Teaching, Living, and Learning: SUDDEN MIND

Saturday, March 12, 2011

SUDDEN MIND

“…sudden mind arose in Adam…”

"Spring Storm", pastel,
by Karen Margulis

-- John Milton, Paradise Lost

I love this phrase, mostly because I see so many “sudden minds” in my English classes. It happens swiftly and surprisingly, like a split-second flash of sunshine on a stormy day: a student suddenly sees into the soul of a poem or a paragraph or a story, or, even more astonishing, suddenly understands something of the spirit of life itself. I’ve see it happen to the humblest of students, the ones who say to themselves that their thoughts don’t shine like others. I’ve seen these unassuming kids, in the midst of their own stillness, abruptly break forth into words that seem filled with wonder. For me, this kind of “sudden mind” might be the single most marvelous aspect of teaching. It happens nearly every day, making a day in my classroom like a look into a land of miracles. It puts me on edge, makes me stay always observant, standing by to see the next unexpected rushing forward of youthful thoughts.

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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