A trip in the clouds

We took off at 6:35 PM 9/12/09 on a cloudy rainy day from Manchester, New Hampshire. Clouds low in the sky, maybe only 500 feet off the ground. We were at probably a 45 degree angle and climbing surprisingly smoothly and swiftly through the cream soup fog seeing nothing.

I could barely see the end of the airplane wing. I wondered if we'd break through and see the sun after such a rainy day in New Hampshire. But it was a long ride before it started to get light. The cloud cover was really thick.

I have never flown through clouds this thick and broken through to landlike topography in the clouds., This is white and blue with popcorn clusters spread as far as the eye can see. Care Bear Land. You could easily walk over this rippled surface of hills and valleys.

The clouds are all at different levels, maybe a mile apart looking down. The ones closest to the window go by faster than the ones farther down. All the levels are passing by at different speeds. A few holes allow a look all the way down to the dark ground..

There is a special effect with the setting sun and angle of the cloud's shadows. There are stratus and cumulus clouds miles high, wavy ones that look like the rippled bottom of the ocean. Some are smooth and a little swirly like wheat being blown in the mid west farms.

Blues and white light change at certain levels, look almost pinky golden skin color..

I can't stop looking because as we travel west the thick clouds extend forever. Far in the distance is a giant anvil, one sticking up far above the stratus fields like a slightly slanted butte. Miles high.

It's getting grayer down below but with different shades of gray that show the contours in the folds and bumps. The many layers give an unusual depth perception.

Right now as we head a little bit south the whole sky all the way to the horizon is popcorn looking clouds in undulating mass. Still the higher wispier clouds, sort of sheer are closer to the window and go by faster giving a constant reminder that this isn't a flat picture. Above us is a circle rainbow. I've never seen one. The very thin cirrus clouds way, way up veil the setting sun. The bright round right-in-the-eyes sunshine dances over the tops of the clouds showing a blue shadow or pink gold as it puts on another blanket of slanted light..

Hills tare ouched by the sun, and valleys are bathed in blue or gray shadow, and there in the middle is a baby cloud just hanging by itself going by faster because it's closer than the ones below giving the whole scene it's 3-D image.

Sunset is at about 7 PM on the ground but up here at 26,000 feet we have a few more minutes.

It's an ocean now as we start the descent and are eye to eye level with the tops of the cloud sea. The sun directly in my eyes now as it sets with the cloud horizon. We sink into the gray and whi

Now a gold path from me to the sunset.at 7:10 as the sun sinks below the cloud line. .

At eye level or a little below the spikes or tips of the clouds are defined with the sun just nicking them off the top. Wow. Thick seas above and black evening below. I want to draw it. I want to walk on it or swim in it. I take a picture but I know it won't do it justice. Well, dreams are made of this.

Princeton Friends School and reunions

What do people do at reunions? Eat fabulous famous family meals, talk about what they are doing and play sports! We played tennis, went horseback riding and swimming in the pool. I am very lucky to have a great sister-in-law who has this place outside of Philadelphia. But what did I learn today? I am not a half bad tennis player when I thought I was pretty bad. I guess the recent playing 3 times a week is making a difference. Any time you want to do something well you have to do it a lot. Eventually I am hoping my writing will improve with this project. Especially as I tell you more about myself and my teaching experiences in the past and the ones I'll have this year around the country. A little more about Princeton Friends School. It was mentioned as one of the best examples of progressive education following some of the principles of excellent teaching because much of the curriculum within the yearly theme is directed by children. There are also yearly events. One that I remember so well is a Story Telling Festival. Every student with workshops on performing and speaking and lots of theater games learns a story to tell to a group of parents and teachers over the period of about 2 weeks. Students don't memorize the words they learn the plot and points of the story and tell it with expression, accents, sound effects, gestures, and movement. If they enter the school in kindergarten they do 9 stories by the time they graduate at the end of 8th grade. Each year they improve and learn much about literature as they search for their story the want to retell and much about themselves as they perform. That's just one of the experiences that students have at PFS. Not only is there a story festival at PFS, but they also visit other schools and classrooms in the area to tell their stories. More later Must run for another fabulous meal. Ciao

I am wiped! All day in a multi-media technology library course at Plymouth State U. which has a state of the art library. I am there to learn to produce and design materials for the classroom. BUT almost everything in the world is copyrighted. We all just choose to ignore most of it. That was today's lesson. We can take a photo and use it in our final multi-media projects. Or we can use like 3 pages of a book with sound overlays or we can compose our own music and use that. Google images... - copyrighted... and really shouldn't be used in the classroom. All songs, Youtube, shouldn't use. The public domain is almost nonexistent. Everyone should be reading the fine print, but no one does. So for this course as a teacher/librarian we have to follow the rules. All video on the Internet is basically off limits unless we get copyright permission. Many copyright clearinghouses have a membership fee so it is nearly impossible to get it. We'll be studying copyright more than production of materials. It's incredible. But I am zipping off to West Chester outside of Philadelphia for a family reunion right now. More on all of this later. Monday I will be visiting my old favorite school, Princeton Friends School. I'll tell you all about it.

Today is the first day of my post, but everyone must have the first fateful jump-off-and-do-it day. My 15 year old dog, Elizabeth is curled up by my side. I have a year to follow my quest. My mission is to write about a year in the life of a teacher explorer who looks at all kinds of places of teaching and learning, from the great outdoors to libraries to travel to other school settings. My travels will take me to my own public elementary school in Portsmouth. NH to a Boston Public Middle School (Bill Gates school), a Quaker School in Princeton, NJ, an MBA program at the Flagler school at U. of North Carolina, a garden learning center, a preschool nature's classroom school. You'll see it all this year right here ... coming soon. At Plymouth State College in New Hampshire I am taking a course to get up to speed with technology. Pictures are the key and pretty soon I'll get some good ones up to brighten this forlorn looking blog. I really want the web site that can be run and designed each day ... in its time. Monday I am going to Princeton Friends School in Princeton, NJ www.princetonfriendsschool.org (K-8) where I taught some time ago (c.1993) when the school was only 3 years old with 21 students. It now has a new building and is expanding with about 100 students. Friends schools are Quaker, like the one the Obama girls go to in DC. The first day I walked into the school it was obvious the school would do well with the kind of deep thinking and active curriculum they were doing. This place is special, truly remarkable because of what they do: imaginative fun curriculum that is centralized around a year lon theme , how they teach: intensely, intelligently, actively, and what they expect: homework, memorization, acting, thoughtful math problem of the week, and family involvement academically. Some of the highlights of the school are its central study theme that is carried through the year. One year they had rivers and streams, another was bridges and walls. Pictures are necessary and I will get them on Monday. The director of the school is Jane Fremon who began the school with an idea after graduating in the first coed class from Princeton University. I'll keep you posted. Deb