What a week!

Boy did I pack a lot into this week... The big Assembly to honor the memory of Lewis Frelan Goddard and the Model UN Conference all in the same week!

Of course all the usual things were happening this week too. The Juniors had to do Science Testing on Monday and were on a Physics Field Trip to Funtown on Thursday, so I didn't see much of them this week. In my U.S. history class, students have been learning about the War in Vietnam and we are planning on a Mock Trial of the incident at My Lai when William Calley was accused of murdering innocent women and children.

In Psychology, we wrapped up listening to the podcast "Serial", and students have an assignment to draw some conclusions form the podcast.

My largest area of focus for the first half of the week was the assembly for Lewis Frelan Goddard. I have mentioned this project several times. We have been working on gathering many stories of people who lived through the World War Two years and will be posting these stories on a website. Some of these folks were German POW’s in Houlton, ME, some were from the area and served in the war, some participated in the resistance in Europe. We have been working with a man who lives inot too far away, Mr. Goddard saw the media coverage from two years ago around the project we did on the Maine soldier buried in France. He came to the school as his brother is buried in the same cemetery. He has shared with us a scrapbook and sat down to do several sessions of oral history. Mr. Goddard’s brother, Lewis Frelan Goddard, was a First Sergeant in the US Army during World War Two and a member of the Highly secret Operation Jedburgh. His “Team Ivor” parachuted into France in August of 1944. Goddard was killed while parachuting in. His body was recovered by locals in a small town and they hid him from the Nazi’s. This story is documented in the scrapbook and was learned by Mr. Goddard when he traveled to France in the 1970’s and met some of the veterans of the French Resistance.

So moved by this story, we have received permission form the Superintendent to erect a permanent monument here on school grounds to Lewis Frelan Goddard and the sacrifice he made. We are still working on getting the small monument constructed, but the plan is for it to include a small plaque with basic information about Lewis Goddard. 

In order to educate the school about what this monument will be and why it will be here, we thought a school wide assembly would be in order.  Reporter Jackie Ward from WCSH 6 also came to cover the assembly. 

The memorial is not yet finished, as we are still raising money. We have a website to raise money: http://www.gofundme.com/frelanww2.

The assembly was a smashing success and the students were wonderful!  Local Newspaper The Kennebec Journal, also covered our story.

I hope to have more to say on this story once the memorial is complete!

On Friday, we took 23 students to Northeastern University in Boston, MA to participate in the Model UN Conference. Most of our students represented Russia, but some represented Jordan.

We left at 5am for Boston and arrived in time for the opening ceremonies which included a speech from investigative journalist Robert Marquand.

Once we were on Boston, students settled in to their committees and began debating the issues. It is a very tiring day, but also a fun day.Two of our students won awards for Best Delegation, and two of our students won awards for Best Position Paper.

Friday night we had a chance to do some sightseeing. We took the Subway over to Bunker Hill to start. It was a beautiful night and so we had a nice walk following part of the Freedom Trail.

(In front of the Bunker Hill Monument)

 We also visited the Boston Massacre Site and old Ironsides and took a ferry ride across the harbor. We then went to dinner at watched the street performances at Quincy Market.

(In front of the Samuel Adams statue at Fanueil Hall)

Saturday morning we were back in sessions to wrap up another day with great debate a few awards.

We were on our way by 4 pm and everyone was tired, but felt satisfied with a great two days in Boston. I always look forward to the Model UN Conference. Its nice to be on a college campus for two days and to see students shine and grow by having this experience. Our school has very little cultural diversity, so its nice to see our students have the chance to experience some diversity at this conference. We have all the logistics down to a science now which really helps. I also have a few fellow teachers willing to help chaperone and that is invaluable. Some teachers who bring students are the only teacher from their school. Not only would that be overwhelming, but also very depressing. I am lucky to have co-workers willing to give up part of their weekend to support me and the students. It warms my heart to see students who are shy or nervous take a chance and feel good about it. Weekend like this remind me why I love my job. It was a great weekend, but I am looking forward to some sleep and a quieter week next week!