On a blinding September afternoon three weeks after the start of school, Assistant Principal Winston met me in his office. He stood behind his desk as if keeping it between us.
“Son, what’s your approach to classroom management?” He bared his teeth when he spoke, and seemed perpetually about to say something simultaneously cruel and amusing. I wasn’t sure about being called “son,” baby-faced as I was, by a man also in his twenties, but there seemed little choice but to accept his terms of address. I thought about how to answer the question. According to the notebook we received in training, classroom management cannot be separated from student interest. Children who were learning behaved well. Children not learning behaved poorly. Teach well, and you’d succeed, for as one particularly inspired passage had noted, “Children incline toward the light.” I wanted to be prepared, and had read the materials several times.:=