Fun & Exciting Stuff

This is very cool. I normally don’t like cabbage, but I wonder what they taste like after being frozen for 100+ years.

This is a great idea for students. We are always saying we want to make dry boring history interesting, illustrating the ideas of communism and why the art director used this type of advertisement would be an interesting way to start a lesson. I knew a teacher who asked kids to make a CD case (I suppose now it would be an iPod play list) of Gandhi’s favorite music as a project. You had to demonstrate why the song would be one of his songs. It was just a different way of getting to the content.

From American Heritage. This is one of those places that isn’t seen by many people. One is the people. J. Adams and J.Q. Adams were not the easiest people to know. They aren’t Washington, being the first or Jefferson, one of the most intelligent, or Lincoln being Lincoln. Also the neighborhood isn’t that great. A lot of expressway and congestion. But well worth the visit if you are in the Boston area.

Well, we are coming down the home stretch. There are 11 weeks left in the school year. A Regents exam is coming up for the 11th grade and a local exam for the 9th graders. Are they ready, I think they would be if they studied.

Exhibit A: Today as part of our Religions project, students needed to identify the founder of Islam. More than five 9th grade students throughout the day asked me who the founder of Islam was. As an outside observer, gentle reader, you would have thought that they had never heard of Islam or “the Islams” as they call this religion. Speaking as one who was there when they learned Islam and graded their tests, I know they were taught it, because I taught it to them.

Now, Is this because, it was 2 months ago, Mr. Potter is boring, history sucks and I have never passed a history class, I have a test tomorrow in science, I forgot to finish my project, I hate gym, this book is too heavy, I can’t find my notes, I won’t use this in the future, etc. etc. Not to mention there have been two week vacations since we learned this, my locker is jammed, my boyfriend isn’t speaking to me, my girlfriends aren’t speaking to me, I need to watch out for the mean girl after school, my parents are always fighting, I don’t have a pencil, my cellphone is going off and someone is supposed to text me directions to the party this weekend, etc.

or

Because their teacher didn’t use the material to properly teach it to them.

or

Because they don’t use the material regularly, we haven’t talked about the Muslim culture since January, they have lost touch with the material.

I don’t know, I can’t really help the first one. But I can work to fix the last two.

“Why do we have to write an essay?”

Ans: Well, these types of essays will be on the final exam, so these are preparation of a sort for the Regents exam.

Will you be asked to recite the cultural changes of the 1920’s in some future job interview? Maybe if it is for a job as “flag pole sitter” down at the “Chaplin & Capone’s Restaurant – Where silence is our business!” Probably not.

I don’t know that there is a correct answer to that question. I think there is a certain level of correctness, for lack of a better word, to my answer. In the immediate future, the final exam carries a certain weight. I can’t change the situation in 3 months, so they are going to have to answer an essay like that.

But I have been having an ongoing conversation with another teacher about how in “teacher” – as we know it will be obsolete within our lifetimes. From the perspective of a student, if, and that is a big “if” knowing some of the students I know, I wanted to learn about the US Civil War, where would I go for information? Would I cycle back through all the worksheets Mr. Potter handed out to me? Go talk to my history teacher? Or would I go here, here, here, here, or here. And those are just web pages. What about blogs, wikis, Twitter-ing a historical expert, etc. etc. And this is a five second Google search + Wikipedia. I could find a good overall gist of the situation pretty quickly.

I go into used book stores when I have time + cash. I think it is a national requirement that they have a copy of American Caesar. My thinking is always that I should buy it. It is something that I am interested in, but I don’t need to be an expert on it and have the background knowledge and be able to connect to the greater concept of WWII. But then one night I came home and did this. More information than I could possibly want. Most of it reliable, but enough that is that I can get a good overall picture of it.

I don’t know that you could become an engineer or a doctor based off of reading Wikipedia, but if you are looking for general information/content, then you could definitely use sources like those.

The skill of writing/communicating obviously has a level of importance. The ability to organize information has another level of importance. But content knowledge has been changing.

Our role as teacher has to adapt to today’s knowledge-level. I don’t know what that is yet, but it is getting late.

I have been asked to teach a new elective class. I have chosen the US Civil War. I am very interested in the subject and very scared that I will screw this up. I am also going to try to incorporate a a field trip into this class. Lot of planning.

Many thanks to NYS Assemblyman Bob Oaks for coming in and speaking to the kids about the Constitution on short notice. He did a great job and we really appreciate it. He spoke for 20 minutes on the role of the Constitution and how the Constitution affected the kids. Next year we are shooting for Sen Robert Byrd, one of the promoters of the Constitution Day Bill.

Number 1 kabillion on the list of unfortunate side effects of the war in Iraq: The President has the ability to start a war. As part of our Constitution unit we review the powers of the different branches and I have a little review checklist as an end of the day activity to refresh their memories. I would say 3/4 of them choose the President as the one who “starts a war”. Congress has to give their approval.

Constitution Day is coming up. We are still struggling to find something that will engage everyone in the Constitution. We’ll see what happens…..

Everything went very smoothly for the first three days. Almost too smoothly. I am waiting for the other shoe to drop. I have done this too many times to know that they can’t stay like this for very long.

With the A and B Schedule, I only saw the 9th grade twice. The one thing I was doing too much of is reading to them. I read the course syllabus, I read the remedial study hall plan, I just read too much. I hated it, they hated it. I moved through it as quickly as possible, but it was just too boring for too long. But it is the early administrative stuff and it has too be done.

I have a lot of kids in one 11th grade section and they are all buddies and can be a difficult group to coral and move towards the same point. They want to go their own way and I am trying to get them to go my own way. So I led off with, literally, the first words out of my mouth were, “You are a big group and we are basically filling this room. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. It is your choice, we can make this a long year for both of us or we can make this an easy year for both of. You decide. I am Mr. Potter and this is US History. Welcome. ” I have never done that before; usually a little more open. They were quiet for awhile and it seemed to work. We just have to keep this moving forward. I need to keep them right where I want them. Let’s see what they look like in November.