The daily meanderings of a teacher

Tag: Teachers

  • 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…

  • Is there a difference between progressive and traditional teachers?

    Bird Droppings December 23, 2024 Is there a difference between progressive and traditional teachers? A few years back, in a ninth-grade literature class that I happened to be co-teaching, I was introduced to the book Freedom Writers Diary. We also watched the film based on the book. In some ways, the story is similar to…

  • 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…

  • Finding a pathway even when one does not appear

    Bird Droppings December 9, 2025Finding a pathway even when one does not appear The past week has all run sort of together, although each was an interesting day. It may have been sitting and watching movies with the grandkids, eating all day long, and then getting ready to head to North Carolina or South Georgia…

  • Trying to understand giving thanks, war, and Teaching

    Bird Droppings November 18, 2024Trying to understand giving thanks, war, and Teaching I seldom have a difficult time sleeping. I crashed last night after a long day of cleaning up after my grandkids and a really long weekend trying to keep up with my wife. My wife said I was too lenient, so I should…

  • Translating and communicating

    Bird droppings November 13, 2024Translating and communicating “Scientific management is always on guard against people who don’t fit securely into boxes, whether because of too much competency, too much creativity, too much popularity, or what have you. Although often hired, it is with the understanding they must be kept on a short leash and regarded…

  • Education often draws from NOW.

    Bird Droppings October 21, 2024Education often draws from NOW. A few years ago, a teacher offered me a book on curriculum, or she said “Dumbing down of America” by Dr. Samuel Blumenfeld. It has been a few months since I picked this book off the shelf while reading various books at Barnes and Noble, as…

  • 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…