The daily meanderings of a teacher

Bird Droppings September 16, 2024 How capable do we need to be? What a contrast to only a few days ago, as the sun was hiding behind the haze, rain, and clouds for what felt like a week as I went out in the wee hours with a hazy sky today. A gentle wind blew,…

Bird Droppings September 13, 2024 Glistening of wisdom on a gossamer strand Many years ago, I was sitting alongside a fence in a field far away from houses and people, and I watched a spider spin a web. We see webs all around, and I read there are thousands of spiders per acre in any…

Bird Droppings September 12, 2024 What about routines? I was walking about Kroger today. It wasn’t that long ago I was using one of those electric carts to race around the store, especially when my left leg was bothering me after I had surgery. No sooner did I get started on one of my last…

Bird Droppings September 7, 2024 Teach to where the learning will be, not to where it is I got a text from my middle son a couple of years ago that a package was coming from my granddaughter and was very fragile. My box came; I thought I should open it while videotaping. I carefully…

Bird Droppings September 6, 2024 What do we miss? Walking the beach makes it easy to miss the small things while gazing at a beautiful sunrise. One might find a starfish, angel wing shell, or cannonball jellyfish. It is similar in life, and we often overlook small matters, focusing only on the large. For many…

Bird Droppings September 5, 2024Can 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 of the…

Bird Droppings September 4, 2024 Can we see a gray world in color? As a teacher, parent, and grandparent, I am concerned about listening to the news of another school shooting. This one is only about twenty minutes from my house. A fourteen-year-old student took the lives of two teachers and two students. Speculation and…

Bird Droppings September 3, 2024Trying to understand giving thanks once a year, why we go to war, and always thinking about teaching I seldom have a difficult time sleeping. I crashed last night after a long day of helping our carpenter get materials loaded and unloaded to do some work at our house. I told…

Bird Droppings August 31, 2024 Are you trying to find a way back to normal, or is it abnormal? Is your child a hippy? “Your son or daughter may be flashing warning signals that he or she will soon drop out of society and join the “hippie” movement. If you know what to look for, you…

Bird Droppings August 29, 2024 Being reborn is listening with the heart So often in life, we hear words, rationalize those utterances, develop an opinion, and then logically state a response. I returned to a conversation discussing existentialism with my granddaughter one night nearly eleven years ago as she cooed and babbled, trying her best…