Listening

Yotam told me today, "The brain is the captain of your body!"  Oliver explained, "If someone doesn't make a proper choice-- you really shouldn't retaliate!"

The words of wisdom that I hear when I'm listening.....

The Hundred Languages of Childhood

The child
is made of one hundred.
The child has
A hundred languages
A hundred hands
A hundred thoughts
A hundred ways of thinking
Of playing, of speaking.
A hundred always a hundred
Ways of listening of marveling of loving
A hundred joys
For singing and understanding
A hundred worlds
To discover
A hundred worlds
To invent
A hundred worlds
To dream
The child has
A hundred languages
(and a hundred hundred hundred more)
But they steal ninety-nine.
The school and the culture
Separate the head from the body.
They tell the child;
To think without hands
To do without head
To listen and not to speak
To understand without joy
To love and to marvel
Only at Easter and Christmas
They tell the child:
To discover the world already there
And of the hundred
They steal ninety-nine.
They tell the child:
That work and play
Reality and fantasy
Science and imagination
Sky and earth
Reason and dream
Are things
That do not belong together
And thus they tell the child
That the hundred is not there
The child says: NO WAY the hundred is there--

Loris Malaguzzi
Founder of the Reggio Approach


Celebrating those quiet moments in my everyday to try and make sense of all that I am learning.  To make connections and wonder...  Those are the hundred languages in my world--   Being present in my life to hear, see, and feel

A long day, tired feet, and a hopeful sky-- I stop and listen



I am a creature of habit and often run the same trail and pause and take the same photos but I am always surprised that I stop and notice something different. Many times it links to what I am thinking that day and in that quiet moment sometimes if I am lucky an idea whispers or floats into my mind ever so gently.  I smile that those many hundred languages of a heart and mind at work make the world seem more simple and complex at the same time...

A run in the rain and finding a rainbow along the way in an unexpected place..  I stopped to take the photo wondering if it is possible to find the rainbows in our storms and then deciding maybe that is the point of the storm in the beginning... 

Kindness is a beautiful language---

Finding new books to love is like finding new treasures for me!  And I found a keeper!   Making Thinking Visible.  A group at Harvard -- Project Zero. I'm working with a few other teachers on a project with my class taking the ideas from this book-  it is helping me see the vast possibilities when we understand thinking and what moves us to get there-- to new understanding.  That deep understanding is not to be a type of thinking at all but an outcome OF thinking..  You know when you think you have stumbled upon a real gem... a truth when unpacked and observed would change me... quietly rearranged

"Depth and our ability to go below the surface of things is a vital part of our ongoing development of understanding"

* observing closely and describing what's there  *building explanations and interpretations  *reasoning with evidence  * making connections  *considering different viewpoints and perspectives *capturing the heart and forming conclusions *wondering and asking questions *uncovering complexity and going below the surface of things

A way to ponder----

I have been thinking that seeing and finding truth in diverse places teaches me how each of us-- children of God are connected with our Father sending truths to everyone--

Again - I put my headphones on to hear my Sunday messages translated from German to English..  I'm tired today and think how I could just turn off the translation and close my eyes and not listen--  I am left wondering how many times I have done that with the Hundred Languages that are communicated to each of us if we are listening--

Some of my favorite listening this week----

Sitting in church next to Maddie as she leans to her mom, "Pass me one of your fancy tissues."

Smiles, cheering,  thank you  in many different languages!  Survived a swim meet!

Courage to ask questions and found real oatmeal!!!

Church bells in the background as I pause to look back---