The daily meanderings of a teacher

Bird Droppings April 30, 2021Should 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 a…

Bird Droppings April 29, 2021It is not always all in a name On February 3, 2003, I officially started calling daily emailing and journaling Bird Droppings. I went back in my files and pulled up a few old thoughts and ideas. Along with my new name in 2003 some other bits and pieces as I…

Bird Droppings April 28, 2021A rock flower and song A journey begins with a step and apathy begins with turning your back and saying I don’t care. Before we left school for the virus last year I had my last IEP of the year. I recall my laptop was acting weirder than normal and all…

Bird Droppings April 27, 2021Driving up a mountain takes considerable effort I am looking forward to another trip to Black Rock Mountain in North Georgia, the site of the Foxfire Museum property. In the past the site was used as a focus of the Piedmont College’s teacher’s class in The Foxfire Approach to teaching. My…

Bird Droppings April 26, 2021Using Pronouns It was one of those days yesterday and a word caught my attention as I was listening to a friend talk. The word was them. I never realized the extent of prejudice till a pronoun was used. Such words as they, them, or those people never were clearly a…

Bird Droppings April 25, 2021Quietly listening to Hot Tuna and pondering the word inspiration. It has been some time since I was made aware of the band Hot Tuna. Sitting here listening to their music takes me back to 1973 or 4 in Macon Georgia and fellow who I went to school with. We were…

Bird Droppings April 24, 2021 Eating some left-over chicken parmesan and thinking about the circle of life A couple days ago I made a huge pan of chicken parmesan and had plenty of leftovers. So I am sitting at my computer working on my Birddroppings and dissertation eating some. Several things have led me to…

Bird Droppings April 23, 2021 Are you 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 practical…

Bird Droppings April 22, 2021Can we find truth in an untruthful world? I went back to read a book again for the third or fourth time, a book titled; Every day is a good day: Reflections by Contemporary Indigenous women, by the late Wilma Mankiller. Mankiller was the past Chief of The Cherokee Nation and…

Bird Droppings April 21, 2021Pondering and thinking about the lyrics from an old friend Back in the “normal” days, I stood in line behind a young man in his mid-thirties and I assume his wife at a BBQ place at Stone Mountain Park. I know we can argue it is a memorial to the south…