The daily meanderings of a teacher

Bird Droppings November 2, 2018 Education is turning an ugly face jug not pouring in a mold It has been a few years since the last time I talked with and watched the late Cleater Meadors turn a jug on the potter’s wheel at Mossy Creek Arts and Crafts fair in Perry Georgia. A simple…

Bird Droppings October 28, 2018 Can we change things?   “Therefore the shortage of effective teachers is not a problem that can be solved by a new structure. It is caused by how we train and manage teachers, and can only be solved by improving the way we do this, no matter what the structure…

Bird Droppings October 29, 2018 Learning is a journey strewn with boulders   “In a word, learning is decontextualized. We break ideas down into tiny pieces that bear no relation to the whole. We give students a brick of information, followed by another brick, followed by another brick, until they are graduated, at which point…

Bird Droppings October 25, 2018 Hearing an owl   “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 under the radiator.”…

Bird Droppings October 24, 2018 I am always finding where community exists   I am sitting listening to Allman Brother’s Fillmore East CD on a Tuesday morning a full moon hidden in our infrequent lately clouds outside. As I drove to school today I had several thoughts streaming through my head. How do two people…

Bird Droppings October 23, 2018 Have we sold our souls for a few trinkets?   Morning is a special time for me always a new beginning. That might be far too easy of a way to say what I am trying to say. Today I went out a bit early from the house to take…

Bird Droppings October 20, 2018 What about adding to our current reality TV: The great teachers of America? I am back in grad school and finishing my twelve yearlong doctorate, today working on writing. A time ago I had been set up to teach several new college classes when I received notification of a reduction in…

Bird Droppings October 19, 2018 Am I a Weginahsa?   “The work of a teacher – exhausting, complex, idiosyncratic, never twice the same – is at its heart, an intellectual and ethical enterprise. Teaching is the vocation of vocations, a calling that shepherds a multitude of other callings. It is an activity that is intensely…

Bird Droppings October 18, 2018 How do we find democracy?   I was three years back I was still recovering from a slight change in medication for my blood pressure. I went home from school and dozed off for three hours afterwards. Immediately the next day we were rushing around with our heads cut off…

Bird Droppings October 16, 2018 We are so missing Creativity   It was another quiet morning as I wandered out although a bit too chilly for crickets and frogs. Yesterday afternoon as it warmed up however several tree frogs visited around the house. The air was still, not a breeze as I sat in my…