“The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.” ~ Anatole France. We all know at least one child that seems to ask a thousand questions a day. One of mine was peppering me with questions as I got ready […]
“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.” ~ Confucius. When my mother was young, she told me, she once had made some comment to her own mother about her looks. I suppose like most teenage girls she felt insecure. Her mother gave her some practical advice. ‘Be grateful that you are neither so good-looking […]
“Music is the message of peace, and music only brings peace.” ~ Zubin Mehta. I don’t know when I first realized that my father could be many things to many people. On Sundays he was ‘Parson’, solemnly conducting the church service; bellowing out hymns with his strong tenor voice; quietly leading the church in prayer; […]
“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” ~ Aristotle. I don’t remember being very fussy about clothes as a child. As the youngest I inherited most of my ‘gently worn’ outfits. I remember one dress in particular. It had not been handed down from my […]
“Memories of our lives, of our works and our deeds will continue in others.” ~ Rosa Parks. When you are the youngest of five children, you tend to feel left out of family reminiscing. One of my plaintive cries on such occasions was: ‘Was I born?’ Of course, you don’t appear in many of the […]
“Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.” ~ Karl Barth. This week I am wrapping up a ‘Spring Break’ – a week off between semesters, where it is often hard to truly ‘break’ away. Finals’ week is always hectic, with unexpected slowdowns and distractions. Can electronic gradebooks be trusted? Out come calculators and old-fashioned computations, […]
“Rivers, ponds, lakes and streams – they all have different names, but they all contain water. Just as religions do – they all contain truths.” ~ Muhammad Ali. There is something about rain. I was born in the north west of England, a city famous for its grey skies and persistent rain. I have not […]
“There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them.” ~ Denis Waitley. Whenever I hear three stories on the same theme, I know this is a topic to write on. Unfortunately, I have already forgotten one of them! It is only recently that I […]
“Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.” ~ Ezra Pound. The first time I heard the word ‘paradigm’ used in a sentence, I was mad that I didn’t know what it meant. The truth is I didn’t much care for the person who said it, and I was mad […]
