The Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield has been popular on both sides of the Atantic since its publication in 1930. A charming, witty story about the daily trials of an English lady with a husband and two children. Adhering to standard British tradition, the son is packed off to boarding school, and the daughter is tutored by a French governess. The lady struggles with an permanently unsatisfactory bank balance, the constant hiring of servants, and the…..
I wrote the following poem (well, doggerel) and read it to a middle school class at the end of my first year of teaching in the 1970s. “Who’d Be a Teacher?” To be a good teacher requires dedication, For teaching’s a tiring, demanding profession. Every day for nine months a teacher must face A large class of students from every race. Some fractious, some smart, but all of them keen To bring out in the teacher each instinct that’s…..
I am a Brit remarried to an American. I have five children and fourteen grandchildren. For decades, I’ve taught at private schools and public universities. I loved teaching and teenagers (most of them), and I look back on those years in the classroom with great affection. I began teaching English accidentally. A few days before the beginning of the school year in 1978, the headmaster of the private school my children attended called me into his office, told me his…..
