Teaching, Living, and Learning: Journal: 8/25/05

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Journal: 8/25/05

Journal
August 25, 2005

On Tuesday evening, I joined Mike, Neil, Chris (a friend of Neil’s), Lizzie, and Nancy for a birthday dinner for Neil at a place called Blueberry Hill on Delmar. It was a young-looking, festive place, with lots of roominess, merrily decorated walls, and excellent food. Surprisingly for a place that obviously caters to the young at heart, the acoustics were excellent, which it made easy to have great conversations. It was a ninety minute celebration of friendship.

Yesterday I had a delightful flight home; the three hours in the air disappeared like thirty minutes. We rose above the clouds quickly and I saw only blue and silver sky around me as we flew along. It was great to get home to Matty and the cozy, cool apartment.

Today I finished watching the old Academy Award winner, “An American in Paris”. I absolutely loved the sets and the dancing, and a tear came to my eye at the poignant ending.

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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