Another winter storm watch is in effect for parts of New England, starting Sunday evening at 7 PM, shortly after kickoff for the Superbowl. I suspect many Patriots fans are hoping for a snow day on Monday, and also hoping, perhaps without the thought having yet crossed their mind, that we don’t lose power during the game. Others will hope that a travel ban doesn’t go into effect until after the game ends.

I am not a big football fan. I’ll watch the game at home with my family. No, we won’t be traveling during the storm. And throughout the storm, I expect that I’ll be working to get the message out about any closings or other considerations for my co-workers.

It is bitter cold outside today, at least by New England standards, with wind chill factors around zero. I did make the trip to the dump, not because there was a lot of trash, but in case I can’t go next week and the trash piles up.

I glance outside as I hear the latest gust and the creaking of the house. I see light snow blowing from roof to drift to driveway.

A child said What is the snow? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.

I’ve spent my day, besides the time I spent going to the dump, resting, and participating in online courses. This afternoon, I read section six of “Song of Myself” and watched a video of teachers talking about the poem. Leaves of Grass, Banks of Snow.

As I listen to the teachers speak, the words of Emerson come to mind:

Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views, which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books.

Are these teachers, critiquing Whitman as a teacher about grass forgetting Whitman’s educational experience, who ended his formal schooling at age eleven?

I made it further. I didn’t end my formal education until I was twenty, just shy of getting a college degree. Yet I find my thoughts about education closer to those of Emerson and Whitman, perhaps tinted with a little Piaget, Papert, and now, perhaps, George Siemens.

Besides the Whitman class that I’m taking online, I’m taking a course on Teaching with Moodle. As part of the class, I needed to set up my own course using Moodle, so I set up Moodle and Connectivism. The course, currently, has a link to Siemens’ paper, and a sample quiz and assignment; the parts of the course needed for the teaching course.

Of course, it is something that I’m constructing as I go, and learn more about Connectivism. It is also set up for other students to connect in, so that we can all learn together, and perhaps that is part of what Whitman is talking about anyway.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?

“All goes onward and outward…”