For Teachers of Students Who Don't Ask Questions

While reading Peter Kreeft's book, Socratic Logic, I came across this anecdote that all teachers will appreciate:

There is a story that Aristotle, after one of his lectures, was disappointed that his students had no questions afterwards, so he said, "My lecture was about levels of intelligence in the universe, and I distinguished three such levels: gods, men, and brutes.  Men are distinguished from both gods and brutes by questioning, for the gods know too much to ask questions and the brutes know too little.  So if you have no questions, shall I congratulate you for having risen to the level of the god, or insult you for having sunk to the level of brutes?"

A Post from an iPod?

If this actually works then I just made a blog post from an iPod Touch using Blogpress Lite.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod

Re-Introduction

Welcome

Ok, so it's hard to record audio podcasts in a busy house where there is no such thing as a quiet corner. Therefore, One Catholic Life is going to switch to a traditional blog with occasional audio and video podcasts. For those of you that are discovering One Catholic Life for the first time, welcome to my story. Here is the guiding principal of this blog:

• Your life and my life are gifts from God.
• God's gifts are extraordinary.
  
• Therefore, our lives are extraordinary, no matter how mundane or typical they may seem from the outside.
  

Every day I wake up and remind myself that life is beautiful. The trick is to recognize the extraordinary and celebrate it.

Pardon the repetition for those of you who started following my life last year, but I'd like to put something about myself in writing for new readers. I'm a father of four (two high school boys and two young daughters), a husband of almost 19 years (to my beautiful wife Brenda), a teacher, vice principal and technology coordinator at a Catholic elementary school, and an inquirer into the diaconate program in our diocese.

From the outside, our life looks about as average as can be: two boys, two girls, stable marriage, middle class jobs--not what you'd call diverse or unusual. And yet, each day brings with it its own special graces. No one's life is ordinary, despite how it might look when compared to the over dramatized lives on television.

Sometimes I'll write about what's going on in my present life, and other times I'll write about the past. To help me write about my childhood I'll be using a book my boys gave to me many years ago called A Father's Legacy, edited by Terri Gibbs. It poses questions to be answered during the course of a year. Needless to say, I'm a bit off the yearly schedule.

Mostly, though, I'll just write whatever I feel like writing. And maybe, if I write well enough, you'll come to see that your life is extraordinary too.

OLC#006v - Snow Storm Video

Heavy snowfall on December 19, 2008.

OLC#005 - Air Traffic Controller Strike and My Dad

A spontaneous, sometimes rambling answer to the question of what my dad for a living as I was growing up.

OCL#004 - Snow Day!

Today's show was recorded live from our backyard during a snow day.

OCL#003 - Catholic Charities, Germans from Russia and Bomb Shelters

Today I talk about the 100 Ways in 100 Days celebration organized by Catholic Charities of Spokane, and answer the question, "Describe your childhood home," which leads me to talk about Germans from Russia and living with a bomb shelter.