Teaching, Living, and Learning

Thursday, July 19, 2007

"Rejoicing", by Duane Cash

AN ODD FEELING

What do you do when you suddenly have the feeling that reality is way, way more amazing than you ever realized? When you see that you’ve been living with a blindfold on, almost totally ignorant of the infinite magnificence of life? When you feel like you’ve just awakened to find yourself in paradise? Every now and then I get that feeling, and last night was one of those times. I felt like I was surrounded by beauty and majesty, and yet I was just in my small apartment on Granite Street. I felt like every moment was one of absolute perfection, and yet it was merely another Wednesday evening in July. There seemed to be an endless supply of power available to me, and yet I was only a slumped and flabby 65-year-old man. It was a strange feeling, to say the least. I wanted to set out walking for miles and miles. I wanted to call many people. I wanted to sing old songs as loud as possible. Instead of that, I simply walked back and forth in my living room, watching the twilight darken and smiling at my good fortune.

--Thursday, July 19, 2007

No comments:

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

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