The teacher in this photograph is Patricia Martone of All For Education, and I had the good fortune to photograph in one of her classes. For over 30 years, with Aesthetic Realism as her teaching method, she has had remarkable success enabling students to read and become kinder to each other, even in classes such as this one, where they endured horrendous economic conditions.

A young student nestles in the crook of her arm, each looking in a different direction. Another student, joined to them through compressed perspective, looks off in yet another direction. Teachers and students have to put together nearness and distance, and so do we. That is, as we are close to one person, we want our awareness of others to be heightened, as we see here.