Tag Archives: learning process

Vicarious vs. Hands-on

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Education, Inspiration, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving

December 1, 2020-

I have reached the point, in my teaching career, where I can readily spot when people have had enough of theory and book learning, and really need to have the rubber hit the road. Today, covering for a Culinary Arts class, I saw that many students had reached this point.

Of course, COVID alters the manner in which food preparation can be done and there would need to be smocks and gloves worn, as well as face masks. The students, while making their concerns known, were gracious to a one and applied hemselves to the reading and writing lesson. Still, I’m an empath and felt their ennui. I wish to keep the learning process as hands-on as possible and that may require thinking out of the box.

It is a fine line that any of us walks, keeping in-person learning going, in this second wave of the disease. I will go into school, when I’m called, these next three weeks or so. I trust that most others will do the same-staff and students alike.

Speaking of hands-on, I am getting plenty of indicators that it’s time to up my exercise game. So, any day that I don’t work will mean either a robust hike or two hours at Planet Fitness, instead of the 30-45, that I’ve been doing. The squeaky wheels need plenty of grease.

Sleight of Hand

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Education, Personal Values, Spiritual, Striving

January 6, 2019, Prescott-

From today, I will not write the name of the town in my dateline, unless it is somewhere other than Home Base.  Otherwise, the reader may assume I’m writing in Prescott.  I am moving away from redundancy.

Today’s post is so titled, as the weather pattern was a mix of the predicted snow and rain, courtesy of a west wind and clear sky, courtesy of the normal Sonoran Desert dry air flow.  The call had been for rain, heavy at times.  Cosmic legerdemain is the way of the Southwest-even when the forecast is “100% precipitation”.

I try to keep my own sleight of hand to a dull roar.  If I say I am going to do something, I usually get it done.  Only once, since 2011, have I not followed through and that was in 2013, when it was prudent for me to put off a photo-journey to Newfoundland, in favour of joining my brother on a Sail Blind excursion.  I can’t think of anyone, though, who was offended by that.  Prior to that, my pledges were those that meant being met, even if heaven and earth had to be moved. Such is the realm of the caretaker.

We go back to work tomorrow, entering the period of time when interruptions in the learning process are at a minimum:  There are no big holiday pageants; the weather-related interruptions are almost always limited to a two-hour delay, in the start of school, if they happen at all.  So, our attention is on the elements of the students’ individual education plans.  We refrain from sleight of hand.,