Recently, I saw an add that shouted at me to buy a new kind of 3-D television, but today, splitting wood out among the snow-white trees, I saw several sensational 3-D scenes, all for free – and it got me thinking about my own 3-D classroom. In my many pauses to catch my breath while working this morning, I noticed astonishing three-dimensional views all around me. In one instance, I noticed a slim snow-covered branch fairly close to me, and then, behind it, countless small trees diminishing into the distance. I stared for a few minutes, just feeling grateful for this good fortune outside my house, and realizing, with a silent joyfulness, that it’s outside every house and across every hillside. It’s also in my classroom – authentic 3-D television, without the screen. Each day, the students are placed out in front of me like a three-dimensional scene of modest tastefulness – a few up close, and then others behind, receding down the classroom like trees in the woods. Truth is, I’m usually too absorbed in successfully getting through my lesson plan to pay attention to the basic elegance of the scene in front of me. My job is not to focus on the scene in my classroom, but to teach, so I usually miss the routine, moment-by-moment loveliness in front of me – but still, it sometimes wakes me up with a start just to see these good students in perspective, some up front and some further back in simple scenes no fancy television could touch.
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