"....break them out of their narrowness."

Harvard professor Laurel Thatcher Ulrich on the use of the tangible in academic study. Here is an exerpt from the Harvard Gazette on Objects of Instruction

While Hamburger and Galison focused on the rare and the remarkable in Harvard’s collections, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, the 300th Anniversary University Professor, and Ivan Gaskell, Margaret S. Winthrop Curator in theHarvard Art Museums and senior lecturer on history, extolled the virtues of the mundane and the everyday: a toothbrush, a chair, a piece of clothing. “My adventure has been to move into the realm of material objects and use them to study ordinary people in ordinary life,” Ulrich said.

Ulrich, the developer of the popular General Education course and exhibition “Tangible Things,” stood at the front of the classroom and pulled a quilt out of an old bookcase. The quilt, which was made in Missouri during the 1920s, was designed with dark blue hexagons. She said that she had students research the source of the design, which led them back hundreds of years to a study of Islamic decorative art, its migration through Europe and then to America. An examination of the cloth and its manufacture in the American South took students through the history of slavery.

Ulrich said that she wanted her students to work with artifacts to “break them out of their narrowness” and help them make connections between unrelated things like a quilt made in Missouri and an Islamic tile.

Observation is such an important part of learning. Connections: one era to an another. Everything repeats. We are inspired by the past. Read and See. See and Do. Listen. Start each day with the idea of learning something new. When I am in a funk and nothing seems to be working out I remember my mantra: make each day matter. What I mean by this is to use my senses to keenly observe the world around me. I am pleasantly surprised by something I discover. Small joys. All for free. Just open your eyes, your ears, your heart and you too will be amazed by a little nugget of wisdom or joy.

“You see cultural contact and exchange in ways that you cannot see in books and writing,” she said. “Students get really excited when you put them in touch with real stuff.”

A few weeks ago I visited my father in Massachusetts.

As I walked to his front door I noticed a large tree limb on the ground;

a victim of one of the blizzards.

On my second walk by the fallen limb, I noticed all the buds.

It was 18 degrees outside; I was shivering and thinking about spring.

Looking at the tree limb, I had a sudden impulse to snip branch after branch with my cold, bare hands and stuff the branches into the back of my car.

To some, I probably looked like a madwoman.

My plan was to force them to blossom at my house.

Instant Spring!

Later I wondered whether the branches would ever bloom since

the limb was severed several weeks earlier.

But the tree was in its winter hibernation.

So I recut the branches when I got back home,

smashed the ends with a hammer to help the branches draw in the water,

and just when I was thinking nothing would happen,

I saw a change.

I was not sure what flowers would emerge from the woody stems.

My father has not lived in this apartment for a long time, so I am not familiar with all the trees.

The apartment building is an old school building that dates back to the early 20th century.

It was converted to apartments years ago.

This tree is outside my father's living room window.

I vaguely remembered pretty flowers.

Now these lovely flowers have blossomed in my kitchen.

Check out these beautiful apple blossoms.

A perfect tree to grow outside a school.

In fact, I have always thought

that my father's apartment was the principal's office,

because of the high ceilings, large windows and steps in the apartment.

(I imagine these steps led to the principal's inner sanctum.)

Makes sense that an apple tree would be just outside the principal's window.

These flowers make me smile each morning when I stumble downstairs

to feed the dog before dawn

and

again

each night when I come home

from a long day,

well after sunset.

The beauty of nature and its power to impress, surprise, delight

is amazing.

Spring is coming

as soon as the floods end...

rivers are raging,

roofs are leaking,

basements are wet

but the grass will be green

and the trees will be strong

and the flowers will be abundant.

Patience.

I am not what people call a helicopter parent. I just miss hearing about the daily doings from my daughter who went off to college two weeks ago. So I read the online campus newspaper to keep up with the action. I watched a two minute piece on the freshman convocation, class of 2014; the band played, the President spoke, the glee clubs sang, and my eyes welled up with tears.

The President of the college urged students to leave their “comfort zones,” and take risks. The purpose of your education, she said, is to make students familiar with the process of exploration and the mistakes and missteps that accompany it.

She went to say: “Find that part of you that will take a chance on an idea or an ideal, the part of you that is willing to fail … Our job is to help make this willingness for risk and invention become second nature to you, so that your idea of success includes some failure, so that you allow yourselves to become uncomfortable as you try new things.”

I love this advice for young people. You never know what you will find out about yourself or your world unless you just go for it...explore new territory... dig deep ... take a leap ... the net usually appears and if not, well you learned something. To our next group of leaders and doers. Cheers and hurrah! xo m

To carry on with the Children's Book Week theme....

Have you ever read the Inchmark Journal by Brooke Reynolds?

It is wonderful...

Periodically, there is post on library books

Here are some sample pictures from a recent post.

I love to follow the small hands

and imagine these sweet children reading their library books.

Takes me back to the library visits with Miss Is.

Our public library is a terrific resource.

library book photos from Inchmark Journal

Last season, I made these terrific frames and memento boards...

piles of books with titles like Good Night Moon

and

the wonderful zzzzzzzzz

I have lots of this fabric left

and

I have a great idea

I am going to make library book bags

a great way to tote all those great picture books home

and

a great way to keep them organized at home so they do not go missing...

more to come...

a summer project.

Finally, to end Children's Book Week, I toast my Hermione!

WELL DONE!!!

WE ARE VERY PROUD OF YOU.

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.^®

The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor is one of my favorite sites. Every morning I am greeted with a poem and then a few interesting stories about authors. I highly recommend this daily morning ritual - what better way to start the day... a few of the poems have made it to my office wall... a little inspiration goes a long way.

And here is another daily read via little augury - read this book in daily installments courtesy of Diane Von Furstenburg ... no excuses for not reading a book - just catch snippets at your desk while you are reading other e-mail - it is like a piece of candy...

A few months ago I posted about the Squam Art Workshops

and today I discovered a few bloggers who just returned from a wonderful 

three days in the woods, by the lake,

knitting, stitching, painting and lots more 

this workshop is going on my dream board...

in the "sometime category"

Find creativity, inspiration,friendship, and beauty 

in the woods of New Hampshire

Imagine art all day long

in a beautiful camp-like setting

on the cleanest lake in New Hampshire

surrounded by mountains

here is one of the cabins

called Studio

RDC is a family camp established 100 years ago.

Families go back summer after summer

We stayed in this cabin for one week many years ago

and also the lodge in the top photo.

In the off season RDC hosts different groups

like the Squam Art Camps or a corporate retreat

Posie Gets Cozy wrote about this art camp here

The camps are run in June and September.

I wish I could go,

maybe another year.