Teaching, Living, and Learning

Saturday, December 06, 2008

INSPIRATION AND FOOLISHNESS

After watching a TV show this afternoon about the Para-Olympics in Bejing, I feel both inspired and foolish. The inspiration comes from watching these valiant athletes overcome their adversities to become champions of a rare kind. They braved the curious looks of others and their own insistent doubts to rise to the level of conquering heroes.My feeling of foolishness stems from reflecting on my own petty concerns -- I who am blessed with a million gifts but often can only see as far as the next thing I can buy or the next compliment I can receive. I have been fortunate beyond reason, and yet I usually am more interested in moaning over my misfortunes than in thanking the universe for setting me down in paradise each day. These intrepid athletes put me to shame.

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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