On Teaching: THE FOUNTAIN IN ROOM 2

Today I should feel a wonderful kind of joy as I go about the business of teaching, for a peaceful but astonishing power will be governing all that happens. Unfortunately, I rarely remember this marvelous truth. As I concentrate on getting through my lessons and controlling the flow of my classes, I tend to forget that thought actually controls everything that happens in my room. From the tiniest event to the most significant, everything happens because thought, or consciousness, is ceaselessly at work. (Some people call this power "God".) My classroom is like an infinite fountain of ideas, and it is that fountain which rules the room every minute of every day. It’s an astonishing fact to meditate on, and to try to picture. I can see in my mind, not 43 individual material bodies, but 43 brand spanking-new thoughts each moment. I once calculated that, in each day, roughly 450,000 ideas come into being in my classroom – an overwhelming stream of powerful thoughts that are constantly changing the lives of my students and me. Perhaps it would help, today, if I picture in my mind something like Niagara Falls, with its astonishingly forceful flow of water, and remind myself that I teach in a “Niagara Falls” classroom. There is as much – and much more – power in my classroom each day then there is at those famous falls. The infinite universe is ceaselessly spinning along, creating almost half a million ideas in little Room 2 in Pine Point School. I probably should just sit and marvel at it all, just as I would stare at Niagara Falls surging over its cliffs. My classroom is a spectacular event, every moment of every day, and I am lucky to be present for it.