Bird Droppings November 21, 2025

I was listening to the stillness of a morning, the sunrise, and sometimes we need a window and not a mirror.

 I was sitting alone this morning, as I often do, after running, trying to get a few photos of the sunrise. Today, it was mostly foggy and cloudy and little else. The ambient temperature is almost warm enough for tree frogs and peepers to be calling. There may have been some morning sounds down in the bottoms along the stream or towards the field. The air was not moving, save for a single car leaving our subdivision early this morning. I recall my son’s dog would come by periodically as he prowled the backyard, searching for signs of voles, his nemesis and my most hated adversary. Seems voles like plant roots, and one has found its way to my herb garden, and I have lost several plants already. Fortunately, our husky, when he visits, has some hunting instinct left, and he caught the culprit.

I was thinking as I sat meditating, some might say letting my mind float, listening to the stillness. When I came home yesterday and walked around the backyard, the previous cold kept any new flowers from poking up. However, I saw my first robin of this year, so who knows, maybe spring is near. My rosemary will hopefully survive the cold, and the daffodils are starting to poke through. Hopefully, it will be just a few weeks before our azaleas start blooming, and color will surround our home.

“Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.” Henry David Thoreau

Sometimes we do not look and listen carefully enough and miss pieces of what is so close. It was last year: a baby anole, most people call them chameleons, which is a little green or brown lizard we find on shrubs and around the house, was about two inches long, and was on our porch. It nearly escaped observation. His father, who is about six inches long, usually sits on the doorpost in the late afternoon, weather permitting. But I mentioned listening today, I was sitting and talking with a student last week before break, listening and arguing till something hit me. My student was seeing a different world than I was, and beliefs and understandings were different. I was explaining from my own perspective, and he was trying to assimilate into another world. A comment was made, and my student’s response was not that of a teenager but of a small child, which is so difficult to explain. A comment was made, and as I listened, a light bulb went off: I was using terminology and understanding that were in a different galaxy from what he had experienced in life. This was not about intelligence and/or ability, but about beliefs, experiences, understandings, and perceptions.

“If all I was seeing were a sunrise, I would have missed the intricacies of the clouds.” Frank Bird, grandfather, teacher, photographer, and ponderer

In working with modern-day high school students, conversation often consists of daily one-upmanship and constant chatter about who has what phone, purse, and/or shoes. I was finishing up testing before our pep rally, and a group of students in my room asked Mr. Bird, “Do you have Facebook?” I responded, “Of course.”  One of the students, a cocky young fellow, was commenting on all his pictures and how he probably had more than anybody on Facebook. I quickly one-upped and said I would say I have more albums than you do pictures. His response was, “You do not have more pictures of yourself than I do. I have 982.” As I thought about one-upping again, I said No, you do beat me in that I have pictures of other people, not me. He went on to say that he was a model, the clothes he wore, and a hair stylist, and that he failed the test not of classwork but of humanity.

So I thought about our self-focused young man and how that is shaping the reality we live in. My wife and I went out for lunch a few days ago using a gift card given to us by our son and daughter-in-law. While we talked, I shared my little photo discussion and how it made me think. My wife mentioned a news story from the day of a teenage girl who somehow took a selfie with a dead body. Our conversation drifted to teaching and the classes we both teach in college, and to a comment about class size and state funding. I went to school all through school with 30 or more in each class. That is not a good thing, but we made it. I was thinking of a student teacher at our high school talking with his instructor in the staff copy room when I walked in, and the pieces of conversation I overheard. It hit me how many educators of educators have been in sterile environments in academe, and today’s classroom is radically different from even five years ago. When I first started back teaching nearly seventeen years ago, I did not have an iPhone to contend with and notebooks to teach from instead of books.

“If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.” Henry David Thoreau

“Conversation was never begun at once, nor in a hurried manner. No one was quick with a question, no matter how important, and no one was pressed for an answer. A pause, giving time for thought, was the truly courteous way of beginning and conducting a conversation.” Chief Luther Standing Bear

I began to listen to the stillness when no talking was occurring, just observing my student thinking about a word I may have said, imagination. What if we have a limit to our imagination? What if you were much like a tape recorder and could only imagine what you had taken in? Most of us do this anyhow; with a bit of whimsy, we can alter, add to, delete from, and create anew. So this is a big what if: you could not add to or delete from; you could only use what you had on tape. I recall reading a book, Thinking in Pictures, by Dr. Temple Grandin, that best describes what I am saying. Dr. Grantin is autistic. It has been nearly seven years since I read about a young man, Jason McElway, who is autistic and was the star of his high school’s last home basketball game. At that time, he had been approached by numerous Hollywood production companies, including Walt Disney, to make a movie of his life. As I thought more, listening to stillness this morning, we all have autistic tendencies.

“I photographed a massive oak tree, easily seven feet in diameter, that once stood by a house, with a chimney just behind it. In my own readings, the tree of life has much significance to Native peoples. This came to mind as I photographed this great tree. As I thought, it came to me that even this great tree was only a few minutes from someone’s saw, cut, and lying on the ground.  Frank Bird, grandfather, teacher, and ponderer

“The world is but a canvas to our imagination.” Henry David Thoreau

What if, rather than 1 in 500 children having symptoms of autism, only those who have more severe autistic symptoms were recognized, as it was when I started teaching in 1970? Technically, the American Psychological Association is changing the definition again in its latest manual and reverting to the older view. Actually, I think we all have tendencies. This is a difficult explanation. As I sat listening today, it was so quiet that I could think, imagine, and dream. When I sat down today, I started on this topic, and in the back of my mind, I recalled a creativity test. I recalled reading that Temple Grandin had to teach herself to respond to emotional stimuli. As I read my morning messages and blogs on Facebook and WordPress, it hit. The tendencies are universal and vary significantly.

I was trying to explain from my worldview an idea that was so alien to the student I was talking with on Friday. I was painting in oils with a student who was used to crayons and pencils. It was nearly five years ago that a little girl on American Idol, and yes, I do get caught up in the frenzy still, or I should say we do here at our house, each picking favorites. This little country girl was as cute as a button, explaining being in LA, going out to eat, and having squid or calamari. She, as she tried, was making cute faces and such. But having never had squid before, there was no basis for her even to consider it. But if she had been from Italy, Mexico, or Asia, where squid is standard fare, it would be different. To those folk, boiled okra would have been just as gross. Boiled okra, by the way, is far worse than squid.

“It was necessary to live through, and establish, a presence of stable consciousness within the world before it was possible for the detachment to gradually emerge which would permit that other, objective reality to connect with the conscious.” Dr. Karl Gustav Jung

What if someone has to experience an event to understand it? What if the limitations of those individuals limit imagination and the ability to assimilate intangibles? I can explain an idea so clearly that anyone could understand, yet a person who needs experience would not have the data to deal with it. What if belief is this way as well, faith or trust, for example? The great educational philosopher John Dewey often addresses experience and the ability to build on experiences past and present in his writings.

“John Dewey’s significance… lies in a number of areas. First, his belief that education must engage with and enlarge experience has remained a significant strand in informal education practice. Second, and linked to this, Dewey’s exploration of thinking and reflection.” The Encyclopedia of Informal Education

Enlarging experience is not all that easy. What if a person is limited to their experiences only? What if they cannot enlarge that realm and are stuck within the confines of a limited reality? I am getting deeper than normal, but it revolves around my discussion with that student the other day. Hearing myself listening to the words and explanation I was trying to give, and then hearing a response that was limited, confined by certain parameters, and also confining. This is a significant piece that we as teachers need to consider. I will expound another time; the morning is closing in on me, and I still have my daily sojourn to Kroger to go. Please keep all in harm’s way on your mind and in your hearts, and always give thanks, namaste.

My family and friends, I do not say this lightly,

Mitakuye Oyasin

(We are all related)

docbird