Overview

"He roams New England, Arkansas, the Caribbean, Nova Scotia and the familiar and odd plots of mind and thought. He explores shorelines and climbs ""hillish"" mountains. He sits on porches and talks to passersby and their dogs. He meets strange and delightful people, most of whom are real. ""Reading Pickering,"" a reviewer wrote in The Smithsonian decades ago, ""is like taking a walk with your oldest, wittiest friend."" ""Now,"" Pickering says, ""I am old, and the friends who thought me witty have fallen off the perch. But that's okay. What I write makes me smile and mutter, 'What a guy.'"" And what wonderful essays these are--pages that awaken the affections and make readers smile and embrace the beauty of this bruised world."

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9781948692144

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One of Pickering's students at Montgomery Bell Academy, Tom Schulman, later wrote the script for the film Dead Poets Society, basing the pedagogy of Robin Williams' character very loosely on Pickering's eccentric style. Pickering has eschewed publicity raised by the film and has since regarded the unorthodoxy of his classroom behavior as more goalless than that depicted in Dead Poets Society, in which unorthodoxy is employed deliberately as a way to preach the values of non-conformity and carpe diem. Instead, Pickering has commented that I did such things not so much to awaken students as to entertain myself. [6] Pickering has often considered his teaching style purely purposeless and impulsive, and he criticizes those who have subsequently asked him about his philosophy on education, responding that people, regarding such large social questions, have trouble with the realization that mostly it's all meaningless. I don't know why people want answers. [6] Pickering's writing has been characterized as equally sporadic, meandering, and amusing, with a common teaching and writing guideline of You have to lie to give the illusion of the truth. [7] His non-fiction work typically takes a humorous tone and revolves around the everyday absurdities and pretensions of civilization.[1]

"One of Pickering's students at Montgomery Bell Academy, Tom Schulman, later wrote the script for the film Dead Poets Society, basing the pedagogy of Robin Williams' character very loosely on Pickering's eccentric style. Pickering has eschewed publicity raised by the film and has since regarded the unorthodoxy of his classroom behavior as more goalless than that depicted in Dead Poets Society, in which unorthodoxy is employed deliberately as a way to preach the values of non-conformity and carpe diem. Instead, Pickering has commented that ""I did such things not so much to awaken students as to entertain myself.""[6] Pickering has often considered his teaching style purely purposeless and impulsive, and he criticizes those who have subsequently asked him about his philosophy on education, responding that people, regarding such large social questions, have trouble with ""the realization that mostly it's all meaningless. I don't know why people want answers.""[6] Pickering's writing has been characterized as equally sporadic, meandering, and amusing, with a common teaching and writing guideline of ""You have to lie to give the illusion of the truth.""[7] His non-fiction work typically takes a humorous tone and revolves around the everyday absurdities and pretensions of civilization.[1]"

Author Information

Sam Pickering grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. He spent 67 years in classrooms learning and teaching and has long been a rummager and writer wandering New England and the South, the Mid-East, Britain, Australia, and Canada. He has written some thirty books and is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers.

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