The daily meanderings of a teacher

Tag: school

  • What is the freedom we desire?

    Bird Droppings January 25, 2025What is the freedom we desire? “Brute force, no matter how strongly applied, can never subdue the basic human desire for freedom and dignity. It is not enough, as communist systems have assumed, merely to provide people with food, shelter, and clothing. Human nature needs to breathe the precious air of…

  • Learning is a journey strewn with boulders

    Bird Droppings January 21, 2025 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 have graduated, at which point we…

  • Reading your view sometimes offers a clue

    Bird Droppings December 26, 2024Reading your view sometimes offers a clue After forty-six years of marriage, it seems almost like day one. Every day and each day keeps getting better. Periodically, over the past years, I received at some odd hour of the night and or morning a paper to review for my youngest son…

  • Determining what to learn

    Bird Droppings December 19, 2024 Determining what to learn “Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know — and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance. It is better to know —…

  • Where have all the teachers gone?

    Bird Droppings December 15, 2024 Where have all the teachers gone? I first wrote a variation of this essay nearly seventeen years ago. Over the past few days, I have been talking with a few new college seniors who are student-teaching. As I head out to get my odds and ends done for the week,…

  • What is the Holy Grail in education?

    Bird Droppings December 12, 2024 What is the Holy Grail in education? Teachers in Georgia High Schools on block schedules are scrambling this time of year to get ready for the semester’s End-of-course and or tests/milestones. Basically, teachers are told by administrators to prepare for the tests. Teachers are encouraged to be proactive and practice…

  • A look at essential Bird Pedagogy if you want to use a fancy word

    Bird Droppings November 21, 2024 A look at essential Bird Pedagogy if you want to use a fancy word Almost fourteen years ago, I read an article and an interview with Arne Duncan, the former Secretary of Education. Considering the impact COVID-19 has had on high school and college sports, these thoughts are interesting. I…

  • The Power of Example goes beyond the curriculum and seeps into life.

    Bird Droppings October 30, 2024The Power of Example goes beyond the curriculum and seeps into life. “We taught our children by both example and instruction, but with an emphasis on example, because all learning is a dead language to one who gets it second hand.” Kent Nerburn, The Wisdom of the Native Americans For nearly…

  • How we perceive is often the beginning of the discussion.

    Bird Droppings October 19, 2024How we perceive is often the beginning of the discussion. I had a thought this morning, and it’s depressing. We are basically training our new teachers in all the things that we, as older teachers, find wrong in education. It hit me as we are teaching all these new teachers how…

  • Doing what you love is not work, even if you are tired at the end of the day.

    Bird Droppings September 8, 2024Doing what you love is not work, even if you are tired at the end of the day. “To love what you do and feel that it matters, how could anything be more fun?” Katharine Graham I learn something daily as I wander the internet and read books I find along…