Two Kinds of Intelligence

We began our PLI experience with a Rumi poem at the PLI information session.

There are two kinds of intelligence: one acquired,


as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts


from books and from what the teacher says,


collecting information from the traditional sciences


as well as from the new sciences.




With such intelligence you rise in the world.


You get ranked ahead or behind others


in regard to your competence in retaining
information.

You stroll with this intelligence


in and out of fields of knowledge,

getting always more
marks on your preserving tablets.




There is another kind of tablet,

one
already completed and preserved inside you.


A spring overflowing its springbox.

A freshness
in the center of the chest.

This other intelligence
does not turn yellow or stagnate.

It's fluid,
and it doesn't move from outside to inside
through conduits of plumbing-learning.




This second knowing is a fountainhead


from within you, moving out.

--Rumi

Devastation

The way of love is not 
a subtle argument. 



The door there
is devastation. 



Birds make great sky-circles 
of their freedom. 


How do they learn it? 



They fall, and falling,
they're given wings.

--Rumi 

embrace

Happy Bday, Ade!

Acting Principal

My first week as the Site Manager of the Early Education Classes at three sites in San Francisco of largely holding down the fort, largely meeting people and ensuring paperwork. The best part was to engage with the 3- to 4- year old students, who are so cute. The teachers and paraprofessionals are quite dedicated to their charges. In the afternoon, the children take naps and I do paper work-like making sure the licensing forms are up to date.

I did have a false fire alarm on my first day at SF Montessori, where I pretended to be in charge as I followed the clerk around to the fire department and to the construction crew. I realized how important it is to know your people and resources on site and off.

My first week, I had to deal with a little drama between the head custodian, and my staff, who kept walking through the courtyard. She had been trying to set up signs and DO NOT CROSS tape in the courtyard so she could clean it. And it came to a head that she raised her voice to the staff. I too had walked down the stairs through the courtyard. She was upset and I tried to calm her down and asked her what I could do to help her. I asked that she let me know what the access for the EED and school age class would be and we would set that up. I set it up and she seemed grateful. The EED staff gave me an earful. “What we have here is a failure to communicate.” Much of my job is addressing this very issue.

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Happy
Birthday
Pio!