Aristotle: We Become Builders By Building
builders of houses of words…
We become builders by building, says Aristotle, just as harpists become harpists by playing the harp. “Similarly,” Aristotle says, “we become just by the practice of just actions, self-controlled by exercising self-control, and courageous by performing acts of courage.”
And we become writers by writing…
What Sir Ken Robinson Says
There are some people I can listen to all day any day.
Dr Heather Cox Richardson is one of those people: in her weekly politics chats or history talks, she connects the dots between current politics, culture, and history. Listening to her helped me get through the previous administration during the pandemic years — and helped me keep me sane AND my kitchen clean.
Sir Ken Robinson is another person I love to listen to: Read more…
MLK: Dreams Deferred Deterred Delivered
“We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always right to do right.” Martin Luther King Jr.
“We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always right to do right.” Martin Luther King Jr.
And to deliver our dreams! Read more…
Celebrating Dreams: Martin Luther King Jr, Yvon Chouinard, YOURS
Dr King’s Dream
Today is Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday: he was born Jan. 15, 1929, and in 1963 he proclaimed “I Have a Dream” in a speech known now around the world. Read more…
Joseph Campbell: Follow Your Bliss
Lamott: Laughter is carbonated holiness
Till movie poster
It is… MB Hanrahan
Happy Halloween!
A day full of tricks and treats! Like this image by Ventura artist MB Hanrahan (concept and model) and photographed by Dina Pielet– both a trick and a treat!
One morning many years ago, I had a blast brainstorming four Halloween themed “I am” poems in small groups with my son’s K-1 class, then my son made a video using the text (below), This is what we wrote:
I am a scary smelly skeleton pirate!
I wonder where the treasure is
I hear black rusty shooting fire cannonballs
and swords slapping
I see other English ships to get their treasure
I want treasure, a golden compass, and a gold ring
I am a scary smelly skeleton pirate!
I pretend to play swords with you
I feel my bones cracking Read more…
Seeing Culture
Fall Sunset 2022 Milan
“Education is all a matter of building bridges.”
Ralph Ellison“Insight, I believe, refers to the depth of understanding that comes by setting experiences, yours and mine, familiar and exotic, new and old, side by side, learning by letting them speak to one another.”
Mary Catherine Bateson.“Real education should consist of drawing the goodness and the best out of our own students. What better books can there be than the book of humanity?”
Cesar Chavez“The more deeply you understand other people, the more you will appreciate them, the more reverent you will feel about them. To touch the soul of another human being is to walk on holy ground.”
Stephen Covey
Getting Unstuck: Writing Leads to Writing
seth-jodi-alley
My students always want to know what to do about writers block: that deep dark dreadful painful place.
That constipated place. That prison block. The shadow. Read more…
art predator 