CLEANING TABLES AND MINDS

When I’m cleaning the tables in my classroom at the end of the day, I often find myself thinking of the “tables” in my students’ minds, and wondering how often they receive a first-rate cleaning. It’s interesting to pursue the comparison – the tables in my classroom, covered with dust and shavings of erasers and perhaps some scraps of paper, and the tables in my students’ minds, so often messy with strewn, used-up thoughts. I wipe my tables with soft tissues so they take on a shining and unsullied appearance for the students, and maybe the students, similarly, might make use of some mental tissues to take off the shroud of dusty ideas. Of course, it’s impossible to actually make our minds spick and span each day, but figuratively speaking, perhaps we can come into each new day with a feeling of spotlessness and roominess in our minds, a feeling that we’re destined to find spanking new thoughts to set down on the freshly washed tables of our minds. Perhaps the students can prepare their minds the way I prepare the classroom tables, making both minds and tables set to receive the best and newest of a new day.