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The inability of surmounting learning difficulties
Bird Droppings March 9, 2025The inability of surmounting learning difficulties I will borrow from old droppings and share them again when the message is important to me. In one of my last IEP meetings, my student was reaffirmed, yes, you do have a deficit in math according to state testing. However, choosing not to do…
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Children are being taught as they live.
Bird Droppings March 8, 2025Children are being taught as they live. It is a beautiful spring day outside and quiet after a crazy couple of days of severe weather. It seems the solitude of the country has changed rapidly over the past years. A developer bought our subdivision and has put up thirty more houses.…
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Quietly listening to Bob Dylan and pondering the word inspiration.
Bird Droppings March 7, 2025Quietly listening to Bob Dylan and pondering the word inspiration. My mind wandered back fifteen years or more to a county-wide teacher kick-off meeting. I thought back to 2020 and many teachers still monitoring lessons from computers but not in the classroom. Many communities banned gatherings of fifty or more. With…
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Is there a difference between progressive and traditional teachers?
Bird Droppings March 6, 2025Is there a difference between progressive and traditional teachers? In a ninth-grade literature class I co-teach many years ago, I was introduced to the book, Freedom Writers Diary, and the film based on the book. In some ways, the story is similar to the story of Foxfire. Erin Gruell, a first-year…
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Our teaching can make a difference every day.
Bird Droppings March 5, 2025Our teaching can make a difference every day. I recall one day that I was looking through data as I sat through a special education training session. This is an interesting situation. I was reviewing data from a recent benchmark test in biology. It is an extremely poorly made and designed…
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Religion is what you make of it.
Bird Droppings March 4, 2025Religion is what you make of it. It is hard to explain the relief after defending my dissertation yesterday. I am still somewhat in shock. However, you can now officially call me docbird. My dad was called Doc in the Navy as he was the medical officer for the ship he…
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We need LOVE
Bird Droppings March 3, 2025We need LOVE Sometimes we so easily use the word love. It gets used daily by many folks, yet do we truly have any conception of what we speak. I was just in a conversation, and the word love came up, and I responded that we each have our understanding and…
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Why should life be a difficult journey?
Bird Droppings March 1, 2025Why should life be a difficult journey? “Use what talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best.” Henry Van Dyke It has been a few years since I visited with my mother, and I walked by my fathers and brothers’ grave…
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A series of paradoxes and bewilderment
Bird Droppings February 26, 2025A series of paradoxes and bewilderment I received the following in an email back a few days ago, a friend of mine sent it out, and as I read it the first time it was humorous. However, as I pondered then as a teacher, I read deeper into what was being…
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I ponder educational genocide as this administration tries to gut education and or NCLB, norming children, only leaves the best
Bird Droppings February 25, 2025 I ponder educational genocide as this administration tries to gut education and or NCLB, norming children, only leaves the best I was huddled in my Carhart vest as I went outside to chase a sunrise this morning. I stopped along the way to think a bit about the up-and-coming defense…
The daily meanderings of a teacher 