Teaching, Living, and Learning: THE GOOD PART

Wednesday, January 09, 2013

THE GOOD PART

It’s always reassuring for me to recall that I can make a wonderful choice each and every moment of my life – the choice to pay watchful attention to precisely what’s happening right now. It’s the good part of life, the only part worth noticing, the only part there actually is – the newborn, brand new, firsthand and fresh present moment. I often get lost in my numberless tasks and worries and commitments, stumbling from one to the other and wondering what the next ten thousand will look like, when right beside me shines the simple, persistent light of the plain present. No matter how busy and unrestrained my life might sometimes seem, every present moment presents a new chance to choose, and choosing to stay focused on what’s happening now can open a door to peace that doesn’t die or leave, ever.

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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