Of the two identities that pulse together and intertwine at
the core of who I am, writer and teacher, it is that latter that I reflect upon
most often. I realized I was a teacher
at heart when it occurred to me that I unconsciously strive always to find the
best in every person I meet. It is a
trait I inherited from my father, also a teacher. There is some fundamental assumption I hold
that each person really is doing the best he or she can do in life, that each
person has the potential to reach fullness, self-actualization, and I feel
inherently and unconsciously driven to address that part of her or him.
Whether this is an admirable quality or a naïve one—or
both—I leave for others to judge, but a curious consequence of it is that it tends to lend itself to expectation, which is itself a
potentially dangerous habit to fall into.
Apprehending the future seems to be a natural and compulsive
activity of the human being. We reach
out with eager fingers toward some more secure image of the landscape of
tomorrow. That grasping takes on a very
different grip depending upon the feelings we apply to it: fearful, hopeful or expectant. When we extend
our mental fingers toward the future with fear, for example, we trap ourselves in fascinated dread, summoning
up the very doom that we most wish to avoid, like the deer in the onrushing
headlights. (This, I think, is why such
a rich and lovely word as “apprehend,” from the Latin “to reach toward or to
seize,” takes on the negative and fearful connotation when we force it to
become an adjective: “apprehensive”).
When we reach toward the future with hope, on
the other hand, it is like
planting a seed in the soil, trusting in the subtle and (for most of us)
incomprehensible forces of nature to nurture that seed into life so that it may
provide food for us later. There is an
extending toward the future, but, when Hope is done properly, it is a reach
that already contains gratitude within its attitude. It is an image of the future that still has
gracious space for other possible outcomes.
Expectation, on yet another hand—why not have three hands, if we’re reaching?— expectation is a demand. It is a vivid, well-defined, and therefore
closed vision of what must come. It is
an outfit we must wear cautiously in our relationships with other people,
since, stitched to the inside of those clothes, unseen but waiting for
expression the moment we take them off, is disappointment. As
teachers, we are taught to cultivate this clothing, to wear it clearly for our
students. The famous quip, cited by
Clinton Administration Education Secretary Richard Riley “the tyranny of low
expectations” is often brandished toward educators as an admonition. The meaning is clear: the more we hold our
students to high standards, the more they will stretch to meet them and therefore the more service we provide them. Having high expectations of someone (read: “someone over whom you have authority and
influence”) offers that person an opportunity to tap potentials in herself
that she was unaware previously unaware of. High expectations are useful, important, and a necessary tool for those of us engaged in the co-cultivation of consciousness.
There is, however, that darker side to the equation, which we might call "the crippling of high expectations," or perhaps more accurately, of
unreasonable expectations. So often,
when we see an individual’s potential, and as teachers, we are predisposed to
focusing on just that, we press him toward that potential. With a student, a young spirit with an
intricate life outside of the classroom, an ineffably complex mandala of prides
and insecurities, pressures and doubts, it is a delicate dance between pushing
enough to be encouraging, but not so much as to discourage, or even damage with
the scars of failure. Many of the kids
I’ve worked with in the classroom have carried just these scars from their
experiences in public schools.
As with so many vocations, however, it is dangerous to apply what is appropriate on the job to what is personal. One of my biggest challenges in my personal life has been
that I carry this natural predisposition—to see the enormous potential in
people, to see where they have room to grow, and to press them toward that
growth—into my intimate relationships.
Some of my most heart-breaking disappointments have come because I could
see the bright, glorious spirit of my partner in her fullness, and held that
against her insecure, habitual and tentative reality. And it is exactly here, in this place of
vivid, well-defined (and therefore closed) vision of the future, where we can
most cruelly and unintentionally oppress our loved ones, over whom we always
have some modicum of authority and influence.
And it is because of my heart-breaking forays and failures with this
kind of apprehension of the future, applying to my loved ones the crippling of
unreasonable expectations, I have learned to give up on expectation and place
my hope in Hope. (By the way, I’m still
not sure it is unreasonable to expect a person to strive to become their best selves.)
It is, I find, far more commendable, far more apprehensible,
to see the best and highest in another, to hope her gently toward that, and
then to comprehend that person
exactly as she is, right now, in her fullest, most perfectly flawed present. In the end, I still like to believe that
everyone really is doing the best he can with what he has—I can say with not-quite-total certainty that I am. Whether that is true or not, if we pretend
that it is, it allows us to see others with patience and grace, and
perhaps—perhaps, it allows them to look at themselves in that patient and
graceful mirror, and to check in for themselves as to whether or not it is
true. I make a practice of that self-checking in, with the graceful mirror I see in each new person. After all, whose hopes and expectations
are more important for us to measure up to than our own?
