Teaching, Living, and Learning

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

A letter to last year's students:

Dear Students,
Well, it's 4:21 a.m. on the morning of the first day of school, and, as you can imagine, I am up early and VERY excited. I think I love teaching more and more every year. The first day, for me, is even more exciting now than when I began teaching many years ago. I thought of you this morning because you made my last two years of teaching a joy and a pleasure. I will miss you today when I walk into the classroom -- your laughter, your smiles, your sometimes craziness, your great intelligence, and your just plain goodness.
I want to wish you the best of luck as you begin the new year. I know you'll do very well. Your teachers will love you -- no doubt about it.
So long for now. Take care. Remember that YOU ARE REALLY GOOD.

Mr. Salsich

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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