Wednesday, January 19, 2022

Path to learning podcast

I've been listening my way through the path to learning podcast and finding each episode to be quite meaningful. There are times in my wood shop when the noisy tools are off and I'm doing handwork, and that's the perfect time to fill my head with hope. 

Looking at education in general one might become depressed. But to hear our nation's experts in learning express their ideas and ideals, even when they are ignored by educational policy makers, tells me that with some work, investigation of some old ideas and recognition of the value of teachers, we can make things better.

In Finland, they attribute the success of their educational system to two factors. One is that the profession of "teacher," is a highly respected one. The other is that they train their teachers well to observe closely the needs of each child. In fact, the Finnish folks schools were originally established to follow the model of learning established by Froebel's Kindergarten.

You can a find the path to learning podcast available on all the usual podcast services. For example, I listen on an amazon device. I ask, "Alexa, play path to learning podcast." If I enunciate carefully the podcast comes right up.

I am very sorry to have lost a dear friend over the weekend. Steven Foster was the father of two of my students, a long time friend of the Clear Spring School, a vital trustee of our City Parks, and a world renown authority on medicinal herbs and plants. He will be sorely missed, not only here in Eureka Springs, but in the world at large and I offer my condolences to his family. 

Steven was the one who first introduced me to Bill Coperthwaite, a friend in Maine whom I've written about before in my blog. https://wisdomofhands.blogspot.com/search?q=coperthwaite The photo shows Steven's son Colin with Bill Coperthwaite building a yurt with students from the Clear Spring School.

Make, fix and create...

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