Holiday Break

As usual, the last week and a half leading up to the Holiday Break was busy and everyone was counting down the days. One of the activities I looked forward to was "Kids Who Care". This is an annual event where we do something with our advisee group to give back to the community. This activity is always wonderful. The amount of time and stress it takes to plan and put together is borderline crazy, but it is always a great event. I worry with all of the mandates and expectations being levied on teachers, that things like this will fade or disappear as we lack the time and energy to pull them off. Time will tell!

My group worked with 2nd grade students in our Elementary School in town. My wife teaches 2nd grade there so it was a nice fit. My students helped the 2nd graders to make some Holiday crafts they could take home afterward. They also read books, played games, and went out to recess with them. By all accounts, the 2nd graders were very happy!

My students were engaged in academic work these last few days also! Students have started working on Final projects in my semester classes. In U.S. History, students were working on a primary source investigation and essay related to abolition. In AP Psychology, students were working on a project where they attempt to classically condition a subject and report on their findings. Luckily the weather held and we had no snow days before the break this year. In fact we had 55 degree weather on Christmas day this year! Typically the lake near my house is almost or completely frozen over by now and we usually have had at least some snow. Not the case this year!

(Christmas day near my house)

The holiday break always seems to come at just the right time when we all need it. Now its time to get some much needed rest for the the last 3 weeks of the semester when we go back after break. Things will be very busy with a webinar, work related to Understanding Sacrifice, and the wrapping up of semester grades. Throw in some bad weather and it will definitely be an interesting month of January!

Work?

I was asked recently if the Understanding Sacrifice project is a lot of work. It is a lot of work, but I have to admit that it doesn't really feel like work. I don't think I have ever had "work" that has felt as important and was as interesting and fun for me as this project. Compared to the various and sundry hoops we must jump through for our new evaluation procedures, which take much less time, the Understanding Sacrifice Project hardly qualifies as work. I was fortunate to have the opportunity over the last few weeks to meet the families of two soldiers killed during the war, to begin to document their stories.

Captain Joseph F. Berry is actually the Great-Uncle of a few former students of mine, and grew up in Wayne, ME. Berry was killed defending an anti-tank gun necessary for the landings at Gela in Sicily in the summer of 1943. Berry was awarded the Distinguished Cross and the Silver Star. His sister, Priscilla is 98 years old. I was fortunate to be able to meet with her and her son. They have a treasure trove of letters, pictures, and various documents related to his service. My students will be learning more about Captain Berry this spring. Berry is buried at the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery in Italy and I will be visiting his grave and paying tribute to him when I am there in July.

Harvey J. Madore was married and living in Augusta, ME when he was sent to France in the fall of 1944. In March of 1945, his unit had just moved across the German border when he went missing. He was listed as "Killed in Action" 2 weeks later. The circumstances around his death are unknown, but he is buried at the Epinal American Cemetery in France. His son, Bob, met with me and shared his scrapbook of letters and images. bob and his son were fortunate enough to visit Harvey's grave in 2013. My students will be learning about Harvey this spring. We will be visiting his grave in July.

While excited about making progress, it does consume my time. I participated in a webinar with the Understanding Sacrifice program this past Wednesday night around some of the things we had read related to the war in general, and the war in Italy. Professor Christopher Hamner from George Mason University led our webinar discussion which was very interesting!

(Screenshots from the Webinar)

Students in my classes were involved in presentations over the past couple of weeks. After doing research, they had to select someone important to be put on a dollar bill. They had to defend their choice in a class presentation. Students had to dress like the person they chose or somehow defend their dress as inspired by the person they chose. This is always a lot of fun and involves much energy. Below are some samples of my students in costumes inspired by the person they chose for the dollar bill.

In Ethics and History v. Hollywood classes students have started to think about their Final projects. Since these classes are only a semester long, they will end in mid-January. Some years, the weather plays havoc with these last few days leading up to the Holiday break. This year we have had surprisingly mild weather. Not only have we only had an inch or so of snow so far, but its all now melted. The forecast is calling for temperatures to stay mostly in the 40's and so this may be one of the few years where we lose no time in December due to weather. This means the last 7 days of school before the break should be a bit less stressful than usual.

Over the last couple of weeks we did have a scheduled early release day for professional development. Apparently there have been a few issues in my district with understanding of what a "504 plan" for students truly is. All the staff in the district spent 2.5 hours listening to a lawyer discuss the finer points of the law. I was surprised to find him somewhat entertaining in the stories he told, though I would argue that they were distractions from the issue at hand as many of the questions posed to him were not really answered. Upon reflection I think the true purpose was so that the district could say in the future, if anything ever came up. that we have had "training" on this issue rather than something that would be more helpful. Considering all of the the things we need to do for teacher evaluations and proficiency-based education it didn't seem to me to be a very good use of the little time we have for professional development. However, its not my decision and so I focused on learning what I could from it and moving on.

The State Department of Education has received grant money to sponsor some training and programming around developing sample curricula in different subject areas for school districts to have as samples as they move toward proficiency based education. I applied for and was accepted into the Social Studies Community Teacher-Leader Group. We had our first training and worked to identify the needs of teachers across the state in developing social studies curricula. We will be developing workshops to run locally in the Spring and then run them again this Summer at a state-wide workshop. It was nice to meet the teachers and begin to develop a network of teachers interested in working on Social Studies stuff. More to come on this!

The Maine Council for the Social Studies Board had its annual Holiday Business meeting. We met over dinner at Joyce's in Hallowell and processed the feedback from our Conference evaluations in October. We also discussed some ideas for next year's conference and some of the information we learned at the National Conference in New Orleans. Its always great to have a bit more of a social time with folks during this time of year. More to come form the Maine Council in 2016!

Here we come down the homestretch to the Holiday break, with 7 school days left!

Catching Up

My travels from the previous two weeks made for an exhausting push up to Thanksgiving! After missing so many classes, it was catch-up time. Trying to manage makeup work for students who were absent (some 3 weeks ago but I couldn't connect with because of my own absences) is difficult. So the Thanksgiving break was well timed to help me get rested up!

In addition to playing catch-up, we moved forward in our curriculum. In U.S. History students are working on their Dollar Bill project in which they must select a person to put on a Dollar Bill and defend it to the class in a presentation. We also have been discussing slavery by reading from "The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass". I first read this autobiography when I was in College and was blown away by it. A Substitute teacher in my school left me a copy a few years back that I re-read and I was struck by how relatable and readable it would be for High School students once they got hooked on the story. So through a combination of in-class and on-their-own reading, we read the 100 page book together (Bonus that the book is in the public domain and available as a free PDF they can download to their iPads).

In Ethics, we had our final guest speaker. James Lawley is a former, and now current, attorney for clients on Death Row. Mr. Lawley is now living in Pennsylvania, but he skyped into my classroom to discuss his work with clients on Death Row. The students were very interested in the anecdotes Mr. Lawley conveyed to them and had some really interesting questions.

(James Lawley via Skype)

In History v. Hollywood we finished viewing the film "Schindler's List". This true story of hope during the Holocaust never fails to move students. We have some awesome discussions around genocide and memory while watching the film. We also got into the human psyche and bystanders vs. upstanders. Fun stuff!

Sensation and perception dominated our psychology work. We had a lot of fun tasting candy and isolating where those tastes show up on the tongue. We also were able to make use of many optical illusions and Gestalt psychology. We went in to the break on a gratitude assignment. Some recent research into positive psychology and the work of Martin Seligman shows a correlation between expressing gratitude and increased happiness. So students had to compose a letter thanking someone who they have never properly thanked. It had to be specific, and though I didn't read them, they had to show me they had written something and submit it to me in a stamped, addressed, and sealed envelope. I then mailed them. We didn't record specific data about their happiness before doing this, so its not as scientific as the study. However, we will discuss afterwards whether or not they felt more happy after doing the assignment. Here is a great video we watched to set up the assignment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHv6vTKD6lg

(Classic example of Gestalt Psychology)

I have started work on Understanding Sacrifice. I will honor 4 soldiers (or Fallen Heroes as we are asked to call them) next summer while in Italy and France. I will record video of ceremonies there and bring home some things for those 4 families, all of which live locally to me, here in Maine. However, I will focus the project and lesson plans on one of the four soldiers. The folks at the ABMC want our work to be high quality and detailed and so would only allow to me to choose one for the project. They were very supportive in my wish to recognize and honor all 4 with ceremonies, so I feel this is a good compromise. I will be compiling the stories of all 4 families, but I am starting with the Fallen Hero I will be focusing on for the project. His name was Harvey J. Madore and he lived on Mt. Vernon Avenue in Augusta. His son contacted me after seeing the article about me in the local newspaper. His Dad is buried in Epinal American Cemetery near the German border in France. Here is some information I have gathered about Mr. Madore so far.

PFC US Army  Harvey J. Madore

·      #31460256

·      255^th Infantry Regiment, 63^rd Infantry Division

·      Epinal American Cemetery Plot B Row 32 Grave 29

·      Purple Heart

·      Enlisted: March 30, 1944 Ft. Devens, Massachusetts

·      From: Augusta, ME

·      Born: April 1 1917,  On Cyr Plantation Aroostook County, ME

·      Died: March 5 1945

·      Parents: Joseph E. and Annie Madore

·      Spouse: Marie R.

·      Children: Robert

·      Last residence: 79 Mt. Vernon Ave. Augusta, ME (1945)

I am meeting with his son in a few days to learn more!

 

And so we head into December and the 3 1/2 week push to Christmas break. No snow on the ground and the forecast is calling for warmer than usual temperatures. It would be nice to have a snow day before Christmas, but the extended forecast at this point doesn't point in that direction. Last year we had 6 inches of snow before Thanksgiving, and this year it was 57 degrees the day after Thanksgiving! December in Maine usually means snow or sleet, so I'm sure we will get some sort of storm at some point. Trying to cram what we need in before the almost 2 week break makes for a stressful 3 1/2 weeks. Here we go!

Professional Development

The last two weeks have been very busy for me and I am now quite exhausted. But from a professional point of view, they were really awesome! It was tough only being in school 5 out of 10 days, but the days I was out and both Saturdays were spent engaged in high quality Professional Development and a bit of travel related to the PD.

In my classes, students are all working on projects and this is partly by design. Knowing I would be out of school a few days, I wanted students to have projects they could be working on in class. It's still not easy to be out. Some students have also missed class and need to see me to make things up. It also means this last full week before Thanksgiving will be a busy one in class.

Since being accepted into the Understanding Sacrifice program I have been unable to hide my excitement! The kickoff for our project took place over the course of 3 days in Washington, DC. So I flew out after school on a Wednesday and was fortunate my sister-in-law could pick me up at the airport and let me stay at her house for the night. Then I went to Arlington, VA via the Metro the next day to start our program. It was a beautiful and warm day in the nation's capitol that made for a wonderful tour of the national mall before some time getting to know the other teachers in the program. These teachers are Middle School and High School teachers, mostly Social Studies, who hail from places like Texas, Washington, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Michigan, and more.

Part of our time in DC was spent in Arlington at the American Battle Monuments Commission Headquarters in Arlington, VA. The ABMC was started by General Pershing after World War One. Pershing wanted to ensure that America's sacrifice would not be forgotten by Europeans and also had to deal with the massive number of American soldiers killed. Cemeteries were established as well as monuments. After World War Two, the number of cemeteries increased dramatically. Parents could choose to have their child brought home or buried in the cemetery in the country where they died. Burial in these cemeteries guarantees perpetual care at a sight also connected to some sort of historical significance. As time has moved on and fewer families remain to visit, the ABMC has looked to reinvigorate interest from the public in remembering the sacrifice of the soldiers by emphasizing education. Thus, the program was born. National History Day and the Ray Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media are all co-sponsors.

(General John Pershing)

After learning about the history, we had some lessons on photography, blogging, and digital media all to help us with the final product. Our goal is to create a website that honors Fallen Heroes and connects those heroes to high quality lessons plans for teachers. This is year two of the project. Last year teachers started by focusing on soldiers buried in Normandy and the Netherlands. Their work was just recently published on Veteran's Day, and can be seen here: http://www.abmceducation.org/.

We had an interactive lecture and book discussion with professor Christopher Hamner from George Mason University in the afternoon. It was wonderful to talk about the real skills of historical inquiry and how to bring those to our students and the public. Very exciting stuff and all very well done!

On Saturday we went into DC and had a tour of the World War Two Memorial from one of the folks involved with its construction and design. We also had time to take some photos at the monument designed to evoke feeling and reflection. After some time at the monument, we went to the Smithsonian Museum of American History and spent most of our time in "The Price of Freedom" exhibit. We had the opportunity to analyze in depth the parts of the exhbit that deal with World War Two and to think abotu how we memorilaize and rmemeber the war and those who were involved.

I returned home on Sunday full of energy and excitement to select my Fallen Hero and begin my work on the project. I was so excited to share with my students and talk about how they will be helping me to tell the stories of Mainers buried in these cemeteries. Not surprisingly, they shared in my enthusiasm!

After only two days of school, I headed off for another adventure. As Vice-President of the Maine Council for the Social Studies, I and the President were asked to represent Maine in the House of Delegates at the National Conference. This requires some work from us, but also provides a great opportunity for both of us to attend sessions related to our teaching. We also had the chance to connect with vendors to get new ideas for resources to purchase and even some free resources. I attended last year's Conference in Boston with great enthusiasm, so when the Council offered to cover our travel expenses, I jumped on the chance. This year the Conference was held in New Orleans, a place I had never been. With the Veteran's Day Holiday falling on a Wednesday, it meant I could travel without missing any school. So I flew out early Wednesday morning and was able to check in to my Hotel by noon local time. This gave me the whole rest of the day on Wednesday to explore the French Quarter before the Conference actually started on Thursday. I took every advantage of this! The weather was sunny, 80 degrees and humid!

I explored much of the French Quarter and enjoyed the jazz music on the streets and the outdoor cafes. It was a gorgeous day and so I'm thankful I had the afternoon to check it out!

Once Thursday started, it was time to get to business. Thursday I attended a workshop at the National World War Two Museum. This amazing facility houses planes, tanks, weapons, and exhibits related to rememdbering the war. Our workshop was put on by the teachers who took part in Understanding Sacrifice phase 1. It was really interesting for me to get some ideas how I might bring the work I will be doing to my students. We had some time to explore the Museum including wathcing the powerful interactive film "Beyond all Boundaries". This experience of a film tells the story of World War Two with technology to create a true experience. Not only are you convinced you are there at times but the seats vibrate and it actually snows on you!

Friday the vendors arrived and I had some time to work the exhibit hall at the Convention Center. Its an interesting dynamic. Dozens of vendors try their hardest to sell you something, while hundreds of attendees try their hardest to get something for free. Usually there is a little of both. Each participant gets a conference book and a little tote bag with a New Orleans theme to it. Inside are a bunch of goodies with relative value. I always look forward to the freebies!

In addition to working the booths on behalf of my colleagues and myself on both days, I decided to attend sessions on teaching AP Psychology, AP U.S. History, helping to create PD for teachers in Social Studies, the Civil Rights movement, and using a really cool online tool at hstry.co. We also had to represent Maine in the House of Delegates, so I participated during the two hour session Friday night and our President participated in the final session Saturday morning. This is an interesting experience where we get to hear from our lobbyist who works in Washington. We debate resolutions during this time. These resolutions inform the goals of our State and National Councils. Needless to say, when I left for the airport Saturday night I was exhausted! In the end, it was truly an amazing period of learning for me that I can take back to my classroom in meaningful ways and use immediately. I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity. Soon I will be blogging about the specific things I learned and how I am implementing them in my classes.

(Some of the Maine Council Board members who attended the Conference)

It was great, as I said, but it was a lot of travel in a short period of time. I would like to avoid traveling like that in the future if I can. In fact, I am looking forward to a few weeks of quiet routine to get rested up! Now to implement what I have learned!