Fire Station Tacubaya, Mexico City, Mexico

The Cobbler Turned Doctor

The cobbler turned doctor is an Aesop's fable, published in the mid- to late 6th century BCE.

Who is a cobbler? What does a cobbler do?  A cobbler is the person who repairs shoes.  Do you have any cobblers in your neighborhood? What do you do when your shoes need mending?  I live in a neighborhood with one, and, unlike the cobbler in this tale, he really is very good at his trade.

I wonder what would happen if one day he decided to give up this lucrative profession, to go into a seemingly more prestigious one.  First of all, we will have lost someone who knows his trade and thrives on it.  Second, what is his guarantee that this new career will flourish?  He is best placed where he is, and he knows it!

Would you give up something tried and true to try your hand at being a hoax?  The King, in this story expressed it best - and I paraphrase - "If I cannot trust you with my left shoe, why would I trust you with my life?"

We could go further into this tale and talk about the palliative effects of a placebo, or mind over matter, but that's a story for another day.  

The moral of the story is this : Truth will out.

The Swallow and the Crow

Aesop was a Greek storyteller, famous for his fables which often had a moral attached to them.  The fable of the Swallow and the Crow ends with the the crow talking about fair-weather friends, with regard to his plumage.  

What or who are fair-weather friends? A fair-weather friend is someone who is a good friend when iit is easy and convenient to be one.  However, when times turn dark and things become difficult, you can be sure that this person will be nowhere to be seen.  They are no longer your friend when you have problems.

As the saying goes,  "with friends like these, who needs enemies?"

Male and female American Crows look alike, with all-black plumage that has an iridescent purple sheen in direct light.

Small swallow with long forked tail. Dark above, pale below, with a rusty breast and face. 

Fun fact; did you know that a group of crows is referred to as a 'murder of crows' while swallows are referred to as a 'flight of swallows'?

    Click here for a recording of the fable.

Photo credits:

https://abcbirds.org/bird/american-crow/

https://ebird.org/species/welswa1

Six degrees of separation

Six degrees of separation (also known as the six handshakes rule) is the idea that all people are six or fewer social connections away from each other. For example, you go to a gathering, and you meet a "friend of a friend", who you can then connect to another in a maximum of six steps. 

Picture this: a while ago, a stranger came calling to my door. She was looking for an English speaker to help her with a translation.  Did I know this person?  No, I did not.  Then, pray tell, how did she end up ringing my doorbell?

Aha! the magic of 6 degrees ... and how we're all connected.

In her quest to find an English speaker, she made enquiries at a neighbourhood stationery shop, three streets away. It just so happens that a young man who was studying English, previously worked at that shop. His former colleagues directed her to a neighbourhood butchery for further information on 'the English speaker'. So off she trotted to the butcher, who happens to be the uncle to this student.  Here, she was directed to me, right next door!  

It didn't even take her six handshakes - in a hop, skip and jump - voila - she found me, a total stranger, yet still the one she was looking for.

You could say that her 'Bacon' number was 3.

What? Bacon number? This comes from the Kevin Bacon experiment. It is said that the actor Kevin Bacon, in a 1994 interview, declared that he had worked with everyone in Hollywood or someone who's worked with them. As a result, three college students invented a parlour game that became known as "Six degrees of Kevin Bacon" after watching two films on television that featured the actor back-to-back. The Bacon number of an actor is the number of degrees of separation they have from Kevin Bacon, as defined by the game.  

Have you ever thought about how far removed you are from the people you see on TV, the people on your route to work or school, some random person on the street?  What if your world was smaller than you imagined?  What if that person who consistently rudely bumps into you at the train station turns out to be the "friend of a friend of a friend?"

It's a small, small world.

How I Learned To Read

How did you learn to read?  That is a question that I never really pondered until recently.  I had gone to my parents house to help clean out their house and found a bin of my things from grade school.  Inside, I found photos, newspaper clippings of events and a book titled The Secret Place and Other Poems.  These all brought a smile to my face as I remembered a sweet time in life and had a good laugh at the book that helped me to learn English. 

Why a good laugh?  The Secret Place and Other Poems looks like it was written in Old English!  It was written in the Initial Teaching Alphabet (ITA) system that used a variant of the Latin language.  The program was piloted at the grade school I attended.  It is a wild system but somehow did not impact my language acquisition during those formative years. 

Watch the video below to learn more about this reading and writing teaching method.  It was developed originally in Britain in the 1960s.  Some schools in the United States implemented it but it never caught on and soon faded out altogether, in both Britain and the United States. 

She ...

She sat in the waiting room. It was filled with patients, queuing at the various reception counters or seated on the cold hard metal chairs.  Each person came in, dutifully went to their respective specialist’s counter and handed in their appointment cards.  Acknowledging that many people had travelled long distances to access this subsidised service, she was prepared for a long wait.  Armed with a puzzle book and pencil she settled in and awaited her turn.

So she sat, and she waited.  She watched people come and go.  Her appointed time came and went, and still she waited.  She could afford to be a patient patient because she was certain that her turn would come.  To pass the time, she toyed with her puzzles, alternating with people-watching.  How much longer would she have to wait?  When would her number come up?  Tick-tock, tick-tock ... and so the time passed.

But sure enough - just as she was sure it would - her number came up and finally it was her turn.

"The two most powerful warriors are patience and time."  

-  Leo Tolstoy

Journal Writing

 My Favorite Quote 

During the Covid lockdowns, I was teaching Science to 5th and 6th graders in Chicago.  The timetable had an odd 20 minutes scheduled in right after lunch, before a specials class. While looking for different activities that would be a good fit and use of educational time for that period, I stumbled across Amy Ludwig VanDerwater's YouTube channel.  I found her videos  engaging, educational and inspiring though they would be a good activity for my class.

Amy recorded episodes on notebook-keeping, from a little camper van she named Betsey, the Writing Camper.  Each week she provided a theme, along with a brainstorm activity and then guided the writer to write on a subject chosen from the brainstorming.

I adapted her videos into PowerPoint presentations to present to my students and chunked up the activity during the course of the week. The children enjoyed the lessons, the routine, and over time, many of them really got into it.

What I enjoyed most was reading what the children wrote.  They were able to write about their own authentic lives while the brainstorming sessions gave them options about what to write. 

Get a notebook, take a look at the presentation and begin writing.   

Amy Ludwig VanDerwater is a teacher and writer who lives in upstate New York. Visit her YouTube channel for more ideas and activities.