When I'm teaching in my fairly small classroom and feeling like I'm working in a restricted, pocket-sized space, it sometimes comes to me that, in fact, I'm in a place of great vastness. After all, teaching English is all about ideas and words, both of which know neither beginnings nor boundaries. Ideas, I believe, don't ever start, but simply bring themselves to our minds when we're ready, and then work their way out to countless other minds without end. Words, too, are the creations of all the infinite number of people who have ever lived, and my students and I are merely the fortuitous sharers of those words. When I'm in my classroom with my students, at the center of this endless universe of ideas and words, how is it possible to feel small and constricted?
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