I'm teaching AP World History this year. It’s a first for me, and at times has proved a bit of a challenge. Do you have any idea how many cultures and nations and movements and causes and changes there are in the entire history of mankind? All interacting and comparing and evolving and being complicated?! With maps and graphs and primary sources and EVERYTHING?!?!
One of my young ladies came in today all giddy and grinning. She'd just discovered she was one of a dozen or so nominees for Homecoming Queen.
Now, before you start thinking in stereotypes, this isn't the girl you just pictured - she's not blond, she's not bubbly, she's not shallow, and she's not dating a football player. She's pretty and talented and good at school, yes - but in her own most interesting way.
Do you ever start off intending to write about one thing and no matter how much you try to stay on target, you keep shooting off an entirely different direction like a blog grocery cart full of one item and with a bad wheel (*squeak lurch squeak squeak lurch*) and although you’re desperately trying to steer back to what you set out to write about, you just… can’t – at least not until you’re s
It’s funny the things that make us uncomfortable.
Not, like, in general. It’s not funny that snakes make me uncomfortable, or anyone messing with someone else’s eyeballs. Hair anywhere other than someone’s head. Dogs in the backs of moving pickup trucks. Those things should make anyone uncomfortable.
But it’s weird what can make us uncomfortable in our classrooms. One of them happened to me today.
My pacing was off today.
It’s funny that that’s what I’m taking home with me and into the weekend. Tomorrow – Friday, Day Three – is a logistics day. It’s all orientation, pictures, and other “have to” stuff. That’s fine, and I don’t have to prepare much. Maybe I can get to know some of my kids a bit better along the way.
But right now I’m mostly just frustrated with myself – somewhat unfairly, I might add.
It's been a long time since I've been new at something related to school.
I've taught different subjects, moved to different rooms, met and collaborated with different co-workers, and of course each fall I've met and gotten to know whole new groups of students - but that's not the same as being new.
The Big News in History this week was, of course, the discovery of a photo possibly suggesting that Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan survived their (presumed) 1937 crash and may have been alive for months or even years, likely as prisoners of the Japanese. Earhart and Noonan are thought to have run out of gas over the Pacific ocean, but no meaningful remains or wreckage have ever been found – well, until now… sort of. Maybe. Depending on what you make of it.
Oh, darlings – how quickly things get away from us and tumble into perdition as we scramble to hold our own up the rockslide. I apologize if I’ve left you in despair while I’ve been regrouping and refocusing and preparing to physically relocate. It’s been a journey, hasn’t it?
Let's look at some recent education news...
Let’s talk about choices, shall we?
Teachers love framing everything in terms of “making good choices” and “that’s your choice.” Why do you have a ‘D’? Well, you chose not to turn in work. Why are you in lunch detention? You made some poor choices about your behavior in class.
I’ve been trying to follow up on a previous post about the “divorce industry” in Oklahoma Territory (1889 – 1907), but I keep getting sidetracked by odd search results and unexpectedly engaging-but-off-topic tangents. I’m finally admitting that my ADHD (Abstemiously Distracted History Dysfunction) has won, and figure I might as well share some of the results.