The journey continues…

There is much more to education than sitting in classrooms for years and absorbing the facts or stories presented. Despite earning a Master’s Degree in Psychology, I must state that most of what I’ve learned in this life has come from observation, personal experience, and books. I am grateful to all that contributed along that path. There are some excellent teachers, alas, there are also a number of them that may do more harm than good. Perhaps it is their materials, methods, but a good teacher has their heart invested in the outcome. If you find yourself inspired by this or any of the other quotes in this series, and decide to create a post, please let me know. I should enjoy reblogging it. Thank you, Léa

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“The whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don’t know how to be submissive, and so on — because they’re dysfunctional to the institutions.”
― Noam Chomsky

Quotations on Intellectualism

Thank you, Charles. In the midst of the insanity around us, the reason is whispering its message.

charles french words reading and writing

 

 

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

                                                  Isaac Asimov

 

“In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy.”

                                                   George Orwell

 

“I’m tired of ignorance held up as inspiration, where vicious anti-intellectualism is considered a positive trait, and where uninformed opinion is displayed as fact.”

                                                      Phil Plait

 

“For democracy to…

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BANNED BOOK WEEK: Thank a Librarian and read a Banned Book

“We are willing enough to praise freedom when she is tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her and admit censorship.   –  E.M. Forster

 

“Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.”   –  Henry Louis Gates

 

“Submitting to censorship is to enter the seductive world of ‘The Giver’: the world where there are no bad words and no bad deeds. But it is also the world where choice has been taken away and reality distorted. And that is the most dangerous world of all.”   –  Lois Lowry

–

DO YOURSELF A FAVOUR AND READ:

http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/statementspols/freedomreadstatement

*

Fight Censorship and thank a Librarian

It’s banned books week

And if a book hasn’t

Made it on that list

I’m not sure it is

Worth my time

Reading

*

It’s banned books week

If you care about

Making your own

Choices

If there is a book

You like that

Has made the list

Speak out

*

It’s banned books week

Somewhere there is a

Librarian who has stuck

Her neck out

For your right to

Read what you choose

They are the hero’s of

The hour

*

It’s banned books week

Celebrate

Read a book

From the list

Read the statement

Freedom to Read 1953

Celebrate

Then go to the independent

Book store and buy

Banned books

*

Stop by and leave a comment. Share your favorite Banned Book.

 

Bisous,

Léa

You Think Climate Change Is Not Real? Watch This And Think Again! — Art Expedition

I’m working hard to keep my blog a place where you can find happiness and maybe some distraction from your hectic everyday life by sharing my art which is mostly inspired by my love for nature and animals. I don’t often talk politics or religion – both of which can present a lot […]

To watch the video, please follow the link to the original post. Thank you.

via You Think Climate Change Is Not Real? Watch This And Think Again! — Art Expedition

Start Writing Fiction: A Free Online Course Starts 3 September — Aerogramme Writers’ Studio

Start Writing Fiction is a free online course offered by The Open University. The eight-week program focuses on a skill which is central to the writing of all stories and novels – creating characters. Participants will… The post Start Writing Fiction: A Free Online Course Starts 3 September appeared first on Aerogramme Writers’ Studio.

via Start Writing Fiction: A Free Online Course Starts 3 September — Aerogramme Writers’ Studio

Trump has declared war on Mother Nature. Who will step up? Thanks Vonita!

It was all of eleven years ago when I sat in a Johannesburg office wanting to see the last screening of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth. I had project commitments that needed to be completed, and so I decided not to go. This week, I noticed the sequel is being screened at my local cinema. I […]

via Be Inconvenient — Poems and Petals

Silence

“Silence is a true friend who never betrays.”   – Confucius

“True silence is the rest of the mind, and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.”  – William Penn

“Music and silence combine strongly because music is done with silence, and silence is full of music.”  – Marcel Marceau

                                                                                  –

Silence 

 

That is not what

She is saying –

Music – a passion

But silence – silken, warm

Comforter, blanket, cape

To withdraw –

The cocoon where

Creativity germinates freely

Where her mind

slows its frantic pace

From chaos to

Inspiration

 Repressed mantra

– 

Silence – her fortress

It has her back

Shelter from the storm

 She hears the predator coming

The clacking of her heels

Rattling of keys

Always different from other disasters

Silence, sounds its warning

Flight, the favored response

Hushed cantata

–

Soldiers

Recount lying in wait

As the enemy approaches

Rubber sole alarm

The heart skips beats

Hands quiver, mouth dry

Words, forsake her

Her litany to be alone

 Quelled psalms of youth

–

Soil, secure, reticent, fertile

Where seeds finds solace, 

Nourishment, sanctuary,

Strength, time – her friends

Adapting, evolving, processing

She bursts forth

 Her ode to joy

 

–

Bisous,

                                              – Léa                  

                          

 

Cadeau de la clé / Gift of the key

Thank you Christine over at http://journeyintopoetry.wordpress.com for inspiring this post. Stop in and meet Christine if you are not already following her. Read and be inspired as I am.

*

“We shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.”   – B.F. Skinner

 

“To read is to fly: it is to soar to a point of vantage which gives a view over wide terrains of history, human variety, ideas, shared experience and the fruits of many inquiries.”   – A.C. Grayling

 

“Reading takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere.”   – Hazel Rochman

 

* 

 

Cadeau de la clé / Gift of the key

 

Children

Intrinsically curious

Insatiable in their

Hunger

Starving to understand

Insatiable curiosity

The mystery about them

This world, people

How things work?

Why they do not work?

What is to become of them?

How do they fit in?

Or not?

 

Give them fuel to feed

The fires of inquisitiveness

Open the door to literature,

History, science, poetry

And all the world of print

Give them the tools

To learn, to explore so that they

One day they can be more

Read to them teach them

Give them the key

Entice them to unlock each

Mystery that beckons and the

Gift that they are never

Alone

 

*

Bisous,

 

Léa

knowing dark

“Every moment of light and dark is a miracle.”   –  Walt Whitman

 

“In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost.”   –  Dante Alighieri

 

“Roll on, deep and dark blue ocean, roll. Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain. Man marks the earth with ruin, but is control stops with the shore.”   –  Lord Byron

*

knowing dark

 

were you aware

that both darkness

and light

possess specific scents, music and texture?

the odor of darkness cannot be

fully appreciated by inexperienced senses

years spent where light was restricted

refine the senses educate them

intimacy with every shade of night

each nuance

feeling my way

making the most of a unique gift

over time

senses heighten

evocative

mnemonic

tranquillité

now

sunshine

reveals

a new world

Léa

Fight Censorship and thank a Librarian

“We are willing enough to praise freedom when she is tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her, and admit censorship.   –  E.M. Forster

 

“Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.”   –  Henry Louis Gates

 

“Submitting to censorship is to enter the seductive world of ‘The Giver’: the world where there are no bad words and no bad deeds. But it is also the world where choice has been taken away and reality distorted. And that is the most dangerous world of all.”   –  Lois Lowry

DO YOURSELF A FAVOUR AND READ:

http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/statementspols/freedomreadstatement

*

Fight Censorship and thank a Librarian

It’s banned books week

And if a book hasn’t

Made it on that list

I’m not sure it is

Worth my time

Reading

*

It’s banned books week

If you care about

Making your own

Choices

If there is a book

You like that

Has made the list

Speak out

*

It’s banned books week

Somewhere there is a

Librarian who has stuck

Her neck out

For your right to

Read what you choose

They are the hero’s of

The hour

*

It’s banned books week

Celebrate

Read a book

From the list

Read the statement

Freedom to Read 1953

Celebrate

Then go to the independent

Book store and buy

Banned books

*

Bisous,

Léa