Stones of Erasmus — Just plain good writing, teaching, thinking, doing, making, being, dreaming, seeing, feeling, building, creating, reading
18.8.22
Book Review: A Tangled Mercy by Joy Jordan-Lake

30.7.22
Musings and Photos: On First Meetings and How I Sort-Of Allude to Peekaboo in a Serious, Philosophy-Minded Kind of Way
In this post, I free associate about first meetings, love, and God knows what else!
Sometimes you have to lie back down on the concrete to see what's up there.
There’s something potentially powerful in a first meeting, So, which is why, if you watch like, um, Pre-K students or Kindergarten students, there's a struggle, a challenge in adapting to others because it's strange. It's not mother’s face; it's not home. It's not the womb. It's not the place where you grew up. It's not, it's not that, you know, and that's why like child psychologists or developmental psychologists will talk about like, um, the experiences of the young child, right before they go to school, where they, where they, um, experienced this back and forth between I'm scared; I'm safe; I'm welcomed. I'm, uh, I'm terrified; I'm. . . I'm taken in; I'm comforted, right? So this, like, gets encapsulated in the childhood game of like peekaboo. I'm here. I'm not there. So presence and absence. Um, and for me, you know, I can tap into some deep psychic shit, you know, like something, this, I can feel, like a child, when that love object is absent. I mean, it's such a strong visceral feeling, which is why I think first love for a teenager or a young adult can be so powerful and rip you apart. I mean, I can remember just longing for somebody who I was in love with, you know, wanting to be with them. And when I wasn't with them, it just was this physical feeling of absence. Um, so that's real. I mean, that's like kick to the gut emotion. Um, and perhaps you get out into the world — for me, moving from small town Louisiana to Europa to a Benedictine monastery (yes, that happened), to New York and the world again, I'm not sure what happens, but you get used to the pain — of that — of this — world. Offers or you take, or you look for; or, you pine. Are you able, you're able to sort of like sublimate, whatever you lost, what will you able to like, not replace, but you're able to sort of like transmute, whatever you lost into something new. Right? That's what art is. That's what creativity is and all that kind of stuff. Um, but going back to this original idea of like, when the, the potential power in a first meeting, right, the potential power there is, and just meeting someone for the first time, you know, um, uh, it can be such a satisfactory experience, right?
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Photos (Read From Left and Clockwise): Women in Red Dresses in Flushing; Getting off the LIRR in Port Washington; Two Dead Fish; A Fishmonger and His Assistant |

28.7.22
Teaching Peter and the Wolf: 2006 Oscar Winning Suzie Templeton Short Film
A typical day of learning in Mr. Roselli's English Language Arts classroom. |

25.7.22
Journal Entry #2502022: I Woke Up This Morning on a Hot, Summer Day in Queens and I Fiddled
On Astoria Boulevard in Queens, there is a mural of a 7 subway train car; The author notes, "As I waited for my take-out, I snapped a picture of the fish in the aquarium. Life is good." |

22.7.22
Heat Stroke Diary #34876: The Summer of 2022 and My Oscillating Fan is on High Alert
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Collage of the Author Created During the Heatwave of 2022. |

14.7.22
Aesthetic Thursday: "You Got Color, Girl?" Chroma Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
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Greig poses in front of a young Marcus Aurelius in the Ancient Greek and Roman wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. |
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Marble head of the youthful Marcus Aurelius ca. C.E. 138. |
But go to a museum today, and you see staid marble and what appears to be a vast collection of grays, browns, and three-dimensional black and white photographs. But the pigments and paints decay. And the weathering of the seasons and the march of time have made most color drain away.
But the coloration is still there, in small traces — which the Chroma exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art has attempted to recapture — to see ancient artworks in color again. Alas, you won’t see the now lost statue of Zeus at Olympia, but you will see that same artist’s head of Athena, which at one time had ebony eyes. I especially liked the bronze warriors. And the Sphinx in color was fantastic.
If you have a moment and you are in New York — take a moment and experience these reconstructions done by Prof. Dr. V. Brinkmann & Dr. U. Koch-Brinkmann. @metmuseum @metgreekandroman
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Reconstruction of a marble portrait of the Emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, known as Caligula, Variant B. |
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[1] Reconstruction the bronze statue from the Quirinal in Rome of the so-called Terme Rule. [2] Reconstruction of bronze Riace Warrior (mid-view detail). |

2.7.22
110+ Listings — Let's Celebrate! With the Release of the Stones of Erasmus Educational Digital Download Catalog (as of Summer 2022)
In this post, I reveal how well-organized I am and as a result, you now have a bird's eye view of every educational digital download available in my TpT store.
"Thank you for scaffolding the reading into manageable reading chunks and providing writing opportunities."
- Margie
"Love [your] products! Very thought-provoking. I used [it for] distance learning with students in zoom class."
- Aron
So, there you go.
Stones of Erasmus Catalog
as of Summer 2022
- Map & Geography Skills resources
- Geography Skills Lesson: Ready-to-Use Worksheet with Blank World Map
- Map Activity: Complete a Day in the Life of Socrates in Athens (411 B.C.E.).
- Map Skills Lesson: Use Census Data about Ethnic Communities in New York City
- Poetry Lessons and Activities
- Ancient Hebrew Poetry
- Ancient Egyptian Poetry
- Visualizing the Industrial Revolution Through Poetry
- Literary Terms & Vocabulary Instruction, Et Cetera
- Complete Philosophy in the Classroom Series
- Discuss the Marshmallow Test: Minilesson
- Socrates at the Piraeus: Introductory lesson on Plato's Republic
- * The Ring of Gyges (Glaucon's Argument from Republic)
- Plato's Allegory of the Cave Base Lesson (from Republic) —
- Plato's Myth of Er (from Republic)
- Plato's Origin of Love (from Symposium)
- Plato's Origin of Virtue (from Protagoras)
- The Problem of Evil (Theodicy lesson)
- Nietzsche's Parable of the Madman (Philosophy of Religion)
- Complete Mythology in the Classroom Series
- * What is Myth?: Introductory Lesson
- Deucalion and Pyrrha (Ancient Greek Flood Myth)
- Pyramus and Thisbe (Babylonian Myth)
- Gods and Goddesses
- The Birth of the Goddess Athena (Parthenogenesis)
- Athena as Mentor in The Odyssey
- Movie-Tie Ins
- Mythology Graphic Organizers and Charts (& Assessments)
- Compare and Contrast Myths (Graphic Organizer and Tracker)
- Mythology-Themed Writing Paper
- Hinduism Summative Assessment (Unit Test)
- Writing Graphic Organizers and Skills Practice
- Sharing and Presenting Student Writing: Idea Toolbox
- Diagnostic Essay Writing Assessment (for ESL)
- * General English Language Exams: Long & Short Versions (ESL)
- Complete Quotes in the Classroom Series
- * Quotes in the Classroom: On Judging Appearances
- * Quotes in the Classroom: On Who to Bestow Your Talents
- * Quotes in the Classroom: On Living Life to the Fullest
- * Quotes in the Classroom: On Boredom
- Short Story Discussion Guide
- Non-Fiction Study Unit
- Stamped: Racism, Antiracism & You by Ibram Kendi and Jason Reynolds: Stamped Discussion Guide and Reading Protocol
- Summer Reading Campaigns
- Animated Short Film Viewing Guide
- Peter and the Wolf © 2006 Oscar-Winning Short Film
- Writing a Movie Review
- Novel Unit
- Bonus Resources
- Help Students Cope with Stress: Activity and Guide
- * Tutorial: Create Worksheets with "Forced Copy"
