Teaching, Living, and Learning: Journal: 10/27/05

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Journal: 10/27/05

The frostiness of autumn is upon us. Yesterday I kept the little space heater humming all day in my classroom as the blustery wind swept around outside. (Alan said there were small craft advisories on the water due to the high winds.) Some of the students came to class shivering and hugging themselves in their jackets and sweatshirts. Of course, it doesn’t help that most of the middle school building does not have heat yet, due to the ongoing work on the system. I saw people coming from other rooms with a chilled look on their faces, which made me grateful for my humble, dependable heater. They say the heating system will be ready soon, and I hope so, for the forecast for today sounds more frigid than ever.

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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