A New Year Begins

Depression, its every where right now. I feel it, and so do the students. Negative temperatures, dark mornings, snow storms threatening and 8 weeks of winter ahead. It's a tough time of year to get going. Monday was very difficult, everyone was tired and cold. Unfortunately the semester is winding down, so after one day of just dragging, everyone has to start finding energy to do what needs to be done. This was not as hard for me because we are studying the Civil War which I just absolutely love!

We spent some time this week analyzing the Gettysburg Address. This is aligned with common core of course! We also talked about the genius of Abraham Lincoln and I showed two brief clips from the film Lincoln to help students understand his personality a bit more.

In our study of the Civil War, we analyzed the advantages of North and South as well as their characters during the War. We watched the first episode of Ken Burns' The Civil War which is a great introduction to help students understand the total impact of the war on American culture.

In History v. Hollywood we watched the film JFK and discussed the assassination. Students also spent a good deal of time working on their iMovie project. for the project they have to pick 2 historical films on a related topic and compare and contrast them in a 4 minute documentary they make.

In Ethics we have been discussing the origins of political philosophy as it pertains to ethics and justice. This includes looking at the online discussions from Michael Sandel's Justice from Harvard. Students are also working on their Final project. For their Final project, they have selected a current controversial ethical dilemma affecting society and analyzing the dilemma using our analysis protocol including possible resolutions or compromises.

What makes this time of year difficult is that we are trying to wrap up the semester while at the same time planning for scheduling for next school year, and making sure schedules and plans are ready for the second semester to start. Next week I will be delivering my last webinar of the year on a Historical Investigation we did connect to abolition. Also we have a professional development on Friday afternoon leading into the long weekend for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. The new film Selma is coming out about Dr. King and I can't wait to see it. I hope someday to use it in my casses. I am looking forward to starting a new semester with a new section of ethics and a new section of psychology!