Holiday Vacation at last!

It doesn't matter when vacation starts, those school days leading up to the vacation tend to be the longest and most stressful! It doesn't help that there isn't much sun this time of year in our part of the world for weather reasons as well as the shorter day lights hours leading up to December 21st. I do my best to turn on my charm and stay positive!

The highlight of this week was our Abolitionist Simulation. What was the simulation? Well I will now explain! Students are assigned a famous abolitionist (like Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe or Wendell Phillips) and must research how that person felt about 4 proposals for the Abolitionists to consider. One advocates the inclusion of women in the movement, one advocates the use of violence, and one advocates secession form the Union. Students then use parliamentary procedure to debate these proposals and adopt them or not. It is designed to help them understand how complicated slavery and abolition really was and perhaps suggest why the Civil War happened. I always have a lot of fun with this playing the role of William Lloyd Garrison and running the meeting.

The Maine Council for the Social Studies Board had its annual meeting at Joyce's in Hallowell this week. We debriefed the National Conference and came up with some ideas for our annual Conference next Fall. We had dinner and a little celebration for our outgoing President who is taking some time away and may come back in a support role n some way down the line. It's a great group of people and I really enjoy the work! Exciting times to come I'm sure!

(MCSS Board with 4 members missing)

We also had the chance this week to start talking about the Civil War and I shared my pictures and videos form my Teaching American History Grant trip in 2009. I can show students Harper's Ferry where John Brown was captured and also the Battlefields at Antietam and Gettysburg. By showing them these images and videos, I can also explain the role the 20th Maine regiment played in the Battle of Gettysburg and their leader, Joshua Chamberlain. Students are always fascinated to hear the story of how the 20th Maine defended Little Round Top and won the Battle for the Union (and maybe the war?).

(20 Maine regiment at a reunion of the Battle of Gettysburg sitting on Little Round Top)

We ended up the week watching a fascinating film about the French Resistance during World War Two in Sacrifice for Freedom. The film is called "Army of Shadows" and was in French with English subtitles. The students have been hard at work with their research and we wanted to do something a little different just before break. We even provided popcorn and soda for the students.

(French Resistance fighters)

I'm too tired to blog about any of the other things that happened this week!! Time to rest.We now have 2 weeks off so I won't blog again until the end of the first full week in January. When I get back I will be preparing to deliver Webinar number 2 and we will be looking to wrap the semester up in all my classes.

Another Historical Investigation

Another busy week was had by all! Student in my U.S. history classes spent some time studying Abolitionism and slavery. They participated in a 2nd Historical Investigation with an essay coming next week. The question they grappled with was this: What was most effective way to free slaves, moral persuasion (non-violence) or a more aggressive approach? Students analyzed a famous speech from Henry Highland Garnet and one from William Whipper each on opposite sides of the question. This is another investigation from the book "Reading, Writing and Thinking About History" with another Webinar to follow in January. It was very interesting, and I can't wait to see the essays!

Henry Highland Garnet

William Whipper

On Tuesday we were honored to once again have Attorney James Lawley visit my Ethics class. Mr. Lawley spoke about his work with Death Penalty clients during his time in Alabama. The students were very inquisitive asking great questions about the Scott Panetti case and other issues around the use of the Death Penalty. It was all very interesting as usual. I am so fortunate to have Mr. Lawley willing to come in and speak to my students!

In History v. Hollywood we are preparing to watch the film "JFK", so we must analyze the JFK Assassination first. This topic is one of my favorites in history, as it is still a mystery in some ways. Did Oswald act alone? If he did, why do so many people question it? Either way you go, the exploration is fascinating. We used a couple of different websites and the film series "The Men Who Killed Kennedy". The website The Kennedy Assassination is one we used and JFK Lancer is the other. The students are always amazed and intrigued by this topic, so I really enjoy discussing it with them.

On Friday was our annual Kids Who Care day. On this day we work with our advisees to do something to give back to the community. This year we visited a 2nd grade classroom at a nearby elementary school. My 10th grade advisees ran 4 different craft activities for 2nd graders who got to take them home. We also had a bingo game for them with some prizes. It was very tiring, but it was a lot of fun! Luckily my wife is an elementary teacher at the school and so she did a great deal of the planning and organization which I really appreciate!

Five days of school left before a 2 week vacation for the Holidays. This is the week when the students start to get a little stir crazy. Vacation is starting a little earlier this year and so I hope that may keep them a little calmer than usual for the last days of school of 2014. Next week is also the annual Maine Council for the Social Studies dinner and business review for the year.

Ethical Applications

Coming back after the break my U.S. history students were prepared to present their projects. Students had to nominate a person important to U.S. history to be put on a new $35 Dollar Bill. They then had to give a creative presentation to persuade the Federal Reserve the person they chose deserves the honor. They also had to dress like the person they chose, and submit a design for the bill. This is always fun to see and a bit stressful for the students who get nervous about presenting in front of the class. We had some really interesting presentations, using music and video, and some really great nominees! It was great see a case made for people like Martin Luther King Jr, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Chase Smith, Samantha Smith, Edward Abbey, Frank Sinatra, and Geronimo to name a few from a diverse group of nominees.

(1886 Silver Certificate featuring Martha Washington)

In my Ethics class we wrapped up our discussion of End of Life and Euthanasia Ethics with a guest speaker. My friend, who is a nurse at a local hospital, came into the class to share her experiences and stories around End of Life care. The students were extremely interested in her anecdotes and examples connected to the issues nurses and other medical professionals face around ethics. I know there are students in the class considering a career in a medical field and they expressed to me their appreciation for her coming in and giving them a sense for what it is like with a such a difficult topic. Many thanks to my friend Sara Casey who came in!

Also in Ethics, we switched gears to begin looking at the ethics of Capitol Punishment. In the news this week is the story of Scott Panetti who was scheduled to be executed this week, but had his execution delayed by a judge due to concerns that he is mentally ill. The students were fascinated by this case in particular, so its fortunate we can follow it while we are discussing the issue itself. We also looked at the number of executions in the US and compared it to other countries in the world. We also discussed the Innocence Project and their work at exonerating wrongly convicted inmates who were on death row scheduled to be executed. There is also the Death Penalty Information Center that has interesting information about the Death Penalty.

We practiced our webinar presentation we will be doing next Monday around historical investigations. Myself and a Middle School Teacher from another District have been working with a grant the state received to promote literacy across the disciplines. As a result, we are using the book "Reading, Thinking, and Writing About History" to help us create and implement lessons that are around Historical Investigations and using an inquiry based approach. It also requires students to do close reading of primary and secondary sources in history. The example I will be presenting will be around the Revolutionary War.

We had a professional development early release day this week. The focus of our PD was around incorporating Common Core standards into our learning targets. We also had to identify priority standards for Social Studies from the Common Core to implement into our units. This work is all in conjunction with our need to have the current 9th graders graduate with a diploma that is proficiency based for at least English and Math, and within 3 years, all students will need to graduate with a proficiency based diploma for all subjects.

Next week will be the Webinar live on the web for teachers around the State and at the end of the week is our annual Kids Who Care event with our advisee groups. Two weeks left until vacation!