Teaching, Living, and Learning

Friday, November 16, 2007

ONE YEAR WITH AN ENGLISH TEACHER

Day 51, Friday, November 16, 2007

I noticed today how earnestly some of the "servers" are undertaking their duties. Each day at the beginning of class, Monique has raised her hand and asked if she should begin serving, as if she was genuinely looking forward to it. As she quietly went around the room with cups of hot chocolate and a plate of crackers, the look on her face was one of enjoyment and even pride. Mark, too, always asked if he should start serving, and he also seemed to take some pleasure in carrying out his responsibilities. While the students and I did a few minutes of silent reading, Mark brought refreshments to us in a cordial and efficient manner. I had the feeling that he, like Monique, was feeling some satisfaction in carrying out this small but important task in English class.

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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