history

Half the class will don funny hats and call themselves pilgrims. Another group will wear feathers in their hair and brown paper-bag vests to be “Indians.” One unlucky soul will portray the ill-fated turkey in this yearly reenactment of the First Thanksgiving in primary classrooms across the US. This type of role-playing simplifies the relationship between these English colonists and the Wampanoag People. This type of play teaches young students good lessons about perseverance and cooperation, but often glosses over the challenges and sacrifices that are part of the history of the First Thanksgiving.

The past six months has seen a renaissance of superheroes, particularly in feature films such as The Green Lantern, Captain America, and Thor.  The final installment of the Harry Potter movies, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, however, does not feature a superhero, but instead a hero in the classic sense – one who completes his quest and hence concludes his archetypal heroic journey. In completing his quest, Harry joins the pantheon of archetypal heroes such as Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Huckleberry Finn, Luke Skywalker, and many others.

Movie day!  Students love to be entertained, and teachers love the chance to sit back and breathe a sigh of relief (or tackle that giant pile of grading).  No lectures to take notes on, just a passive viewing of a movie in a nice, dark, cool classroom, right?  I hope not.  I hope we can find simple ways to use movies in class as more than just entertainment.  Instead, movies can engage students and inspire thoughtful, critical thinking about current classroom topics.

The cover of my newest Popular Science announces the 5th annual Inventions of the Year. As I read through some of the ideas, I wonder why I didn’t think of them! The inventions, including a handheld bedbug sniffer, armored stun gloves, and prenatal disease-detecting pens, were mostly developed in peoples’ homes and school laboratories. About half of the featured inventions were created by students, again leading me to wonder how we can inspire students to develop a lifelong drive to create and innovate.

"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically... Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education."
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Every year in the weeks between Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and Black History Month, teachers produce lesson plans and activities on the subject of race and racism. It’s an important topic, and one that is hopefully addressed throughout the school year as needed, rather than relegated to a six-week period each year. Still, the subject of race can present a challenge to many teachers, especially in a racially diverse classroom where misunderstandings can easily bloom.

Thanksgiving in America is a time for students and teachers to take a little break from school to reflect on the history of our country and to give thanks for all that we have. For many, it’s a time to take a vacation where we eat WAY too much and get up at crazy hours of the morning to get a head start on the Christmas shopping! In an attempt to help students understand the origin and the meaning of the holiday, many teachers teach Thanksgiving lessons during the time before the holiday. Some teachers choose to focus on the gratitude associated with the season, hoping to instill some of that thankfulness in their students. Other teachers choose to focus more on the historical events in the United States that inspired the holiday.

I pretty much haven’t met a holiday that I didn’t like, but Thanksgiving is kind of special. It’s relatively low-key, and the notion of taking some time to really appreciate what we have – and to give thanks for it – is a winning notion. Each day most of us relentlessly multitask in order to wring the most benefit out of every possible millisecond. Some of us juggle work that needs to be reviewed and graded, attend to student needs, coach sports teams, and oversee a host of other activities. Many of us live from deadline to deadline (and paycheck to paycheck) and generally run on all cylinders from dawn to late night. It’s hard – modern life is hardly the days of leisure predicted by 19th century futurists.

I love to read success stories like the one Joann shared about the new music teacher at her school. It’s wonderful to see a music teacher step out of their comfort zone to bring the love of music to students, but what about schools like the ones in my town that don’t have a music program at all? How far does a regular classroom teacher have to step out of their comfort zone to successfully bring some kind of music education into an already-crowded curriculum?

The resources Joann featured this week are fun examples of how to include interactive maps in your classroom. If you haven’t checked them out yet, you should. Really…who hasn’t wondered where they would end up if they tunneled through the earth? All three resources would be great for a geography classroom, and an interactive piracy map could tie in well in a history class or even an English class if you are reading about pirates.