It’s interesting that the word “astonish” derives from the Latin word for “thunder”, for I do seem to hear thunder in my mind a few times each school day when my students astonish me with their thoughts. It doesn’t happen constantly, since these are typical kids who get carried away more by daydreams during class than by the books we read, but sometimes there’s a spark of lightning in something they say, and it’s like a rumble of a new realization rolls through my mind. I’m sitting in the same classroom I sit in every day, but suddenly, when a student says something astounding, the room is a special place in a special world. I’m 70 years old, but there I am, having wonders worked inside me by the original and sometimes resounding thoughts of teenagers, by those storms of fresh ideas that kids can create so fast and so beautifully.
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