No Place But Here

August 5, 1988
The Northeast Kingdom, in rural Vermont, is not only ``an amenable place to settle,'' but evidently a fine place to be a teacher. Keizer, an Episcopal minister, writes here about his seven-year teaching career at Lake Region Union High School and his students, who present special challenges arising from the isolation of farm communities. In his warm, anecdotal narrative Keizer shows how an artful iconoclasm in the classroom promotes sprightly discussion and, sometimes, a change in outlook among students. One such class involves the study of mythology, made immediate by Keizer's stories of his own bouts with the mythology surrounding the ``facts of life,'' and we see the amusement and understanding of the farm-wise students. There are the usual bureaucratic frustrations, professional defeats and victories, but the good fit of teacher and student as recounted here speaks of a true vocaton.