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Showing posts from January, 2016

Going Beyond

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So there we were, the young student teacher and me, the veteran mentor, meeting to discuss his teaching unit on World War II.  It could have been the all business type of review where I approve what he's planned, or I suggest a few resources, or even encourage him to develop his own curriculum instead of depending on what his Cooperating Teacher (placement) had to offer.  All typical agendas for such meetings.  But this one felt differently. At the outset, I could tell he was eager to ask me questions, eager to listen to my responses.  What started out as wanting to carefully explain that he needed to focus in on just a few topics became unnecessary because he began by noting just that.  We easily agreed on two or three components from a list of 10 possible topics he has written. He asked for strategies and when I gave him a diagram of a Problem Analysis, he immediately liked the idea and saw exactly how he might enhance some of his ideas by including that activity.  Having st

Political Action II

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Frank Zappa once said, "Politics is the entertainment branch of industry."  He seems to have foreseen the current political scene.  If politics has become entertainment, so too has entertainment become politics.  In fact , a large majority of folks get their news and political perspective from entertainers these days.As a horrified portion of our country is coming to realize that Donald Trump is not going away and that buttressed by the non-sensical monologues of Sarah Palin, he's got a bit more traction than they'd like to admit, we recoil.  Isn't this how Nazi Germany began.  The diatribes and ranting of people who dare to say repugnant and outrageous things to an angry mob all too willing to buy the simplistic version of political reality are a natural consequence if you look at the bigger picture.  What I'm saying here is that the rise of candidates like Trump isn't so mysterious given the course of history and this country's role in current affair

Political Action

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We were due for this vitriol.  Our demographics are changing, we've supported dictators and armed the wrong side of other nation's rebels so many times that the hole we find ourselves in is no surprise.  As David Harris, the anti-war activist used to say, "when you do shit all your life, at the end all you've got is one big pile of shit."  What part of that isn't clear? I see folks like Palin and Trump as a last gasp.  They bring a twisted smile to the lips of people who feel lost, small angry, frustrated and most of all incapable of understanding change.  Add to that their lack of the empathy gene and the desire to make right with might and you've got the perfect audience.

Both Sides

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Since the recent passing of David Bowie, I've read a half dozen articles on how this avant grade icon has formed the sound track for many people's lives.  Bowie, warts and all, has given thousands of folks the courage to be who they are.  No wonder his music, eclectic as it is, contains so much emotional involvement for his fans.  The great German philosopher Schopenhauer postulated that music, above everything else penetrates directly to the soul.  Soul, as you know is a popular genre of music in it's own right.  Said Schopenhauer, "The effect of music is so very much more powerful and penetrating than is that of the other arts, for these others speak only of the shadow, but music of the essence." But just as Bowie's followers are reliving some of the most significant junctures and experiences of their lives this week, I think that everyone, of every generation has an icon or two that serves the same function. This morning during my gym workout I switched

Hand Held

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We live in a remarkable time.  Those of us to have fantasies that are decades old are now in the position to be living some of these dreams.  I used to fantasize that I had a small TV screen I could take out of my shirt pocket and catch an important sporting event I was missing.  Of course, the smart phone now makes that possible.  In recent months I've been able to watch part of the Triple Crown or a Final Four game within inches of my shirt pocket. As a kid growing up in the 50s and 60s all TV was black and white (for most of us) and big games and horse races were available only once a week.  Usually Saturday was the "game of the week" for baseball.  I fondly recall sneaking into our living room, opening the double wooden doors to our Packard Bell TV and defying all authority by turning on a baseball game. There was only one dial to click and one to turn for channel switching.   I had finished raking the leaves my family's big silver maple tree over supplied our fr