On Friday, May 4, Marybeth wrote:

Hi Jeanne! It was such a sight to see you today. I had a very warm feeling inside when I saw you. You know how when everything around you feels or seems strange (even though you've been there before) and no matter how hard you try you just can't find that peace that is necessary to cope with the daily madness around you, and then suddenly you spot something that makes you realize that it's going to be okay? Well, that is what happened to me when I saw you today.

Then I saw you later in the hall talking with some students and that just confirmed everything for me. Last semester I only saw you in the day time and when I saw you on campus tonight, it was like coming home. I saw you interacting with people and people around you were just enjoying the conversation and it made me feel good. Thanks for being that pretty flower on a sunny day that makes people appreciate being alive! That's what you did for me today, and you didn't even try! Its funny how you can touch someone's life without even trying.

I hope that I can do the same for my students! (I probably do, and I just don't know it.) Here's to a great semester....I'm ready now!

Marybeth

My first reaction to Marybeth's message was one my mother would have been proud of. I read it briefly, and demurred, as a lady should upon receiving a compliment. I wrote a quick note to Susan on what a joy it is to teach students in a loving environment, then thanked Marybeth. By that time, I had the good sense to realize that what Marybeth was saying was important to the project of Love 1A. And then, as I added some new material to The Gift of Discourse, I realized that Marybeth's message wasn't really about me at all. Sorry, Mother, wrong response. Marybeth's message was about the climate of learning we are building in the project of Love 1A. The following notes should help you follow my reasoning.

warm feeling

Marybeth beautifully phrased this. She speaks of a "warm feeling." Notice how this expression evokes Lear's concept of "acting out." The "warm feeling" Marybeth describes did not come from rational thought. It came from a purely affective response to the "daily madness around you." Then she saw jeanne. To the extent that we can assume some transference, such as Lear describes, to the teacher in an interactive learning environment, as to the analyst in psychoanalysis, the mere presence of the object of the transference is enough to elicit the "warm feelings" Marybeth describes. The scene was one of people greeting each other, really listening to each other, and their joy in doing so. A scene that was repeated myriad times in the classroom.

This is a good example of the affect so closely attached to teaching and learning. Chances are that Marybeth will someday experience the same "warm feeling" when some of you come together at a reunion and greet each other as we were doing on February 3, 2000, in the hallway. The transference, as is the case with the psychoanalyst, attaches to a person at some stage, but when worked through, it is the climate of learning itself that should evoke these feelings.

Perhaps this semester we shall be able to devise a means of testing that hypothesis.

peace

I believe the peace to which Marybeth refers is the inner control we all need to deconstruct our everyday world into one that makes some sense and retains some sensitivity. She is speaking of the end of the day. When we are all tired, at a time of uncertainty (registration and new classes). The external scene of the warmth of a genuinely interactive environment is enough to spark Marybeth's own peace.

We sometimes refer to this phenomenon as stimulus generalization. The scene that evokes warmth is sufficiently like her own inner warmth, that the scene is enough to bring back her own sense of peace. Remember the studies in which infants "coo" to themselves, making pleasurable sounds that recall the loving sounds of their mother's presence, even when she is not there?

spot something

Notice Marybeth's description of how she came to feel that peace: she spotted something, the transference object, a group of people comfortable in and excited by a learning environment.

like coming home

Another good example of Marybeth's recognition that it is the climate of learning that is fundamental here. She compares the experience to that of coming home. Coming home means coming to a space where you matter for who you are, a place of ascribed status.

Many of you have taken to asking me: "What can we do about structural violence?" Well, here's an example. The more you work at creating climates of support, the more "homes" there will be to come to. School should be a place of support, refuge, and cooperation. So should home. By multiplying the places that evoke these warm feelings, we are doing something about structural violence.

interacting with people

Notice Marybeth's description of how she came to feel that peace: she spotted something, the transference object, a group of people comfortable in and excited by a learning environment.

Again, Marybeth describes the scene much as we might a gathering at home, with people just enjoying each other. One plausible reason for why this scene might evoke warm feelings might be traceable to Dear Habermas itself. As the site has grown increasingly, it has developed its own virtual community. That would seem to have given us added appreciation for the academic discourse we have in class and in our workshops. That was certainly one factor that contributed to the design of the Love 1A course, and that was a factor in jeanne's move to put lectures on site, so that more class time might be reserved for discussion. Real time face to face interaction is valuable. And Marybeth is describing a scene of real time face to face interaction.

appreciate being alive<

This general description of a good feeling that goes to the joy in being alive reminds me that I didn't do such a good thing afterall. If such a scene can evoke such warm feelings, the seeds of the warm feelings are already in place. But I am flattered to think that such warmth came from a class in statistics. Now, maybe that was a good thing I did.

I can do the same for my students

Yes, Marybeth, it is funny how you can touch people's lives without even trying. I believe it's because we create a place in which love and warmth and support and cooperation take priority. Such places feel good. We smile at the thought of being in them. They make us "appreciate being alive." And we all do it, without even knowing it.

Leo Buscaglia said in Living, Learning, and Loving (at p. 4):

" . . . I have yet to find a class from elementary school right on up through graduate school on, for instance, "Who Am I?, 1A;" or "What Am I Here For, 1A;" or "What Is My Responsibility to Man, 1A;" or, if you willl, "Love, 1A." As far as I know, we are the only school in the country, and possibly the world, which has a listing called, "Love, 1A," and I am the only professor crazy enough to teach it.

"I don't teach this class. I learn in it. We get together on a great big rug and sit down and rap for two hours. It usually goes on into the night but we get involved for at least the formal two hours and share our knowledge, the thesis being that love is learned."

Move over, Leo. We're crazy enough to join you. Welcome back to Love 1A.