The daily meanderings of a teacher

Bird Droppings February 9, 2021Do we have a desire for freedom? “Brute force, no matter how strongly applied, can never subdue the basic human desire for freedom and dignity. It is not enough, as communist systems have assumed, merely to provide people with food, shelter and clothing. Human nature needs to breathe the precious air…

Bird Droppings February 8, 2021 An owl calling Last night I woke for a few minutes, as it turns out I forgot to turn on the ceiling fan. While up I stuck my nose out the door perhaps intuition who knows when wandering about the house half asleep. Deep in the pines an owl called…

Bird Droppings February 7, 2021 Hearing an owl and thinking about happiness “If you observe a really happy man you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing double dahlias in his garden. He will not be searching for happiness as if it were a collar button that has rolled…

Bird Droppings February 5, 2021 What if all promises were all kept? I begin each typical morning waking up, fixing breakfast for my wife and her lunch, occasionally talking with my son for a few minutes before he starts teaching, fixing my own breakfast, and eventually finding my way to my computer. A little later…

Bird Droppings February 3, 2021Life is a puzzle falling into place amazing the interconnectivity of it all It was a Monday a few years back when my co-teaching partner shared a card with me from one of our students. On the first day of the semester we handed out a card and the kids fill…

Bird Droppings February 2, 2021To create writing, for some seems so difficult in a digital world. “Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.” Aldus Huxley In 1965 I was introduced to this author in a tenth grade English Class. The book was Brave…

Bird Droppings February 1, 2021Solitude is within one’s soul and heart “No person, standing before this mystery, has the wisdom or the knowledge to see across the curtain. But for those who stand before their dead with aching hearts and tear-filled eyes, one affirmation endures. One truth remains…and one light shines clear. Where there has…

Bird Droppings January 31, 2021Today is day one or so I am told Feeling old today now that I am working on my seventieth first year it is raining outside, my bones are aching. I remember nearly fifteen years ago as we got closer to the last day in our old house it was appropriately…

Bird Droppings January 30, 2021Reconciliation of trust “It’s the examination of conscience. Unless you examine your conscience, you don’t know what you have to be sorry for and what to confess” Thomas Richstatter, O.F.M., S.T.D., Ten Tips for Better Confessions, The Gift of Reconciliation Sort of difficult ending the week with a vocabulary word and…

Bird Droppings January 29, 2021 Counting knuckles is that considered totally normal?  One of my students asked a few years back what day of the month the following Friday would be, and I responded January 30. Just as quick another said he thought it was the first. I said no it was the thirty first…