Bird Droppings January 13, 2014 Learning is a journey strewn with boulders “In a word, learning is decontextualized. We break ideas down into tiny pieces that bear no relation to the whole. We give students a brick of information, followed by another brick, followed by another brick, until they are graduated, at which point we…

Bird Droppings January 12, 2014 Walking and listening among the Cotton Woods I walked outside earlier as I do many mornings listening observing trying to understand this reality I am walking about in. The sky was almost bright this morning with a very faint moon still hanging around and a few wisps of clouds were…

Bird Droppings January 10, 2014 Can we say true heroism and humility are spelled the same? Even though I am one of the worst spellers in this local area I know heroism and humility are technically spelled differently. I will concede to using words to come up with a perhaps catchy title for my daily…

Bird Droppings January 9, 2014 Caring is a very precious commodity in life As I am pondering my early hours today before heading to the local Super Walmart all night everything store I read an article dealing with charter schools and how they exclude many students. The air temperature is chilly outside and we are…

Bird Droppings January 8, 2014 Horses and Trains and learning It has been many years since I last rode on a train. I mean a serious train going more than the distance between concourses at an airport. Years ago when I lived in the Philadelphia area, we all used mass transit to commute, to go…

Bird Droppings January 7, 2014 Intuitiveness and being there I have always thought that teachers need to be two things intuitive and empathetic. Both require an element of compassion and caring. I wonder often how people teach without these capabilities. Over the last week with several other teachers we have been discussing this in detail.…

Bird Droppings January 5, 2014 A chill in the air For several days the now we have been below freezing in the early mornings which totally silences the crickets and tree frogs who need an ambient temperature a bit more warm maybe high fifties low sixties. So for today my orchestra was silent as a…

Bird Droppings January 3, 2014 Building Sandcastles drip by drip It was nearly fourteen years ago when I was physically attending classes in graduate school nearly every day and before switching to Internet classes and WebCT. This took some getting used to going to school and then going to teach school. I was teaching from…

Bird Droppings January 2, 2014 So often in finding answers we create new questions Over the past day or so many New Year’s resolutions and advice for next year posting, emailing and even a billboard or two driving home from North Carolina yesterday. With all of the football games being played I got thinking back…