Bird Droppings November 7, 2025
Often, we find ourselves in a fog of education.

I was heading to my friend’s Rosary memorial service about seven years ago. I got up a bit later that day and walked a mile in the pool. I tend to meditate and wander in my thoughts, pondering as I might. I use a small white plastic cube to mark laps around the pool. Seventeen equals a quarter mile, and thereby sixty-eight times around a mile. As I walk at night in early morning hours, I listen to traditional cedar flute music by Carlos Nakai. The haunting notes seem to guide meditation.

Today, instead of something less meditative, I was on the phone with my son. The time flew by. I thought about my friend and the conversations I had with her sisters and family that night. I looked over, and a cardinal was feeding and chirping nearby. My son said, ‘Dad, you have a cardinal nearby. He has become the bird expert in the family.’ I tend to look for signs, and immediately someone asks of what? Usually, I catch myself and see the signs I am still able to see and hear. My thoughts returned to storytelling and stories, some from my friends two years ago as we talked about their sisters, but one kept drawing me in—the Pied Piper of Hamlin. I may need to revisit that in more detail.

“The more sand that has escaped the hourglass of life, the clearer we should see through it.” Jean Paul Sartre

As I was looking for thoughts and ideas to start, I was actually going in a different direction when, by accident or, should I say, coincidence, I came across this quote. As we get older, we have experienced more, and if we have learned from our experiences, the hourglass does clear; however, if those grains have been abrasive and scoured the glass as they went through, the glass will be scratched and foggy. It is life’s lessons that determine this process, and how we have responded provides the fodder for our endeavor. I am sitting here in the morning hours after responding for nearly an hour to various posts on blogs and a copy of John Dewey’s Experience and Education to my left. Hopefully, next week I will be heading to North Georgia, a few miles from the North Carolina line, to wander the Foxfire property as I do. The museum and property originated from a high school class that came alive through a method now known as Foxfire Teaching, which is based on experiential learning and the principles of John Dewey—more on Foxfire will be discussed later. I said my thoughts wandered today.

“Many go fishing all their lives without knowing it’s not the fish they are after.” W. Whitman

“No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings,” W. Blake

“Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.” Albert Einstein

“Only that day dawns to which we are awake,” Henry David Thoreau

It is often about choosing to look, to see, to listen, and to hear; those are all choices we make as we go through life. It is far easier to take ideas and thoughts from others and be subjugated by them to be what another wants us to be. However, only by hearing and seeing for ourselves can we, as Thoreau says, wake up to the dawn. We must be awake, especially in today’s politically biased and charged atmosphere. As I was reading last night, a thought occurred to me, and it intrigued me since I started by using my own eyes and ears.

“An anthropologist asked a Hopi Indian why so many of his native songs seemed to be about the subject of rain… he replied: ‘because rain is scarce in our land… is that the reason so many of your songs are about love?’” Kent Nerburn

As I thought, the problem in our society is so easily recognized by a Hopi Indian in New Mexico who had never really been to a big city or a “civilized” area of the United States. Could it be a lack of love that is why our society stumbles? I was involved in a discussion of sorts on another person’s Facebook page regarding holistic healing and herbal cures. This discussion centered on modern versus ancient methodologies, and, granted, many new-age supposed “cures” are a bit of a stretch; there is wisdom in the elders.

“Mankind often stumbles upon the truth…. but usually picks itself up & goes along.” Winston Churchill

We often know the answer but choose not to listen or disregard it due to the current politics, popular opinion, or the notion that majority rules, which seems to be the operating principle of the media and the mentality of the masses.

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” Albert Einstein

The more I read of Albert’s ideas and philosophy, the more I like his thoughts. It is funny how what we remember him for are his more science-oriented views than his philosophy, and that he loathed the fact that he was instrumental in developing weapons of mass destruction. At one point, he said he would give up all if he could take that back. So, where am I going today? Perhaps the following thought will offer some aid.

“Passive acceptance of the teacher’s wisdom is easy for most boys and girls. It involves no effort of independent thought and seems rational because the teacher knows more than his pupils; it is, moreover, the way to win the teacher’s favor, unless he is a very exceptional person. Yet the habit of passive acceptance is a disastrous one in later life. It causes men to seek a leader, and to accept as a leader whoever is established in that position… It will be said that the joy of mental adventure must be rare, that few can appreciate it, and that ordinary education can take no account of so aristocratic a good. I do not believe this. The joy of mental adventure is far common in the young than in grown men and women. Among children, it is very common and grows naturally out of the period of make-believe and fancy. It is rare in later life because everything is done to kill it during education… The wish to preserve the past rather than the hope of creating the future dominates the minds of those who control the teaching of the young. Education should not aim at passive awareness of dead facts, but at an activity directed towards the world that our affords are to create.” Bertrand Russell

The sad thing is, so often we fall victim to this 19th-century thinking, and all of this, while applying to education, is very much prevalent through all ideas among the “normal” folks in our world today, borrowing loosely a term applied to current folks wanting to change education, “reformers”. It seems these reformers are more concerned with profit than with working with the students.

“Our schools have been scientifically designed to prevent over-education from happening…The average American should be content with their humble role in life, because they’re not tempted to think about any other role.” William Harris, U.S. Commissioner of Education, 1889

It is disheartening to think that we have allowed this type of mentality to lead our nation and continue to use this approach, albeit in more appealing packaging, such as NCLB legislation and many of the packages offered by publishers and reformers. Many times, I wonder if anything has changed as you read headlines and newspaper clippings. We do not want to educate children so that they might think for themselves, then what do we do, and who would they elect? The paradox is that in schools, the kids who are allowed to think for themselves excel and often take pride in their schools, yet throughout their education, an effort has been made to suppress that thinking. In the eighth-grade one of my sons was told his methodology in a math problem was wrong, and he had to do it “right,” the teacher’s way.

Yet, in his second semester of calculus, the methodology he found was right, and more so, interesting. What was wrong in eighth grade proved to be correct in twelfth grade and in college calculus at Georgia Tech, and now, as an environmental engineer. Sadly, the same teacher who demanded that he do it right and gave him his only B in school is on our Board of Education. Sometimes we force children on our terms, and it is we who are wrong. We need to listen to the children; we need to be learners as well as teachers, learning from the children. Before I go too far, a last quote from ancient Israel to end this morning’s meanderings.

“A child’s wisdom is also wisdom,” Jewish Proverb.

Well, I got a bit carried away, but I have several good ideas to ponder and reflect on as I prepare to recharge over the next couple of weeks in North Georgia. So, for today, be safe for the remainder of this glorious week and keep all in harm’s way in your hearts and on your mind, 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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