Middle Schoolers Entering Essay Contest on Historical Items Can Win Up to $10,000 Scholarship

The HISTORY® Channel is running a contest for students ages 7-13 called the Kid Pickers Pick and Tell National Student Contest, based on their program, American Pickers, in which Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz search for interesting historical items at flea markets, estate sales, old barns, and other such places.

Elementary and middle school students are invited to go on their own quest to find t unique historical items, collectibles, or other memorabilia in their community. Students then write short essays of 500 words or less describing their historical item they have picked and its significance. The Grand Prize, First Place, and Second Place winners will receive $10,000, $5,000, and $3,000 scholarships respectively, and will travel to Mike Wolfe's Antique Archaeology story in Nashville, TN.

Download the rules and entry forms at www.history.com/shows/american-pickers/pages/pick-and-tell. The essays must be submitted by May 17, 2013.

It sounds like a fun way to make local history personal and to practice those essay-writing skills. Good luck to all

Curriculum Resource: Art Appreciation through Smarthistory

I wanted to share a website I discovered recently and now love.  It is an art appreciation/art history website called Smarthistory.

The backbone of Smarthistory is (at this point) over 400 videos on different pieces of art, artists, or art period or concepts.  The home page basically organized these by timeline, so they fit in well as an art history resource, or as a way to quickly add art content to a history lesson.  However, inside the website you can search for videos not only by time, but by style, artist, or theme--which makes it a very flexible resources for incorporating art content in other kinds of lessons as well.

One way this website really stands out, however, is that there is an entire section on how users can make their own similar videos.  It covers the technological tools to work with images and video, advice on approaching presenting art, tips on interviewing art experts, and even philosophical discussions on the difficulties of combining text and educational resources with the experience of appreciating a piece of art. This helps both students and teachers be not only a consumer of Smarthistory's videos, but a potential creator of their own reflections and mediations on art.

Smarthistory also has some suggested curricula:  a 15 week Art History Survey (Western Culture) and a 15 week Art Appreciation Survey (again, Western Culture).  These were developed for the college level, but I think they could be very helpful, perhaps not for middle schoolers, but definitely for high school, especially those preparing for AP exams in related history or art areas.  For teachers, Smarthistory has been developed under a Creative Commons license, and they encourage teachers to embed their videos in their courses and online syllabi (with proper attribution, of course--but they give you the proper citation on their website.)

Smarthistory was developed by some experienced teachers of art history/art appreciation, and it shows.  However, they have recently merged with Khan Academy, which I think is a win/win for both groups.  Khan Academy gives Smarthistory more technological and institutional support, plus access to a much larger user base, while Smarthistory expands Khan's more math/science/technology focus into a strong curriculum in the humanities, and gives a softer, artistic edge to their rather geeky presence on the web.

All in all, I think it is a very well done project that adds a lot to our online resources on Western art.

Curriculum Resource: The 50th Anniversary of Americans in Space

Today we can celebrate not only our Founding President and the President who led our nation through its greatest challenge, but also 50 years of Americans in space.  On February 20, 1962, astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the planet in his Friendship 7 space capsule (Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first person to orbit the Earth in his Volstok space craft the previous year).   Americans at the time were transfixed during Glenn's approximately four-hour flight, which would lead in just a few years to Americans being the first humans to walk on the moon.

NASA is marking the occasion with an online interactive educational resource on Friendship 7 and the Mercury Space Program.  It has lots of facts and multimedia materials to explore, including interactive views of the interiors of the space capsules, the rocket technology, components of the space suits, flight trajectories, etc.  It also includes video footage of various aspects.

Below is one item from that website. It is a 25 minute video NASA has produced on the 50th Anniversary of Friendship 7:



I think it is hard for our middle schoolers, for whom space travel is such a regular occurence that no one even follows it any more, to realize how revolutionary it seemed at the time.  So I would add to the official NASA videos a couple of great movies about the space program--The Right Stuff and Apollo 13 (which is one of my favorite movies ever).

Hmmm...perhaps after I fix a version of last year's Presidents Day meal, we need to settle down in front of a great space flick tonight....

Black History Month Curriculum Resource: Jazz with Nneena Freelon

As I stated in an earlier post, we are studying the Harlem Renaissance right now, which happens to coincide with Black History Month.  As part of our studies, this past weekend we went to hear Nneenna Freelon, a world-renowned comtemporary jazz singer.

It was a great experience, because while I think all music sounds better performed live, it may be particularly important for jazz performances.  We can talk about jazz and study jazz and even watch videos and listen to CDs about jazz, but that is still not the same as watching someone perform jazz.

And Ms. Freelon is, indeed, wonderful, as might be expected from someone who has been nominated for a Grammy award six separate times.

You can hear some samples of her songs on her website at:  http://nnenna.com/music/.

However, one of the issues of teaching our children about jazz is the fact that the songs are unfamiliar to them, and they all just sound like "old music."  But at the conference, I found a great way to deal with that issue.

Nneena Freelon has an album entitled "Tales of Wonder," which is based on Stevie Wonder songs.   It includes jazz takes on such familiar Stevie Wonder songs as "Superstition" and "My Cheri Amour."  While these aren't timely hits, students are much more likely to have heard them than traditional jazz classics (we've been working on his mastery of Classic Rock artists while driving in the car).  But because he does know the original versions of these songs, it gives him a better feeling for jazz interpreations of songs.

So I recommend her songs in general for a modern singer with classic jazz roots.  But I have really found Tales of Wonder to be useful in helping my middle schooler understand jazz.

The Best Google Doodle of 2011

Yesterday's Google Doodle reminded me...how could I not have written about the Best Google Doodle of 2011 as part of my New Yearl's posts?   There were so many wonderful Doodles that is is hard to choose.   Some were really beautiful, some were educational (like the Nicolas Steno one yesterday), and some were so inventive, like the Jim Henson one where you could manipulate the Muppet puppets or the Freddie Mercury one? (was that it?) where you could actually play notes?

But one was the nearest and dearest to the hearts in our household, and that was the interactive submarine view for Jules Verne's birthday:

Visit my original post for a video of all the things you could find in this interactive display.

But if you aren't clear about the outstanding Google Doodle for the past year, you can watch this video for some reminders of all the great displays Google gave us this year:




So which one was your favorite Doodle for 2011?  Add it to the comments below.

Who is Nicolas Steno?

I know, it sounds like that movie, The Usual Suspects, where they ask "Who is Keyser Soze?"  But that is the question I asked when I saw the beautiful Google Doodle this morning.

There have been lots lately, but I thought this one was particularly eye-catching.  Plus, when I check out most of the Google Doodles, I know something about the subject.  But Nicolas Steno?   Never heard of him.

Of course, that led to me reading hyperlinks to information about the man and his work, which was all interesting and ended up diverting me for far too long.  But how great it is that Google throughs these little diversions at us.  I have my issues with Google as a company, but I love the whimsy that is illustrated in the Google Doodle program.

If you happen not to know about Nicolas Steno either, you can watcht the Google Doodle video below:

New Year's Eve 2011 Blog: Highlights of 2011

It's the last day of the year--a time for looking back and appreciating what has been a pretty great year.  One of the things that I love about having a blog is that it captures much of what we've done, which makes it much easier when trying to recall the highlights of the year.  If I didn't write about it in my blog, then it probably wasn't that important to me.

So here is my assessment of my personal and blog-related top items for the year 2011:

#1 Personal Achievement of the Year:
Participating in NaNoWriMo and finally writing a 62,384 word book

Runner Up:
Leading my first online/distance education class on The Psychology of Math Education

These are both things that I've been saying for years that I wanted to do, so I'm really glad that I finally did them instead of just talking about them.  So I'm very grateful to my son for talking me into doing the former, and to my friend Maria Droujkova for talking me into doing the latter.


#1 Major Art Exhibit of the Year:
American Chronicles:  The Art of Norman Rockwell at the North Carolina Museum of Art

Runner Up:
Rembrandt in America at the North Carolina Museum of Art

I think these two exhibits beat out all the great art we get to see in DC galleries when we go up there to visit my father because we took guided tours for both these exhibits, whereas we are just looking at the art on our own when we are viewing art in Washington.   Both the North Carolina Museum of Art and the Nasher Gallergy at Duke University do an excellent job on their educational tours, and we try to schedule a group trip for all the major exhibits, because it is well worth the effort.

What is particularly special about both these exhibits, however, is the fact that I didn't particular appreciate either of those two artists prior to these exhibits.  After taking the tours, however, I had to wonder about how I could have been so blind to their artistic abilities.  I have especially changed my mind about Norman Rockwell.  I used to think his work was simplistic and commercial; now I see it as simple and iconic.  It now reminds me of something I learned recently in researching the Buddhism unit I am currently teaching in World Religions.  The Buddhists say we look, but we do not see, because if we truly saw, we would be blown away by every leaf, every flower, every stone, and every face we ever viewed.  But that was kind of how Norman Rockwell lived--seeing the extraordinary in what people like me dismissed as ordinary.  So that exhibit was a great lesson for me, not only about art, but about life.


#1 Local Gallery Exhibit of the Year:
Carbon Load by Jenny Eggleston at Artspace

Runner Up:
ARTQUILTSrepurposed by Professional Art Quilters of America-South at the Page-Walker Arts and History Center


This is a tough category, because we've seen a lot of great art at our local galleries, fans that we are of First Friday in downtown Raleigh and Final Friday in downtown Cary.  But Jenny Eggleston's exhibit, who also happens to be my son's best art teacher ever, was so creative, so inventive, so beautiful, and with such an important message that even just remembering it brings tears to my eyes.  And we always look forward to the annual ARTQUILTS exhibit, which are not only beautiful, but make us rethink what it is to be a quilt.


Best New Addition to the Local Arts Scene:
The Cary Arts Center

Runner Up:
Chambers Art

Two fantastic new venues for all sorts of arts, and both within walking distance from our house!

#1 Museum Exhibit of the Year:

The Crochet Coral Reef at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History

Runner Up:

State of Deception:  The Power of Nazi Propaganda at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum

I can't believe I didn't post about the Crochet Coral Reef, since it was the inspiration for the Ocean Studies Coop we are doing this year and will be a major focus of next year's activities--stay tuned for more details soon.  But the State of Deception exhibit was the best thing I've ever seen in terms of explaining how Hitler managed to do all that he did.  It's an incredible exhibit.

#1 Blog Post of the Year (by number of views):

Black History Month Lesson Plan:  African American Quilt Art

Runner Ups (tied for number of views):

Mother's Employment Increases Children's Health Risks

Lesson Plan:  Miracles of Jesus About Food

Lesson Plan:  MBTI for Teens/Tweens

Other than that, as I look back, there have been so many great books, so many great classes, so many great friends, and so many great times that I just can't go into them all.  But many thanks to all of you who have helped to make 2011 such a wonderful year for me and my family and our communities, whether physical or virtual.

And I can't wait to see what 2012 has in store!

Happy New Year's Eve to all!

Christmas 2011 Blog: Have A Very Bryson Christmas

One of our favorite activities around the Christmas break is reading, either new books that we got as presents or the multitude of books we've been meaning to get around to but haven't had time.  So we often spend time this week between Christmas and New Years lounging about, reading good books as we much on our Christmas leftovers or goodies from stockings or other presents.

This year, we are doing that as we all read the same author, if not the same book.  This Christmas, we all received different books by Bill Bryson, the delightful essayist whose most famous book is A Walk in the Woods, but who has produced about fifteen other books as well on subjects ranging from travel to explaining the universe.

My husband received Bryson's latest book, which is called At Home:  A Short History of Private Life, in which Bryson investigates a variety of items commonly found in a home to discover where they came from and why they developed as they did.  You can get a sense of the book from this video:




My son got a older book, but another of the most famous ones of Bryson's collection: The Mother Tongue:  English and How It Got That Way.  As the title implies, this is Bryson's attempt to explain the many peculiarities of the English language by tracing its development over time.  I read it and really enjoyed it, although it is hardly a definite exposition of all the quirks of our native language.  But my son is always asking me about why things are spelled in strange ways, and why we say this instead of that, so I think this is a great book for him.  He has been laughing aloud as he reads it, so I think he is finding it amusing as well as educational.

My gift was a follow-on to my son's book.  It is Made in America:  An Informal History of the English Language in the United States.  It extends Bryson's Mother Tongue analysis to the ways the language grew in the United States over time.  I've only begun it, but have found it interesting so far, although the first few chapters seem to be as devoted to dismissing myths about early American History as it is about the language of our Founding Fathers and Mothers.  However, The Independent, an English newspaper, had what I thought was an excellent review of the book from the British perspective, which you can read here.

It is a cold, grey, and rainy day here in North Carolina--a perfect day for staying home and curling up with a good book.  And we've got three good ones from Bryson.  The exciting thing is that we can switch amongst each other when we get tired or done with the one we're reading now.

Book Review: Franklin and Winston: A Christmas That Changed The World

Our Pearl Harbor Day book review is of Franklin and Winston:  A Christmas That Changed the World by Douglas Wood.  This book is not specifically about Pearl Harbor, but it is about what happened just afterwards, when English Prime Minister Winston Churchill took the somewhat perilous boat trip overseas to spend Christmas 1941 in the nearly-declared entrant into World War II, the United States.  Despite the time it took to sail across the ocean, the book implies it was time well spent because it solidified the relationship between the two countries that would head up the eventually defeat of both Hitler and the Japanese.

This is a picture book, which I've said in previous posts that I think can be very effective for middle schoolers, even thought usually aimed for a younger audience.   The story in this book is definitely a bit young for middle schoolers.  However, I think it can be appropriate for this age group as "color" about World War II.  That is, it gives a good sense of the two men--US President Franklin Roosevelt and English Prime Minister Winston Churchill--and the relationship they forged.  It has a number of personal stories, which I think is great because I always believe it is important for students to see this figures as real people, not just heroes in a book or on a test.  And it makes students think about how it used to be...when leaders took days or weeks to get together and talk, when we are so used to instant communications.

Curriculum Resource: Interactive Pearl Harbor

Since tomorrow is the 70 year anniversary of "the day that will live in infamy," I figured many of us may be doing at least mini-lessons on the Attack at Pearl Harbor.   I know we will.

I found this interactive resource online that I thought I would share.  It is an hour-by-hour timeline of the events of that day, interposed on maps of the area.  It gives a brief summary of the action, but you can click on each event to read more about it and see photographs related to that topic.  Or you can click on small images of some of the eye witnesses or people involved (both Japanese and American) and read their descriptions of the event.  It was developed by National Geographic, so it is a high quality production.

It is not overly dramatic, but it is still pretty emotionally effecting...at least was for me.

Check out Remembering Pearl Harbor:  Multimedia Map and Timeline on the National Geographic website.

Curriculum Resource: The Museum of Online Museums (MoOM)

:When you have a big task looming ahead of you (like writing 50,000 words in 30 days), which you have been spending too many of your waking hours on already, distraction is only a click away with the Internet.  In one of my flights of fancy today, I discovered the Museum of Online Museums (MoOM), which actually is a fabulous resource.

The Museum of Online Museums is just what it sounds like--a collection of links to museums around the world with exhibits and other information available online.  But what a collection!

It is divided into different sections.  The first section, The Museum Campus, has all your usual suspects--the Smithsonian, MoMA, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Virtual Museum of Canada, etc--with links conveniently located on the same page.  Then there is The Permanent Collection, which has mostly art and university collections that you might not be aware of, but that could prove useful--sites like Duke's Rare Book and Manuscript Collection, or the Flanders Fields Museum, or Art Treasures from Kyoto.

Finally, you come to Galleries, Exhibits, and Shows.  This part contains listings to the most bizarre and diverse collections I've ever seen.  Here are a sampling of the current exhibits:

• Museum of Snake Charmer Imagery
• The Aerosol Spray Paint Can Museum Covers
• International Gallery of Restroom Hand Dryers
• Take Out Beverage Lid Collection

And it goes on and on like that.  MoOM picks out a few of these to feature each quarter, but there is something there to fit almost anyone's fancy.

However, this is a great resource to know about to answer questions our students have about obscure things.  For example, I have accessed The DOS Museum (one of their listings) before when trying to remember and explain the history of computer development to my son.  That's not one of the most obscure, but you get the idea.  It's a good place to bookmark for when they ask you something about the history of some aspect of our culture that you have no idea where to start looking for the answer.

Finally, it can come in handy when you are writing something like NaNoWriMo.  For example, say I am writing a scene about my protagonists going to the movie in either a different country or a different time period.  What candy should I have them buy to consume during the movie?  Well, by visiting Mike's Candy Bar Wrapper Collection, I can not only find the correct name of the candy they would eat in Canada, but describe the wrapper as well.

So whether you are looking for more academic purposes, or want to lose yourself in the wormhole of the World Wide Web, (MoOM) can help you out.

Lesson Plan: World Religion Dream Catchers

In my short (five-week) World Religion class, we are concentrating on the six religions that have had the most influence on Western culture--Paganism, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam (in order of when they began).   So to help the students keep the order of these religious movements straight, we made World Religion Dream Catchers.

Dream Catchers are a tradition among some Native American tribes (which fall under the Paganism category).  They are a circle created out of a branch of wood, between which string and beads have been strung, creating an open web in the middle.  The idea is that the dream catcher will capture the bad dreams sent to a child, but will allow the good ones through its openings.

Because we are on a restricted budget of both money and time, we made ours out of paper plates, from which I had cut out the centers and punched eight holes around the inner circle of the remaining rim.  I had the students write the names or draw symbols for the six religions (we covered the religious in symbols in class beforehand) on the paper plate rims, and then string yarn from hole to hole IN ORDER of the religion's founding date.  So the first hole was just the start, but then the student would string the yarn through the Paganism hole, then through the Hinduism hole, then Judaism....you get the idea.

Here are some samples of their work.  As always, they were following the same instructions, but came up with some lovely variations.

Looking Forward to Looking Back on the 20th Century

Happy Labor Day to all!  As an official holiday, I didn't give my son any school work today, but I have been busy planning our curricula for the year ahead.  I was particularly focused today on working on our plans for our history studies this year.

As I stated in a previous post, we are doing 20th century history this year, and I'm really excited about it.   Many people would not be.  History of the 20th century can be pretty depressing, given the high numbers of wars, conflicts, purges, and other major exterminations of groups of people, not to mention economic depressions, ecological disasters, wildlife and nature decimation, and other such dreary topics.  For example, Susan Wise Bauer, the author of the popular Story of the World series, sums up the 20th century in this way:

Revolution shatters the structures; but the men who build the next set of structures haven’t conquered the evil that lives in their own hearts. The history of the twentieth century is, again and again, the story of men who fight against tyrants, win the battle, and then are overwhelmed by the unconquered tyranny in their own souls.

Boy, that sounds like a bummer, right?

However, the timing seems perfect to me.  Followers of this blog know I'm pretty fanatical about politics, and the upcoming presidential election, more so than any I've experienced in a long time, really seems like it could be about the fundamental principles about American democracy.  The clash between the Tea Party and the Progressives is no longer about one candidate versus another, or one side of various issues versus the other side, but a true debate about the nature of government--a debate that is addressing some of the issues that have mostly been taken for granted for as long as I've been alive.

So we argue about the role of government regulations, and whether or not they should be eliminated, or made stronger.  Should we be talking about that without reviewing what life was like in the 1900's and 1910's, before government got into the business of regulating business?  (Although I don't think I dare have my son read The Jungle yet, since I'm not prepared to switch to vegetarianism.)  As Michael Gerson writes in a recent article in the Washington Post, Texas Governor Rick Perry is actually attacking the entire New Deal itself.  How can we evaluate his arguments, and the counter arguments of his foes, if we haven't studied the Great Depression and legislation that was passed to respond to that economic crisis?  In terms of foreign policy, doesn't it make sense to analyze the wars that we've "won" (surely most would agree that included World War II and the first Bush's Persian Gulf War) and those that we've "lost" (perhaps more debatable, but I think most would include the Vietnam War in that category, and I think Anne Applebaum makes a good case for the "War on Terror," at least as we've chosen to pursue it so far)?

So we might not have a jolly year ahead of us in history this year.  But it seems like it will be a really significant one.  I think it will be important for my son to have some of this background as he tries to understand and decide about the candidate positions he will be hearing in the Presidential election of 2012.  I'll do my best to give him a factual basis from which to evaluate the conflicting claims.

I only hope the rest of the country will try to recall some of our 20th century history as well.  We have learned a few lessons since the Boston Tea Party, after all.

American History in the News

This year, we will be focusing on 20th century history for our social studies.  This is just kind of how it turned out, as we've been approaching history chronologically and thus marching through time year by year.  But with the elections coming next year, I'm glad my son will be exposed to 20th century history this year.  Increasingly, it appears we are facing deep problems in American society that we haven't faced since the early 20th century, and I will be glad for him to know some more about those times as we try to analyze the arguments of the political candidates who are vying for our votes (OK, my vote at least, although he did participate thoughtfully in the Kids Vote program during the last presidential election).  Plus, facing some of the same issues today will, I believe, make our study of those past policies, failed or successful, richer and more meaningful.

There were two articles I read in the Washington Post today that brought this synchronicity home to me.  In one,  Greg Ip, who is the US economics editor of The Economist and author of The Little Book of Economics:  How the Economy Works in the Real World, analyzes the changing beliefs about basic economics by the current Republican party.  Entitled  The Republicans' New Voodoo Economics?,  Ip suggests that some of the most radical Republican candidates are rejecting not just Obama's economic policies, but the entire Keynesian economic theory that has driven most of the US economic policies for the bulk of the 20th century.  Mr. Ip seems not to be in favor of this trend, mentioning, among others, the belief that it was Herbert Hoover's narrow focus on balancing the budget in 1932 that made the Great Depression more severe.

Keynesian economic philosophy is not something that I know enough about that I can talk intelligently as to its success in the past vis a vis other alternatives.  But believe me, it will be something I will be looking into more carefully when we get to the 1930's in our history studies.  And, fortunately, I have some family resources at hand; my father is/was a professional economist, and my brother just visited the Herbert Hoover presidential library, trying to find out what more there was to the man than a one-term President during the Depression.

The other article goes back even further than Keynes and Hoover.  In The Real Grand Bargain Coming Undone, Harvard history professor Alexander Keyssar writes that the current political debate reminds him not of the Depression, but of the Robber Barons of the late 19th century and the reform efforts to balance their power that were passed in the first several decades of the 20th century.  Keyssar, who also is the author of The Right to Vote:  The Contested History of Democracy in the United States, points out that the public outrage over the excesses of unbridled capitalism at the turn of the century were mollified by such laws or programs as the Sherman Antitrust Act, worker safety laws, banking regulations, the rise of the labor movement, and the establishment of the social welfare programs of Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare--most of which are currently under attack by some Republicans.   He argues that it is this agreement between segments of society--that corporates can run up huge profits if workers have a basic level of protection and a social safety net--that is what really is under attack in today's politics.

Anyway, these echoes from the past that are arising in our current political debate promise to make this year's history studies particularly important and fruitful in raising a young man who can participate intelligently in our democratic system.  It reminds me of the all-too-often misquoted Santayana quote, which I think is worthy of being repeated in its entirety here, especially since the first sentence is what many of us need to consider:

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana, Reason in Common Sense, 1905 

Cary Arts Center Is Dedicated!

What a great day today was!  It was the official opening ceremonies for the new Cary Arts Center, about which I've raved in previous posts.  There were art activities going on all day, from 9:00 AM - 9:00 PM, including free concerts, dance performance, theater improv, historical lectures, art exhibits, craft projects for kids, lesson demonstrations, artists working on  and talking about their pieces under development.  The dedication ceremonies themselves were at 2:00 PM, attended not only by hundreds of Cary residents, but by many Cary politicians old (such as long-time former Mayor Koka Booth) and new (present Mayor Harold Weinberg and most of the current Cary Council).

We walked up there about 1:00, despite a fairly heavy rain--but we weren't about to let that deter us!

Once we got there (admittedly, a little soggy), I caught up with my good friend Eileen, who was there with her two boys who are my son's age, and we watched some lovely performances by the Cary Ballet:

Then a dashing Town Cryer called us all to attendance to the dedication ceremony:

Many politicians and Town of Cary staff thanked the many people who had worked on the entire project, which began about 10 years ago, although the groundbreaking was about a year and a half ago:

Many people were acknowledged, and many expressed their delight about how well this vision for an integrated facility for the arts has been manifested.  It made me really proud to live in a community that recognizes the importance of supporting the arts, especially for children, in a time of financial hard times and an educational focus on standardized testing.  And it is wonderful that a site that had been a school for almost 150 years, and one of the first public education buildings in the area, has been saved to continue its mission of educating and uplifting the citizens for a long time into the future.

My favorite part of the ceremony, however, was related to the cornerstone, which was supposed to be placed in the theater flybridge that day, but had to be postponed due to the rain.  But in that cornerstone was placed a time capsule with items contributed by 37 Cary-based arts and cultural organizations.  Some were parts of the Town government or local educational institutions, some were discipline-specific arts organization, and some were related to ethnic minorities.  But it was so wonderful to see representatives from groups seeking to share the culture of African, Turkish, Hispanic, Indian, Nepalese, Sister Cities in France, Belgium, Ireland, and China, Philippine, and I've probably forgotten a few more.  It was wonderful to see such diversity in a Southern community that 50 years ago was basically a rural train stop outside Raleigh with 5,000 residents, pretty exclusively white and black.

The plans are for the time capsule to be opened up in 70 years.  So I may not be around then, but I certainly hope my son is.  I took a picture of him next to the cornerstone/time capsule that maybe he can put into the time capsule when they seal it for the NEXT 70 years!

We also ran into our friends Angie and Todd, who came from a beading party for their daughter's birthday, and later into my friend Bridget, whose all-too-old son was supposed to be playing as part of the Cary High School Marching Band (another old tradition in Cary) for the dedication, but which unfortunately for us got rained out (although I'm not sure the kids, who have been practicing for up to 12 hours a day for a couple of weeks now, minded the break).

All together, it was just a lovely, lovely day, full of great art, great friends, and a great accomplishment on the part of the Town of Cary.

Curriculum Resource: Teaching About 9/11

There is now just one month before the 10th anniversary of the attacks of 9/11/2001.  Most of our middle schoolers were alive during those painful times, but were too young to know what was going on.  However, with all of the focus we can expect on this 10th year remembrance, it will probably be a time when you want to have a serious discussion with your young adolescents about what happened that day.

The History Channel has a website that may facilitate your discussion.  Entitled 9/11 Attacks:  102 Minutes That Changed America, it has maps, interviews, videos, and other resources related to the events of that eventful day.  However, be prepared--there is a lot of on-the-spot footage that depicts both the terror, and the heroism, of that day.  I haven't watched all the videos myself yet, but the ones that make me the saddest are the footage of the firemen charging into the buildings without faltering, determined to saving lives in a place that I know is going to collapse around them.  So I don't know how emotional you are, but I know I need to preview these videos before sharing them with my son.  

On the other hand, in these times when our political systems appear to be in disarray, when our confidence in our country may be shaken, and when we are seeing the English riot in a way we would never expect from such a civilized country, it may not be bad to show our tweens these videos of people rising up and acting in such an honorable way, even though it cost many of them their lives.

Happy Bastille Day!

Happy Bastille Day!  Bastille Day is, of course, French National Day, observed every July 14th as the anniversary of the storming of the infamous French prison, the Bastille.  In line with our general philosophy of celebrating every holiday that we can, we had marked this day previously in years past.  However, since we actually studied the French Revolution this past year, it seemed appropriate to make an even bigger occasion of Bastille Day then usual.

Yesterday we invited some friends over to help prepare a French meal with us.  We started by munching on apples and a French baguette while we chopped up food for our main dish.

We then had meat fondue, cooking our steak, chicken, or sausage (consumed along with some fresh raw vegetables) in boiling broth rather than the more traditional, but less healthy or safe, boiling oil.

We concluded the meal with home made cream puffs--home made puff pastries filled with hand-whipped cream and blackberry curd homemade from berries our friends had picked themselves.

Delicious!  They were consumed almost immediately, of course....

Today I'm trying a less traditional dish.  I'm making what I am calling Lasagna Provencal--kind of a cross between traditional Lasagna and Ratatouille, accompanied by baguette once again.

If nothing else, you should at least mark the occasion by watching this video about the French Revolution from the History Teachers series that I've mentioned before:




Enjoy!

History Teachers Meet Bollywood!

OK, so that title might be a bit of an exaggeration.

However, a few months ago a had a post about these wonderful history teachers who are posting free music videos on YouTube of history topics set to popular music (check out the link for more background and some of my favorites of their videos).

They have done a couple more since my post, but my favorite is a video about the Mahabharata, the epic Indian morality tales that includes the Bhagavad Gita, the sacred text for Hinduism.  It is done Indian style, with the video of the lead singer demonstrating her use of four arms.




It is great to seem them expanding from basic Western Civilization history.  We are doing Hinduism in the fall, so I'm definitely saving this for my coming classes.

Do You Know As Much U.S. History as the Average 8th Grader?

Fortunately, it turns out that I do....at least in terms of the sample questions provided for the history section of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) assessment test, a national program to track U.S. students' achievement in different topics over time.

The NAEP released the history results for 2010 recently, leading its press release with the news that scores in the three grade levels tested--4th, 8th, and 12th grade--had all risen since 1994.  It did not emphasize the fact that only the 8th grade scores had increased significantly since the most recent previous test, which was in 2006.  The results also show that while 69% of 8th graders showed they had acquired a Basic level of understanding of U.S. history, only 17% achieved the Proficient level, and only 1% scored at an Advanced level.  The numbers in the 12th grade were even more dismal:  45% were Basic level, 12% were Proficient, and 1% were Advanced.

Because I like these things, I tried the five sample questions given for each of the three grade levels, and managed to get all five questions right in the 4th, 8th, and 12th grade levels (although I think one of the 8th grade questions was poorly developed).  To get a better idea of the level of these questions for students, rather than adults, I asked my 12 year old son, who has just completed 6th grade, to take all three sets of questions.  He got all five questions right at the 4th grade level; overall, 46% of 4th graders got those five questions right.  He missed one, or scored 80%, on both the 8th grade and 12th grade tests, compared to 45% overall correct responses among 8th graders and 56% overall of the 12th graders getting them right.

Other than the one question in the 8th grade set, I thought they were generally good questions--better than the ones my son took in his Iowa Basic Skills history assessment test this year, in my opinion.  And obviously they can't be THAT tough if my 6th grader can score that high on even 12th grade questions.

So I'm glad to see that things are better than 16 years ago.  But I don't think the results are really very good.  Once again, I think it demonstrates that subjects that aren't on the high-stakes test are getting a short shrift in our schools.

Try out the test questions yourself here and see what you think.  Let us know your opinion in the comments below.

What Are Your Five (or Six) Most Influential Books?

Today I stumbled upon a wonderful website sponsored by Scholastic books. Entitled You Are What You Read, it asks the best question I’ve been asked in quite a while--What Five Books Influenced You the Most? You enter that information into your profile, and it connects you with other readers with similar tastes. It also has the lists of all sorts of celebrities, authors, educators, and other famous people, along with other reading resources.

But what a question! My whole family and I are such readers that it is really hard to pick the top five books that have changed my life. I also found it much easier to focus on the ones that have really altered the course of my life more recently than the ones that most influenced me as a child.

So I gave myself a little leeway (not being a rules-driven person in general, as those who know me already know). I decided to make two lists: my favorites as a child (up through high school), and the most influential from college to today.

But even so, I cut and cut from my many contenders, and I debated and considered, and I couldn’t get below six categories (some had more than one book...another fudge factor). Then I realized that today was 6/6. So obviously it was meant to be that I had two lists with six items apiece!

So here are my two lists of my six most influential books. They are more in sequential order than order of impact, because, again, I just couldn’t decide on that.

CHILD

Winnie the Pooh/The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne
Is there a better book for conveying that comforting world of friendships and relationships we had with our earliest toys?

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Before there was Harry Potter and the Lightening Thief, there was Narnia, covering many of the same fantasy world/good versus evil/family versus...whatever, not family themes. I think both of these were also influenced by the fact that I was born and raised through elementary school in London.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle/Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
So to most people these books probably seem really different (and, of course, on one hand they are), but they are bound in my mind as both having protagonists that were plucky young girls who do whatever it takes to take care of their families. Family was--and still is--a predominant value in my life.

Animal Farm by George Orwell/Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Maybe it was because I went to high school in the DC suburbs, but my teenage rebellion books dealt more with political and social power rather than personal liberation (which I would classify books like Catcher in the Rye, which is a popular book on the list). I have always been wary of following the masses and of the potential for the abuse of government, or increasingly in modern times, corporate power (which is why I still refuse to get on Facebook, despite the many pleas by my friends).

The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Paradoxically, perhaps, I also embraced the idea of the social contract--the fact that we will willingly give up some of our independence so that we can live together. But I see that as a mutual agreement between individuals, not something imposed upon me by the government or other structure.

The Once and Future King by T.H. White/Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
These two are combined in mind, not only as books, but as their corresponding musicals (Camelot and Man of La Mancha). I remember writing my college application essays on these books. The main message they left me was to do the right thing, even if no one appreciates it, no one understands it, and no one accepts it at the time. You do the right thing, and it makes a difference, even if you aren’t around to see it. You do the right thing, and you can live and die with peace, even if others might judge you as a fool or a failure. If I had to pick one, this is probably the idea that has influenced my entire life more than any other I have ever gotten from books.


ADULT

The Republic by Plato
So I went off to college to an outstanding liberal arts college, The College of William and Mary, and took a philosophy course largely because my roommate’s boyfriend’s roommate was a philosophy major. I took my first class, and then my first test, and left thinking this was the easiest class I had taken for my entire college experience and wondered why it wasn’t on the list of “gut” classes that had circulated among my freshman dorm. Then I found out that other people actually thought the test was hard! These things that I had been thinking about my entire life were brand new to most of my classmates. So, anyway, I think it was reading this book that made me decide to major in philosophy and concentrate in political philosophy, with a minor in government.

Being and Nothingness/Nausea/No Exit by Paul Sartre
A little later in my philosophical career, I became an existentialist, mainly through reading Sartre. One of the things I loved about him was that he explored these ideas through more than just confounding philosophical treatises (Being and Nothingness), but also novels (Nausea) and plays (No Exit). Discovering existentialism provided the philosophical, and eventually the spiritual, foundation for my entire life.

Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe
I read this in college, and realized how my eating choices could contribute to world hunger--or not. I have so many allergies to alternative protein sources (allergic to eggs, nuts, and dairy at that time) that I couldn’t see being a vegetarian, but I did give up eating red meat for over 20 years after that book.

Guns, Germs, and Steel/Collapse by Jared Diamond
Both these books changed the way I viewed history. I had been raised in what I call the “Great Man” theory--that these extraordinary individuals created the course of history. Diamond makes a great argument that civilizations rise and fall based on environmental factors, not outstanding people. This only added fuel to my lifelong environmental activism. But perhaps more importantly, I am trying to incorporate this perspective into how I teach my son and my other students history and geography and world religion and such. I believe they need to see how decisions about natural resources have contributed to the success or failure of societies in the past, which I hope will help them make more intelligent decisions about our future.

Loving What Is by Byron Katie
This is probably the best book that describes my spiritual approach to life. As Katie says, “When you argue with reality, you lose 100% of the time.” It’s not an easy read, but it can be a life-altering book.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
This is such a fantastic book. This one, again, changed the way that my family and I eat (and influenced me to start eating red meat again). Pollan poses the question: Given that we humans can biologically eat anything, how do we know what to eat? He then looks at the economic, environmental, societal, and ethical costs of four types of meal: fast food; food from Whole Foods; food from local farms; growing, hunting, and gathering all your own food. He is a wonderful writer, and I, who thought she was relatively conscious about her food choices, was alternately horrified and inspired by the facts and stories about food production in this book. This is an incredibly important book that I recommend to everyone I know.

So there you have it. I’ve probably told you more than you wanted to know. But with so many wonderful, wonderful books left off my list, I felt I had to justify the ones that made it.

I would love to hear about some of your most influential books, even if you don’t want to do the whole “top five/six” or extraverted/here is my life thing. Please add your favorites to the comments below.