matter what the cost. Doing that over and over, student after student, year after year, with no explanation or guideline, takes its toll. But I did it. Constantly. I did it not for them, but for myself. I needed to be liked.
One afternoon, almost a decade ago, one of my favorite students came up to me after a particularly tough class. He was Shattering and heaving, his shoulders wrought with tension and he was swaying from side to side.
“I’m upset.” He said to me, short of breath. “I don’t understand what’s happening to me and I’m really upset, Alex.”
I stood there, in the middle of an empty room, just him and me, and without thinking I placed my hand on his heart and whispered to him:
“You’re all right. It’s just an exercise. You’re here in the ground, you’re with me, and you’re all right. I have you. You can breathe and release whenever you want to. ”
He eventually stopped shaking, and his breath came back to normal. The look in his eyes was not only one of gratitude, but of newness. I had never done that before. I had never actually said to a student that whatever it was he was going through, he’d be fine. He didn’t really need me. This was something he was going through and at any time, he could stop it. He had the Power, not me. And for the first time in my life, I thought of someone else beside myself. I didn’t need him to be my pal, I needed him to learn. Whereas before, I might have taken him and help him and wept with him, and spoken about the mysteries of the Universe and that I could help him come back from wherever he was. I was the sole proprietor of his experience, and as long as he depended on me, and as long as he liked me, I’d given him the Secret to being present. I held all the keys. That student saved my teaching life.
That student saved my life.
It seems now, with Russia and the LGBT community battling to see who’ll survive, there are rooms full of teachers. I keep hearing about these “teachable moments” we’re all supposed to be acquiring. Some believe that continuing on with the Olympics as usual, would be a Teachable Moment, as it says to Russia and its allies that we are unaffected by their threats and their laws. Some believe that we should boycott as it would send the message that won’t stand for their threats and their laws. With all of the moments I’ve yet to see one that I believed was actually designed for the community who’s in the middle of the suffering. I have yet to see anyone put the community in peril before their own self-aggrandizement, and I include both the athletes and the spectators. I hear about how long the athletes have waited for this moment, and how much preparation they’ve done. I hear about turning our backs on the entire country and holding up signs and joining marches, from the audiences. But I have yet to hear a soft, kind and authoritative voice in the crowd demand we let Gay Russia tell us what’s best for them, and then lend in hand in making that happen.
I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t know that there is an answer.
I do know that I can’t make students my friends. If they end up that way, that’s a blessing and I’m overcome with gratefulness. But I have to look at each individual as a unique and divine creation, one of a kind, and solely on earth to give their gift, not as my own personal project, designed to serve my ego. My students are more than my friends: They are my teachers. I want someone in the crowd to start with that before we end up fulfilling our own needs before theirs. And as I look back on that student who shook to his core and who was almost out of air, I see the greatest gift I received. I see he gave me a look into a mirror I had covered years before I’d ever met him. He allowed me into his own experience and the thrill and terror of having to crawl back out of it himself, and it reminded me of what I needed to do and how much I needed to do it. Our job on the planet is to treat everyone in our path as our teacher, and we can’t very well do that if we’re more concerned with our own ego than we are with our brother’s journey.
One afternoon, almost a decade ago, one of my favorite students came up to me after a particularly tough class. He was Shattering and heaving, his shoulders wrought with tension and he was swaying from side to side.
“I’m upset.” He said to me, short of breath. “I don’t understand what’s happening to me and I’m really upset, Alex.”
I stood there, in the middle of an empty room, just him and me, and without thinking I placed my hand on his heart and whispered to him:
“You’re all right. It’s just an exercise. You’re here in the ground, you’re with me, and you’re all right. I have you. You can breathe and release whenever you want to. ”
He eventually stopped shaking, and his breath came back to normal. The look in his eyes was not only one of gratitude, but of newness. I had never done that before. I had never actually said to a student that whatever it was he was going through, he’d be fine. He didn’t really need me. This was something he was going through and at any time, he could stop it. He had the Power, not me. And for the first time in my life, I thought of someone else beside myself. I didn’t need him to be my pal, I needed him to learn. Whereas before, I might have taken him and help him and wept with him, and spoken about the mysteries of the Universe and that I could help him come back from wherever he was. I was the sole proprietor of his experience, and as long as he depended on me, and as long as he liked me, I’d given him the Secret to being present. I held all the keys. That student saved my teaching life.
That student saved my life.
It seems now, with Russia and the LGBT community battling to see who’ll survive, there are rooms full of teachers. I keep hearing about these “teachable moments” we’re all supposed to be acquiring. Some believe that continuing on with the Olympics as usual, would be a Teachable Moment, as it says to Russia and its allies that we are unaffected by their threats and their laws. Some believe that we should boycott as it would send the message that won’t stand for their threats and their laws. With all of the moments I’ve yet to see one that I believed was actually designed for the community who’s in the middle of the suffering. I have yet to see anyone put the community in peril before their own self-aggrandizement, and I include both the athletes and the spectators. I hear about how long the athletes have waited for this moment, and how much preparation they’ve done. I hear about turning our backs on the entire country and holding up signs and joining marches, from the audiences. But I have yet to hear a soft, kind and authoritative voice in the crowd demand we let Gay Russia tell us what’s best for them, and then lend in hand in making that happen.
I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t know that there is an answer.
I do know that I can’t make students my friends. If they end up that way, that’s a blessing and I’m overcome with gratefulness. But I have to look at each individual as a unique and divine creation, one of a kind, and solely on earth to give their gift, not as my own personal project, designed to serve my ego. My students are more than my friends: They are my teachers. I want someone in the crowd to start with that before we end up fulfilling our own needs before theirs. And as I look back on that student who shook to his core and who was almost out of air, I see the greatest gift I received. I see he gave me a look into a mirror I had covered years before I’d ever met him. He allowed me into his own experience and the thrill and terror of having to crawl back out of it himself, and it reminded me of what I needed to do and how much I needed to do it. Our job on the planet is to treat everyone in our path as our teacher, and we can’t very well do that if we’re more concerned with our own ego than we are with our brother’s journey.