Teaching, Living, and Learning

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Up early (4:00 a.m., as usual on weekdays) for some writing, then a sharp workout on the bike trainer, and then breakfast with my beautiful wife as the sun was just starting to show itself.

"Vintage Dominoes", acrylic on masonite, by Paul Wolber

A good day at school with my very good students, then home for a fire in the fireplace, quiet conversation, some schoolwork at the dining room table, laughter, and dinner for the two of us with dominoes. (I took two out of three!) Afterwards, still the fire, still the laughter, and a few more pieces placed in our current puzzle.

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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