Literary Quote of the Day: "Preparing for a Calamity"

Twain exposes the illusion of security. He experienced many calamities toward the end of his life, a leading cause of his writing turning from fun to bitter.

This reminds me of my early years in teaching. I made sure I had everything prepared and written out because I knew I’d be spending much of my energy and time managing the oversized class I was teaching.

I made it a priority to be extremely prepared. I don’t recall the name of the story I was teaching that day, but the story was in the textbook and since it was the first time I’d used the textbook that day, I gave the simple instruction to go grab a textbook off the bookshelf.

I have no idea why students were in such a hurry to go grab a book for an assignment maybe a third of them would actually do, but a stampede ensued. 

That’s one calamity I was not prepared for. 

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