For years I struggled finding a way of teaching the somewhat dull comparison between the three regions of American colonies that every US History teacher does is some form or fashion. I experimented with a few options and when I switched to the History Lab approach, I decided to use them all, giving my students …
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The House System: Nothing is over until we decide it is!
Hillsborough High School was bursting at the seams in the mid-1990s as the population of the town continued to grow at a pace unsustainable for the size of the high school. A referendum to add a wing to the high school (instead of building a new school) was approved, and our science and technology wing …
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School Reopening: The Path Forward
There were two opposite trends in the last week: (1) Area schools, but not my own district, began announcing their back-to-school plans. These plans were pretty similar in approach, and although there was no consensus, one could generally describe them as A/B hybrids, where students would go to in-person school 2-3 days a week, and …
Tuesday Talk… with Chris Cannella
Despite the fact that we’re both New Jersey social studies teachers, I’ve only met Chris twice — in Minneapolis and Houston. We both are active members of our educational associations and attended the National Education Association’s Representative Assembly in early July (though sadly Atlanta was not to be this year). As I mention in the …
AP Gov: That Delicate Balance
This will come as a shock to no one, but I was a governerd all the way back in high school. I used to watch Congressional debates on C-SPAN and one day while channel surfing remember stumbling across The Constitution: That Delicate Balance on PBS. I was taken by the engaging format and the various …
We Know How To Spend the Time, Who Cares About the Weather? (Part 1 of 3)
Sometime in 1997 I joined a list-serv for fans of the musician Billy Bragg. For those too old to remember list-servs, there really wasn’t much of an Internet to surf back in those days. Some of us had a proto-Internet via America Online, but it could get pricy and not everyone had it. We used …
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Week in Review (July 19-25, 2020)
The bulk of my week was taken up by a professional development opportunity that in normal circumstances would have taken place split between Richmond, Virginia and Philadelphia over the course of a week. Instead the Finding Freedom Summer Teacher Institute run by the Museum of the American Revolution was held virtually on Zoom, just like …
US History: The Roanoke Breakout
I first wrote about doing Breakout activities in my classroom back in October, but I was fairly general about it in the blog entry. At the risk of having students do some sneaky research and find out the secrets to the activity, I’m going to share all of the specifics about one of my Breakouts. …
A Different Kind of Award/Reward
Since 1995 I’ve been taking HHS Debate members to Model Congress and Model United Nations conferences. Virtually all of them culminate with an awards ceremony. Students are divided into committees, sometimes as small as eight members or as large as 200, and a passel of awards are provided for each committee. Generically there tends to …
Celebrating AP Scores: The Great Divide
A couple of years ago when I joined the AP US Government and Politics teachers group on Facebook a teacher asked “How does your school celebrate students who get 5’s on the AP Exam?” I stared at my screen when I saw the message like a dog trying to understand human speech. Celebrate? Huh? The …
Fenster on Education 