Witnessing History, Witnessing Life

The two items for today's blog post both came from my son, who complains that I don't mention him often enough in my writing (so here you go, Honey Babe.....).

One came via one of his pithy emails (he does not share his mother's tendency to wax on and on in writing).  This was the entire email:

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/index.html

 Blog About it!

So I checked it out, and it was a GREAT SITE!  It is called Eye Witness to History.com, and its tag line is: History through the eyes of those who lived it.  It has first person accounts of events in history ranging from the Ancient World to 20th Century America.  Some of them are by famous people who were writing about pivotal political events, while others are ordinary people describing different aspects of life.  I'm a great advocate of personal accounts of other times and other cultures, because I think it can really personalize history and make it more real to students of any age.  Most sources are text, but it also has some  photographs, audio recordings, and videos.  It's a good educational resources when you are working on history with your middle schooler.

The second came this afternoon when we were driving in the car after I had rushed him through history so I could rush him through math so I could rush him through lunch so we could get to art class on time.  While he wasn't resisting any of this (he's pretty used to it after twelve years of it), he simply remarked as we were driving that "I think the secret to happiness is not caring about time."

I realized that, while my son may be a little TOO unconcerned about time, I probably have been overscheduling us lately.  So after art class and some errands, we came home and I scrapped some of my plans for the rest of the day.  Instead, I took a walk to the library to return some books and to pick up some new ones, noticing that not only were the flowering apricots and Bartlett pears and cherry blossoms out in full force (well over a month before the predicted peak week of their more famous peers in my old hometown of Washington DC), but the dogwoods were starting to bloom as well.  I had just assumed those white trees we were zooming by in the car were Bartlett pears, but they weren't.

It reminded me of those classic lines from that great life lesson movie, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, when Ferris says "Life moves pretty fast.  If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

So tonight I'm turning off the computer and putting away the to do list, and I'm going to enjoy time with my family and read a book.  Sometimes you need those reminders from the mouth of babes (Honey Babe, in this case, which is one of my pet names for my son) that all too quickly our days turn into history, and we shouldn't be so busy studying the lives of others that we miss our own.

Educational Resource: Napoleonic Wars

First, I'll admit it--I hate to be writing about wars.  But if you are teaching your middle schoolers about history, it's a topic that has to be addressed.  And if you are teaching about 19th century wars, a book that I just have to recommend is Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars by Donald Sommerville.

At least here in America, there are not lots of great resources about the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era.  But personally, I think it is really important to study, especially for Americans.  One thing that I try to convey in teaching about the American Revolution is what a radical idea it was that people were equal and that the common (white) man (unfortunately, sexism was still rampant then and women were not seen as equals...nor were ethnic groups such as Negroes) was capable of ruling himself--or, at least, of choosing the men (again, sexist and racist, but that's how it was) who would set the rules.

So, although it wasn't perfect, the ideas of democracy and equality that drove the American Revolution were a remarkable divergence from how governments had been run since Western Civilization.  And the -- again, pretty much exclusive white men -- who argued about those ideals and tried to formulate them into a working government were also, in my opinion, fairly remarkable.

One way to demonstrate this is to study the French Revolution.  Just as the French philosophers had influenced the American revolutionaries, so the American example inspired similar rebellions on the part of the people of France.  But after their war, the government that was established was either unstable or totalitarian.  The French were able to overthrow the aristocracy, but the government for many years after that was brutal to its perceived enemies, both within and around the country.

I think the greatest lesson for Americans in French history, especially regarding the Napoleonic era, is that EVEN with revolution, democracy was not a foregone conclusion.  First France, then the many nations of South America, declared their independence from European royalty.   But none of these countries were able to establish a lasting democratic government.  However, with the establishment of the US Constitution, the US government has prevailed through conflicts over its territory (the War of 1812, the Mexican war, the wars with the Native Americans), with World Wars and other military action outside its borders, and even the Civil War that set state against state.

So this is a big deal for me.   But if you are interested in your middle schooler learning about these events--American Revolution, French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, the War of 1812, American expansionism, and the War against Mexico--I haven't found a better resource than this book.

Educational Resource: NoodleTools Bibliography Software

As our students move into the highly-shareable world of digital information, it is really important to teach them from an early age the ethical practice of identifying the source of text, pictures, or other content they may borrow and incorporate into their own materials.  This includes the more information types of credit statements on websites, blog posts, etc., as well as the traditional modes of including a bibliography of sources used in developing a paper, report, or other writing.

And as long as they are starting to maintain resources from an early age, why not have them present them in one of the major styles they will be required to use by the time they are in college, or even in high school--styles like the MLA, APA, or Chicago/Turabian style?  Fortunately, there is software available that makes it easy for even elementary students to generate bibliographies with the proper formatting to meet these criteria.

There are many bibliography packages out there, many of which are free and/or open source.  However, my favorite one so far is called Noodle Tools.  While the complete package is not free, it is available for a single family use for a very reasonable subscription of $8/year.  I haven't done an exhaustive comparison, but I found Noodle Tools to be the most intuitive and easy-to-use of any of the packages, and it is worth $8 to me for the cleaner, more user-friendly (especially for a child) interface.  Plus, there is a stripped down version that is free, and would probably be acceptable for most middle school and even some high school uses if all you want to do is to create a bibliography.

With Noodle Tools, you start a project, decide which format you want to use for the bibliography, and start inputing data for the requisite fields (author's name, publisher, date of publication, etc.).  That database then formats the information in the proper format for the selected style (MLA, APA, etc.)  However, in the paid version, you can also create note cards attached to that citation, and use those to take notes or even cut and paste text, graphics, photographs, etc. from that source that you want to include in your paper.  You can export that information and/or bibliography either to a Word document or to a Google Doc document.

The website also has resources about citation rules as well as the ethical use of outside sources.  It was developed as a teaching tool, and I think it is a great support to help our children learn the proper way of keeping track of and giving credit to the material they draw on from others when they are creating their own works.