Bird Droppings • November 11, 2026
What We Notice When We Slow Down
I went looking for a sunrise this morning. I often do. There are places along my morning drive where I can watch the sky change, familiar trees and fences that somehow offer a different picture each day. I can return to the same place with the same camera, and there will still be something I have not seen. This morning, the colors caught my attention. Later, looking at the photograph, I found myself drawn to a heart in the metal gate. I had photographed the whole scene, but I had to look again to appreciate what was right in front of me.
Sometimes I get so caught up in the colors that I overlook the heart. I have been thinking about how often that happens in a classroom. Certain things demand our attention immediately. A student refuses to work. Someone interrupts. An argument begins. A child sits silently while everyone else gets started. We have a lesson planned, a schedule to follow, and something we are supposed to accomplish before the bell rings. Our attention goes where it seems to be needed. Yet what we notice first may leave us with questions we have not taken time to ask.
What happened before this child walked into the room? What does this assignment ask them to risk? Have they learned that trying can lead to embarrassment? Is there someone here they trust enough to ask for help? I could see behavior. Understanding it required a relationship, and relationships took time. Over the years, I tried to make my classroom a place where that time was possible. There were sofas, animals, conversations, and moments when listening mattered more than getting to the next item on my lesson plan. My students called the room a sanctuary. I still carry that word with me.
A sanctuary gave us somewhere to begin. We could sit down, catch our breath, and perhaps find a way into the work together. Sometimes I needed to change what I was doing before a student could change what they were doing. Sometimes I needed to look again. That is part of what I keep returning to when I think about the Osmotic Teacher. I bring my experience and preparation into the classroom, but I also have to remain willing to learn from the people sitting there. A student may show me something my plans did not account for. Whether I recognize it depends partly on how closely I am paying attention. My morning photographs give me practice.
I have taken pictures of the same tree day after day. I know where it stands. Still, some mornings a photograph of it catches me by surprise. I look through the pictures afterward and linger over one I almost passed by. There is something hopeful in that. Familiarity does not have to mean we are finished discovering. Today, a heart in a gate held my attention after the bright sky first drew me in. It has me wondering what else deserves another look in my photographs, in my teaching, and in the people I think I already know. I will probably go looking for another sunrise tomorrow. I wonder what I will notice. Please keep all in harm’s way on your mind and in your hearts, and please always give thanks, namaste.
My family and friends, I do not say this lightly,
Mitakuye Oyasin
(We are all related)
docbird
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