In 1997 I attended a workshop in and saw a poster entitled Citizens of the 21st Century. Since we were already hearing speculation about what “Y2K” would mean – especially in the area of technology – it caught my eye and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since.[1] The poster… Continue reading
In about 2014 I came across a YouTube interview with Elon Musk at Tesla Motors that changed the way I will always think about problem solving. Backing up a bit … During my career as an English teacher, I loved teaching writing. That’s wrong. At one point along the line I realized that writing… Continue reading
I began writing this essay in September 1997 just after my first nephew, Tanner, was born. The first draft was written when I realized that for the first time I was in the “grandparent generation”!! After that initial shock, I began to dig deeper into the generations of our family and, with the help of… Continue reading
I shouldn’t be shocked by yesterday’s Supreme Court Decision – but it has stirred something deep in me and I feel like I’m in some sort of a time warp. I have been careful about when, and with whom, to share my own story, but now I know I need to speak out In… Continue reading
My father died in 1992 at the age of 71. He was a wonderful Christian, husband, and father . . . in that order. To the best of his ability he tried to understand the teachings of Jesus and to live his life accordingly. I was my father’s greatest disappointment. It’s not that I’m… Continue reading
Almost 30 years ago I ran across an article by Michael Ventura with this title. It was a list of 38 suggestions that he boldly suggested would solve all our problems. I cut it out – made copies – took some of them to heart and saved others to think about “later.” “Later” never came… Continue reading
I’m not sure why Mark Zukerberg decided to use the term “Newsfeed” for the string of posts that my friends put up on their own Facebook pages every day. I honestly wish I could go to one of the Q and A’s that he hosts for Facebook employees every Friday and ask that question. My… Continue reading
As I write this post I’m listening to the kids from Stoneman Douglas High School speaking to massive crowds in Washington DC. David Hogg called for every kid in the United States to REV up. Register – Educate – Vote! Sam Fuentes, the next speaker, asked the crowd to sing Happy Birthday to her friend, Nicholas… Continue reading
In1997 when I began thinking about how we were educating leaders for our future, I was hopeful, even expectant, that the advances being made in neuroscience and emotional intelligence would transform the system by the year 2020. We’re now almost there, and I’ve had to realize that when the focus changed from educating the Whole… Continue reading
Seventeen people are dead in Parkland, Florida. Four days ago, on Valentine’s Day, a kid took an AR-15 rifle to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and massacred 14 kids and 3 teachers. ________ I wrote something 17 years ago, on March 9, 2001, that has haunted me every time I’ve heard of a school shooting. … Continue reading
Kids have been dropping out of high school since there have been high schools, but our dropout “problem” is relatively new. At the age of 11, my grandfather, John Alfred “Benny” Benson, was sent to work on a stranger’s farm in the next county when his mother died. His father, Otto Benson, an Iowa farmer… Continue reading
Terms like “Fake News” and “Filter Bubbles” are making it difficult for us to figure out what’s really happening in the world these days. People seem to be blaming social media … but like any other new phenomenon, technology like this is neither good nor bad in itself – it’s how we use it that… Continue reading
I don’t Tweet and I will probably never make much use of my Twitter account. That being said, I keep flashing back to something my good friend Deb Tucker tried to get me to learn when Tweeting first became a fad. Bette, she told me, it would be very good for you to learn to… Continue reading
They say that every ending is a new beginning. I’m not sure if “they” really say that … but it’s a thought that has occurred to me a great many times over the years. The first time was in 1986 when my kids and I were on our way to a family reunion in… Continue reading
As I write, I am listening to a teacher’s voice, on-line, conducting a live lesson intended to prepare a group of homeschooled fourth graders for their state testing. These children have been pulled out of the public school system for many reasons. Some are the children of free-spirited parents who are raising their children on… Continue reading
Even though I wrote “Breakfast at McDonald’s:Reflections on Voices and Values” in 1999, I still remember the thoughts that were running through my mind that day like it was yesterday. I don’t think I ever shared it with anyone except Molly’s mother because I felt like it was too negative, too pessimistic. I felt that… Continue reading
The Westmont Fire of 1964 had a profound effect on me. I wrote “Morning by Morning” 30 years after leaving Westmont … but the song we sang at Chapel during that fire was never far from my mind. Life has continued to take many unexpected turns since I wrote this piece in 1996. Some have… Continue reading
I just now read through “Resolutions in Retrospect” for the first time in many years. I’ve skimmed through it as I’ve been going through my old writing … but haven’t really thought about what I discovered that New Year’s Eve in 1998. That was over 17 years ago! I’ve taken time between Thanksgiving and Christmas… Continue reading
I wrote this poem the day after my daughter called to tell us that she was pregnant. On January 28, 2014 and we were in our RV at Lake Cahuilla in La Quinta, California. The news came as a shock for many reasons, and I’m afraid that my tone on the phone was not one… Continue reading
Memory Pictures
I wrote this piece during Spring Break in 1998 just after meeting my first nephew, Tanner. Tanner was 6 months old. Less than a month ago, on May 27, 2016, I got to watch Tanner giving the Salutatorian address at Oakmont High School in Roseville, CA. He’s off to Cal Tech in the fall …… Continue reading
I’ve been back in Brookings for a week and finally feel settled enough to get back to these blogs. As I was moving books from one shelf to another and filling a couple of boxes to donate to the library, a book that I’ve had for many years caught my eye. It’s called A Simpler Way… Continue reading
We’re finally back in Brookings after having to stay in the desert a couple of extra weeks because my car was stolen. Not only that … I had packed the back of my car with four or five large file boxes that I felt I needed to go through before moving forward on my writing.… Continue reading
Jesus says nothing about focusing on the family. In fact, he said quite the opposite. A quick Google search for the question “What did Jesus say about family?” led me to pages and pages of sites that try to dispel the literal interpretation of Luke 14:22-27 where He says we must “hate” our family to… Continue reading
Today is one of those milestone birthdays and I want to write something profound in order to commemorate the day. The problem is … like every other day … my mind is so full of ideas that I would like to write about … that I’m once again in danger of starting something that I… Continue reading
Writing for me is a process, an internal conversation – a way to process my thoughts. I started this blog in 2009 for two reasons. One was to capture some of those random thoughts, and the other was to learn about “web logs” … or as I found out they were called: blogs. Edublogs… Continue reading
On January 24, 2016 I heard the political commentators on CNN talking about which of the candidates for the Republican nomination for President would win the “Evangelical Voting Bloc.” I started this blog post that night, but I have not been able to let go of it and move on. It’s now September 5, 2016,… Continue reading
The children who were the focus for Leadership 2020 when I began writing about them in 1997 are no longer children. Their children will soon take their places, and the efforts that were being made 15 years ago to replace a one-size-fits-all school system with one that would support the uniqueness of each individual child… Continue reading
Thirty years ago I attended a workshop called “Understanding the Middle School Circus.” My district was considering “reconfiguration.” That’s the term they used in the mid-1980’s when districts across the country were reassigning grade levels and changing junior high schools into middle schools. In my district and the K-6 elementary schools became K-5. Middle school… Continue reading
It’s New Year’s Day 2015, and if I made any resolutions a year ago I’m sure I didn’t keep them. That’s not surprising because I realized a long time ago that it works best for me to write my resolutions at the end of the year instead of at the beginning. If I had made… Continue reading
Richard and I are back in Brookings and I’ve already spent many happy hours in my office above our motorhome garage. This space has been little more than a storeroom since it was built – and it’s just now beginning to be used as we intended. The main reason we built this space was for… Continue reading
Just after we left Brookings this year, Bruce Ellis posted a request on Facebook for articles he could publish in The South Coast Insider. Bruce started this paper as the Brookings Insider and it was intended to spotlight our wonderful community. His stated mission is: “Keepin’ it Real and Spreadin’ the Love.” I remembered Bruce’s… Continue reading
I wrote this one for Spectrum – The “Occasional” newsletter from The Toy Landing at the Port of Brookings-Harbor. Richard and I bought that little toy store in 2001 – about the time I began attending Eric Jensen’s Learning Brain Expos. I had met all of the educators who were called the “Brains behind… Continue reading
The nice thing about a blog is that it is never set in concrete. It’s not like writing a novel, or a story, or a poem, or even a self-help book that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Maybe it’s a bit more like writing a soap opera . . . a story… Continue reading
On February 5, 2009 I wrote that I had two reasons for starting this blog. The first was to have a place to express my ideas about learning and life in whatever “meandering” order they occur to me. The second was because I simply wanted to learn how a “blog” works. Here’s part of what… Continue reading
When I’m working with a student who is experiencing “writer’s block,” my advice is to just start writing. Period. Put the pencil on the paper and just start pushing it across the line. If nothing else, just begin – “I don’t know what to write . . . I don’t know what to write .… Continue reading
When my daughter was 17 years old, we began talking about writing a book together. Several years later – after she had failed in many attempts to become sober – we returned to the idea of writing a book together and begin calling it Pillar of Fire: A Journey through Teenage Addiction. Shannon is now… Continue reading
As I write, I am listening to a teacher’s voice, on-line, conducting a live lesson intended to prepare a group of homeschooled fourth graders for their state testing. These children have been pulled out of the public school system for many reasons. Some are the children of free-spirited parents who are raising their children on… Continue reading
Breakfast at McDonalds: Reflections on Voices and Values We are finally on our way home after spending almost 4 months in the sun. They call the folks from Canada who descend on the California and Arizona deserts every winter “Snowbirds.” We’re only from Oregon so I think of us as “Rainbirds” .… Continue reading
We’ve been sitting out in the middle of the desert about 5 miles from Quartzsite, Arizona for the past week and a half. Today we’re leaving for Lake Cahuilla – a little known County Park tucked directly behind PGA West in La Quinta, CA. Quartzsite is a strange little town. It’s almost a ghost… Continue reading
We arrived in Quartzsite, Arizona yesterday and will be here for a couple of weeks for the “Really Big” RV show. It’s a pretty amazing phenomenon: thousands of RVer’s descend on this tiny border town every winter to “boon dock” on BLM land and escape the weather at home. There’s not much to do here… Continue reading
I called my daughter this morning as she was on her way to take her final in Anatomy and Physiology at Redwood Community College in Eureka, CA. She sounded relaxed and actually excited about taking the test two days early. Her words were something like this: “You would like this guy, Mom . .… Continue reading
We’re on the road again and today find ourselves in Redwood City, California. We parked the RV at Paul and Debbie’s house and have spent the past 11 days with the grandchildren: Mason (7), Reese (5), and Miles (2). I had a chance last week to spend some time at Adalante School, the Spanish… Continue reading
When I started playing around with this blog in 2009 it seemed to me like it would be an easy way to keep my writing fresh and ideas flowing. What happened? It seems to me like it’s exactly the same thing that happens to children in class when we assign them a topic… Continue reading
Several years ago I was involved with a group of people in Brookings who were very excited about what the Curry Coastal Pilot was to later call a “Grand Experiment.” Our firm belief was that it is possible to structure an educational system within which every child can learn and succeed. At that time there… Continue reading
I started this blog on February 5, 2009 – and then “life” happened. I just read what I wrote over 2 years ago and I could have written exactly the same thing this morning. It’s all still true – except that I’m not sitting in the RV in Palm Springs, but rather back home on… Continue reading
I’m starting this blog this morning for two reasons. First, 2008 was a year of a great many changes for Richard (aka “Dick” or “Rich”) and I. After 10 years of pseudo-retirement, we have finally arranged our lives so that we can spend more time traveling.Last January we saw the movie “The Bucket… Continue reading
