Teaching, Living, and Learning: JOURNAL: On Fire Island, June 29, 2006

Friday, June 30, 2006

JOURNAL: On Fire Island, June 29, 2006

I had a wonderful rest last night, a full eight hours of blissful refreshment. The windows in my little bedroom were open, and a cool island breeze was blowing across me all night. I listened to the Red Sox – Mets game as I dozed off, which might have helped my sleep be especially peaceful, since the Sox were comfortably ahead when I turned off the light. Cat and I had one final, wonderful conversation on the deck this morning as we ate our breakfast, and then Quino and two of his friends walked me down to the dock to catch the ferry. My ride across the bay was pleasant, as always, what with the refreshing winds blowing and the shore birds diving and soaring all around the boat. It was a happy way to bring an end to another grand visit to Fire Island.

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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