Bird Droppings March 16, 2015 Can we really find answers? Several years ago I would have said there were answers to almost any question that could be asked. Today sitting here I wonder granted first you have to ask what is the question or questions but I have a different attitude now sort of one…

Bird Droppings March 13, 2015 Is there a difference between progressive and traditional teachers? In a ninth grade literature class that I happened to co-teach in, 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…

Bird Droppings March 11, 2015 The beginning or end in a circle is where? “It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it.” Albert Einstein Over…

Bird Droppings March 10, 2015 Can we teach a love of learning? I bumped into this young lady at the grocery store a few days ago and it had been some time since our last run in. She was one of my secret seniors nearly six years ago. It has been almost some time since…

Bird Droppings March 9, 2015 Have we sold our souls for a few trinkets? Morning is a special time for me always a new beginning. That might be far too easy of a way to say what I am trying to say. Today I went out a bit early from the house to take out…

Bird Droppings March 6, 2015 Teaching and life are simply feeding wolves I have heard and seen this in many forms. “’One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a debate that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two “wolves” inside us all. One is Evil. It is…

Bird Droppings March 5, 2015 A good teacher teaches so the journey continues not ends “I have never found the companion that was as companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers.” Henry David Thoreau, “Solitude,” Walden, 1854 There…

Bird Droppings March 4, 2015 Why is it when putting a puzzle together a piece is always left behind? “All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter into another!” Gail Sheehy, American journalist,…

Bird Droppings March 3, 2015 Can 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…

Bird Droppings March 2, 2015 I am pondering about Dr. Carl G. Jung and “school reform”. I find the answer is simple, CARING. “If there is anything we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.” Carl G.…