Bird Droppings May 5, 2010
Wandering about for a bit

I went walking with my dog yesterday afternoon. I headed from the house with camera in hand. I was looking at the land next to our house. Covered in grass with a few young pecan, persimmon, and mimosa trees it looks harmless enough. As I walked finding numerous flowers, lichens and mosses, each unique as I took several hundred photos interspersed with photos of my westie hunting as she does when walking. Always has her ears perked up and sniffing the ground for scents and with hundreds of deer tracks all around there were plenty of interesting smells I am sure for her to get excited about. When I am out thinking and looking I am always drawn to the thoughts of Henry David Thoreau and his pilgrimage to Walden Pond.

“The appreciation of the profundity and subtlety of his thought comes only after serious study, and only a few of the most committed students are willing to expend the necessary effort. Many, upon first reading him, will conclude: that he was a churlish, negative, antisocial malcontent; or that he advocated that all of us should reject society and go live in the woods; or that each person has complete license to do as he/she pleases, without consideration for the rights of others; or that he is unconscionably doctrinaire. His difficult, allusive prose, moreover, requires too much effort. All such judgments are at best simplistic and at worst, wrong.” Wendell P. Glick

Interesting I was thinking Glick was referring to me in this passage but alas it is Henry David Thoreau. I found this passage in a lesson plan on how to teach Thoreau. Glick points out the difficulties even today, though Thoreau is recognized as a great writer it was his idiosyncrasies that kept him from public acknowledgement in his time. Often his idiosyncrasies landed him in jail as well for civil disobedience and refusing to pay taxes.

“He had in a short life exhausted the capabilities of this world; wherever there is knowledge, wherever there is virtue, wherever there is beauty, he will find a home.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his eulogy for Thoreau

It has been nearly eight years today I was answering an email about how I had gone into teaching. A friend from High school never imagined me teaching. Interesting as since I was twelve I had been teaching often indirectly through swimming lessons, boy scouts, youth groups and many other service related fields. As a parent we are always teaching and I was lucky to have three boys who questioned and pondered often. I started with Henry David Thoreau in that he was a teacher, but he walked away from teaching to be a better teacher. I often use the illustration of how he became a learner. Thoreau sought knowledge, he craved new ideas and thoughts, everything and everyone about him became a classroom and students.

“Yet, hermit and stoic as he was, he was really fond of sympathy, and threw himself heartily and childlike into the company of young people whom he loved, and whom he delighted to entertain, as he only could, with the varied and endless anecdotes of his experiences by field and river: and he was always ready to lead a huckleberry-party or a search for chestnuts or grapes. Talking, one day, of a public discourse, Henry remarked that whatever succeeded with the audience was bad.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

In that email several years back my friend wrote that teaching should be fun and how for many years her fellow teachers thought her methods were different. Often I have other teachers wonder at what I do with students and how and why. But they learn, they ask questions and see results. I was looking back earlier to why I chose teaching. Initially it was because of a Biology teacher I had in tenth grade, I even used that as a memorable experience in high school on my biography I sent in for my fortieth reunion a few years back. I wandered away from hands on teaching into publishing of training materials for twenty three years and then came back to getting my hands dirty.
Often I find myself using the statement I am where I need to be at this moment. My pathway has led me to this spot right here and now. Within weeks we will celebrate a day of thanksgiving of holiday family and friends. So often within the constraints of life many will find times of sorrow and often these get overlooked. Please be aware that around you and near by someone may be suffering today. Offer a hand, a shoulder a thought and please keep all in harms way on your mind and in your hearts and to borrow from a veteran and friend from high school and an old email he sent out.

“Please remember the sons and daughters in far away lands, for once we were them” Reah Wallace, retired Navy

I wonder as I wander walking about seeing and hearing. I am thinking thoughts that may have been thought. Am I seeing what has been seen so many times before only perhaps in a new way? I can only say may peace be with us and please keep all in harms way on your mind and in your hearts.
namaste
bird