Bird Droppings March 3, 2026
Our teaching can make a difference every day, pouring a gallon of information into a liter bottle.

I recall one day when I was looking through data while sitting through a special education training session. This is an interesting situation. I was reviewing data from a recent biology benchmark test. It is an extremely poorly made and designed test that students know they will fail.  Approximately ninety percent of students failed the test. I read the test reviews and raised questions. I read the test a day or two ahead and raised more questions. I gave the test and sat watching the students‘ answers show up on my computer. Students failed in droves. I wondered who made this up and why. There I am, after two weeks of reviewing for a test with kids, and no one can pass it. Roughly fifteen percent passed. In a group of sixteen kids, one student during makeup earned the highest score in my test group of students with disabilities and raised the class average by three points.

I plotted the data and reviewed the information provided. Scores were in direct parallel to reading levels. The test itself was poorly done and worded poorly. But students with reading problems had a distinctly more difficult time with the test. I have been told that those in power do not listen, so I was curious to see where my own dialogue would go.

“Dialogue is the encounter between men, mediated by the world, to name the world,” Paulo Freire.

Paulo Freire was a Brazilian educationalist and one of the most influential thinkers of the late twentieth century. He became famous for his ongoing use of the term ‘dialogue’ in his writing. As I read a bit about Freire this morning, I came across a word in his vernacular that caught my attention: praxis. In a teacher‘s bag, praxis is the horrible battery of tests for certification. For Freire, a meaning with import, “acts which shape and change the world.”

“Man must prove the truth, i.e., the reality and power, the ‘this-sidedness‘ of his thinking in practice…. All social life is essentially practical. All mysteries which lead theory to mystics find their rational solution in human practice and the comprehension of this practice…. The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.“ Karl Marx, 1845 Theses on Feuerbach: II, VII, XI

It is through thinking that events change and take on meaning; it is not simply thinking, but applying these thoughts.

“It is not simply action based on reflection. It is an action that embodies certain qualities. These include a commitment to human wellbeing, the search for truth, and respect for others. It is the action of free people who can act for themselves. Moreover, praxis is always risky. It requires that a person make a wise and prudent practical judgment about how to act in this situation,“ Carr and Kemmis, 1986

Wise and prudent are not often used terms in most human situations. It is rare for most people to think in terms of world good, even community good. We live in a more self-oriented society, a society of hedonism.

“Dialogue in itself is a cooperative activity involving respect. The process is important and can be seen as enhancing community and building social capital, and leading us to act in ways that make for justice and human flourishing.” Mark K. Smith, 1997

There are pieces here. I started with a word dialogue and have moved rather rapidly through the concept of praxis, but reading Mark Smith’s comments, the idea of human flourishing impresses me. I find that it is what we do that perpetuates the species, ideals, and thoughts of humankind. I did a questionnaire for the state department of education on Thursday last week. The questions were about standards and assessments, and they combined that with teachers who are so uptight, with only five weeks or so left, two till the end of the course tests. This is now standard in most states, but part of the quantifying. I still question whether we are making strides in education in this manner. It becomes all about cramming pieces of information into the minuscule brains of teenagers. I recall Sydney J. Harris’s comparison to stuffing sausages. In our great effort to quantify, we have stripped quality.

“Educators have to teach. They have to transform transfers of information into a ‘real act of knowing. “Paulo Freire

So, in effect, cramming and pouring vast quantities of information into students to take a test that had to be pushed up due to the calendar and state parameters makes a lot of sense. (I am seriously being sarcastic here) Over the years, I have asked how much water can be poured into a one-liter bottle? Then I ask, how many state officials will it take to figure that one out? I recall a summer or two ago, reading tests to students with learning disabilities, almost a paradox in and of itself, “reading graduation tests“. I looked across at my water bottle, and that thought hit me: Can we put more than a liter of water in a liter bottle? Immediately, I was thinking freeze it, water expands when chilled, then heat it again, expansion, and so how do we put a gallon of information in a one-liter container, or is it ten gallons of material?

It was back several winters ago, on a trip to the mountains and a walk through the Foxfire Museum, that the reality of doing this hit home. It is possible to fit ten gallons of knowledge in a one-liter container. The museum curator and guide held up a copper tubing device and talked about the mainstay of mountain life years gone by, “moon shining“. The device he held up was a condenser used in making white lightning, grain alcohol, or moonshine. In theory, you can condense and distill those ten gallons to whatever capacity you want. Granted, the more condensed, the harder it is perhaps to use in contextual settings. You teach the necessary aspects, borrowing from Freire, “transform transfers of information into a ‘real act of knowing“. This is the key: taking the content and applying context; then it will be remembered, providing the latitude to advance thinking, that person’s direction in life, and the making of a difference. Please keep all in harm‘s way on your mind and in your hearts, and be sure to give thanks always. Namaste.

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

Mitakuye Oyasin

(We are all related)

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