Blog
“I want to see communities in which our interactions consistently demonstrate what I call the ‘other four-letter words’: kind, hope, care, love.”
My Book About Coronavirus
During April and May of 2020, I have been gathering my thoughts about the coronavirus pandemic. I have gathered them to make sense of them. For myself. But also, as a speech pathologist, for young people with whom I and my colleagues work. For them, too. I have...
The Composting of Where You’ve Been
Kindness, connection, a ha-ha wall and Banjo Paterson. How my year ended as it began.
This Really Was Something
Mossy Willow Farm is a thriving market garden on the southern coast of Victoria. It uses regenerative, no-till practices and feeds more than 500 people a week. Building nutrient-rich soil is central to Mossy Willow’s methodology, which in turn creates an abundance of...
There is nothing I can do…
I love reading. My pile of reading climbs up and up, not so as to overwhelm me with doubt and despair about my inaction, but to remind me that there is so much to read and I must act whenever and wherever possible. So one of the places I was reading this week...
Courage. Freedom. Retreat. With Dumbo Feather.
This is a wonderful day retreat themed upon the expansive and strengthening concepts of courage and freedom. When: May 10th, 9.00am-7.00pm Where: Mossy Willow Farm, Main Ridge, Vic We are delighted to partner with Dumbo Feather and friends Mossy Willow Farm to provide...
Don’t Eat the Headphones…?
Imagine you needed to be heard and understood without knowing how to go about it? Or even without knowing that you don’t know how to go about it?
“I didn’t know communication could work like that”
I am sitting on my couch reflecting on this time and this day, two years ago. As the 2017 Tasmanian Australian of the Year, I was standing alongside 31 other Australians who had lived their work. Scientists, artists, chefs, and so on. Each, like me,...
Communicating: The Heart of Literacy: The Collection: A Public Dialogue
Kindness: Right & Gracious Necessity
No one is too sophisticated or too lowly for kindness. And no problem is too sophisticated or lowly for it either. Most problems, in fact, arise from not having been benevolently other-minded and responsive from a spirit of brotherhood in the first place. Thus kindness is not a vapid non-answer to world problems, but the life-giving part of all answers.
This is the understanding to make common.
China, Children, Chaos and Kindness (so, what’s new?)
November 13th marks World Kindness Day. When I first realised there was a day set aside to celebrate, contemplate and initiate acts of kindness my immediate reaction was: “Just one day? Is that all?” Of course, I believe in kindness and connection for the other 364...
Nurturing Literacy with Dumbo Feather
Dumbo had it in him to fly... so the story goes. But he needed that potential 'drawn out' by a trusted friend. And so it is with reading and writing. The potential is there in every child to fly in the mastery of these skills. As we tread the path toward a society in...
Educational Attainment & Language Ability
Teachers have to talk. They have 30 students to whom they must relay learning messages, limited time, and any number of distractions which may disrupt the successful delivery of those messages for some or all the class.