A Perfect Class

It often occurs to me, right in the middle of a class, that everything is happening exactly as it should – that it’s a perfect class, another words. Of course, this doesn’t happen when I’m mired in a small-minded view of things – when I’m seeing the class and my lesson as a piece of complicated machinery that depends on only me for its efficient operation. When that’s my line of thought, nothing is ever perfect – not the lesson, not the kids, not the distracting sounds in the hall, not even the songs of birds outside. When I’m looking at my life in the classroom with a shortsighted, always-disparaging lens, defects bordering on disarray seem to be everywhere. There are times, though, when I feel the strange sense of being far, far above the classroom and quietly looking down on the comings and goings of the seasoned teacher and his students. With that distant, wide-angle view -- one that takes in not only the small classroom in the Connecticut countryside, but the fields and cities of the state, the spreading earth itself with its endless abundance, as well as the continuous stars -- all seems right in Mr. Salsich’s Room 2, just as all seems right with any sunset or wave in the sea or wind in the trees. Small-minded views pass judgments; big-picture views sit back and appreciate.