Whenever I feel inspired by my work as a teacher – whenever I feel like I’m doing a great job and am becoming a better and better teacher – I know I’ve lost my way temporarily. I know I’ve taken the familiar but dangerous path toward arrogance instead of the narrow and correct one that leads to humility. I’m patting my own back instead of my students’. Like a confused gardener, I’m admiring the soil more than the flowers. After all, a teacher’s only job is to see to it that his students grow as abundantly and gracefully as possible. His job is not to be a brilliant teacher but to make it easy for his students to be brilliant students. All the spotlights in his classroom should be on the students, and none on himself. To go back to the garden analogy: Who wouldn’t be amused at a gardener who, at the end of the growing season, was more thrilled with the quality of the soil than with the wealth of the harvest? The harvest, not the soil, is the whole point of a garden, and productive, resourceful students is the whole point of education. Like soil, a good teacher is helpful, but he should remain relatively hidden, like the featureless, unassuming soil in which a profusion of beautiful things grows. A good teacher doesn’t need to feel successful; he only needs to know that his students do.

Yesterday could serve as a “model” day for me – one that seemed flawless from start to finish. It started with a vigorous workout at the gym, followed by a breakfast that was absolutely perfect: one toasted bagel with homemade raspberry jam and fresh, appetizing coffee. I felt surprisingly strong as I pumped the bike at the gym, and I’m not sure I’ve ever had a tastier breakfast. As I sipped the last drops of coffee, I felt like the day was off to an ideal start. Later in the morning, I drove with Annie up to Jaimie’s house to drop off his car, and then we had a drive home together that somehow seemed just right. The car hummed effortlessly, we talked with love and sincerity, and the hour passed gracefully by. I felt fortunate to spend these excellent minutes with such an admirable young person. The rest of the day was just the thing for me – many faultless hours watching football games, reading, writing letters, and just letting one fine though after another come to me unbidden. That perhaps sounds supremely dull to some people, but to me it’s a superlative way to spend a Saturday. All was right with my world during those pleasant hours.

10:30 a.m.
As I relax on a plane returning from a peaceful and fulfilling trip back to my roots in St. Louis, it’s time to review the high points of the week. I think, first of all, of the many happy meals I shared with the family: a dinner at Steak ‘n’ Shake with mom and Al; a lively lunch at Schlafly’s in Maplewood with Al, Mike, and Pete; a family-style buffet at the lovely Innsbruck home of Barb and Mike; an elegant dinner (and poetry reading!) at Pete and Barbara’s; and delicious home-made soup with Maysie, Don, and their cheerful family. I ate well on this trip, and with good food came good companionship. French fries, salads, and smiles seemed to go well together. Another good chunk of my visit was spent just seeing a few St. Louis sights. Some of us went to the Missouri Botanical Garden to view a display of exotic glass-making, and mom and I enjoyed the drive through the countryside on our way to Innsbruck. I also spent a number of hours aimlessly cruising old, memory-filled neighborhoods in my rental car. All in all, though, I guess the highest of the high points was simply being with my extended family again. I loved (as usual) the comfortable hours with Al and Mary Anne, and being with my gracious and admirable mother was like turning back the clock. I am lucky to be part of a remarkable family, and this past week I felt luckier than ever.

As is fitting in this special season of light, when I awoke this morning I immediately lit several candles around the apartment, and they glowed softly as I read and wrote. Every so often, I paused in my work and walked through the dark rooms, admiring the radiance of the little candles. They didn’t take up much space on the tables and bookshelves, but they sent out a healthy light throughout the apartment. This is an extraordinary day in the year, and the candles, as they should, glowed magnificently. It made me think of the power of many kinds of light – the light of lamps that allow people to see each other; the headlights of cars that take people to important rendezvous; the silent light of stars above this sometimes anxious world; and – best of all – the light of thoughts that continually flash and show us the way we should go. Our lives are surrounded and suffused with light. Even the tiniest light on a Christmas tree suggests the impressive power of light. As I drive to the airport this afternoon for my holiday visit to my extended family in St. Louis, I will watch for the lights shining along the way – lamps in windows of comforting homes, lights of holiday decorations, lights along the roads to help us all get where we wish to go. And I will think of the great light of the sun, which is the source of all light, and the even greater light of limitless Mind (which some call God). I’ll see and feel the shining that is in all places, all hearts, and all times.

On this mild, blustery Christmas Eve, the family gathered at Jaimie and Jess’s in the late morning for a celebratory brunch. There seemed to be a touch of spring in the air as we were all arriving, and I didn’t hear any complaints about it. If it hadn’t been for the decorated Christmas tree, I might have felt like I should be in shorts and a summer shirt. As a warm, gusty breeze swayed the tall treetops around the house, we greeted each other and began a warmhearted day of festivities.The mood inside the house was as easygoing as the weather outside. It was a day for the children, and Noah, Kaylee, and baby Josh entertained us continuously with their gentle antics. Noah and Kaylee beamed as they opened gift after gift, and Josh was as calm and kindhearted as he always is, whether rocking in his mother’s arms, or swaying in his dad’s lap, or sprawled on the floor with what seemed like a perpetual smile on his face. After most of the presents were opened, I wandered outside for a bit of fresh air. The air seemed soft like April as the trees leaned this way and that in the relaxed breeze. I felt like running and skipping across the faded winter grass, but I didn’t. Instead, I wandered back inside to enjoy more of our family’s mellow holiday cheer.

It’s a silent Saturday morning in Westerly. Outside, a car whispers by every so often, and when I listen carefully I can hear the sounds of a gentle rain falling and perhaps a car’s tires splashing along the street, but otherwise the town seems utterly muted. It’s as if the entire population is enjoying a late and peaceful sleep. My small apartment is just as silent. Some holiday candles are glowing on tables and bookshelves here and there, and my reading lamp is giving a golden light to my laptop as I type, but, thankfully, there’s no noise whatsoever. All is hushed in these peaceful rooms where I’m lucky to live. It seems fitting, at this holiday season, that I’m enjoying a morning of silence, for the beauty of silence is one of the main points of Jesus’ teaching. Noise is caused by confusion and chaos, and Jesus brought a message of order and harmony. He taught us that only in silence – in the “closet” of prayer -- can be found the quiet truth of reality. And that’s exactly what I’m experiencing on this drizzly, serene holiday morning.

Lately I’ve been mulling over an intriguing thought – that a person can actually stay calm even while rushing. In fact, calmness can be enjoyed in any situation, regardless of how frenzied, scary, or upsetting it might be. Being calm simply means accepting what’s happening, and I can do that no matter where I am or what I’m experiencing. If I say to every moment, “I accept you exactly the way you are,” I might feel a steadier and deeper calmness than I ever thought possible. It is indeed a strange truth that the key to finding calmness in life is simply not resisting the present moment. It seems almost too easy. I’m often tempted to dismiss the notion as poppycock and claptrap, a lame-brained theory out of some esoteric self-help book. However, every time I examine the idea carefully, its utter truthfulness becomes clear beyond any doubt. Tension and stress arise only from resistance to some present moment, and calmness and coolness are always restored by accepting that moment. If I have to get somewhere quickly, I can give up all opposition to that fact and, instead, simply flow with it. If I do that, my “rushing” will be thoroughly peaceful. People who see me dashing along the sidewalk might say, “Goodness, that man looks so calm!”

As usual in the last few days before Christmas break, there was great exhilaration at school yesterday. Teaching and learning was replaced by laughing and hugging. In the classrooms, in the halls, in the library, and on the playground there was little else but pure enthusiasm. The holidays have definitely begun. It’s a somewhat frustrating time for we teachers, especially if we’re of the controlling type. If you like to run an efficient, well-managed classroom where great lists of goals are reached and checked off each day, you would not enjoy these last few days before vacation. For the most part, educational goals at my school were in complete tatters yesterday. It could be, though, that other worthy goals were reached by all of us, students and teachers alike. Perhaps we found a little more elation for our lives, a little more joy to carry with us into the days ahead. Maybe instead of learning how to be better students and teachers, we learned something more about how to be people of high spirits and delight. We might deserve a higher grade for yesterday than we realize.

Yesterday I learned something about calmness. The word derives from the Latin for “the heat of the day”, and I felt like I learned a little something yesterday about being restful when things get really “hot”. Nothing extraordinary happened – just a little confusion as I was using my new computer – but I was proud of the way I remained serene as I dealt with the situation. When I started to get anxious, I just relaxed, stayed cool, and allowed the natural good results to gradually take effect. It’s interesting that the word “calm” originally meant the part of the day in ancient Rome when the sun was the hottest. I can picture the Romans resting in the shade as the day heated up. They obviously knew that there’s no point in fighting the heat – that the easiest way to stay cool is to find your vast reservoir of inner peace, settle into its shade, and let the coolness take over. It’s a lesson I need to continue to learn, day after day. When students grow restive, when a carefully constructed lesson seems to be falling part before my eyes, when a problem feels as uncomfortable as a scorching day in August, I need to seek the shade of my own inner peacefulness. Actually, it’s not my own peacefulness that I need to get in touch with, but the peacefulness of the entire universe. Like the stars, planets, winds, and seas, I need to simply let things happen as beautifully and as naturally as they always want to happen. There’s shade all around me, if I only look – and I discovered this again yesterday.

I’ve been having a wonderful time with my new computer, exploring it to discover its many capabilities, searching the internet while sitting in my lounge chair in the living room, and typing out little pieces like this paragraph. It’s an astonishing machine. Some human beings dreamed it up and others put it all together, and now it sits in my lap as I enjoy its powers. I feel grateful to the brilliant minds that designed and built it so I could enjoy a miracle each day. It’s an utter mystery to me, but that doesn’t prevent me from thoroughly taking pleasure in it.

Even though I didn’t especially need it, I got tons of comfort yesterday from my two grandsons. Anyone feeling disconsolate about the condition of the world would only need to spend a few hours with young Noah or Joshua to feel considerably reassured. These boys bring a sense of encouragement with them wherever they go. All seems well – even perfect – with the universe when I’m hanging around with these active yet somehow tranquil boys. While Noah and I and Jaimie and Jessy enjoyed our customary Saturday breakfast (French toast for some, an egg and cheese sandwich for others), I occasionally exchanged a few quiet words with Noah. He seemed extra peaceful as he munched his food and smiled and chatted with me. It was a mild morning outside, and he made the inside of the house every bit as mild. After breakfast (and some relaxing playing in the studio), I drove up to spend a few hours with what has to be (at least when I visit) one of the calmest families I know. Josh was at his cuddliest best, whether rolling on the floor, giggling at Luke’s antics, or just peacefully resting in Krissy’s arms. It gave me enormous pleasure simply to be near him and his small treasure of quietness. Who needs a tranquilizer or a glass of wine when he has two soothing boys for good medicine?

In my fortunate life, everything seemed harmonious yesterday . In the early morning, I had a quiet, productive study period at my desk, slowly reading through some spiritual pages. As I read, I felt a pleasant balance between work and play. I tried my best to focus with intensity on the ideas in the book, but I also relaxed and allowed the meanings to arise in an effortless manner. At school, although I wasn’t the greatest teacher in the world, my classes did flow along in a well-balanced way. There was a little of everything: some quiet periods, some brilliant conversation, some tedium, some effusive bursts of wisdom and happiness. My students and I didn’t change the world yesterday, but we did experience some of the great pleasantness of life. After school, I drove two of my students over to my son’s school to talk with him about tutoring kids in his 3rd grade classroom. During that time, I felt a pleasing combination of emotions: for instance, disappointment that my students had to ride in my messy car, but elation at how well our visit went. In Matt’s well-organized classroom, we sat at the tiny round table and enjoyed a beneficial conversation about their forthcoming duties as tutors. Driving back to school with the kids, I thought about how blessed I was to live such a sweet and even-handed life.

Like most people, I've always loved the look of majestic mountains, but lately I've been pondering the interesting fact that without valleys, there would be no mountains. It may seem like an obvious fact not worth mentioning, but in order for mountains to stand out in all their grandeur, they have to have valleys as foregrounds. If there were no valleys, the earth would be one immense mountain, which means it would be totally flat. Nothing would stand above because nothing would lie below. As often happens with newly realized truths, I've been applying this to my teaching, and intriguing ideas have emerged. Like any teacher, I want my students to "stand out" -- to rise to their highest level of achievement -- to be, I guess we could say, like magnificent mountains. What I'm realizing, though, is that this means I must be the valley. If my students are going to be conspicuous as exemplary scholars, that means there must be an inconspicuous foreground -- a valley behind which their greatness can stand out. Their lights will be bright only if there's darkness around them -- and, odd as it sounds, I must be that darkness. I've always intuitively felt that humility plays a significant role in successful teaching, and these reflections only reinforce that idea. As the teacher, I must be less and less and my students must be more and more. My job is to shrink while they grow. If I lie low, they will rise and shine.

Over breakfast recently, several colleagues and I talked about the complicated, daunting, frustrating, rewarding, and fine art of teaching -- and these helpful thoughts emerged:
1) In some ways, good teaching has to be impersonal. (This is a paradox, of course, because in many ways good teaching must be highly personal.) Several times during our conversation, we referred to the idea of "not taking it personally". When a group of students seems out of control, it's not because they don't like us, nor is it an indication that we are "bad" teachers. They're simply behaving in a way that is not appropriate, and it is our job as professionals to ensure that they correct their behavior.
2) A teacher is like a Global Positioning System. Each day in our classrooms, our students have to travel to some educational "place" -- some goal they need to reach -- and it is our task to guide them to this goal. In a sense, our students come to us fairly "lost", but fortunately they have human GPS's in their classroom. Just as the GPS in a car says things like "Turn left at the next stop sign", we teachers must sometimes give explicit instructions as our students "drive" along the roads of learning. In this way, like the motorist, our students can reach their learning destinations in a relatively timely and stress-free manner.
3) Another paradox: In spite of the truth of #2, a huge part of teaching is helping students learn how to get past obstacles and reach their goals by using their own resources. (Incidentally, my colleagues wonder if kids born in the years after 9/11 are being excessively coddled, to the point where they sometimes seem utterly incapable of helping themselves. Perhaps for these children, the classroom GPS needs to be turned off occasionally.)
4) And a final paradox: Teachers need to have both long memories and short memories. We need to remember patterns in kids' learning and behavior, but we also sometimes need to quickly forget so we can move on with a totally clean slate.
5) Laughter is vital. My colleagues said the five teachers in their team laugh a lot throughout the day. Maybe laughter is not only good medicine, but also a pretty fine GPS.

This morning I’m wondering if my students might sometimes rejoice during my class. Admittedly it seems a little far-fetched to think of anyone actually rejoicing during English class, but it would be a goal worth aiming for. After all, the word simply means “being happy ”, and I surely do want my students to feel happy during my classes. I’d love them to have a smile on their faces throughout most of the time they're with me. Perhaps this is not as implausible goal as it may at first seem. Maybe my students can rejoice in my class simply because they feel satsified -- satisfied that things in Mr. Salsich’s English class are the way they should be, and that respectable feats are accomplished there. My class is not a playground or an amusement park or a place where kids can throw up their arms and dance, but perhaps it’s a place where they can feel fulfilled because something good and right is happening. That might be worth rejoicing about. Today I’ll keep a close watch on how often my students smile. I’ll do a “smile survey”, and maybe I’ll be convinced that the kids are, in fact, doing a considerable amount of cheering as we go through our lessons. They won’t be jumping around with glee, but they might be feeling quietly contented that Room 2 is not a bad place to be at any given hour. That could be cause for at least some reserved and silent rejoicing.

The other day, I began to get annoyed after waiting in line at Dunkin Donuts for about ten minutes, but then, fortuitously, I remembered a truth I've often contemplated: whatever I'm doing at any given moment is exactly what I'm supposed to be doing and need to be doing. This universe I'm part of is infinitely bigger and more powerful than I am, and I need to trust that larger picture. Life is not about little me getting what I happen to want at any given moment. It's about life as a whole, the entire immense cosmos, doing what it must. In any situation, I need to take a breath, step back, and allow this wonderfully harmonious universe (which some people call God) to do what it's going to do. If that means waiting in line at Dunkin Donuts for ten or twenty minutes, then that's what I will do, and patiently, too, because I will be looking and listening for what life is trying to teach me in that situation. If, instead of fighting that present moment at the donut shop, I had abandoned all resistance and asked myself what gift I could find in that predicament, I might have been surprised at how lucky I actually was.

Yesterday I worked at my desk at home in the early morning hours. It was whistling, windy, and frigid outside, and I was happy to be cozily warm in my apartment as I graded papers and prepared some things for next week’s classes. My hazelnut-flavored coffee tasted especially good as I worked. Later I drove to school and puttered around for a few hours, rearranging bulletin boards and setting up for the coming lessons. The kids came around 8:15 for the SSAT tests, dragging in with sleepy and shivering looks. We held our Christmas dance the night before, and some of the kids looked fairly exhausted. They went quietly down to the testing room and I hard no more of them. The building relapsed into its usually pleasant Saturday morning silence. In the late afternoon, after writing some Christmas cards, I took a walk in the park. Even with my warmest clothes on, I felt thoroughly chilled as I strolled along the silent walkways. The park was nearly empty of people. The stripped trees waved in the wintry wind, and the western sky was streaked with cold-looking lines of pink and orange.

The weather turned bitterly cold today. After a rather balmy Thursday, Friday blew in this morning with frigid winds and arctic temperatures. At school, we all rushed along when we had to move from building to building, and at recess the students huddled together like farm animals trying to stay warm. Luckily, I had my small white space heater cheerfully humming all day, which made my classroom a fairly pleasant place for our serious reading and writing.

I’m often amazed at how unaware I am during many of my classes. I often pass through the entire 48 minutes of class on “autopilot”, just cruising along through the steps of my lesson plan with hardly a clear thought given to the astonishing nature of what’s happening. To use an analogy I’ve often employed, I’m like a person walking through a wonderland with a blindfold on. I get to the end of a class, take the blindfold off, and have no genuine idea what wonderful things have been occurring in the last hour. Of course, what happens each day in my room at school is no more wonderful than what happens each moment everywhere. To me, the universe is an infinite and eternal miracle, from the spinning stars right down to the mechanical pencil in my hand during class, and to the tiny ant crawling down the wall as my students and I work our way through the lesson. It’s all miraculous – the thousands of totally new thoughts we generate in each class, the feelings that sweep through us, the understandings that suddenly come to us like sunrises. It’s all an absolute marvel, and yet I am usually completely unaware of it as I’m teaching. I have my carefully made lesson plans in front of me, and, with blindfold on, I march through them from beginning to end, quite oblivious to the wonders around me. I pat myself on the back, get the next lesson plan out, adjust the blindfold, and wait for the next class to arrive.

I have come to realize that attachment is one of the greatest dangers in my teaching. One definition for the word is "an emotional tie or bond to someone or something", and this definitely applies to my work as a teacher. For instance, each day I become thoroughly attached to the goals I set up for my classes. I try to focus my entire attention on reaching those goals, and I invariably feel disappointed if I don't reach them. Because I am “emotionally tied” to my daily objectives, falling short of them is like a genuine loss to me. Of course, in one sense, there’s something laudable about this kind of devotion to goals, but there’s also something dangerous: if I’m totally focused on a particular end, I’m going to be closed to all other possible ends. In order to be completely dedicated to one specific path in my teaching, I have to block myself off from all other potentially rewarding paths. Attachment to one thing requires unawareness of everything else. It’s strange to realize this, because I've always thought "single-mindedness " was an entirely good quality, but now I'm not so sure. There are countless miracles ready to happen in my classroom each day, and somehow I have to keep myself open to all of them. Obviously I do have to make plans and set specific goals, but, one way or another, I must also stay alert for the wonders that await my students and me each moment.

The weather has turned cold these last few days. This morning, in fact, I laid out my heavy corduroy pants to wear to school, and I plan to wear one of my heaviest sweaters. The temperature won’t be plunging to the teens, but it will stay in the low forties all day, which is about twenty degrees colder than it was last week. Autumn, I surmise, has agreed to pass along the crown to stately and frosty winter.

* * * * *
I have long since reached the “grandfather” stage at school. The students now see me as a kind, erudite, and sometimes bumbling old gentleman – someone they do not want to offend. They wouldn’t want to upset their own grandfathers, and they feel the same, I think, about old, sagacious, and fragile Mr. Salsich.

After a strenuous week in the classroom, it was wonderful to relax yesterday with my two grandsons. First, I drove up to have an early breakfast with Jess, Jaimie, and Noah, which proved to be a perfectly comfortable way to start the weekend. We enjoyed hot coffee and French toast in the kitchen as the morning light arrived outside, and then Noah and I quietly played in the studio. As we usually do, we made up imaginative games with his many tiny figures, bringing them to “Sturbridge Village”, having them chase each other around the room, taking them here and there in the various farm vehicles. I doubt if anyone in the state of Connecticut had a more restful Saturday morning than Noah and I. Around 10:00, I drove up to Millbury to hang out with little Josh, Kaylee, Krissy, and Luke, and we had a totally peaceful time together. Because Josh was his usual tranquil self, all of us, I think, felt a refreshing calmness as the minutes passed. Perhaps we were soothed by the small boy’s obvious happiness and serenity . He seems to be one of those rare human beings who settles you down as soon as you come into his presence. Whether he was cooing at us from his crib, or proudly rolling over on the rug, or smiling endlessly as we passed him from person to person, Josh was the charmer we all needed to start us off on a relaxing, restorative weekend.

Lately I’ve been thinking that a good English teacher, oddly enough, might want to make purposeful use of obscurity now and then. One definition of the word “obscure” is “dark, shadowy, or clouded”, and surely teenagers would occasionally enjoy reading a book that is obscure in that sense. They love mysteries and enigmas, and it might titillate them to know that a novel we’re reading is considered “obscure” by many people. They might enjoy the knowledge that they are exploring a mystifying book that a relatively small number of young people have studied. Actually, I sometimes purposely make my subject matter seem obscure, just to give the students the sense that some arcane mystery awaits them in this lesson. I tell them, “You probably won’t understand this, because it’s baffled educated people for many years” – and immediately I sense that their alertness level has been raised. They’re obviously up for the challenge of searching a shadowy, inscrutable area of the world of English. I might even tell them that what we’ll be studying is considered by many to be “cryptic”, suggesting that it’s so puzzling and code-like that only certain special people would be able to understand it. This puts my students in a unique category, that of skilled investigators of unusual phenomena. English class then becomes, perhaps, a place of fascinating, obscure mysteries instead of a place where a rather tiresome curriculum is laboriously covered day by day.