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!

Hanukkah Blog 2011: The US Holocaust Museum

Since tonight will be the last night of Hanukkah, I thought I should post one other Jewish-related item we did when we were in DC:  visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.  The museum is operated as part of a public-private partnership, where the federal government donated the space, just off the National Mall next to the Building of Printing and Engraving, and private funds paid for the construction costs of the museum.  As well as being a free resource that people can visit to learn about the Holocaust, the museum maintains an active role in education and prevention advocacy about genocide in general, not just a remembrance of the actions of Nazi Germany.

This was the first time I had taken my son to this museum, because it is a grim topic, and the displays can be quite horrific.  So I didn't want to take him until he was old enough to understand and process what he was seeing.  And even though now he is 12, he is still sensitive, particularly to visual images because he is such a visually-oriented person.  So even as a middle schooler, I didn't really want him to focus on the main exhibition of the museum, which is a timeline of the Holocaust of Jewish and other non-Aryan or non-perfect people by the Nazis.

However, there are currently two other exhibits there that I ABSOLUTELY recommend for middle schoolers.  One is called Remember the Children: Daniel's Story, and has been specifically designed for children age 8 and up.  In it, you follow the life of a Jewish boy named Daniel through displays of his life.  He begins life as the son of a shopkeeper, and you visit the home of a typical middle class German family.  Daniel then begins to talk about the increasing discrimination against Jews, then finally their forced relocation, first to a Jewish ghetto, and finally to a concentration camp.  All of this takes place in displays of the various settings, so visitors can see what first a home, then a ghetto, then a concentration camp looks like.  So it does an excellent job of demonstrating what Jewish families went through during those years, but without becoming too depressing or overwhelming for children (apparently, three child pyschologists were involved in developing the exhibit to keep that fine balance).

This exhibit is very well done, and really conveys to children the seriousness of the Holocaust in an age-appropriate way.

The other exhibit we saw was not  designed for children, but was an EXCELLENT way to cover the material with a sensitive middle school.  It was State of Deception:  The Power of Nazi Propaganda.  I can't say enough about this exhibit!  It began with a discussion of what is propaganda, as opposed to, say, advertising or biased journalism or political persuasion.  It then goes through the entire timeline of the Nazi rise to power, control of Germany, war and Holocaust, and eventual defeat--as far as I could tell, it covers the same historical events as the main Holocaust exhibit upstairs.  However, instead of horribly upsetting pictures of tortured, imaceated, or dead families, it uses images from the Nazi propaganda machine.  It basically tells the story of HOW Hitler was able to achieve all that he did....which is fascinating, and in the end, perhaps the most important lesson to be taken from that whole bleak period in our world's history (that is, to make sure it doesn't happen again).   Plus it was the perfect solution for my image-sensitive son--a great way to learn about the entire Nazi regime without having nightmares afterwards.

I learned a lot myself.  For example, I never realized before that Hitler learned all about propaganda from his experience as a World War I soldier at the receiving end of the Allies, particularly American, propaganda.  Hilter believed that it was the propaganda that defeated Germany, not the military resources, and he took everything he learned from the Americans--and more--in molding Germany opinion in line with his goals.

It is an incredibly powerful and insightful exhibit.  So if you happen to be in DC, I highly recommend it.