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It is the mark
of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought
without accepting it.
-Aristotle-
Welcome
to my web site.
Here
you will find an introduction to the passions of my
life: my family, my work, and my travels. I tell a
little bit about where I have been and a few of the
things I have yet to do.
Education has been at the core of
who and what I am. Some of my earliest and best
memories are of rides with my mother to her country
school where tests were hand-written on large slate
boards and hidden behind pull-down maps of the world.
Absent technology so pervasive today, letters were
written in sand on paper plates, or marked out in
shelled kernels of corn by the youngest to be overseen
by the oldest. Life lessons were taught about fairness, kindness,
and
collaboration while planning and practicing for Christmas programs and Mother’s Day
Pageants. We explored the world by listening to
Treasure Island and Oliver Twist, heads down
on desks after a lunchbox lunch and cold milk from a
thermos. I fell in love with the power of education. My
undergraduate years at Midland College prepared me for a
teaching career which has taken me out of state and even
overseas and eventually back to Nebraska.
Education still defines me all these decades later. I
now administer a media center for a junior – senior high
school in O’Neill, Nebraska. Slate boards have given
way to Smart Boards. Those plates of sand and corn have
yielded to Palms and laptops. Holes and
Hatchet may be more often heard as the preferred
read of the teacher, but much remains. Fairness,
kindness, conflict resolution, and a genuine curiosity
about and preparation for the world are still at the
heart of education. |
