Professor Sharon

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Senator Edward Kennedy and young children

August 27th, 2009 · Children, Important People, My Goals

As the media is covering from every angle, we have reason to be mourning a very important man today.   There is much much coverage, and many many articles.  I would like to steer you to just one that will remind us of the champion this man was to the children of America: the children, the littlest, the most powerless, the ones Jonathan Kozol writes about, who needed someone on their side.  Senator Kennedy was that champion in many ways.   The children of America lost a good friend today.

(and for those, including me sometimes, who don’t have much good to say about No Child Left Behind — it may not be the bill that didn’t work – it may be that it was never funded under Bush the way it should have been).

Good-bye Mr. Kennedy from the littlest citizens of America.  I hope you have a great time with Mr. Rogers!

How Did Senator Edward Kennedy’s Work Affect Young People?

Late senator helped lower voting age to 18 and sponsored many college grant and loan programs.

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My favorite computer guy…

August 24th, 2009 · family

with no computer in sight!

richdoingyardwork8-09

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Heat

August 21st, 2009 · Musings, My Goals, Work

“If a teacher is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.”  Kahil Gibran

I’m not going to go run and hide because I’m catching some heat. I’m not going to stay at home and pout.   Andy Roddick

These two quotes caught my eye this morning as I try to battle with my syllabi for the coming, oh so quickly, semester.   The heat outside is on my mind as, as always, it makes me feel constantly slightly ill: never finding the right food or drink to quell the heat inside or out.  I do have air conditioning, and so I’m physically cool, but maybe it’s being trapped inside just like it’s January that adds to the discomfort.

As I work on my syllabi, hoping to improve it with some new thinking I’ve done and reading I’ve been reflecting on, I think of my students.   (Actually I do know profs who don’t think of their students as they set up their syallbi – it’s much more valuable to them to think of the ease of the work to themselves.) While I attempt to offer a learning environment, I also must be, at times, the source of heat that makes them ill, uncomfortable and while I hope not, perhaps even cower.  I always hope that I am the facilitator of learning; but it’s a difficult process: enough heat to move them forward from the stimulus but not enough to send them into a cave hiding from it hoping to get cool again.

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New England’s Beauty – Photo of the Week

August 19th, 2009 · photo of the week, Shaker, Site Seeing

The best thing – and about the only good thing for me – about the late summer heat is that it forecasts that apple season is about here.  There’s no apple in the world, that I’ve been to, that equals a New England apple.

Apple in the Orchard of Sabbathday Lake Maine

Apple in the Orchard of Sabbathday Lake Maine

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Life’s milestones

August 15th, 2009 · Musings

“Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved.  The real milestones are less prepossessing.  They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit and simply never leave.  Our lives are measured by these.”  Susan B. Anthony

Yesterday while pushing my mower around the backyard, the smell brought back memories of a grandmother – my father’s mother – whose backyard I used to mow on occasion with a hand push mower.  It was a city lot, no fancy grass seed, just green stuff that had to be mowed down so we could sit out there and ride trikes and throw a ball about.  I realized that in my lifetime, I have known 5 generations of my family.   There was a time when I was a young girl that I played with that grandmother – who had dementia and lived in a senior home – with dolls.  As I watch my mother slip into the grips of Alzheimer’s and talk to my grandbaby on the phone, I feel  that I have had many important moments in my life and am grateful for them.   I hope that the next time I play dolls with my granddaughter that it provides her with memories that she’ll enjoy one day when she’s a gramma….

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