Teaching, Living, and Learning: Journal: Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Journal: Wednesday, April 12, 2006

The warm spring weather appears to be here to stay. The last few days have been blissfully balmy, especially in the afternoons. There’s been a languidness drifting through town after lunch that’s very familiar to me – a reminder of 63 other wonderful springtimes in my life. All this week I have waited impatiently for the school day to end so I could rush over to beautiful Wilcox Park and enjoy the mild air. It makes me feel grateful to live in a climate that gracefully changes when April and May come along. The days of winter can be beautiful and inspiring, yes, but by March I am eagerly anticipating the arrival of spring in its fresh green dress. To wake up this morning and realize this best of seasons is, indeed, here to stay was a wonderful gift. I wonder how I will celebrate spring today? Will I step outside with my students for a bit of gentle fresh air during class? Will I climb the stairs in the park after school? Whatever happens, I know this: spring is here, and I am a happier man because of it.

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I found this quote (below) in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. She's describing Fanny Price's home at Mansfield, but the words exactly remind me of the atmosphere I try to maintain in my classroom:
" ... no sounds of contention, no raised voice, no abrupt bursts, no tread of violence, was ever heard; all proceeded in a regular course of cheerful orderliness; everybody had their due importance; everybody's feelings were consulted."

...........

The following quote is from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. I would like my classroom to be like Dr. Strong's school:

"Dr. Strong's was an excellent school...It was very gravely and decorously ordered, and on a sound system; with an appeal, in everything, to the honor and good faith of the [students], and an avowed intention to rely on their possession of these qualities unless they proved themselves unworthy of it, which worked wonders. We all felt that we had a share in the management of the place, and in sustaining its character and dignity."

If I replaced "agent" with "teacher", this passage from a short story might, I hope, describe me in my classroom:
"The agent spent his days in following what seemed to many observers to be only a dull routine, but all his steadiness of purpose, all his simple intentness, all his gifts of strategy and powers of foresight, and of turning an interruption into an opportunity, were brought to bear upon this dull routine with a keen pleasure."
-- from "The Gray Mills of Farley" by Sarah Orne Jewett