I’ve posted a few times about my learning curve with Claude, my “first” when it comes to AI interaction and collaboration. One of the tricky things about being a tired old man who still has to attentively work through the steps of paying by card in the self-check line is that I’m not always sure what’s cool and interesting and potentially fun and what’s just kinda sad because yeah – everyone’s already been there, done that, and moved on.

I don’t want to get too giddy about something only to find out it lands me safely alongside that lady from the district office who’s excited by reviewing for quizzes by playing Jeopardy and that weird English teacher who has her students turn Shakespeare into raps. BECAUSE KIDS LOVE THE RAPS!

Nevertheless, over the summer I ended up spending a zillion or so hours with Claude working on a rather basic little text game I hoped to use for review in my AP World History class this year. Because the size of the game became an issue, we ended up splitting it into two very similar games, each with roughly the same number or questions and same rules.

Claude had a “publish” option which sort of finalizes stuff like this and makes it available to anyone with whom you choose to share the link. What I didn’t realize was that this “published” version was still very much bound to the chat in which it was created, and I accidentally deleted it a few weeks later while cleaning up old chats to make it easier to find the ones I needed.

Like I said, tired old man still figuring things out.

I finally got around to rebuilding them (with Claude’s help), and while there’s simply no recapturing the joy of success the first time round, they seem to be more or less functional.

I’m sharing them here in hopes some readers will try them out. Obviously I hope you consider them engaging and educational and find yourself in awe of my mad “asking AI to do stuff for me” skills. I confess, however, that I also wouldn’t mind feedback or suggestions – especially if something doesn’t seem to be working correctly or you find any of the answers or detractors or anything else in the game questionable (or just plain wrong).

As always, you can reach me at [email protected] on this, or any other topic. Enjoy!

Amissas Time Machine Game

Philomath Time Machine Game 

“Have To” History: Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2022)

 Matthew 6:1-6

Three Big Things:

1. High school football coach Joseph Kennedy was placed on administrative leave after repeatedly leading post-game prayers at the 50-yard line that drew students, community members, and media attention, despite the district’s expressions of constitutional concerns and offers of alternative accommodations.
2. The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the district violated Kennedy’s First Amendment rights, with Justice Gorsuch’s majority opinion describing Kennedy’s prayers as “quiet” and occurring while students were “otherwise occupied” – a characterization sharply at odds with the documented facts.
3. The decision effectively eliminated the “Lemon test” that had governed Establishment Clause cases since 1971, replacing it with a “history and tradition” standard that significantly expands government accommodation of religious expression in public institutions.

Background – A Wall of Separation 

By the time Kennedy v. Bremerton began garnering headlines, the Supreme Court had been wrestling with the appropriate relationship between church and state in public schools for nearly six decades.

The First Amendment contains two provisions related to religion. The Establishment Clause prohibits government from promoting religion or specific religious beliefs, while the Free Exercise Clause prohibits government interference with religious beliefs and practices (at least without a very good reason). On paper, they complement one another perfectly. In reality, the two goals at times come into conflict with one another – like tectonic plates shifting ever so slightly but producing earthquakes or mountains as a result.

In Engel v. Vitale (1962), the Court struck down state-sponsored prayer in public schools, even when that prayer was theoretically voluntary and relatively non-denominational. Abington School District v. Schempp (1963) eliminated devotional Bible reading. The Court went back and forth when it came to government support for religious schools, attempting to prevent overt funding of religious messaging while still offering equitable access to algebra textbooks or literacy support – things intended to benefit children rather than the institution itself.

These decisions sought to maintain the proverbial “wall of separation” between church and state in public education without restricting or disparaging the individual religious choices of students or their families. Schools could teach about religion as history or literature, but they couldn’t promote or endorse any particular faith. It wasn’t always an easy line to draw, and it didn’t always stay put once established.

Could schools display the Ten Commandments? (Usually no.) Could graduation ceremonies include prayers? (Depends on who’s giving them and whether students feel coerced to participate.) Could teachers wear religious jewelry or put Bibles on their desks? (Usually yes, as long as they weren’t proselytizing.)

Along the way, the Court developed what became known as the “Lemon Test,” first applied by the Court in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971). The “Lemon Test” consists of three prongs. For a law to be constitutional, it must (1) have a secular legislative purpose, (2) neither advance nor inhibit religion, and (3) avoid fostering “excessive government entanglement with religion.”

While never universally embraced, Lemon was referenced regularly for the next 50 years – usually in cases involving state resources being used to support private religious education in some manner. It received a facelift in Lynch v. Donnelly (1984) when Justice Sandra Day O’Connor added what she called the “endorsement test” as a natural extension of the second prong: would the government action in question be perceived by a reasonable observer as government endorsement of religion?

So, hypothetically, if a high school football coach held an abbreviated revival service mid-field immediately following a game, which included players, local politicians, and community members who knew it was going to happen because it had been promoted ahead of time, a reasonable observer might believe religion was, in fact, being endorsed.

A Court wishing to validate such an action, it seems, would have two basic options: (1) deny the reality of what happened, or (2) reject the “Lemon Test” entirely and replace it with something more accommodating.

It might even do both. Continue reading “H2H: Kennedy v. Bremerton (2022)” →

I’m teaching something called “Geography and History of the World” for the first time this year. The state standards for this course are not exactly… intuitive.

For example, there’s very little about what you probably expect when thinking of “Geography.” No “Five Themes of Geography,” no covering regions of the world a unit at a time, not even some token concern for the difference between an island, peninsula, cape, or isthmus.

That’s fine, except in place of “How do latitude and longitude work?”, we get things like “Map the spread of innovative art forms and scientific thought from their origins to other world regions. Analyze how the spread of these ideas influenced developments in art and science for different places and regions of the world.”

I’m not complaining, but if I’m going to lead a group of high school freshmen through mapping the spread of all philosophy, knowledge, and culture around the globe since the beginning of time, we’re going to have to make some cuts in other areas – like English, Math, lunch, or letting them go home in the evening.

Because I live in a fairly conservative state, I was a little surprised to discover this pair of standards for world religions:

2.1 Map the development over time of world religions from their points of origin, and identify those that exhibit a high degree of local and/or international concentration. Examples: Universal religions/beliefs: Judaism (Jerusalem), Christianity (Jerusalem), Islam (Mecca, Medina), and Buddhism (Varanasi); Ethnic religions: Hinduism (Indus River), Confucianism (Qufu), Taoism (Yellow River), Shintoism (Japan), Sikhism (South Asia).

2.2 Analyze and assess the rise of fundamentalist movements in the world’s major religions during contemporary times (1980–present), and describe the relationships between religious fundamentalism and the secularism and modernism associated with the Western tradition. Examples: Shiite Islamic fundamentalism in Iran and its view of the West in general and the United States in particular as “The Great Satan” (1970–present); fundamentalism in India and its relationship to the government of India (1980–present); ISIS; U.S. Christianity (1970s to present); Myanmur/Burma (Buddhism).

The first part, about the development and spread of world religions, is pretty standard World History stuff. The second, though, was new to me – and I don’t just mean the decision to change the spelling of “Myanmar.” I understood what fundamentalist movements were, of course – I’ve been in one before and it didn’t turn out well. I just didn’t expect a deeply red state to want me to compare the Christian version in the U.S. with the Islamic version in Iran. I thought that was the sort of thing that gets teachers in the news and our names shared on right-wing social media so it’s easier to hunt us down.

Still, it did present a dilemma. I wasn’t sure I trusted myself to formulate direct instruction for this one. Because I teach high schoolers, they’re not particularly fragile if the occasional “point of view” slips through (as long as they realize my love and respect for them and whatever they’re into is genuine). But I didn’t think I could pull this off without sounding like, well… me.

And that’s how a bunch of white supremacists who’ve clearly never even READ the New Testament turned America into a neo-Christian Nationalist dumpster fire – and YES, that will be on the TEST!

I was going to need a better approach while still covering the required material. Continue reading “Teaching Fundamentalism (in Public School)” →

Trinity Lutheran v. Comer (2017): When Separation Becomes Discrimination

Three Big Things:

1. Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer established that states cannot automatically exclude religious organizations from generally available programs or benefits simply because they are religious organizations.

2. The Court distinguished between funding religious activities (which states can refuse to do) and discriminating against religious institutions participating in secular programs (which they cannot do).

3. The decision significantly strengthened the Free Exercise Clause by ruling that any exclusion of religious organizations from neutral public programs should trigger strict constitutional scrutiny by the courts.

Introduction

Sometimes context is everything. Without it, the Trinity Lutheran case goes something like this:

Question: Can a church be allowed to benefit from a program available to a wide range of public institutions that has nothing to do with religion – for example, making playgrounds safer and nicer using recycled tires?

Supreme Court: Sure, that seems fair. No dangerous entanglement of church and state here.

And we move on.

Granted, it’s not quite that simple even without proper context – but it’s way, way messier once considered as part of a larger picture. At the risk of oversimplifying, it looks something like this…

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution opens with what are sometimes called the “Twin Religion Clauses”:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…

The first part is the “Establishment Clause”; the second is the “Free Exercise Clause.” In practical terms, these are generally understood to mean that Congress (and by extension, the federal government as a whole) is not allowed to do anything to promote a specific religious belief or the idea of religion in general but also not allowed to do anything to discourage a specific religious belief or the idea of religion in general. It is to remain as neutral as possible.

Sounds easy, right? In practice, however, it can quickly get messy. Consider the periodic kerfuffle over Christmas decorations. If a government entity (like a public school, or county, or state) puts up a Nativity scene, it’s technically pushing Christianity on the public using your tax dollars. If it sticks with snowmen and red-nosed reindeer, on the other hand, it’s arguably promoting a secular view of the holiday many find offensive. If it skips acknowledgement altogether, well… no one likes a government Grinch.

Just to complicate things further, American cultural dynamics and practical realities have a way of changing over time. Whether one considers the Constitution to be a “living document” or believes its words should be understood based exclusively on their intent when written, even the most fundamental rights exist in the tides of cultural mores and shifting expectations.

Sometimes context is everything.

Continue reading “H2H: Trinity Lutheran v. Comer (2017)” →

Stuff You Don’t Really Want To Know (But For Some Reason Have To) About The Crusades

Three Big Things:

1. The Crusades began as a response to Byzantine Emperor Alexius I’s request for military aid, but quickly evolved into a quest to retake Jerusalem from the Muslims – but with politics, greed, and even a little genuine religious conviction thrown into the mix.

2. The Fourth Crusade (1202-1204) never reached the Holy Land because the Crusaders were diverted to attack Constantinople instead – the capital of the Byzantine Empire which had first reached out to the west for help. Not surprisingly, this was a major blow to the already shaky relations between Eastern and Western Christianity.

3. After nearly two centuries of largely futile bloodshed, the Crusades ended up connecting the East and West in unprecedented ways – introducing new trade goods, technologies, and ideas which left the West eager for more positive interactions.

Introduction

“The Crusades” have become a rhetorical device and loaded historical allusion for a wide range of social and political ideologies. Those leaning conservative tend to bust them out in the most glorified terms, as an example of passion and devoutness to which modern believers would do well to aspire. Those less interested in holy wars (literal or otherwise) cite them just as often as condemnation – an easy allusion suggesting misguided and destructive passions.

They were both, of course – but also lots of other things as well. To begin with, there were eight or nine separate Crusades, depending on how they’re counted, and in many of these, people participated for a wide variety of reasons and with very different understandings of just what was happening and why. The most recurring themes were a desire to earn God’s favor, limited concern with who or what they actually attacked or destroyed to do so, and a mother lode of one of history’s favorite schemes: “unintended consequences.” Continue reading “H2H: The Crusades (1095-1291)” →