March 2009
20 posts
Johnny Lee demos Wii Remote hacks | Video on... →
I love this guy! What a genius!
milesbarger:
University of Oregon Environmental Studies Program
✔ ACCEPTED (fully funded)
The 15 Strangest College Courses →
milesbarger:
I took 11. The Art of Walking. It changed my life.
Birthday parties in a high school classroom
Okay, what do you do with a turned off, tuned out group of high school students?
Well, I give them birthday parties. Yep, that’s right. It isn’t in the curriculum guide, it probably won’t improve standardized test scores, it seems childish, and I don’t care. I throw them birthday parties.
I have a group of 27 students in an English III class, 10 of whom are NOT on...
Renee Fleming is stupendous
I love this song, and she does an amazing job singing it. I don’t always like the operatic style of singing, but it works with this song. And this song always lifts me up, gives me hope, gives me courage and strength. It’s a beautiful, wonderful composition.
I Think I Wanted to be Shirley Jones
It just hit me…I think all throughout my midteens to late twenties I had a subconscious desire to be Shirley Jones. That makes me laugh. But it’s true. I wore my hair exactly as she is wearing hers in this scene. I wanted to sing just like her and loved all the songs she sang in all the musicals she appeared in. Yes, I think, it must be true…I wanted to be Shirley Jones.
...
Miles Barger →
The Marks of Suffering
“One writes of scars healed, a loose parallel to the pathology of the skin, but there is no such thing in the life of an individual. There are open wounds, shrunk sometimes to the size of a pin-prick but wounds still. The marks of suffering are more comparable to the loss of a finger, or of the sight of an eye. We may not miss them, either, for one minute in a year, but if we should there is...
milesbarger:
University of Montana in Missoula Environmental Studies Program
✔ ACCEPTED
Somebody's Prayin'
I love this song. We bought a Ricky Skaggs CD recently and discovered this song on the last track of the CD. For all of those I love who are having difficulties, do know that that somebody praying for you is me.
February 2009
22 posts
Life is so fragile...
“Nothing Gold Can Stay”…what a wonderful poem. Is it any wonder that whenever I am having a beautiful day…ice-laden tree limbs reflecting the sun’s warm winter rays, a loved one leaning in toward the glowing birthday cake candles to celebrate yet another year of family and love, a quiet day spent alone with beautiful music and poetry, a walk through the woods with my...
Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve
longer:
map more photos
After miles of the winding canyons and passes of the Gunnison Basin, you enter southern Colorado’s San Luis Valley. It’s vast and flat, a section of Kansas lifted to 8000 feet, ringed in snow-capped peaks. And hidden in the corner are 30 square miles of the tallest sand dunes in North America.
The terrain ranges: a 14,000-foot peak, an alpine lake, a mountain...
“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep...”
– Fyodor Dostoevsky (via psychotherapy) (via romeojulietsierra)
Huckleberry
I’m coming near the end of reading every single word of Mark Twain’s HUCK FINN to my second block class. As bad as they hate to admit it, they are getting sad, they know that the book is about to come to a close, they know they soon have to say goodbye to Huckleberry and to Jim.
Why do I teach this novel?
A. a lot of my students have been raised by racists; it’s my way of...
Don't worry; be happy.
I went to a funeral yesterday for a beautiful 37-year-old teaching colleague who died from cancer. She only lived about two months from diagnosis to her death, and most of that time, she was very, very sick. She left three children behind, a husband, a race that’s now finished, a life that’s now done. She had them play this song at the end of her funeral…every little...
College visits
It’s fun to visit Keane at Centre College. It’s always beautiful there, at any time of year, and he is always glad to see us and we have fun shopping, taking him out to eat, etc. He’s so funny…he loves Cracker Barrel and nine times out of ten, orders the fried catfish, being the southern gentleman that he is! Today, we got to see his stupendous, BIG dorm room that is...
Transcript of David Foster Wallace's Commencement... →
milesbarger:
[T]he real value of a real education […] has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over:
“This is water.”
“This is water.”
Denali Educational Programs, Science & Outreach |... →
This is where Miles will be working this summer! He’s so excited, and so are we!
Miles Barger →
Whatever will be, will be
It’s hard to watch your children struggle as they cope with wondering, “Where do I fit in?”
It’s a vast universe, and we’re each just one small speck. A world in a grain of sand. I have to believe that to those of who are thrown into the vast reaches of space and time together/at the same time, we’re just that one world for someone, somehow, somewhere, in the...
To Thine Own Self Be True
I’ve been teaching Emerson and Thoreau. It’s fascinating to expose a bright young person to these great writers for the first time and to watch them soak up these ideas, sometimes to reject them and sometimes to embrace them. Teaching can be so wonderful sometimes.
3 tags
Waiting for springtime
I really look forward to spring. Recently, I strolled through the St. Louis Botanical Gardens with my oldest brother, Kim, and saw so many plants and swollen buds…you had to look closely, but there they were…harbingers of spring. Spring is coming. New life. Promises of color and blossoms and fragrance.
Good, good things will come.
Troubled Waters
Sometimes life just gets complicated and your heart aches so for those you love who are having difficulties that you feel your heart might just dissolve into a messy mush and trickle away.
Some troubles are unspeakable in their awfulness.
This is one of those times.
September 2008
1 post
29 days
School and kids and life are all-consuming at times. A house to clean. Flowers to water. Sheets to change. Meals to cook. Dishes to wash. Cars to vacuum. Decks to sweep. Grass to mow. Trash to carry out. Clothes to fold and put away. Tubs to scrub. Dogs to feed/walk/water. Bills to pay. Parents to visit. Children that need a listener who cares. A husband who needs encouragement and...
August 2008
7 posts
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become...”
– John Quincy Adams quotes (American 6th US President (1825-29), eldest son of John Adams, 2nd US president. 1767-1848)
Time to go
Well, tomorrow is Day 1 of the 2008-2009 school year. There is nothing quite like going back to new students, new ideas, new schedules. I have readied my classroom better than ever before, so that part is done. It’s organized, labeled, filed, shelved…ready and waiting for learners and learning to begin.
But I am convinced that the greatest impact on learning is not about the books...
“I’m an old-fashioned guy… I want to be an old man with a beer belly...”
– Johnny Depp
Building a new house with a screened in porch
Try as I may, I can never get so happy and comfortable in a house that I don’t eventually think of moving into another one, preferably a new one.
I love a new house. Everything fresh and clean and bright. Shiny new faucets. Kitchen cabinets that smell of wood and stain and varnish. Floors that sparkle in their newness. Soft clean carpets everywhere.
I have always wanted to build what...