Teaching, Living, and Learning

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

John Constable, "Cottage in a Cornfield"

ONE YEAR WITH AN ENGLISH TEACHER

Day 2, September 5, 2007

My bike ride to school this morning was as serene and uplifting as yesterday’s. The air was clear and cool, and once again the early light seemed magical. I didn’t push it – just cruised along enjoying the bountiful feeling of freedom and good fortune.

To quote an old Eagles song, I had a "peaceful, easy feeling" during my morning classes. I think it was due, in large part, to not rushing. I had planned a sensible amount of material to cover, and consequently I was able to move through it in an almost effortless way -- not dashing, like yesterday, but more like gliding or even sauntering. I felt the way I occasionally feel when I'm riding my bike in an especially natural and unproblematic way -- when riding seems as easy as breathing. It doesn't happen often in bicycling or teaching, but it happened to me this morning.

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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