This week on Curious Quotes and Universal Themes we delve into the concept of POWER! As Marvel comic creator Stan Lee advised us, "With great power there must also come -- great responsibility!" The choices available for this week's theme were a bit overwhelming. Let's just say that there are a great deal of people who have shared their ideas about power. Let's take a closer look at these five quotes from Herodotus, Alice Walker, Amanda Gorman, James Baldwin, and Mahatma Gandhi. 

This week on Curious Quotes and Universal Themes we take a closer look at PATTERNS. We use patterns to try and make sense out of the world around us. If everything were constantly presented randomly, then we would be cognitively exhausted trying to determine what is going to come next. Although, if things were always presented randomly, then even that would be a pattern. 

This week on Curious Quotes when continue our quest with the Universal Theme of ORDER VS CHAOS! Let me begin by saying that this topic proved to be much more difficult for me than previous themes. First, I wasn't sure whether to focus my attention on order or on chaos. I wound up trying to keep my mind on both of them at the same time and considering the relationship between each. In the end, I think chaos may have won out. 

This week on Curious Quotes & Universal Themes, we examine FORCE with five new slides featuring quotes from Yoda, Rachel Carson, Sir Issac Newton, Albert Einstein, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Let's start by taking a look at this set of four generalizations dealing with force. 

Well, it's Week Three of Curious Quotes & Universal Themes. As I was gathering inspiration from Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, I was reminded that I had already posted five slides on the topic. This week we will revisit those five and introduce five brand new quotes from Ernest Shackleton, Richard Branson, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Lisa Randall, and Laura Linney. 

It's Week Two of Curious Quotes & Universal Themes. This week we take a look at CONFLICT. These days there's more than enough of that to go around. This post is being published on the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday in 2021. So, let's start with a BONUS quote from MLK that focuses on an opposite of conflict -- peace. 

Welcome to 2021! It's already been a year, and it's only January 11th. I took some time, and by some I mean a LOT of time away from a great number of things at the end of 2020. I have been looking around and carefully considering what I want to pick back up for the new year. With that in mind, I am introducing SEASON THREE of Curious Quotes, Points to Ponder, and Inspiring Insights. This season focus on Universal Themes & Generalizations. I imagine that many of you are familiar with the concept and probably already employ this strategy in your learning environment. My hope here is that this will be of some benefit to you and your students. 

It's FALL! Normally, that would mean that I was about to pack my bags and gear up to spend a lot of time in airports, hotels, and conference centers, but it's 2020. So, everything is a little different this year. Sadly, there won't be any new #CarpetDiem photos to share. Instead, I will be spending a lot of time in front of my computer presenting virtually. 

The Virtual Insanity 2020 Fall Tour kicks off this Saturday, October 3rd with a Gifted 360 Reunion with the Arizona Association for Gifted and Talented. Over the course of 2 months, I've got a dozen events on the schedule. I'm excited to share some brand new material and to launch the next Gifted 360 course. It's called Designing Personalized Learning Experiences. I think it is really good, and the type of resource that I wished that I had when I was a teacher of the gifted. 

While I will miss the travel this fall, the Virtual Insanity Tour offers a rather unique opportunity for you. In the past, you probably only ever thought to attend a conference in your own state. With everything being online, you now have access to conferences from anywhere! I've presented in 40 states, and I can tell you that there are some great opportunities to learn out there. So, take a look at the lineup I have here and consider registering for a conference that is virtually out of state. 

I hope to see you online soon! 

If you have an upcoming conference or are in need of professional learning, please keep me in mind. I have lots of options available, and I am happy to share. 

I selected the themes for Season Two of Curious Quotes, Points to Ponder, and Inspiring Insights based on the finalists for the naming of NASA's 2020 Mars Rover. While the rover was named Perseverance, the technology demonstration project is named Ingenuity and is literally a helicopter designed to fly over the surface of Mars collecting data and providing views never seen before. I am more than a little excited to see what this is going to look like. With that in mind, I was really looking forward to having a week of quotes on the topic of Ingenuity. It turns out there are not a ton of great quotes on the subject. I felt pretty limited and to push my creativity even further, I decided to limit myself to a single font this week. Let's jump into the beauty that is American Typewriter and Ingenuity. 

It's WEEK FIVE of Curious Quotes Season Two. This week's theme is CLARITY. As I was looking for this week's quotes, it occurred to me that quotes about clarity tend to be a lot longer than I usually care to use for this project. I suppose that explaining clarity just requires a lot of words. Which is rather ironic. To reduce the visual noise, I tried to keep the slides as clean and clear as possible. So here are five quotes from Pericles, Mies van der Rohe, Diane von Ferstenberg, Wynton Marsalis, and Vincent Van Gogh.