Take Our Children to the Park...and Leave Them There Day


18 May 13 09:37 AM
Today is "Take Your Children to the Park...and Leave Them There Day," founded by Lenore Skenazy four years ago. Makes sense-- kids spend well over 50 hours each week gazing at glass screens living in a world dominated by creepy adults who like to make Read More...
Postedfrom doyle | 2 Comments    

May light, May death


11 May 13 09:25 AM
Some years I fish, with joy and exuberance, ecstatic at the pull of an animal on the end of the line. Other years, I avoid it, acknowledging the pain and cost of life to the fish. It's not something I'm ever going to resolve.... T his was written two Read More...
Postedfrom doyle | 0 Comments    

On reading Galway Kinnell again


09 May 13 09:47 PM
Almost a quarter century ago, my eldest and I wandered around Liberty State Park in the shadow of the Lady herself, trying out various foods at an international festival. Folks were amused at her voracious boldness, I was amused at their amusement. I Read More...
Postedfrom doyle | 2 Comments    

In the light, again


05 May 13 07:05 AM
This was written a 2 year s ago, and it works again today. We only get so many Msys in a lifetime. "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." Theodosius Dobzhansky I should be crafting a descent with modification (misnamed "evolution") Read More...
Postedfrom doyle | 2 Comments    

My problem(s) with Kiera


04 May 13 06:35 AM
The whole Kiera Wilmot kerfuffle made no sense at all until I saw her photo. Trying to blow things up falls under white male privilege. Kiera has too much melanin and chromosomal material to qualify for that club. See what kind of nonsense happens when Read More...
Postedfrom doyle | 3 Comments    

Build, harvest, brew, be human


28 April 13 05:48 PM
When I clam, I put a couple back. I know there will always be more when I do this. I am also keeping a promise to my niece, who has a habit of returning more quahogs than she actually rakes, though she eats them readily enough. (Hi, Claire!) When I build Read More...
Postedfrom doyle | 8 Comments    

My children still live in our village


27 April 13 09:09 AM
If you want to be universal, sing your village. -Leo Tolstoy Arne Duncan wants your children prepared "to participate in the global economy." I want our kids to learn a little bit about the natural world. I took the AP Biology students out to the Bloomfield Read More...
Postedfrom doyle | 5 Comments    

Teaching a skink Latin


20 April 13 08:11 AM
This week in my classroom, really my home... My lambs groaned as I ate a carrot a child grew from seed under the light of the weak winter sun--and a few wondered, out loud, if it tasted like a carrot. We fetched our salamander guy from our terrarium to Read More...
Postedfrom doyle | 7 Comments    

To Serve Students


14 April 13 08:50 AM
To Serve Students --with apologies to Rod Sterling As Arne and his cadre of Eraserheads mobilize our children for the global economy because, well, the whole point of education is to create a corps of corporate citizens, I keep thinking of Twilight Zone's Read More...
Postedfrom doyle | 2 Comments    

On sunspots


06 April 13 08:11 AM
Do not do any of this without the right equipment. Galileo likely did not go blind from his work with sunspots, but hey, it makes a good story. We took a walk along the edge of the bay at sunset, as we do, and I stared at the sun, as I foolhardily do, Read More...
Postedfrom doyle | 7 Comments    

Impolite to ask


05 April 13 07:51 PM
I just saw the sun set on the bay--another day past, but it's OK, the stars reassure me. What did you eat today? Who slaughtered it? When was its last breath? Does it matter? What did you sing today? Who wrote it? Did you sing alone? Do you have a kazoo? Read More...
Postedfrom doyle | 2 Comments    

"Teaching and folly share an interface"


05 April 13 10:16 AM
It's daffodil season again.... "Most educational establishments are mysterious, perhaps because teaching and folly share an interface." John Berger, Here is Were We Meet It's spring, and plants are grabbing stuff out of thin air to make the stuff of life Read More...
Postedfrom doyle | 5 Comments    

Cutting edge? I'm on the backside of the blade....


03 April 13 09:27 AM
I take a perverse delight in my Luddite Lite view, but it's really as simple this. Anything that distances me from the natural world, from my connection to the stuff that comes in (and leaves) my body, from the delicious sensuous (even sensual) symphony Read More...
Postedfrom doyle | 4 Comments    
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Common core of a quahog


02 April 13 08:43 PM
The northern quahog ( Mercenaria mercenaria ) has already figured out the same important things we have. Their shells are now in the garden. It knows how to get the most out of glucose, letting oxygen sweep out electrons as the glucose breaks down to Read More...
Postedfrom doyle | 3 Comments    

Speeding to success


01 April 13 06:13 PM
About one out of five high school boys "have" attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which means we are now free to pump them up with performance enhancing drugs. Make no mistake--Adderall is speed, and it works. If you want to do better at Read More...
Postedfrom doyle | 6 Comments    
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