Bird Droppings May 29, 2025Keeping 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, hosted by Piedmont College for graduate students and teachers already in Mountain City, Georgia, classroom. This course was an elective graduate class in Piedmont…

Bird Droppings May 28, 2025Why should we do more? “Choices are sacred to life’s journey. They lie along the path that all of us must follow for ourselves. An important Cherokee lesson is that if you involve yourself in any decision, you also experience the consequences of that decision.” Dr. J.T. Garrett, Meditations with the…

Bird Droppings May 18, 2015Filling cracks in leaky pots is not always the solution Many thousands of years ago Buddha compared people to four kinds of clay vessels. Borrowing these words today as I am thinking to several days lost traveling to see a new grand baby, from my normal routine of writing and doing…

Bird Droppings May 12, 2025 Teaching can be successful, and it can happen at any time. When I am home, I try to search for a sunrise almost every morning. When we go to the beach at Pawleys Island, I am always on the beach for sunrises. Even at the beach, strands of spider webbing…

Bird Droppings May 2, 2025Is there such a thing as 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.…

Bird Droppings April 30, 2025Should we sharpen the machete or bring a really big shovel? I have been reflecting on the concept of critical pedagogy, and in that reflection, I recall an incident nearly fifty years ago that calls to mind my interpretation and understanding of what we as teachers are all about. I purchased…

Bird Droppings April 18, 2025 Watching a hawk fly by I recall a favorite memory of mine: from five years ago, for the first time in my teaching in public school, nearly twenty years, I was not required to teach to the test, which got me thinking back. Over the years, I have attended numerous…

Bird Droppings April 17, 2025Trying 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 April 12, 2025In the pursuit of excellence I was listening to crickets and tree frogs as morning sounds surrounded me with the rustling of leaves in the steady breeze as I sojourned out in the wee hours with a cup of tea. It is a great day to walk in this reality and…

Bird Droppings March 7, 2025Quietly listening to Bob Dylan and pondering the word inspiration. My mind wandered back fifteen years or more to a county-wide teacher kick-off meeting. I thought back to 2020 and many teachers still monitoring lessons from computers but not in the classroom. Many communities banned gatherings of fifty or more. With…