The Art of Teaching

that one must grow or else pay more to remain the same, paraphrased from Norman Mailer's _Deerpark_ comes into mind as I wandered/wondered through Mr. Parini's work. I particulary enjoyed the chapter on Robert Frost and the reflections on Socratic instruction, however, when he "waxes the nostalgic" the pages turn less rapidly and a sense of literay fatigue sets in the reader. Mr. Parini seems to have a distain or at least a reluctance to acknowledge the imminent power of the electronic media as it relates to enhancing classroom instruction. Note page 132 where an instructor is damned with faint praise for his utilization of the current technology. Another telling instance of this perception is on page 150 where he writes that he will communicate with his son who will be a college freshman primarily by telephone, to use a contemporary colloquialism, "Duh" how about email. The reference that there is little value in the over the air media is simply not true, he mentions the Simpsons and South Park which contradics his argument immediately. Most of the book is worthy as it promotes inspection into the evolution of an English teacher, I only wish he would have recognised that the "medium is the message" and that the instructor, as he points out is more the conductor and less the composer.

Becoming a teacher takes years of exhausting, painful trial and error. Deserving a four star rating, Jay Parini's book The Art of Teaching looks back over his years in the academic field. This beautifully written book is full of essays on everything from the first day of class, to the day of commencement. Parini looks at every issue a teacher might face in the classroom from the teacher's persona, to the teacher's relationships with the students and colleagues. He writes about trying to balance a teaching life and a life of research and writing. Parini uses the word "teacher," although he really should say "professor" because the book is about his life at the college level. His life in the early years of teaching and all the struggles he ensued learning the ropes and climbing the ladder to tenure. Although this book is written for the teacher at the college level, anyone in the teaching field will come away with some useful insight. This book has great quotes like "There is always a fresh start, with new students, new colleagues, new courses even old colleagues somehow look new in September." In my experience in the teaching field this is so very true. Reading this book made me think of teachers from my past. We as teachers draw from our past experiences. This helps us to become better teachers. That is what Parini did. He put some of those experiences down on paper so we could all learn. Although, this book is about teaching at the college level I did come away with some very good insight on teaching from the heart. I would recommend this book to anyone in the teaching field.