The title of the article jumped out at me: “People are calling for museums to be abolished. Can whitewashed American history be rewritten?” It took me by surprise because I’d been engaging in the debate online and wrote my last soapbox blog about it, and one constant was that I could say, “Although people might …
Continue reading “CNN Article an Extreme Form of Clickbait Misrepresentation”
There are scant few people I can say are as likable or as funny as Jeff Jensen. On July 17, 2012, I messaged Jeff asking him to help me out with some chords on a song his band had recorded and he invited me over his house, though we’d only interacted on line at that …
Over the summer my plan is to spend each Monday talking about a lesson that I can’t take credit for. These are lessons that were appropriated from other sources, but then adapted for my purposes. The Google Slides presentation that I’m sharing here was cobbled together from at least two, maybe as many as four …
I’ve spent the last two weeks at my parents house helping with a variety of things, but the Big One was attempting to clean out their incredibly cluttered garage. My folks love gadgets, particular kitchen items, and if you’ve ever seen it for sale on TV, chances are they have it. Maybe two of them. …
I’ve spent the entire week at my parents’ home helping with a variety of things financial, legal, and medical. It’s good to spend the time with my folks, but it’s mentally and physically exhausting at this age. The physical part might be as much due to my sleeping situation (a not very comfortable couch), but …
Howard Zinn published A People’s History of the United States back in 1980, but it didn’t come on my radar until the early 90s. When I read the book, particularly chapter 1 which deals with the Native Americans and their interactions with Christopher Columbus I was stunned by some of the findings. Not because the …
Continue reading “US I: Revisiting Columbus and the Socratic Seminar”
Joe Adochio was one of the two vice principals at Hillsborough High School, a genial salt-of-the-earth kind of guy who everyone understandably adored. In my first few years of teaching I would periodically seek him out for advice about how to deal with my freshman discipline problems and just vent about whatever was bothering me. …
In the aftermath of the George Floyd murder, the voices defending the removal of Confederate monuments or the renaming of Confederate army bases has significantly subsided. Yet you can still find the defenders of traitorous losers who want make tired, lame arguments defending the establishment of monuments to the Confederate leaders decades after the Civil …
Continue reading “The Disingenuous “Erasing History” and Its Companion Slippery Slope Argument”
I first encountered Chaz Kangas performing in a rap battle at Upright Citizens Brigade. His mastery of the art form was breathtaking. His rhymes were clearly made in the moment and his wordplay so clever that I was compelled to chat with him after the show to offer my compliments. I was there with HHS …
When I started this blog last summer it didn’t occur to me to spend one day a week talking about what I did in my AP Gov class. At some point I started sharing my individual lesson plans as I thought they might help other teachers looking for ideas. Rarely do I take someone else’s …
Fenster on Education