On Apr 4, 2006, at 8:59 PM, Norman Boyer wrote:
Hi, Angelo,
Take a look at Erin Conlon’s second "Becoming
a Teacher of Reading and Lit" blogs. . . .
Norm
Erin–In the matter of http://english.sxu.edu/~conlon/trl/trl_blog_reflection2.html,
I have smiled to recall a reading life never lived, but similarly lived. I have
seen images of myself as a child sitting in my mother’s lap and of myself as
a parent holding my young sons and daughters at bedtime. And what I felt in
both instances, and everything in between, in that long evolution between stages,
has all come back to me and reminded me of what I needed to remember. I have
learned how, once again, books connect and extend us–but not in that order,
for first they extend, as they take us out into the wide world of adventure
and magic and conflict and love and happy and sad endings, and we are marvelously
changed, only to find, the next day that someone else had the very same experience,
and we can talk about it and laugh and cry again, but this time with someone
else, with whom we begin planning our next adventures. I have become astounded
at the ironies of summaries, which compress and delete, but also lead
on and expand, and involve me in a whole world of process and thought and new
activity. I have been inspired by the gentle beauty and vitality of "reflection,"
which can play like a movie in my mind, full of life and character and shared
things, rather than sit there as part of an educator’s jargon. I have taken
hope in a student’s evolution into teacher, only possible when the student really,
really, works at it, really, really cares, and really, really transcends the
dictates of all those assignments. And finally, I have been heartened to receive
a colleague’s email full of quiet pride and admiration.
Thanks for starting my day with a smile, Erin! :) –Angelo