The daily meanderings of a teacher

Tag: Native American

  • Is there a difference between progressive and traditional teachers?

    Bird Droppings March 6, 2017 Is there a difference between progressive and traditional teachers?   This is perhaps a loaded question in lieu of today’s educational climate. Watching the news and the major effort under way to dismantle public schools through vouchers, “school choice” and other means we need to look at what we want…

  • Life, a journey only made difficult if there is no learning invloved

    Bird Droppings February 28, 2017 Life, a journey only made difficult if there is no learning invloved   “Use what talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best.” Henry Van Dyke   I was visiting with my mother yesterday and I walked by my fathers…

  • It is about random acts of kindness

    Bird Droppings February 21, 2017 It is about random acts of kindness   I was a bit later than I planned to get started this morning. I have a long day of writing for school and personally today. I got up this morning and my son’s faithful dog decided I did not need sleep late.…

  • Teaching is a journey it is not copy, paste or bubble.

    Bird Droppings February 8, 2017 Teaching is a journey it is not copy, paste or bubble.   “To project an image of what Public Education in the US might become in the 21st Century is more to move back and forth between the predictable and the possible.” Maxine Greene, Colombia University, res: Imagining futures: the…

  • Bird Droppings January 31, 2017 A chill in the air but not in the heart, thank you Maya Angelou   For several days the now we have been balancing between warm and cold weather in the early mornings which still is too cold for the crickets and tree frogs who need an ambient temperature a…

  • Should we be examining the threads of life?

    Bird Droppings January 30, 2017 Should we be examining the threads of life?   “Man did not weave the web of life he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.” Chief Seattle, 1854   It has been a few years since I read a National Geographic…

  • Finding a way to forgive

    Bird Droppings January 16, 2017 Finding a way to forgive   “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” Mahatma Gandhi   It was a little over four years ago I spent the morning on a field tip of sorts for a graduate school class. We visited the MLK Jr. Memorial…

  • Decontextualizing – Learning is a journey strewn with boulders

    Bird Droppings January 9, 2017 Decontextualizing – 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…

  • Walking and listening among the Cotton Woods

    Bird Droppings January 8, 2017 Walking and listening among the Cotton Woods   Since starting my breathing treatments for sleep apenea, I awake to vivid dreams on some nights. Today I walked outside briefly as I do listening, observing, trying to understand this reality I am walking about in. The sky was sprinkled in clouds…

  • Should children be left behind?

    Bird Droppings December 23, 2016 Should children be left behind?               “I believe that our own experience instructs us that the secret of education lies in         respecting the pupil. It is not for you to choose what he shall know, what he shall do. It     is chosen and foreordained, and he only…