Conference debrief and more!

The week leading up to the National Conference for the Social Studies was an interesting one. In History v. Hollywood we started watching the film Schindler's List. This is one of my favorite films of all time, and yet breaks my heart each time I watch it. I really enjoy helping students try to process the Holocaust, and this film is one way to help with that. We examined the psychology of the Holocaust, examples of the camps, and learned a bit about Nazi philosophy. We also talked about the legacy today including Holocaust denial. Very emotional issues, but also very important ones.

In Ethics class we discussed Euthanasia and watched the film Million Dollar Baby to help with our understanding of the issues surrounding this topic. Often at least one student has a personal connection with this topic. All of the issues we are examining form here on out are difficult and this was no exception. A friend of mine who is a nurse will be coming in after the Thanksgiving break to discuss her connection to this issue.

In my U.S. history classes we have been working on the $35 Dollar Bill projects to be presented after vacation. We also learned a lot about slavery by watching a film and reading from the Frederick Douglass' autobiography.

Despite all these things keeping me busy, I and a fellow teacher from my school, left on Thursday for the NCSS Conference in Boston! We met another colleague of ours who teaches at a nearby school so that we could room together for the Conference.

We were up early Friday morning knowing we would have to register and get our badges for the Conference. The Conference was held at the Hynes Convention Center. This building is huge and has 3 floors with plenty of rooms for conferences. We stood in line to get our Conference book, a nice canvass bag full of goodies and our conference badges.

Bag from the Conference

My first stop of the morning was to see historian Eric Foner speak. I have always enjoyed Foner's work having read many articles by him and his books A Short History of Reconstruction and Who Owns History?: Rethinking the Past in a Changing World. Foner talked about this book that is about to be released. He told the story of how he was made aware of the Sydney Howard Gay papers at Columbia and was inspired to write abou this work in abolitionism. He was very interesting and I really enjoyed it.

Eric Foner speaking at the Conference

After lunch came time for a tour of the Exhibit hall. Here there are lots of vendors mostly selling things. But if you say the right things and give them some attention you can get a lot of free stuff! By the end of my two days I had 15 books, 2 t shirts, and a bunch of posters, resource books, bags, and lesson plans. I only paid $20 total (for 4 of the books).

I then had to join a representative from the Newseum for our joint presentation on the Civil Rights project I did with my students last year. The rep from the Newseum talked about the website and resources they offer, while I focused on what research my students had done. They used the Newseum lesson plan and interactive timeline in order to analyze a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement. Then they connected it to local history. My students were a bit skeptical, but pleased to find examples of people form Maine who connected to the Civil Rights Movement. I was pretty nervous going in, but things seemed to go well. The participants seemed to find our project interesting and had really good questions for us. I have to thank the Newseum, as they paid for my Conference Registration a $200 value!

Me presenting my student's work

Me and my co-presenter an educator who works at the Newseum

Since I am on the Board for the Maine Council for the Social Studies, I agreed to represent Maine in the House of Delegates. Each State has at least one representative who gets to vote on resolution the NCSS would like to pursue. We also vote on the leadership of NCSS. It was a really interesting experience. I did have to give up 4 opportunities to go to workshops in order to be in the House of Delegates. I was pleased and honored to represent Maine, but it was tough to miss those other opportunities. I had to be there from 4:30-6:30 Friday evening and again Saturday morning from 8-10.

My seat in the House of Delegates

Outgoing President of NCSS addresses the House of Delegates

The last event of Friday night was a recognition of a woman from Maine who has worked as a teacher and educator for many years. She was honored by the Goethe Institute for her service. I traveled with her through the Goethe Institute as part of their Trans-Atlantic Outreach Program in 2006 to Germany. In addition, I have worked with her on many projects. So I found it a great pleasure to be able to honor her at this event. the Goethe Institute must be commended for giving her this award and for providing free food and drinks for those who attended. They must have spent a lot of money!

The Welcome Dance

Saturday morning was another session in the House of delegates. Then I had the chance to attend a workshop sponsored by the United States Holocaust History Museum. They provided wonderful resources and were very interesting. This was followed by an outstanding session on oral history from the National World War Two Museum.

After lunch and another hour checking out the exhibit hall, I covered the Newseum Booth for my co-presenter so she could attend a meeting related to planning for next year's Conference. This was a really interesting experience to see things from a different point of view. Teachers came by and treated me very differently thinking I was an employee of the Newseum.

After an hour at the booth, I attended a really interesting session on new and important books for teaching Psychology. This got me really interested in looking forward to next semester when I will be teaching Psychology. My last session of the day was around deciphering hoaxes and false stories in social media. I found this deeply interesting and important information to share with my students. This session was run by a man who works for the News Literacy Project.

After this we walked to a pub called Brownstone to attend an event sponsored by the travel company Explorica. This event included free food and drinks. We had the chance to meet some teachers and connected with a couple other teachers from Maine.

The Conference was fantastic, but the highlight came on Sunday when we got to meet and listen to historian and filmmaker Ken Burns. Burns is known for his famous film title The Civil War and his most recent film The Roosevelts. Burns was given a Kidger Award and was eloquent in his discussion of his films and his praise for the work of teachers. I learned he is working on a film about Jackie Robinson and one on the war in Vietnam. I look forward to everything he does!! I was even lucky enough to meet Burns briefly before he spoke and get my picture taken with him. There was a nice summary written of what he spoke about published by Education Week.

Ken Burns and I

Ken Burns receiving the Kidger Award

 So after a whirlwind 3 days of excitement, the three of us were ready to head back to Maine for a short 2 day week before Thanksgiving.

Next year's Conference will be in New Orleans and I'm already trying to think of ideas to try and attend the Conference. Time will tell if I can find a way! Time for a little break and some rest. Happy Thanksgiving!

NCSS Conference

So I am currently attending the NCSS Conference in Boston! So I will not be blogging this week. Since next week is a short week anyway, I thought I would blog next week about this past week and the Conference instead. Hopefully I'm having a great time!

In Flanders Fields

The Veteran's Day holiday made for a short week. I love everything related to World War One, so I always find particularly poignant the worldwide observance of Armistice Day. In the 11th month, on the 11th day, at the 11th hour, the war ended. Of course what followed was a bit of a mess that led to World War Two, but end of the war is an event to be remembered, considering the millions that were killed in the war. I make sure my students know why we celebrate Veteran's Day on the 11th every year and we discuss the sacrifice made in general. Across the nation there were parades, wreath laying, and other tributes to veterans and/or the end of the First World War. I think the most moving tribute was the ceramic poppy display at the Tower of London. The poppy became a symbol of war dead and has remained so in part thanks to famous poem "In Flanders Fields" by Lt. Col. John McRae. For this year's remembrance, organizers set up a display of 888,426 ceramic poppies, one for every British soldier who died in the war. I really like how the display looks like blood pouring from the Tower, symbolizing the loss of life to the country. Very moving!

In U.S. history, students started work on their $35 Dollar bill projects this week. We also started reading The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass as we begin discussion of slavery and the Civil War. In Ethics class we debated torture, and started learning about Euthanasia and end of life issues. I have a friend who is a nurse and will be visiting my class to talk about ethics and medicine and answer questions. This will happen after Thanksgiving.

Frederick Douglass

In History v. Hollywood we began talking about the Holocaust. Students created a wordle of important things associated with Holocaust to keep in mind as we watch the film "Schindler's List". We had a great discussion about the causes of the Holocaust, and examined pictures from the time and watched a short documentary about Alfons Heck who was member of the Hitler Youth. This is always a moving subject for students that they always find interesting. I look forward to our discussion of what happened and how it could happen.

The wordle we created

I talked with an educator from the Newseum this week about our presentation at the National conference next week. We will be talking about the Civil Rights project I did with my students last Spring. Luckily, the Newseum paid for my conference registration as a result. I am also attending the House of Delegates on behalf of the Maine Council for the Social Studies. The whole conference should be a lot of fun and I can't wait to blog about it next week. Below is the slide show we will be presenting at the National Conference, including work my students created.




Next week will be busy as I have four days of classes, then I have to prepare to leave on Thursday for the four day conference!

November Rain

Thanks to Guns and Roses whenever it rains in November I think of that song form my youth. We actually had snow on Sunday, but rain later in the week. With the turning back of the clock and the cold and the wet, November can feel very somber. I am excited that I have the National Conference in Boston this month to look forward to.

We had elections this past week, and we have been looking at the issues on Maine's ballot in the days leading up to the election. We didn't spend a lot of time studying the arguments for and against in my classes, but we did refer to the League of Women Voters Guide, and discussed the merits of the arguments. The real election happened on Tuesday, but on Monday and Tuesday I held secret ballot elections in my classes and tabulated the results. 6 out of the 7 questions on the ballot this year were bonds. All were approved in real life and in my student elections. We also had Representative Chellie Pingree running for re-election and she won both in real life and in my student election. In addition, Susan Collins also won both elections. What was interesting was the two measure son the ballot in which the real vote and the student vote differed. Question 1 asked voters if they wanted to ban the use of bait, traps, and dogs in hunting bears. In real life, the measure was voted down in a close vote. However my students voted to approve the measure (but also in a close vote). The other area of difference was in the election for Governor. In real life, the current Governor won re-election. Paul LePage defeated Mike Michaud by about 48%- 43% and Eliot Cutler had around 9%. In my student election Michaud won with 50% over LePage with 31% and Cutler with 19%. We discussed this in class and students speculated as to why they thought the vote came out the way it did. It was all an interesting exercise in democracy that I hope will foster a bit of interest so that they will vote when they have the opportunity  in real life.

In Ethics class I had a guest speaker as well. Over the summer we received a letter form the Better Business Bureau that discussed a school speaker program in which they offered a variety of topics to go over. I took them up on it scheduled a speaker to come and talk about what the BBB does. I had told her ahead of time that it was an Ethics class and they had already been study the basic principles of Ethics. My speaker drove up from Massachusetts to be in my class at 8:15, so I'm sure she was up early. She was full of energy and had a nifty little powerpoint to share with videos on what the BBB does. the first few minutes were a bit of an overview of what the BBB can do. Then she decided to go basic and start posing hypothetical scenarios, most of which we had already discussed in class. She seemed impressed with the quality and depth of responses (no surprise to me since we had had the same discussions already). She was so impressed she sang their praises to me over and over. While she was impressed, I was not so much. She gave a great effort and I appreciate what she did, but she either missed the point and forgot that we didn't need the basics. I wanted her to talk about examples of how businesses have been accused of shady practices and what the BBB can do to help consumers, not hypotheticals about what to do if you see a $100 bill in the hallway. I think she has this "canned" presentation that she is used to doing it to younger students who have had no formal instruction about ethics. At least it kept the students engaged, they didn't seem to be bothered by having the same discussions over again, and I think it's because the speaker was so high energy and charismatic.

In History v. Hollywood students presented the Historical Trailers they made using the iMovie app on their iPads. Almost every single student felt the need to apologize in advance for how" stupid" their was. This is so annoying! Non of them were "stupid" the students just get easily embarrassed about showing these to the class as they are forced out of their comfort zone. This is why I like to show them the one I made, so they see that if I can be a little ridiculous, so can they. Each trailer showed creativity and a connection to the message from the film.

My students in Sacrifice for Freedom continue work on individual projects and I have to admit I really enjoy helping them look for material and leads to follow up on. It's great that they get to experience the work of what historians actually do and understand what makes it so interesting and important. As Veteran's Day approaches, I can't help but feel the emotional connection to the work the students are doing and I look forward to when they have a product that can be shared in some fashion. We also hope to follow up with the people living currently in Beddes, France who still honor Mr. Goddard. Despite the implementation of new standards, the pressure form student testing, and new teacher evaluation work, its this kind of work that keeps me going!

Next week we start $35 Dollar Bill projects!

Too Busy

These last two weeks have been full of things to do and extended time at work! I'm not excited about it either, but this is what doing Parent/Teacher Conferences this way does to us. I love having the day before Thanksgiving as compensation for doing evening Conferences, but it makes for overworked and overtired teachers that, in my opinion, aren't as effective with their students for both weeks. I think we would be better served to have Thursday evening of Conferences from 4-8, then no school the next day for students and Conferences from 8-12 for teachers. There are no other classes to teach in the mean time and we get the weekend to recover. Its really kind of crazy, I would argue, for us to teach a regular week and have an evening of Conferences in the middle of the week. I also think it would be just as convenient for parents as what we do now. At any rate, that's my annual rant on the matter.

One thing I have been trying to find time for, but I really enjoy, are these mini-courses offered through FutureLearn. These are Massive Online Open Courses that people from all over the world take for free, and they last about 3 weeks. With sponsorship from the BBC, they are offering courses related to World War One to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the start of the war. I have taken 2 so far and absolutely loved them! Luckily they don't require a ton of time or work as I haven't had much of late. But I have really enjoyed analyzing the issues with people from all over the world. The first course I took was on the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and an analysis of the League of Nations and the United Nations. Not only can I use some things in my classroom , but I learned so much more. The course I am taking now is on how the war changed the way we think of Heroism, and I am absolutely enthralled with it!

In Ethics class we have been discussing Moral Courage and students presented projects on that topic. We have a guest speaker coming next week from the Better Business Bureau. In U.S. history classes we are examining the paradox of Andrew Jackson who expanded democracy and was autocratic at the same time. History v. Hollywood students worked on their iMovie Trailer projects using historical films. Sacrifice for Freedom students finished their group presentations about the war in their countries and have moved on to more specific individual projects. One student is looking into German POW's who were held in Houlton, ME during the war. Another is writing to the Mayor of Beddes in France where a US soldier was killed and buried in order to learn more about how they honor this man each year. Another is looking for anyone who may have been from Maine who served in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade during the Spanish Civil War. This is just the beginning of what we think will be an exciting project!

So I'm busy grading, teaching, conferencing with parents, modifying curriciulum for proficiency based diplomas, considering my teaching process to line it up with the new evaluation model using the Marzano model, being an advisor, and a few other things I'm supposed to be doing but probably not because I'm too busy!

On top of all this I am preparing for the Webinar to be delivered in December and my presentation at the NCSS Conference in Boston on 11/21. So I will be very excited to blog about these exploits very soon! Election day is next week and so we will discuss the ballot here in Maine, in my classes, so students can follow the results of the election.