Stream of English Unconsciousness

Back in the previous century, I began my career as an English teacher. For the first 25 years in the education profession, I taught English classes of varying sorts at four different schools to students in grades 7 - 12. I also took several one-off turns teaching a variety of math courses, geography, typing, and PE; that was back in the day when the school had a need, asked a teacher about filling it--sometimes the week before school started--et voila! An English background could help with math word problems, no?

 

My favorite English classroom teaching topics included short stories--Crane’s “The Upturned Face,” Welty’s “Why I Live at the P.O”; writing--rhetorical writing, actually, not just mere scribblings of unsupported opinion; grammar--yup, I loved it! (Be sure to use a possessive pronoun before a gerund, or else! Our discontinuing the use of this rule these days is so disappointing…); and vocabulary. Greek and Latin roots are exquisite and still the best way to learn word meanings in the English language: the Greek root “center” means “center,” as in the word “epicenter,” meaning “at the center” (“epi” means “at, upon, or in addition…”). Look, Ma, no dictionary. Such a simple beautiful thing.

 

Our English teachers at Brimmer and May are awesome and deliver the goods to our students. Their charges at every grade level read, write, and speak in class regularly. Note: English classes downstream in the Lower School are called Language Arts--this nomenclature suggests that perhaps one should wear a smock and beret or don a robe and walk around in bare feet while learning to develop one's reading comprehension and master the five-paragraph essay. While I have said this before, and for rhetorical emphasis, I will say it again: Our teachers’ former students--we call them the School’s graduates or alums--consistently tell us, in plain English, that they were not only extraordinarily well prepared to write in college, but were the go-to copy editors for their friends, roommates, and dorm co-habitants. They’re that good.

 

Our 9th Graders just completed their Chaucer Exhibition incorporating reading, writing, research, and speaking; this spring 10th Graders will research and write about topics focused on the industrial revolution or imperialism, and the 11th and 12th graders are currently embarking on their Major Author Studies--read a couple of books, write a lengthy analytical paper, present the paper before an esteemed panel of students, faculty, and administrators. From 5th to 8th grade students will be working on projects that incorporate research and writing tasks that will demonstrate the level of mastery and growth attained during these four important pre-secondary school years. They write (the first draft); they right wrongs (the second draft), and they write conclusions (the final draft). Our students are impressive writers.

 

And because baseball and writing are both pastimes I enjoy--baseball is right around the corner and writing is ever-present--here’s a nugget of poetry that arose from batting around a few ideas; this from my own pen, a simple epigram (thank you, John Donne):

 

The ball’s smote and grounds near the line somewhere;

 

The umpire cries, “Foul!” the batter, “Unfair!”

 

That’s on me, not John Donne. Let’s just call that a first draft, maybe? Then go check out what Brimmer’s students write.