I ran into the problem, again, when teaching my most fun course. It was the one titled "Personal Reading for Professional Development". You know that reading is a major tool in the higher grades, in high school, in college and graduate school. It is the fundamental skill in schooling. But in order for more school systems to approve this course for experienced teachers to get salary and related credits, I mentioned "professional development" in the title. It was indeed a fun course since it was a course for experienced teachers to take. Experienced teachers are fun people. They usually have rich insights and memories of themselves and their students and the students' parents. They are also people who have been read to and have read themselves widely.
The course had one basic assignment during its five days a week for four weeks: make a list of the books you have read, ever. It is ok if you only read part of the book: list it. As these middle-aged adults thought, searched attics, basements, library shelves at home and in the town library, they recalled reading That Really, Really GREAT Book. As they mentioned it and talked about it and what it did for them, they radiated enthusiasm. Enter: Superlative Stress. Yes, they did tell us about another book yesterday and that one was really, really, really GREAT but this one today was GREATER!
I credit Howard Cosell, the sports announcer, with emphasizing the word "Awesome". My experience of AWE is stun, tears, inability to speak. But these days, my waitress tells me that the dessert is awesome. She means that it is delicious and it does turn out to be. I am glad I tried it but I didn't see the face of God in the swirls.
I taught grading and ranking and testing for more than 30 years. I realize that it can be impossibly difficult to express how stunning that one-handed catch was, how grateful you are to Nature and your wife for the new baby, how that goal bringing victory over the very best team in the state - how such moments inspire genuine awe, gratitude, chest-bursting love. We are in need of more superlatives, better adjectives for events happening these days.
