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How passion can make the difference in the classroom

Germán Villarroel

This paper was completed and submitted in partial fulfillment of the Master Teacher Program, a 2 year faculty

professional development program conducted by the Center for Faculty Excellence, United Sated Military Academy,

West Point, NY, 2015.

INTRODUCTION

When passion is the subject of conversation, immediately our mind drive us to people that have

inspired us in our life: our parents, our leaders in different positions in the Army and probably some

coach in our youth that taught us how to give the best of us when we were team sports players. But

when you add teaching to that intangible virtue, it’s inevitable to be grateful to Nancy H. Kleinbaum

who brought to life Professor John Keating and all his passion at the Walton Academy in the Dead

Poets Society. There his students not only learned how to discover the beauty and wonder of

language through a literature class but the relevance of making every moment count. Everything that

Professor Keating achieved was driven by a deep love for what he believed was worth any effort and

sacrifice: His students and the passion of what he taught in and out of the classroom.

Being in the Army, leadership turns to be the capstone of our carrier and West Point as the most

important military academy in the United States is not the exception. West Point’s mission is to

“educate, train and inspires the corps of Cadets so that each graduate is a commissioned leader of character committed

to the values of Duty, Honor, Country and prepared for a career of professional excellence and service to the nation as

an officer in the United States Army”1. Therefore, my first question to be answered is how to achieve

that goal if our cadets spend around 75% of every year in the classroom? It could be easier for an

Army Officer to inspire a cadet while in the field, but how do you do it in the classroom? The first

answer that comes to my mind is having passionate teachers/leaders in every single classroom at

West Point. Is that possible? Not impossible but difficult.

Passion is a topic that has always taken my attention due to the relevance and impact in those who

have the fortune to have somebody that inspires them by doing what he/she likes the most.

Probably after a couple of years, students will forget the exact lecture and some important details of

a particular issue but they will never forget how their professor made them feel while in the class

room and that is exactly what I will try to highlight with this research.

The purpose of this paper is to visualize how passion when teaching can make the difference in the

classroom based on the perception of the West Point Corps of Cadets. Passion is probably one of

the most difficult elements to be assessed due to its intangibility. Nevertheless, passion is globally

1 UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY STRATEGIC PLAN 2015-2021 [On line] p.7. Available at: http://www.usma.edu/strategic/Shared%20Documents/USMA%20Strategic%20Plan%202015.pdf

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recognized as one of the greatest assets when anybody has the opportunity to lead, teach or

influence the lives of others.

The structure of this paper will be as follows: Initially, I will define Passion as a concept from

diverse sources in order to set the basis of this paper. Cadet’s contribution will be added from a

selection of the original definitions that they submitted using the digital survey that was used for that

purpose. The following topic will be Leadership and its direct and indivisible relation with passion.

Then, I will go over the survey results and will try to interpret the cadet’s perception on passion in

their classrooms at West Point. Finally, I will conclude based on every relevant discussion reflected

on this paper.

1. HOW DO WE DEFINE PASSION?

Tangible elements are always easier to define. But this is not the case. Passion is an intangible

concept that is difficult to measure, assess or even define for purposes like this. However,

everybody can have an idea of what passion is and how you can identify it from people around

you. For the Christian world, passion is directly related to Jesus Christ in a way of suffering. For

others passion could be synonymous of motivation. For the military passion is recognized as an

element of leadership. Let’s go through some definitions of the concept in order to frame the

research and initiate this academic challenge.

a. Academic and other definitions

Concepts or expressions like passion, due to its intangibility, can be defined based on different

approaches. The Oxford English Dictionary offers us a great and rich selection of possible

definitions of this concept. Feelings, enthusiasm and preferences are elements that are present

in passion. Therefore, passion could be defined as:

“Any kind of feeling by which the mind is powerfully affected or moved; a vehement,

commanding, or overpowering emotion; in psychology and art, any mode in which the mind is

affected or acted upon (whether vehemently or not), as ambition, avarice, desire, hope, fear, love,

hatred, joy, grief, anger, revenge. Sometimes personified. An eager outreaching of the mind

towards something; and overmastering zeal or enthusiasm for special object; a vehement

predilection”2

When you want to expand the definition and look for other options, we could find 609.000.000

different results in Google search. That fact could reflect the diverse use of the word passion

for different purposes. The bestselling author Angela Maiers in her book The Passion-Driven

Classroom explains the origin of passion from Latin word “patior” which “means to suffer or to

endure. Furthermore, she collected several definitions from fellow educators and teachers and

built an original one as the addition of every idea that was received:

2 THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY (1989) Second Edition. Volume XI. Oxford University Press, New York. p 309-310.

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“Passion is: pure joy; focused consciousness that changes worlds; my work; contagious; devotion

with enthusiasm; attractive (when you see it, hear it – you just want some of it); timeless (it

can’t be shaken from you and is what you live for); energy with intent and purpose; the engine

that powers life; an intense feeling for life, people, and everything else you believe in and love;

desperately needed but doesn’t come from a program; takes time, but the reward is sweet; enables

us to overcome obstacles (both real and imagined) and to see the world as a place of infinite

potential; living your life doing what you love; way better than discipline; gusto; disruptive

excitement; when our hearts embrace our thoughts”3

All of these ideas are concepts that we, in a natural response to the definition, can come up

with using our instinct and basic background. But how do we put these theoretical definitions

into practice as professors? How can we become “Professor John Keating” in our own

academic environment? Certainly we can’t create a recipe to mutate to a passionate teacher

from scratch but we can put all of these definitions together and built a sentence that can be

capable to describe what would be our goal if we really want to take passion as the engine of

our lives.

Robert L. Fried dedicates the prelude of his book “The Passionate Teacher” to describe the art of

engaging young minds – which by the way is exactly what we want to achieve with our students

– putting passion as the key element of that process. His proposal is the following:

“A passionate teacher is to be someone in love with a field of knowledge, deeply stirred by issues

and ideas that challenge our world, drawn to the dilemmas and potentials of the young people

who come into class each day – or captivated by all of these. A passionate teacher is a teacher

who breaks out of the isolation of a classroom, who refuses to submit to apathy or cynicism”4

Passion by definition is something that you can’t buy in the store or something that you can’t

see; just like some of the good – important – things in life like love. “Passion will be grounded in the

relation every one of us have with our students”5 and that particular relation is going to be built through

the time, care and love that we put in our classes and how they matter to us.

We can all have an idea of what is passion. For me is the intangible difference that can enhances every

relation with people and influence in their lives. In this case would be the intangible difference that can

influence our student in the classroom to help them achieve their goal and the USMA outcome.

b. Cadet’s original definitions

Annex #1 shows the survey that was provided and requested voluntarily to the entire Corps of

Cadets. From the 4322 cadets (100% of the West Point Corps of Cadets), 551 responded and

participate in this research project. That represents the 12,8% of the Academy and constitutes a

significant sample for this paper purposes.

3 MAIERS, Angela & SANDVOLD, Amy (2010) The Passion Driven Classroom. Routledge, New York. p 16-17. 4 FRIED, Robert L. (2001) The Passionate Teacher: A practical Gide (2nd Edition). Beacon Press, Boston. p 1. 5PAUSCH, Randy (2008) Speech at Carnegie Mellon University [On line] Available at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WmryhioApY

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Figure #1 – SURVEY PARTICIPATION

An important ingredient that popped up while checking the answers was the cadet’s class

distribution, noticing that the majority came from the plebs’s class of 2018. The more

advanced the class is, the less answers I got.

Figure #2 – SURVEY DISTRIBUTION

In question #5 cadets were voluntarily requested to propose an original definition for passion

in order to be included – the best of them – in the final paper. The result: each one of the 551

cadets gave back an original proposal. Way beyond expectations, the given answers

overwhelmed my reading trying to find the best of the best. After a really hard time selecting

the answers, I finally realize that our cadets clearly understand that concept of passion and they

have the tools to come up with a sound definition. The most recurrent words that our cadets

used to build up their own definitions were: Enthusiasm, Love, Excitement, Motivation, Care,

Enjoyment, Desire and Internal Drive. If they truly know what passion is, certainly they know

exactly what to demand and expect from their professors in the classroom.

SURVEY PARTICIPATION

551 CADETS = 12,8%

TOTAL USMA = 4322 CADETS

38%

24%

22%

16%

SURVEY DISTRIBUTION

4TH CLASS 3RD CLASS 2ND CLASS 1ST CLASS

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Figure #3 – MOST RECURRENT WORDS IN CADET’S DEFINITION

According to what I request and offer to cadets, I gratefully present 45 original definitions that

somehow reflects cadet’s understanding and embracement of the concept:

“Passion (in terms of teaching) especially here at the academy, is having a deep love and drive to pursue knowledge and improvement in one's chosen area of study and to have an intense desire translate that into energy in the classroom to evoke thought and interest in the students”

CDT. Tanner Ellison. Class ‘15

“Passion is a manifestation of a deep love, respect, or admiration for an element of one's life”

CDT. Christian Doyle. Class ‘17

“Passion is being able to inspire someone about a topic through knowledge and emotion”

CDT. Paul Klee. Class ‘15

“Passion is energy, love, excitement, and drive”

CDT. Haley O’Connor. Class ‘16

“Passion is an exhilarating emotion felt when a topic or activity interests you to the point where you are consistently motivated to pursue that interest”

CDT. Gretchen Roesel. Class ‘17

20%

17%

12% 16%

12%

11% 9% 3%

MOST RECURRENT WORDS IN CADET'S DEFINITIONS

ENTHUSIASM

LOVE

EXCITEMENT

MOTIVATION

CARE

COMMITMENT

DESIRE

ENJOYMENT

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“Passion is the interest, engagement, and enthusiasm one has for a subject, discipline or area of life, demonstrated by their energy, actions, thoughts, and speech”

CDT. Frank Lin. Class ‘17

“Passion is absolutely loving and enjoying what you are doing. You have a knack for it Teachers here have passion for what they teach, but that does not inspire me to do better”

CDT. Allison Setter. Class ‘16

“Passion is loving something so much you cannot help but want to share it with others so they too can appreciate it as you do”

CDT. Jonathan Denecker. Class ‘17

“Passion is the willingness/eagerness of someone to share their love of a certain subject with their students. This means they go out of their way to present the material in ways that the students respond to”

CDT. Scott Murray. Class ‘16

“Passion is a subconscious response to an external matter that elicits enthusiasm and inquiry”

CDT. Ashley Jennings. Class ‘18

“Passion is a overflowing enthusiasm and interest that you want to share with others”

CDT. Andrew Hicks. Class ‘18

“Passion is the drive to continually learn about a subject and share your knowledge with others”

CDT. Stanley Diddams. Class ‘16

“Passion is a deep desire to do or perform an action with earnest, intrinsically motivated hard work”

CDT. Britteney Murray. Class ‘15

“Passion is an ineffable love that is internally motivated for a certain subject or object which borders on obsession but is not detrimental to oneself. Passion leads to sharing of that subject or object within and out of formal settings”

CDT. Benjamin Lemon. Class ‘17

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“Passion is love and commitment”

CDT. Eric Arzaga. Class ‘16

“Passion is a feeling of enthusiasm, love, and even reverence that provides a foundation for an instructor’s perspective, and which causes that person to feel a strong sense of attachment towards his or her subject”

CDT. Spencer Smith. Class ‘15

“Passion is being excited about the material, caring about the students, and being excited/animated while instructing”

CDT. Zachary Newquist. Class ‘15

“Passion is the intrinsic motivation to work towards a specific goal”

CDT. Nicholas Moran. Class ‘16

“Passion is one's ability to be motivated everyday and to try to better yourself and others along the way”

CDT. Tyler Bonfe. Class ‘15

“Passion is the level of emotion integrated into someone’s thoughts and actions”

CDT. John Geiger. Class ‘15

“Passion is a noticeable enthusiasm from the instructor about both the subject matter and the student's learning”

CDT. Paulo Blaise. Class ‘18

“Passion is devotion to something or someone that can be seen in words and actions.”

CDT. Kyle Hinrichsen. Class ‘16

“Passion is an unquestionable love, understanding and commitment to something or someone”

CDT. Eric Miller. Class ‘XX

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“Passion is the combination of an intrinsic motivation for a particular subject or activity coupled with a genuine enjoyment of this subject or activity”

CDT. Ian Mauldin. Class ‘16

“Passion is the quality of being emotionally invested in the well-being of a thing; for a teacher, it is the quality of emotionally sympathizing with the students' attempts to learn in the course. This means that if the students fail to learn the material, the teacher will be negatively emotionally affected (disappointed, frustrated). If they succeed to learn the material, the teacher will be positively emotionally affected (happy, congratulatory). It means that the success of the student is tied to the emotional state of the teacher”

CDT. Samuel Kolling. Class ‘16

“Passion- the visible energy and commitment one shows towards a given field that serves to motivate and inspire others”

CDT. Brendon Bateman. Class ‘16

“Passion is the motivation and attitude of an individual. Highly contagious, if an instructor has passion for his work, then others will be more inclined to follow”

CDT. Sean Kincaid. Class ‘18

“Passion is the energy and enthusiasm a person shows when doing an activity they truly enjoy and care about”

CDT. Christian Mckenrick. Class ‘16

“Passion is having a heartfelt commitment and enthusiasm towards a cause, idea, or discipline”

CDT. Luke Bieaulieu. Class ‘18

“Passion is the motivation and excitement an individual feels regarding any topic, despite adversity or challenges”

CDT. Jack Rector. Class ‘17

“Passion is an intrinsic desire to pursue excellence within a discipline or activity despite any other factors; the feeling one has when they legitimately enjoy and find fervor in what they are doing or saying”

CDT. Matthew Car. Class ‘15

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“Passion is having a genuine love for what you do. It's a prevalent and palpable desire to participate in whatever it is that you have a passion for”

CDT. Jake Lee. Class ‘18

“Passion is the internal drive and desire that an individual has towards some sort of subject or event, that directly influences how they perform or act on it externally”

CDT. Baggio Saldivar. Class ‘17

“Passion is caring about something enough to proudly express that care to others and promote interest in that thing. Greatly loving something”

CDT. Abigail Kronenberg. Class ‘18

“Passion is an extremely powerful drive, desire, and caring for a matter”

CDT. Tevin Long. Class ‘17

“Passion is what fuels people every day. It is what drives them in their professional and personal life and has the potential to greatly influence others”

CDT. Danielle Jordan. Class ‘18

“Passion is showing real interest, excitement, and dedication of time inside and outside the classroom towards the subject and helping students achieve success in the given subject”

CDT. Eric Lopez. Class ‘18

“Passion is an incredible excitement about, and total voluntary immersion in a topic or activity”

CDT. Elizabeth Psiaki. Class ‘18

“Passion is feeling personally motivated to succeed and explore or spend additional time contributing to something for personal growth or the benefit of others”

CDT. Rachel Gold. Class ‘18

“Passion is the Intrinsic love and excitement for something, regardless of extrinsic factors”

CDT. Jacob Semerar. Class ‘15

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“Passion is investing one's self entirely into something they enjoy to produce the greatest efforts or produce the most enjoyment”

CDT. Michael Shares. Class ‘16

“Passion is caring deeply, not only for the subject at hand, not only for furthering your own knowledge of the subject, but finding those who share your passion, and teaching others what it is you care about, and why you care so deeply”

CDT. Brendan McDonald. Class ‘17

“Passion I a ferocious, undying intrinsic motivation toward forwarding a cause, achieving a goal, or pursuing a relationship”

CDT. Hunter Mancini. Class ‘16

“Passion is caring. It is showing excitement, enthusiasm, and motivation, and it involves that not only your mind, but also your heart is in to doing whatever the task is”

CDT. Airyn Nash. Class ‘18

“Passion is a genuine and authentic interest in a subject to the point where individuals devote a lot of their time doing and thinking about a particular topic. Fulfilling such a passion may even be a key to happiness for some people. Passion is love”

CDT. Irene Mallet. Class ‘15

2. PASSION AND LEADERSHIP

Leadership is probably the capstone of education at West Point. The Academy has brought to life

several documents and guidance in order to achieve the goals that will contribute to fulfill the

mission which is to “educate, train and inspire the Corps of Cadets so that each graduate is a commissioned

leader of character committed to the values of Duty, Honor Country and prepared for a career of professional

excellence and service to the Nation as an officer of the United States Army”6. At the same time, the

Academy’s Vision, “within an Army in transition, West Point is the preeminent leader development and

academic institution whose graduates thrive in tomorrow’s complex security environments and are inspired to a

lifetime of service to our Army and the Nation as leaders of character”7, gives a clear guidance to understand

what the Army wants as a product from the oldest Military Academy in the American Continent.

We can easily begin to think how to achieve those goals that are the answer to the implied

requirements of the Mission and Vision of West Point. We have a broad idea of how to educate

6 UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY STRATEGIC PLAN 2015-2021 [On line] p.7. Available at: http://www.usma.edu/strategic/Shared%20Documents/USMA%20Strategic%20Plan%202015.pdf 7 Ibid.

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and how to train cadets to transform them into officers after a 4 year program. Nevertheless, there

is one aspect that turns to be complicate to grab: how to inspire. Leaders inspire others, but

becoming a leader requires that you have to be inspired by somebody before. That somebody in

the West Point case is us: the Faculty and professors of the Corps of Cadets. Therefore, a question

that comes to my mind is how can we really achieve that goal? “Lead by example” is a common

fraise that we hear at West Point and sometimes we take for granted that everybody who teaches is

a leader. Probably that will be the first answer. A leader is the one who is clearly recognized and

respected by his/her subordinates (students in this case) so a second question comes and pops up:

How can you be a leader without been passionate of what you do? That passion will be de fuel in

the classroom that will move your student’s souls and will definitely make the difference. Passion

drives teachers to do their best. By doing it, our cadets will be inspired and receiving a great

example in the classroom. We will transform ourselves into a classroom leader, and that is exactly

what the Army and the Academy wants from us. You can know everything about a specific topic,

but if you don’t care about your students, they will not engage in the course that you are giving;

“people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”8. If we can link up the concepts

of Passion and Leadership to achieve our goals and accomplish the mission we will be awarded by

our students with their recognition. “A great teacher is, of course, both a coach and a model”9 and we don’t

want to be out of that team as instructors and professors.

3. PASSION IN THE CLASSROOM AT WEST POINT

This research started in the classroom. That is why a simple survey was released and answered

back by 551 cadets. The first question was direct and straight to the point: Do you think that your

professor’s passion is important or makes the difference when teaching? Only 2 out of the 551

cadets think that passion doesn’t make the difference. That means that the Corps of Cadets feels

the necessity of having passionate professors in their classrooms due to the fact that they know

and understand what is passion all about.

Figure #4 – DOES PASSION MAKE THE DIFFERENCE?

8 LYNCH, Rick (2013) Adapt or Die. Baker Books, Michigan. p 134. 9 FURNHAM, Adrian (2001) Insight: Passion takes a teacher from being merely good to great [On line] Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2906525/Insight-Passion-takes-a-teacher-from-being-merely-good-to-great.html

100%

0%

DOES PASSION MAKE THE DIFFERENCE WHEN TEACHING?

YES = 549 NO = 2

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In West Point we have several courses and majors that cadets can take to complete the

requirements for graduation. They are different in form and in depth divided in four groups of

courses: Science, Social, Military and Physical and each one of those require inspired professors.

With the survey cadets were asked if the levels of passion needed in the classroom depended on

the type of course that you are taking? The answers vary but the majority (86%) agreed that

passion has to be a consistent virtue in the classroom regardless of the course that any professor is

teaching.

Figure #5 – DIFERENT COURSES REQUIRE DIFERENT LEVELS OF PASSION?

a. Different courses and different needs in terms of passion

14% of the cadets stated that the demanded level of passion will depend on the course that they

are taking. They divided their answers in the four types of courses, grading from 1 to 5 each

one of them, understanding that 1 represent a lower level of passion required and 5 requires the

highest standards of it.

Figure #6 – DIFERENT COURSES AND THE LEVEL OF PASSION REQUIRED

14%

86%

DIFFERENT COURSES = DIFFEREN LEVELS OF PASSION

YES NO

4%

4%

33% 24%

35%

MILITARY COURSES

1 2 3 4 5

14%

24%

24% 17%

21%

PHYSICAL COURSES

1 2 3 4 5

3% 9%

17%

38%

33%

SOCIAL COURSES

1 2 3 4 5

7% 16%

34% 21%

22%

SCIENCE COURSES

1 2 3 4 5

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The answers were divers and the general order of demand of passion is: the highest are the

Military courses followed by the Social ones. Physical and Science courses were at the end. The

final average of the physical courses can be explained due to the fact that the class of 2018 (the

majority of the cadets that answered the survey) haven’t taken a physical course yet. Hence, the

results are there and logically the military courses demand the highest level of passion according

to the 14% of the Corps.

b. Passionate teaching and inspired learning

The final outcome of any professor is that their students learn something useful for their lives

and careers. Therefore, any faculty member will have to do their best to inspire their students

regardless of the course that they teach. Gaining their trust would probably be one of the first

steps in this process but will take a while. However, mutual understanding will generate the

necessary space to teach with passion and from the student’s perspective, develop an inspired

learning process. When you teach the basic requirement is to know what you’re talking about.

Then ad passion and everything will work smoothly.

The last question of the survey was if they agree that the greater passion of the professor will

result in a greater motivation of the student to learn. Only 9% of the cadets argued that not

necessarily a passionate professor generates a greater motivation in their students stating that

sometimes students can have the very best professor that they can get, but they are simply not

interested. That means that the majority of the Corps understands how valuable passion is as an

asset provided by the professor in the classroom and spread to their student’s hearts and souls.

Figure #7 – GREATER PASSION = GREATER MOTIVATION

91%

9%

PROFESSOR GREATER PASSION = STUDENT GREATER MOTIVATION

YES NO

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CONCLUSIONS

1. Although there is a clear academic definition of what is passion, what more reflects this concept

can be constructed from synonyms or ideas, positive indeed, that common sense of ordinary

people can express. Our cadets have a clear idea of what this concept means and one way or

another they stated through the survey administered with simple, direct and consistent

expressions.

2. Passion and leadership are indivisible and yet complementary concepts. If West Point bases its

educational system and teaching-learning processes to achieve the formation of leaders of

character, the passion of those instructors and teachers whom from their personal example and

deep love for the US Army (or their own), will be able to transcend the lives of their students,

moving from a system of "head counts" towards a system of "heart counts" that at the end of the

road makes a significant difference in the classroom.

3. Overall the cadets of the Military Academy at West Point remain 75% of their time in the

classroom, where they receive the necessary knowledge to be educated as professionals in

different majors and careers. Moreover, that time is the greatest opportunity the faculty and

instructors has to influence "militarily" in the lives of our cadets in each of the classes that they

teach. Ergo, a high degree of passion for what is taught must be demanded by each of the

academic departments that oversee professors teaching at the Academy. One option may be

through periodic of final surveys to validate passion (motivation, commitment and love) of our

faculty. Then certain measures could apply in order to award the best and punish the worst.

4. We can agree that the concept of passion and its true application or evaluation is not something

easy to achieve. However, from the definitions given by the cadets from West Point and its

absolute clarity about what is truly the passion that is needed in the classroom, we must do

something about it in terms of meeting the demand that our students make us. This, from the

valuable meaning of wearing the glorious uniform of the United States Army or its allies, which

ultimately delivers additional value when compared to other civil university in teaching their

classes. A passionate leader is willing to offer his life for his subordinates in the battlefield and

this will be the intangible difference that will touch the hearts of our students in an open knowledge

delivery process initially, but more importantly, delivering an example as officers or NCOs

passionate to contribute to the education of future leaders of the 21st Century.

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http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/alfredtwo/Why-Passion-is-Important-for-Teachers 13. UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY STRATEGIC PLAN 2015-2021 [On line]

Available at: http://www.usma.edu/strategic/Shared%20Documents/USMA%20Strategic%20Plan%202015.pdf

14. UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY

[On line] Available at: http://www.usma.edu/strategic/Shared%20Documents/West%20Point%27s%20Character%20Development%20Strategy(DIGITAL-2-4-15).pdf

15. UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY LEADER DEVELOPMENT SYSTEM

(WPLDS) OUTCOMES [On line] Available at: http://www.usma.edu/strategic/SiteAssets/SitePages/Home/West%20Point%20Leader%20Development%20System.pdf