Zombie week

Parent/Teacher Conferences... maybe its because I'm an introvert and I desperately need time to recharge? I'm not sure, but staying at school for almost 13 hours and then turning around and going back for regular days for 3 more days is maybe the most exhausting thing for me right now. It takes another whole week for me to recover. It impacts my grading and my teaching as well as my family. I truly get the need for parents to talk to teachers about their students, I just wish there was another way to do it. I'm probably in the minority, but I would rather get out later in the school a couple of days and find a way to make this work better. I think it really does have an impact in a negative way.

So while in zombie mode this week, I did do a simulation during Focus Time with the students who are attending the Model UN Conference in May. We have taken students for 12 years now to the Model UN conference at Northeastern University sponsored by the United Nations Association of Greater Boston. Its always great fun, and the students work so hard on the topical issues of the day. I really enjoy working with them, despite the extra time it takes. I can't wait to blog about our experience in May! Topics this year include ISIS, Ukraine crisis, access to water, genocide, and more.

In U.S. History classes we experienced the Stock Market Crash of 1929 through a stock market simulation. We also started talking about the Depression and watched some of Ken Burns' excellent documentary on the Dust Bowl. More to come next week.

Students in Psychology are working on famous experiments in psychology and will be doing presentations. I just finished reading "The Tell-Tale Brain" by V.S. Ramachandran. It is an amazing book that looks at the idea of what makes the human brain unique. One of the areas of the most interest I found was his study of mirror neurons and his idea that maybe autism is connected to missing mirror neurons. This book is very helpful for teaching this class.

We are growing closer to the AP U.S. history exam. Those students wrote a DBQ in class this week which will help them prepare for the Exam. This essay uses primary sources to answer an historical question. My students wrote about the Treaty of Versailles after World War One for this essay.

(President Woodrow Wilson played a pivotal role in the Treaty of Versailles)

Next week we are headed to our annual Field Trip at the Margaret Chase Smith Library and Museum in Skowhegan, Maine. Its always fun for the students to learn about the first woman in both the House and the Senate who happens to be from Maine. The Museum has a wonderful and vast collection of Cold War era documents. Great fun!

(Margaret Chase Smith)