Teaching matters.We owe it to our children to get it right.  What do you care to know about the world? There's a place for what used to be called boredom, for empty spaces to slide into your mind. It's not particularly unpleasant, but it lacks the dopamine we've programmed our children, ourselves, to crave. If you sit still long enough ...

And she forgot the stars, the moon and sun, And she forgot the blue above the trees, And she forgot the dells where waters run, And she forgot the chilly autumn breeze; She had no knowledge when the day was done, And the new morn she saw not: but in peace Hung over her sweet Basil evermore, And moisten'd it with tears unto the core. John Keats, ...

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. ''The Second Coming,'' ...

I would like very much to go to the Siemen's STEM Institute this summer, though after today, I'm not sure they'd welcome me  in their midst. I've spent hours wrestling with a Flip camera, MS Movie Maker, and and apparent conflict between the chip set in my laptop and the rest of the world (a chip with a chip on its shoulder), and  may be ...

An Cailleach Bhearra wandered around back in the 10th century in western Ireland, eating ''seaweed, salmon, and wild garlic'' (my kind of woman), looking for firewood. If the day was bright and sunny, beware--she had gathered plenty of wood and was set for many cold days ahead. If the day was gray, she didn't bother, and she will make the days ...

We got beans growing in our classroom. Three gorgeous rattlesnake pods hanging from a vine, the soft purple puff of a flower between the second and third bean. Most of the stuff that makes up these beans is carbon dioxide, much of it from the breath of all those who share ideas here in our room. Carbon dioxide from yesterday's Pop ...

While immersed in the Krebs cycle in mid-January, pushing biochemical pathways on sophomores who have yet to learn chemistry, I marvel at their persistence, trying to grasp what I know they cannot, but I ask them to do it anyway. (There is something unethical about this....) Should I ever train a dog to bark in Latin, I will be praised for ...

A repost. Hey, it's my blog... In Galway Bay, nestled on the west coast of Ireland, lives Fungi, a lone male dolphin who seeks the company of humans, as he has for over a quarter century now. He's a tourist attraction, and an enigma. No one knows why he sticks around—perhaps he was abandoned by his pod for some nefarious dolphin behavior during ...

'Turn away no more; Why wilt thou turn away The starry floor, The watery shore, Is given thee till the break of day.' William Blake Today is the last day of the darkest two weeks of the year, the shadows stretched long on the beach like languid lovers unaware of the long darkness just hours away. Leslie and I, shadows of each other, walked ...

What is the lifespan of Crassostrea viginica, our local oyster? What is its maximum size? The experts will tell you it gets to 20 years old, and about 8'' long. I found the shell of one 3 years ago today that just misses 9 inches. Its shell tells a story about 40 years old. ''Awareness of ignorance is as devoutas knowledge of knowledge. Or ...