Typical May

Last Saturday all Juniors in the State of Maine took SAT's. In addition to being helpful for College, this test serves as the required standardized test that all Juniors must take. This is the last year that Juniors will be required to take it. Starting next year all Juniors will take the Smarter Balanced Assessment, although many will still be taking SAT's. Because the Juniors had to be in school on Saturday for the SAT's, they are excused from coming to school on Monday. As result, I basically had no students on Monday. This provided me with some much needed time to get caught up after last week's absences.

My VHS class finished this week. The online class devoted to U.S. Foreign policy from 1945 to the present takes no breaks, but is 15 straight weeks. Because it takes no breaks it always ends before regular school does. It has been a good semester in this class and I enjoyed looking at the Final presentations students posted this week. For me, this does mean I will have some time freed up for the remainder of the year, and I have to admit I do like this part of teaching VHS classes.

(Screenshot form the Homepage of my VHS class)

In Psychology this week, students finished their presentations about famous psychological experiments. In addition, we discussed hypnosis and meditation. In Ethics class we finished watching the film "Million Dollar Baby" as a way to discuss the Ethics of Euthanasia. We also had a guest speaker on Friday. Attorney James Lawley from Lipman and Katz in Augusta, once again came to my class to discuss Death Penalty and other ethical issues related to the law. Mr. Lawley took time out of his work day to come and give students a unique perspective and they were clearly impressed. Mr. Lawley talked about his experience representing clients on Death Row, and his other experiences in the legal system. I very much appreciate his willingness to share with my students!

(James Lawley explains how a Death Row case moves through the court system)

(James Lawley answers questions from my students)

My AP U.S. history class is furiously in the midst of reviewing the content for the AP Exam. the College Board standardized test will be given on May 14. I hosted an evening Study session to help them review on Thursday and several students showed up for the session. It was a great chance to go back to the content we covered coming out of summer and review. There is a nice website for review as well that produces flash cards to help students. 

In U.S. history we have been looking at the Civil Rights movement. I made use of the historical module created by the educators at the Newseum to get students to examine the movement and try and make personal and local connections to the movement. Students are now working on a multimedia presentation that explains one way either Maine impacted the Civil Rights movement or vice versa. I contacted the Maine Historical Society and they provided me a link to what they have posted on this topic and also sent me a copy of the book, Maine’s Visible Black History: The First Chronicle of its People by H.H. Price and Gerald Talbot. This is a tremendous resource for this project, as it turns out! I look forward to seeing what students come up with for this! In addition, I am working with the Educators at the Newseum to develop a presentation. We have submitted a proposal to lead a session at the National Council for the Social Studies conference in Boston in November. We should find out in June if it was accepted. I hope it is as I am very excited to present on this topic!

Next week will be quite busy... classes will be working on the Civil Rights project, their Finals, or preparing for the AP exam. On Thursday almost all of my students will be gone on a Field Trip to Funtown to study the Physics of Funtown, and then I will be out on Friday with the group of students attending the Model UN Conference at Northeastern University in Boston, MA.