Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/a-manner-of-speaking/5020102/
A bright yellow male American Goldfinch and a not quite so brilliant female are eating thistle seeds at the feeder outside my office window. An aggressive blue and black Stellar Jay chases them away and with wild abandon head-tosses seeds to the ground. Dark-eyed Junkos will get to those later. Next to arrive are the Purple Finches and the Black-Capped Chicadees �" and with a whir, an irridescent hummingbird!Watching birds has become quite a pleasure for me. If I’m talking to you on the phone or thinking about you �" I’m probably also watching the birds. But I’m not only watching them, I’m trying to learn their names and their habits, so as I share them with Schon and Zachary, Caroline and Jonah, I can say more than, “See the bird!”
Nancy Rosenow has provoked me to think about the information we offer to children, challenging that the information we share needs to respect each child’s capacity for learning. When we offer them the best of what we know, we offer a window to the complexity of life, nature, the world; we give them rich material to work with. “See the bird” is something, of course, but not that much. ...