The Virginia Senate race in 1994 was a truly astonishing contest. The incumbent two-term senator was a Democrat, Chuck Robb, the son-in-law of Lyndon Johnson and former governor of the state. Robb probably had presidential aspirations at some point, but his utter lack of charisma and his lackluster campaign skills which on are full display …
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Civil Unrest: From the Comfort of My Easy Chair
Over the last couple of days watching civil rights protests devolve into violence (I’ll leave aside the arguments about the overreaction and complicity of police and National Guard troops and the possibility of agitators, be they white supremacists or Antifa), I was reminded of the last time something like this occurred on this scale. It …
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Week in Review (May 24-30, 2020)
This week was Bob Roberts week in AP Gov. As I wrote about on Monday, a minority of my students appreciated the film, but I’ve reconciled myself to that. A handful liked it a lot, and some didn’t exactly like it but were struck by the parallels to politics in the current era. I’ll take …
US History: Canvas and Peer Review
I’m still working out the kinks with the process, but one positive that has come out of distance learning is starting to explore the power of the Canvas learning management system (LMS). I am using the free-for-teachers level of service and it’s already far beyond what my needs/desires are. My district doesn’t have a standard …
The Princeton Model United Nations Nightmare
In the mid-1990s, Chris Ryalls and I took over advising the Model United Nations from Bernadette Coyle. Her activity was limited to two trips: the YMCA Model United Nations in Hershey, Pennsylvania and the Princeton Model United Nations in Princeton. Last week I wrote about Hershey, so naturally this week is my Princeton blog. I …
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The Value of High Stakes Testing
After railing against the Advanced Placement exams for the past month or so, the headline might come as a bit of surprise to my half dozen regular readers. I’m not talking about the AP exams nor the SATs, but good old fashioned midterms and final exams. This year my district decided to do away with …
Tuesday Talk… with Danielle Robinson Hicks, HHS 1996
When I was considering former students to interview, I cast my mind back to the first decade of my career and thought of a dozen names of students who I had looked for on social media but couldn’t find. One of them was Danielle Robinson. Actually two of them were Danielle Robinson! The one who …
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AP Gov: Film Project – Bob Roberts
All of the films I show during the film project have a range of reaction from students, but none is more polarizing than Bob Roberts. What’s sad about this fact is that in the early years of screening it, that polarization was based more on students’ taste for comedy and knowledge of the film’s popular …
Favorite Songs of All Time (Well, Ten Years Ago)
Ten years ago on Facebook I compiled a list of my favorite 50 songs of all time. I said at the time that the first 47 were not in order, just the Top 3. If I were to make the list today, there’d be quite a few changes — and that would include the order …
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Week in Review (May 17-23, 2020)
The days continue to both drag by and blur together, and suddenly it’s the weekend again. This was the first full week after the AP Exam, so I was able to show a movie to the AP Gov students on Monday (along with a secondary screening to those who couldn’t make it due to AP …
Fenster on Education 