Teaching, Living, and Learning

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Napatree Point, RI

Early walk on Napatree Point yesterday. A glassy-clear morning, with just some strands of clouds across the sea. I took some splashes in the water along the way, Delycia sitting on the sand and smiling at her husband-to-be. We collected pieces of silver driftwood and some round stones to use at our wedding ceremony (not sure how just yet).

Long drive later to LaGuardia Airport Hotel for a flight to St. Louis this morning. A thrashing thunderstorm swept through just as we arrived at the hotel. Soaked shirt and shorts, but lots of laughter too.

Pizza in the hotel cafe, then a quiet night together.

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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