Every Disney movie seems to have one or both of these messages: be true to yourself, and follow your dreams. As with all cliches, there's a grain of truth.

Today I read this sentence in The Tao of Teaching: "Reach out to find points of empathy with all your students. Encourage them and find ways to provide equal attention with positive language and a sense of personal responsibility."

During our weekly SSR (Sustained Silent Reading) period on Tuesday, I read the chapter in Greta Nagel's book The Tao of Teaching with the above title. Then I re-read it. Then I re-re-read it. Then I re-re-re-read it. And then I sat and thought about it.

We spent a happy hour today in my World Civ class discussing Einstein's theory of relativity. Why, you ask, when we were supposed to be learning about the Age of Exploration?

I hesitate to call any book on teaching my "bible", but this one comes pretty close. It's by Greta Nagel, published 1994 by Primus (ISBN 1-55611-415-X). I like to re-read it every year or so, and it's amazing how much it continues to resonate with me.

That's what my fortune cookie today said. Really.

Yes, the summer is almost over and school is starting Very Soon Now (like next week). And I do have the fortune cookie Google gadget on my iGoogle page, and that's really what it said!

My basic complaint with fortune cookies is that they don't usually tell your fortune. They have some generic character trait like "you smile very much". But the one in the title is really a prophecy. And having done this school thing for a long time, I can testify to its veracity.

I'm starting this post by assuming you know who Seymour Papert is. But since I don't know who will read this, maybe I shouldn't. Papert is, in my opinion, one of the greatest minds in education of the last 100 years. A former MIT professor of mathematics, he has always been fascinated with how children learn. He is the inventor of the Logo programming language (and turtles!), a chief force behind the OLPC initiative, and an outspoken proponent for developing a sense of wonder in education, as well as a fierce opponent of all "education" that kills that sense of wonder.

Three weeks of intense robot-filled days are over, and I'm back in hazy, hot and humid Lancaster County. What was my takeaway?

My main takeaway is that I'm more a believer than ever in learning by doing. Obviously, there are some topics in Lego robotics that require more of a traditional approach (I'm thinking mainly of variables and data wires here). But for the most part, the main learning occurred when I laid out a challenge for the students and let them come up with their own ways to meet it.

I'm just starting a 3-week stint as an instructor of Lego robotics in a day camp. The participants in my course are 14 11-12 year olds. All boys (surprise!). I did this last year, and we had a blast. Really, what's better than having ALL DAY to play with robots? Answer: nothing.

Not forever. Sorry, Alice.

But today is the official last day of school for teachers. Time to write the comments, clean the classroom, and start the summer "schedule". While I'm definitely looking forward to some R&R, I actually am more eager to catch up with blogging, reading about Drupal, taking a grad course online, planning some 21st century stuff for classes for next year, brainstorming about using e-portfolios... The list goes on.

I hope to post my thinking out loud as the summer goes on.