BHS Teachers Hold Seminar on J.M. Coetzee’s Novel Disgrace

Thanks to grants from the BHS PTO and the Brookline Education Foundation, on October 30, Brookline’s Professional Development Day, the BHS English teachers spent a day doing what they love—analyzing and discussing literature. Tufts professor Michael Downing led the department in an all-day seminar on Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee, a book Downing calls “one of the best novels of the past twenty-five years.” The day was an enormous success in all respects. Not only were teachers rejuvenated by having the rare chance to discuss a provocative book with their colleagues, but they were inspired by Downing’s gifts as a teacher and discussion leader.

Here are some teacher reactions about the day:

“Discussing a challenging piece of literature with colleagues reenergizes my thinking about the literature I am teaching. Watching a college professor and master teacher lead a discussion, I picked up some techniques that I will implement this week in my own classroom."

“Michael Downing is truly one of the great teachers of English. He is so knowledgeable and skillful. He just made the day a fantastic intellectual and personal experience.”

“I would like to do more to model Downing’s style when leading kids through a verbal analysis of a text.”

“Was this the best professional development I have ever done? Yes!!!”

“Our facilitator was intelligent, provocative, and expressed genuine interest in our readings of the text—a perfect model for teaching literature.”

Many teachers also emphasized the importance of the lovely off-site venue for this seminar. Brookline parent (and now teacher!) Julie Joyal-Mowschenson hosted the meeting in her living room. The teachers felt that the day was doubly effective because they felt so pampered.

Michael Downing will return to present a second seminar in March, this time on Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, a novel read by all sophomores at BHS. The English teachers are looking forward to this second seminar and to examining the ways these two books about transition in Africa speak to each other in rich and surprising ways.