The daily meanderings of a teacher

Bird Droppings June 5, 2023Keeping the stories going remembering a dear friend For years, I would visit, take photos and offer my two cents at the Foxfire Approach to Teaching Course by Piedmont College for graduate students and teachers already in the Mountain City, Georgia classroom. This course had been an elective graduate class of…

Bird Droppings June 3, 2023Trying to teach an unteachable child “Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation.” John F. Kennedy As I…

Bird Droppings June 1, 2023Searching for a flower, the butterfly pea (Clitoria marina), or is it gone now Interestingly, I had two thoughts earlier in the week as I started the day that made me think of them. One I heard on the radio going to get some gas in my wife’s car from a…

Morning Bird Droppings May 31, 2023I am trying to regurgitate a previous day’s thought Nine years ago, my youngest son was in a level one trauma center and was to be moved to a rehab facility. It just hit me with all the news of how lucky we can be sometimes. After sitting down at…

Bird Droppings May 30, 2023 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…

Bird Droppings May 21, 2023 Is there a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” Abraham Lincoln Perhaps some people are inherently grouchy in the scheme of things; by Lincoln’s view, they want to be grouchy. Sitting here pondering…

Bird Droppings May 20, 2023Is curriculum sacred? My wife and I have been talking about taking a few days hiatus to head to the South Carolina coast with no schedule and little baggage. Just a spur-of-the-moment trip. I was thinking about our last crazy trip, which included a nursery or two, tourist traps, museums, and…

Bird Droppings May 14, 2023 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 may be…

Bird Droppings May 8, 2023I am pondering and researching education while remembering a waterfall. It has been eleven years since I stayed at the Sylvan Mills Bed and Breakfast in a room over a waterfall. I went up to North Georgia to recharge; perhaps another word might be to rekindle my passion for education and…

Bird Droppings May 2, 2023My friend Trooper, pondering, remembering, and digesting the stories I was testing today for nearly four hours, and sitting quietly makes you think, remember, and ponder. Fifty years ago, I was a student at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia; I had moved south only a few months before from Pennsylvania. Macon…