Uneventful week

It was nice to have a regular 5 day week with no snow days or other unusual occurrences. During this week before vacation I spent my time helping my advisees register for classes for next year among a bunch of other things.

In U.S. history classes we discussed Imperialist thinking in The U.S. in the early 20th century. We also talked about working conditions an the plight of immigrants. We read an excerpt from The Jungle and looked at the Spanish-American War. We also started the Murder mystery simulation around Teddy Roosevelt and his influence.

(USS Maine- the sinking was one of the triggers of the war)

(Newspaper publishers Pulitzer and Hearst fight over readers using Yellow Journalism to stir up support for the war)

In Ethics we discussed how the pace of change and the level of change increases over time. We talked about how this increased timeline frame makes it difficult for society to contemplate the ethics of these changes. We used a few videos about the use of drones and robots to help support this discussion.

In Psychology we talked about early Psychologists such as Wilhelm Wundt and their theories on how to help people. We talked about focusing on empathy and how he judged empathy. We continued to listen to the Serial podcast and analyzed the psychology involved in it. All great stuff!

(Wilhelm Wundt)

The students in my Sacrifice for Freedom class made great strides in their research and have been in direct contact with German and American POW's from World War Two, as well as the son of a veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade that fought in the Spanish Revolution. I am looking forward to the Spring when we post our findings to a web site we are creating.

Next week is vacation so two weeks until my next blog post. Next will involve a little bit of grading, and some other school planning. But it will also involve a couple of days getting away to rest up. Another big storm is coming, but at least we won't lose any more school days because of it. When we get back it will be Winter Carnival week which means I will will really only have their attention for one day during the week for each class. After that will be March and I hope some warmer weather.