Working in Education through the Language Lens

We went exploring today, just my youngest two boys and myself. This doesn't  happen very often - just the three of us, and I was thankful for the 'mom' time, while dad was away in Iowa, flying his combat RC planes. We all need some time doing things that restore and renew us.  With construction surrounding the parking garage, and the Cincinnati football game taking up prime parking, we had quite the detour in walking to our destination to view the replica ships (Nina and Pinta) docked on the Ohio River. I didn't mind it, it was a moderate 71 degrees outside with partially cloudy skies and plenty of sunshine. (I add that meteorological detail for the benefit of my PLN, as we span 10 time zones and love to fill each other in on the weather - and gas prices). My youngest had been rowdy to the point of obnoxious all  morning. Oh, please - I say that with all the motherly love in the world. In fact we almost didn't make it out of the driveway without ye...

It was about 3 miles into our 20 mile bike ride today along the Great Allegheny Passage, that I thought of a single falling  leaf. We were riding on the crushed gravel and limestone path where the coal trains ran, part of history that not many get to see outside of text books.  We were taking turns taking the lead and our 13 year old songster behind me said rather randomly "catch a falling leaf". I'm not sure why those words in particular stuck with me, but I looked up and within seconds saw a brown leaf taking it's final, side to side free fall to the ground. It felt almost as magical as seeing a shooting star, until only with an intentional gaze I saw several more fall. Then, I tried to catch one, and I became fixated. My hands left the bars once to reach up, only to be outside of reach. The leaf now felt elusive, instead of common. And then to add 'insult to injury', one floated down right onto my face. Out of instinct (mastered from the bugs that had a ma...