"I become a transparent eyeball..."

Horray for transcendentalism! I don't mean to make this blog a travelogue of my teaching adventures, but I just can't help it, as they seems to consume my life! This week we started the fantastic transcendentalists... Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, Alcott. Does it get any better? I just love the nature writers; they are so inspiring! I think my students officially think I am crazy. After reading aloud Chapter 1 of Nature by Emerson, I had one student come in after school and tell me I should be a drama teacher. I guess my out-loud reading skills are just that good. They seem to be enjoying it (perhaps not as much as I do, but hey, every bit counts!). I rarely give homework, but told them their assignment this weekend is to go out into nature for at least an hour: take a pen and some paper and observe. I got a few astonished looks at that one, but not too many complaints. I am hoping for some original nature writing and transcendent experiences--Annie Dillard style. If nothing else, it gives me an excuse to take an hour or two myself and go see some of the natural wonders of southern Utah this weekend. And, it has also given me an excuse to start reading Little Women again. I tell you what, life is good!

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and to see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
--Henry David Thoreau, Walden Pond