A Teaching Life

Martha Beck relates in her extraordinary book Expecting Adam, the gifts she received from Adam, her Down-Syndrome son; Beck’s “Holland” proved a magical place. Kingsley bore her Jason and recognized, too, his beauty and became “free to enjoy the very special, the many very lovely things about Holland.”

When our perceived Italy becomes Holland, we can pay attention to the story of these two mothers. Instead of lamenting when things don’t go ‘our way,’ we can choose to accept the apparent vicissitudes before us.

When we were children anticipating the first day of school, we hoped to be in a classroom with our friends. Teachers, too, hoped to have good groups, that would be cooperative, hard working, and kind to each other. They did not have a say about who would appear at their classroom door. They anticipated the year without trepidation.

A “plane” lands on first days for all of us. We encounter “Holland” and “Italy’s.” As teachers, we come to accept their Holland and Italy children as our own for the next one-hundred-eighty days. Most of us face similar reckonings and need to respond in the same way.

Given that “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forward” (Kierkegaard), I write this Blog to bring ideas and methods from my life as a teacher in the latter half of the 20^th century to help teachers and the public to “live forward” in this century.