The art of teaching

175 Pages·2005·4.4 MB·English

by  Jay Parini

The
Art of Teaching
Also by Jay Parini
Singing in Time (poetry), 1972
Theodore Roethke: An American Romantic (criticism), 1979
The Love Run (novel), 1980
Anthracite Country (poetry), 1982
The Patch Boys (novel), 1986
Town Life (poetry), 1988
An Invitation to Poetry (textbook), 1988
The Last Station (novel), 1990
Bay of Arrows (novel), 1992
John Steinbeck (biography), 1995
Benjamin's Crossing (novel), 1997
Some Necessary Angels: Essays on Literature and Politics (criticism), 1997
House of Days (poetry), 1998
Robert Frost (biography), 2000
The Apprentice Lover (novel), 2002
One Matchless Time: A Life of William Faulkner (biography), 2004
The
Art of Teaching
Jay Parini
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
2005
OXFORD
Oxford New York
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Copyright © 2005 by Jay Parini
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
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Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
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without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Parini,Jay.
The art of teaching / Jay Parini.
p. cm
ISBN-13: 978-0-19-516969-0
ISBN-10: 0-19-516969-7
Parini, Jay.
1. College teachers — United States — Biography.
2. College teaching — Vocational guidance.
I. Tide.
LA2317.P335A3 2004
378. l'2-dc22 2004005443
Book design: planettheo.com
35798642
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
For Devon, the best teacher of all
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Contents
Preface / ix
Beginnings / 1
My Life in School / 9
The Teaching Life / 57
Nitty-Gritty/105
Endings / 153
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Preface
Teaching is not only ajob of work. A teacher is charged with waking
students to the nature of reality, providing rigorous introduction to a
certain discipline, and creating an awareness of their responsibility
as citizens trained in the art of critical thinking. Of course most young
people in the history of the world, even the brightest among them,
have not been nurtured in this way. Education is expensive, and—
unfortunately—this expense has been largely supported by states that
want certain things taught and many things avoided. But education
is never as much about the past as about the future. Indeed, Paolo
Freire, a theorist of education, once reminded us that "to think of
history as possibility is to recognize education as possibility. It is to
recognize that if education cannot do everything, it can achieve some
things."
In this book, I contemplate some of those things, meditating
on the context in which they can be accomplished. After beginning
with an autobiographical chapter about my own experience within
the educational system, in the United States and Britain, I move on
to contemplate aspects of the teaching life, including what one
wears in the classroom, how one cultivates an individual teaching
persona, and how one can manage to teach and continue to do