OIn Teaching" "Mosaics in Room 2"

I was thinking today that my students and I, as we work through the English curriculum, might be somewhat like a mosaic. One of my dictionaries defines a mosaic as "a picture or decorative design made by setting small colored pieces into a surface". I had fun, as the early winter evening was coming on today, picturing my class as a picture or design -- something that might be called beautiful and that other people might like to look at and admire, as they might look at and admire a work of art. All of us, students and teacher, are in the design in just the best place, all coming together to make a truly unique work of art. I like the idea that my class makes up not just a design, but a "decorative" design. My students and I are not plain, not ordinary, not simple, not drab. We bring the extraordinarily vibrant colors of our lives to class each day, and, one way or another, we find our special and proper place in the goings-on of the class, and the result, day after day, is a lovely mosaic. I guess I could pretend that I am the artist that puts together this mosaic each day, but that would simply be foolish pride and nonsense. The truth is that, no matter how carefully I plan my lessons, a power way more potent than I is the one that settles the design into its beautiful pattern. Often the final pattern at the end of the class is not at all the one I planned, but, in some (often unfathomable) way, it's always right and always beautiful. I wish more visitors would come to my room and see the mosaics slowly come together in each class, each day.