In my previous blog about “the seed, the soils, and the sower,” there was a sentence, when I was making my point about my interpretation of the parable, which said in part “. . . . there must be a connection to human need, such that where our hearts go in compassion, our hands and…

This post is a venture into slightly uncharted, or at least unusual, territory for my blogs. While I have dealt with a couple of scriptural passages or stories, they were seasonal and, I hope, not “preachy,” since I don’t intend this one to be, either.  It does, however, arise legitimately from things I have said…

Life is obviously full of decisions we must make, some seemingly trivial—although sometimes they can turn out not to be—and some that are difficult, that have long term effects, that “tug at the heart.” How does one know what is the right thing to do in those decisions that may have long-term effects we cannot…

Some years ago I read a charming story told by a school teacher in England. At Christmas she supervised the construction of a manger scene in the corner of the classroom. It delighted the students to set up a model barn, cover the floor with real straw and then arrange the clay figures of Mary,…

Fifth Post Plato and Aristotle: Application And now it remains to ask about all that has been said, “so what?”  What difference might it make to the here and now? So from the interpretations I have offered, allow me to try to draw some implications for our common interests in teaching and learning.  I think…

Fourth Post Plato and Aristotle: A Synthesis The question, now, is whether it is possible to develop any kind of synthesis of the views of these two significant thinkers—that is, to discover some commonalities in Plato and Aristotle beyond, or perhaps through, their differences that might have some permanent value to our common interest in…

Third Post Aristotle: An Analysis and Evaluation Like Plato, Aristotle both reflects and transcends his time. His great aim in life, his all-consuming passion, was to understand. J.H. Randall, to whose interpretation I owe a great deal, thinks that Aristotle’s mind may have been the most intense in history—as Randall puts it, ”his was a…

Second Post Plato: An Analysis and Evaluation It cannot be an accident that nearly all of Plato’s works take the form of dialogues, but neither can we assume that the philosophical perspectives were there first and the dialogues were chosen as the best way to communicate them.  What we do know is that, with Socrates,…

Without being too flippant, I understand that the very title of this blog may at worst bring a “groan” from some and at best will no doubt attract interest from a lesser number of readers but, hopefully, some with experience in and/or curiosity about the world of teaching and learning—the subject that dominated the first…

I’m doing fine coming out “the other side” of over a five week long medical crisis. I’ll spare you all the details, but I had to go by ambulance to the ER with a vicious gall bladder attack. I was in the hospital a week before they could do surgery due to my being on…