On Teaching: "An Affluent Classroom"

af·flu·ence, n.
1. A plentiful supply of material goods; wealth.
2. A great quantity; an abundance.
3. A flowing to or toward a point; afflux.

In my younger days, I used to daydream about becoming “affluent”, by which I meant having “a plentiful supply” of resources – enough to take care of any possible need. It seemed like a wonderful goal to aim for. I pictured myself surrounded by “a great quantity” of wealth, so much so that every worry would disappear and every fear would fade away. I thought it would be a great way to live, even though I had a strong feeling that it would never happen. Well, as strange as it seems to me, it has actually happened – and right in my own classroom at Pine Point School. My 42 students and I are living a life of utter affluence, even though we often probably aren’t fully aware of it. We have “a plentiful supply” of the most powerful resource in the universe – ideas. At all times during English class, we are surrounded and filled up by “a great abundance” of high-quality, strong, and limitless ideas. In a sense, my classroom, when we’re sitting together and working our way through a book or an essay or a lesson, is like a river “flowing toward a point” – and the “point” is knowledge. Nothing is stationary or static in my classroom; all is the ceaseless flow of ideas toward understanding. A visitor, I hope, would feel that sense of flowing, that sense that life in this classroom is gracefully and harmoniously moving in an inevitably healthy way. That is true affluence, and, amazingly, it is with me every day in Room 2.