“… the eager interest of a fresh young nature to which every variety in experience is an epoch.”
--- George Eliot, in Middlemarch
My grandchildren have taught me a lot about how to teach – and live. They seem to look at life like a perpetual miracle, one moment’s amazement making the next moment’s astonishment. Their eyes seem, as I watch them, almost always wide with wonder. Even when they’re sulky about something, it’s a sulkiness that seems mixed with amazement at the fact that it’s happening. I’ve seen them eat a simple sandwich with a look of surprise and appreciation on their faces, and it has told me a truth about teaching and living. The little things, the kids seem to be saying, are the true lights in life – a standard sandwich, a breeze passing by, the musical swing in a student’s voice, the occasional earnestness in the faces of a whole class. There’s limitless variety in life, and in all of my classes, and I might as well see the miracle in all of it. Josh, Ava, and Noah do, and no one can have better teachers than their grandchildren.
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