Before I get to my week, I thought I’d mention that yesterday’s post puts me at 47 straight weeks of blogging every single day. I’m planning to cut back a little — not sure how many days yet — once I hit the meaningless milestone of 365 straight days of blogging. There have been quite …
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US History: The Columbian Exchange
For years I’ve struggled with how to teach the so-called Columbian Exchange (now there’s something in need to a new name), the trade between Europe and the “New World” in the 16th century. While entire books have been written on the subject, how much do students in my US History I Honors class really need …
Musical References Remind Me That I’m Old
In my first year or two of teaching I had a student with the last name McManus. When I called her name the first day, I off-handedly mentioned that my favorite musician was Elvis Costello, whose real name is Declan MacManus. Someone called out “Elvis who?” while another student wittily said, “Abbott and Costello?” Okay, …
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Back to School: The Least Worst Solution
Schools around the country are beginning to announce their approaches to resuming school in the fall. The state of New Jersey issued a directive that there would be in-person education in all public schools in the fall, although they left the amount up to local districts due to various circumstances. Education is a fascinating subject …
Tuesday Talk… with Corregan Brown, Part 1
This week’s Talk is different than the typical interview I do each Tuesday. I “met” Corregan Brown through mutual musician friends, but we’ve never met and only began interacting on Facebook a couple of months ago. I considered doing a more conventional interview, but Corregan’s trenchant commentary is so good that I wanted to maximize …
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AP Gov: Federalism Slideshow
I’ll run quickly through my disclaimer on lesson plans/presentations first — my work is culled from a variety of sources and I have never done a good job documenting or crediting those sources. It’s a failing on my part, but at Year 28 of my career I’m not about to change that. Most teachers “borrow” …
My Concert History
A popular time-waster is sharing things about your concert experiences — first one, favorite, worst experience, and so forth. At some point, there was a “challenge” to name concerts for every letter of the alphabet. I didn’t quite complete the 26, but came close… Wait a second, I did have a Y act, after all! …
Week in Review (June 28 – July 4, 2020)
On Sunday I finished working at my parents’ house (I wrote about it that same day), packed up the car and headed north. Because I was less concerned about avoiding every last possible exposure, I’d decided to do an overnight in a hotel near Fayetteville, North Carolina. I didn’t get in until after midnight, but …
US History: Eight Basic Features of Civilization
The Eight Basic Features of Civilization is a staple of World History classes, or at least it was when I was still teaching it. Last I checked its in the textbook our freshman use when they study the subject. Of course because the students have learned something one year does not mean they will retain …
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The McCarthyism Simulation
In retrospect I remember seeing a movie version of the youth fiction novella The Wave at some point in high school and it captured my imagination by depicting the rise of fascism in a school not unlike my own and the takeaways on individuality, freedom of speech, and anti-fascism. I don’t know if that was …
Fenster on Education 