"When am I teaching?" With more than a quarter of a century at Emory behind me, I would now reply, "I am teaching every minute of every day, whether actively involved with students or not, whether they are still undergraduates or have already completed their degrees and physically left the campus." Arrogant, you might say, self-important, egotistical. Actually, the self-descriptions that come to my mind-awestruck, humble, blessed-are antithetical to these. To explain this apparent conundrum, I need to share with you two realizations that have become central to me both as a person and as an Emory faculty member. The first is that human relationships lie at the center of all worthwhile activities in this life. The second is that when we look at Emory and allow ourselves to see it at the fullest meaning, we can be nothing short of awestruck by that of which we are part.
I will first turn to the centrality of relationships. It has been said by many psychologists, philosophers and theologians that meaning, growth and change in the lives of all of us emanate from the relationships we share with others. Not only has my personal experience convinced me of the rightness of this, but I have also come to believe that the very lifeblood of education may be found in those self-same connections.
I broadly define a relationship as an attachment to any person, idea, object or place that exists over some period of time, sustains and reassures us in its constancy and serves to maintain our sense of security and identity as we journey through our lives. I include objects, ideas and places in this definition because relationships with books, literary characters, writers, poems, pieces of music, paintings and such are crucial to the well-lived life. Attachments to places such as a favorite spot in the woods, a quiet inlet at the water's edge, a favorite chair at home or an institution sustain us; they are powerful representations of the constancies that we need to buffer the ineluctable ups and downs in our lives.
I do not pretend to be the original source of any of these views on the focal nature of relationships. Many others of greater intellectual and academic stature have lighted the way. One was philosopher and theologian Martin Buber, who believed that the need for relationships is innate, that we all have a drive to attach to others. He describes two types of relationships: first is the "I-It" relationship, a nonmutual attachment between oneself and someone treated as an object or some piece of utilitarian equipment in the world. By comparison, Buber's second type of relationship, the "I-Thou," is marked by perceived or actual mutuality and full experiencing of the other. In the "I-Thou" relationship, the "I" is profoundly influenced by interaction with another person, or by constancy and perceived response-as in the case of an attachment to God, a place, an idea or a special object. In the "I-Thou" relationship, others are not seen as things to be used, but as sources of completion for one's self.
Buber's ideas have not only helped me to understand why I love teaching so much, they have also guided me in appreciating the blessings I have received through being somewhat good at it. They have helped explain to me why I was so profoundly affected by Professor Thanner, my undergraduate German professor. I had and continue to have with this wonderful teacher an "I-Thou" relationship born of 200 hours in class, nurtured by countless conversations outside of class, strengthened by the sense that this man really cared about me as a person and as a student, and maintained by a continuing sense of mutual respect. That relationship existed at Rutgers, as well as when we were apart both before and after my graduation, and it has continued over 30 plus years.
Understanding my relationship with Dr. Thanner helps me understand why my first and foremost goal in any class is to establish a relationship with the class as a whole and with each student in it. I have come to know that the human relationship is the language of teaching, the mother-tongue of learning. Human relationships don't have on-off switches; they don't end as soon as the people who share them are physically apart.
The teaching relationship, then, must also be a constant process long outlasting the few classroom hours in which it is born and nurtured. Given this, questions about the boundaries of and time involved in teaching have very different answers. Teaching has no boundaries-teaching affects students somewhere every minute of every day, as long as relationships with those students continue in fact or in feeling. Therein lies the source of my humility and blessedness.
Marshall P. Duke is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Personality
and Psychotherapy and chairman of the Department of Psychology. This is
the second of a three-part essay that began in the Feb. 24 issue of Emory
Report.