Sing Me an Old, Sad Song

While re-shelving the two hundred books I pulled from the stacks last week for a special seventh grade reading assignment, I have been listening to Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Peter, Paul and Mary, Emmylou Harris, and a few others. It has been a bit of time since I listened to a lot of these songs, but I didn't remember these old folk songs being so sad. Even the songs with up beat lyrics sound like they are written in a minor key. Perhaps it is only that I am getting old, and these songs simply sound sad because of the memories they pull into my head of people who are no more and places that are no longer the same. If I listen to these good old songs too much, I will have a great, black cloud of depression floating over me, and it is too beautiful a day to have that. So, I had better put on some Bach and cheer up.

P.S. Bob Dylan wrote some great songs, but he sure couldn't sing them. Thank goodness, other people can.

A Little Collage with Frida and Diego

This is a piece of Mail Art that I sent to Portugal for a Mail Art exhibit called "desAMORes." I found out about the exhibit yesterday, and I hope this will travel through the mail and get to Porto, Portugal before the deadline. It is a collage on 8 1/2 X 11 card stock with a geometric design printed on it and colored with red watercolor marker. The page is folded in half to make it envelope size. Well, it is in the hands of the postal workers now, so we shall see if it makes it through the machinery.I joined a Mail Art club on line Mailart 365. The idea is to make and send 365 decorated letters or post cards in 365 days. I started on January first, and this is number 43. I am one day ahead.

The Rest of the Quote

I have been cleaning out school boxes of things I have saved over the years as I prepare for my retiring in June. I pulled out this old, always inappropriately used quote from one of the manila envelopes: "He who can, does; he who cannot, teaches." I don't think there is a teacher alive or dead who has not had that demeaning, dismissive statement hurled at them directly or at the profession generally at last once in their careers.
The statement is from George Bernard Shaw, but it is only the first line of what he actually said. Of course, those who use the line to insult educators are either ignorant or mendacious, as the full quote puts the statement in a much more teacher friendly context.
Here is the full quote, with the context in italics. Let the reader be the judge:

"He who can, does; he who cannot, teaches. What is more they are the only available teachers, because those who can are mostly quite incapable of teaching, even if they had the time for it."
G.B.S.