Wednesday, April 20, 2016

On teaching.........................


      Second, my father had taught English and writing at San Quentin during the 1950s and 1960s.  He published stories in The New Yorker about his students and then wrote a biography of San Quentin.   I grew up hearing and reading about his students and the place itself.  He did not bog down in complex moral and ethical matters - victim's rights, recidivism.  He just taught the prisoners to read good books, to speak good English, and to write.  My father treated them with respect and kindness, his main philosophical and spiritual position being:  Don't be an asshole.

-Anne Lamott,  Small Victories:  Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace

No comments:

Post a Comment