Bird Droppings January 31, 2025
A morning meandering while thinking about the moon glowing.

Last night, as I looked out at the night sky, I honestly was not sure if the moon was glowing or not. It was too overcast. However, I started thinking back to tutoring a student trying to get caught up and return to public school, and eventually, she went a different route and finished up homeschooling. This morning, my first thing was reading through several old emails from my doctorate and graduate cohort friends, as most have now defended their dissertations and have officially completed the program. In another set of emails based on an article on teaching memory that several teachers reviewed, several comments on how these particular readings provided insight into the successful educational adaptation of this program. I found I had enjoyed the readings, and it made me recall a teaching principle I learned from my father, who used it in the steel industry many years ago; I was taught this concept in a Red Cross course for instructors in 1968. It is called the FIDO principle, hence Frequency, Intensity, Duration, and Over Again. If you repeat something often enough, it will sink in. Granted, in today’s educational teaching system to the test, we might be using FIDO a bit too much.

“I believe that the school is primarily a social institution. Education is a social process; the school is simply that form of community life in which all those agencies are concentrated, which will be most effective in bringing the child to share in the inherited resources of the race and use his own powers for social ends. I believe that education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living.” John Dewey, My Pedagogic Creed, The School Journal, Vol. LIV, No.

I look at John Dewey’s ideas from nearly a hundred years ago and how we still call those ideas progressive education; it amazes me. With all of the educational materials out now, many are only a few years old. They are still called traditional when compared to Dewey. One of our topics was performance versus social support. I am, of course, leaning in the social support direction as this is an integral part of my day when I am teaching even with general education students. This is how I see kids and deal with kids. I go back to my idea in one of the postings I read earlier today of getting away from the swing of the pendulum and going in the direction of a pulse; no swing either way, but a steady beat or energy.
We should try to steer away from that concept of right or left swing and go towards what is best for the kid, not always for society. I have worked with a large number of kids from a certain low-income housing area nearby. Many are very bright, and all are very poor. The sixteen-hour syndrome, as I call it, is alive and well in that area. As I go by several times a day between my mother’s house and my own, I see kids I have had and often new ones, but always similarities.

As I look back at the years of teaching EBD students, I see that I have had more kids from that one spot in the county than any other specific spot. Sadly, in actuality, many are marrying within that small community. More kids are being born in that environment. Many are on the fringe of society. Many of the kids are anarchists, punkers, suffering from divergent behaviors, drug addicts, and alcoholics, and few, if any, have jobs. I wondered why as I drove by, thinking of past kids from this enclave. Several are serving serious hard times; some have escaped and moved away, and many will be going to our newest high school down the road next year. I wonder if anyone in that community was approached about their participation in the greater good.

Interesting, as I am having a difficult time getting started this morning, wandering off a bit as if I had just driven by that community. I am always trying to stay up with my youngest son. Thinking back, I recall a day he decided to do a Godzilla marathon of the old Godzilla movies. I did not make it through the first one. When I got up the next morning, the video was still on, and he crashed somewhere after five this morning watching the twenty-eighth movie featuring the man in a monster suit. He just found the latest installment, which features every major other monster and a walk-on by the computer-generated Godzilla. I often wonder if there is a hidden meaning to Godzilla, the powerful beast who always eventually has a weakness. Sort of the David and Goliath of nature and humanity, and my youngest, of course, came to the rescue, offering that the original concept of the monster was an antinuclear effort.

“The depth of darkness to which you can descend and still live is an exact measure of the height to which you can aspire to reach.” Laurens Van der Post

For many years, I have been intrigued by this man whom I had not heard of prior to finding a quote several years ago, and yet he has written literally hundreds of books and articles on Africa and numerous other countries. He was raised by an African Bushman woman and taught their ways and his philosophy of life. His writings are permeated with nature and the thoughts and aspirations of these primitive people. Van der Post was knighted by the Queen many years ago and is the Godfather to Prince William. He is the only non-royal to have ever been given that honor.

“It’s easier to go down a hill than up it, but the view is much better at the top.” Arnold Bennett

“What is to give light must endure the burning.” Victor E, Frankl

As I sit this morning so often, it is conversations and the happenings of yesterday that drive my thoughts and inspire me as I write. Yesterday, I was talking with some friends about where they had been and where they were going; adversity is a good word as we spoke. It is about looking the lion in the mouth and walking away, knowing you have survived. Only a few days ago, I was talking with a former student. She was a graduate of a respected associate’s program and was floored at one point by her rejection at a four-year school. She had gone to the two-year program on a full athletic scholarship and suffered grade-wise in order to play on a nationally ranked junior college team. As the time to graduate came close, she had to quit softball and lose her scholarship in order to raise her grades and put more time into studying. She had conquered her adversary and now was trying to move on. After graduating with a four-year degree in business, she was still working as a waitress, but just a few days prior to our talk, she had been interviewed and got a job she had been dreaming about.

“Turn your face to the sun, and the shadows fall behind you.” Maori Proverb: the Maori are the Indigenous people of New Zealand

“Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right.” Laurens Van der Post

“The chief condition on which life, health, and vigor depend is action. It is by action that an organism develops its faculties, increases its energy, and attains the fulfillment of its destiny.” Colin Powell

Overcoming adversity begins with action, with a step forward, with realizing shadows are cast by light, and knowing that growth comes from effort. It is difficult to cross a stream if you never take the first step. Borrowing from the Zen teachings, “You can never cross a stream the same way twice.” I was sitting here remembering old stories and thoughts in the past. We would hike up a stream in north Georgia, the Toccoa Creek, and in that hike, transverse about 500 feet uphill over rocks and boulders and such climbing up the creek. In the process, of course, water is continually flowing against you, and depending on the rainfall, it could be a good bit. Cracks and crevices abound, and more than several times, you swim in rock channels ten feet deep and eighteen inches wide all uphill, but at the top is a waterfall.

“The view at the top is always worth the climb,” Sir Edmond Hillary

Keep all in harm’s way on your mind and your hearts and always give thanks namaste.

My family and friends, I do not say this lightly,
Mitakuye Oyasin
(We are all related)
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