The daily meanderings of a teacher

Bird Droppings May 8, 2015 Why do children do what they do? “Our task is to make our children into disciples of the good life, by our own actions toward them and toward other people. This is the only effective discipline in the long run. But it is more arduous, and takes longer, than simply…

Bird Droppings May 7, 2015 Empathy; do we all have it? It was nearly two years ago I was sitting at breakfast beside a waterfall on the side of the mountain outside Clayton Georgia. It was wet there being it is a temperate deciduous rainforest in North Georgia and cooler at night than what I…

Bird Droppings May 6, 2015 Pondering and researching education while listening to a waterfalls It has been two years since I was staying at the Sylvan Mills Bed and Breakfast in a room over a waterfalls. I went up to North Georgia to recharge perhaps another word might be to rekindle my passion for education…

Bird Droppings May 5, 2015 Should we be only trying to fill a liter bottle? The current educational trends are analogous to trying to pour five gallons of material into a liter bottle using a funnel. As you try obliviously a large portion of material spills out and is discarded or lost. I use a…

Bird Droppings May 4, 2015 Is not every day a new journey begun? “School divides life into two segments, which are increasingly of comparable length. As much as anything else, schooling implies custodial care for persons who are declared undesirable elsewhere by the simple fact that a school has been built to serve them.” Ivan…

Bird Droppings May 1, 2015 Should not a teacher be allowed a recharge? Keeping the energy flowing is crucial I visit, take photos and offer my two cents at the Foxfire Approach to Teaching Course put on by Piedmont College for graduate students and teachers already in the classroom in Mountain City Georgia. This course…

Bird Droppings April 30, 2015 Are we experiencing genocide of learning? In the midst of my daily journals entries lately it gets hectic I am trying to get readmitted to one of two doctorate programs I have started, running back and forth to North Georgia to visit with friends, research, reading and discussing John Dewey,…

Bird Droppings April 29, 2015 Should we sharpen the machete or bring a shovel? I have been reflecting over the concept of critical pedagogy and in that reflection I recall an incident nearly forty years ago that calls to mind my own interpretation and understanding of what we as teachers are all about. I purchased…

Bird Droppings April 28, 2015 My pedagogy is evolving as I learn, see and listen more “We would do away with examinations. They measure the inconsequential type of learning. We would do away with grades and credits for the same reason. We would do away with degrees as a measure of competence partly for the…

Bird Droppings April 27, 2015 Today should always be a first day “I have seen that in any great undertaking it is not enough for a man to depend simply upon himself.” Lone Man (Isna-la-wica)Teton Sioux So often in life we think we are the one. We can do it all on our own with…