“The new humanity will be universal and it will have the artist’s attitude; that is, it will recognize that the immense value and beauty of the human being lies precisely in the fact that he belongs to the two Kingdoms of nature and the spirits.” Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann’s words strike a deep and rich chord in this educator’s heart. Deep

within me, I believe that my real job is to woo the young people in my classroom into a love affair with all that the universe graciously gives us. To allow them to be the artists and create rich and vibrant forms that cherish the beauty, the reality, and the struggle transcends all other agenda.

Educare – The Learning Story is devoted to thoughtfulness and reflections, ideas, wonderings, concepts, and experiences that underpin the two basic concepts of:

• Drawing forth the learning story of each person & caring enough to add meaning & value to each person’s life story.

How can  Educare – The Learning Story support you?

Each month the website / blog will focus on a specific educational theme. The best practices, innovations & conversations associated with that theme will accompany the central topic. Your stories and comments pertaining to your experiences and ideas about that topic will fill the blog, widen the conversation and complete that story line. At the end of the month all the input will be summarized and further resources and take-a-ways will be suggested. There is much to be gained through thoughtful reflection and conversation.We stay connected, enlarge our understanding, and move the world of learning forward.

I think of my own personal geography as a landscape dotted with cottages where each cottage contains a small collection of the books I love. There’s a remarkable book store in Oxford, England on a beautiful tree lined street with bicycles parked outside each little cottage. There is a cottage with only children’s books, one with science books stacked to the ceilings, one where its cozy charm made me fancy every book on architecture it contains. I count the book cottages in my mind. These are the places I would go to live any day of the year. These are the places where the books I read aloud to others or where others read aloud to me reside. If someone ever codes my DNA, I’m certain they will find these favorite stories embedded in my genes. I cross my fingers that all my children and grandchildren carry these genes. And through the magic of story-cloning, every child I have ever read to or told a story will magically carry the same delightful gene – this infectious love of stories.

Since posting my first and only blog, life has been harsh for me. My husband died on April 14^th after spending 10 weeks in the hospital trying so hard to recover from back surgery only to discover a massive cancerous tumor in his stomach that had spread everywhere. I am working hard on putting balance and purpose back in my life. One constant is my passion for education. I am renewing my commitment to parents and teachers in an effort to work together finding our way through this thick molasses morass we find ourselves stuck in right now.