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!