Better late than never

So....I know that I promised when I showed you all my eboard in class that I would be keeping up with my blog. Just think, that was only 2 short weeks ago!

I hope that everyone has had a good first couple of weeks of the school year. I'm really excited about all of the things that we will be working on this year.

In US History we will be starting my favorite unit of the whole year in October! We will be learning about the Constitution. I know that may not seem super exciting to many of you but we do a lot of hands-on activities and a nifty project which is very awesome!

In Global II we are currently learning about the Enlightenment which is sooooo important! It will really help us to know about the Enlightenment when we study the French Revolution. BTW, the French Revolution is super bloody and has a lot of gory stories. My advice is to maybe not eat too much lunch before class when we get started talking about the revolution.

Psychology has been a great experience for me so far. You guys have been great and have made the class really fun. My goal is to work on reducing my unconditioned response of blushing. *The kids in my class know what I'm talking about!

Lastly, I've been working with Ms. Dahl on getting Student Council up and running for the year. I know that I will be talking about it a lot as the year goes on. Be sure to check out my Student Council page on my eboard for all kinds of info about what is upcoming.

Well, I will try to really keep up on posting here about current events both inside the classroom and in the school as well. I also love to discuss current events and I hope to bring up a lot of the really interesting topics here.

Good Luck this year and keep reading and posting here on my super cool blog!!!!!

Borat Fights Apathy?

In a recent article in the British press, Sacha Baron Cohen is defending his alter ego Borat. In his movie, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, Cohen plays an anti-Semitic sexist. In reality, Cohen is a "devout Jew, observing Sabbath and eating kosher foods". He spoke out because of the criticism he has received from both the Jewish community and the nation of Kazakhstan.




What interested me most is Cohen's rationale for doing this movie.

"Borat essentially works as a tool. By himself being anti-Semitic, he lets people lower their guard and expose their own prejudices, whether it's anti-Semitism or an acceptance of anti-Semitism. 'Throw the Jew Down the Well' was a very controversial sketch, and some members of the Jewish community thought it was actually going to encourage anti-Semitism.

"But to me it revealed something about that bar in Tuscon. And the question is: did it reveal that they were anti-Semitic? Perhaps. But maybe it just revealed that they were indifferent to anti-Semitism," he said.

Baron Cohen said the concept of "indifference towards anti-Semitism" had been informed by his study of the Holocaust while at Cambridge University, where he read history. "I remember, when I was in university, and there was this one major historian of the Third Reich, Ian Kershaw. And his quote was, 'The path to Auschwitz was paved with indifference.'

"I know it's not very funny being a comedian talking about the Holocaust, but I think it's an interesting idea that not everyone in Germany had to be a raving anti-Semite. They just had to be apathetic," he said.


That last paragraph really rings true to me. In our world, it is apathy that can cause the most harm---whether its about a tyrannical dictator, a genocidal war, or racism. I hope that you can look at your life's experiences and see that you have not been apathetic to events around you. I'll try to do the same.

Current Happenings

As we began the 2nd marking quarter, a lot has been going on in all of my classes! On Tuesday (11/14) we had our first movie night of the school year and almost 30 of my students (and a few of their friends) came out to see B0wling for Columbine. Our next movie night will be Tuesday 11/28 and we will be watching a movie that deals with global studies. I'll be making a movie suggestion box for my classroom so that all of you can have your voice heard. You can also give your suggestions here!

We've also been working on debate issues in all of my classes. My US History classes will be beginning their debates on Monday (11/20) in the LGI and I'm really excited to see what everyone has to say. The big issues are abortion, gay marriage, the death penalty, and the legalization of marijuana.

My Global II class is working on two projects simultaneously. Most of the class is creating their posters for their persona from the Industrial Revolution while 8 students are getting ready for their first debate in the Current Event Debate Series. They are debating the issue of adoption of children from Africa.

Lastly, my period 8 US History class is creating a new student government. We're hoping that this work can translate into real positive changes for our school.

I'm really proud of everything that all of my students are doing and I've been enjoying the break from "regular" teaching. I hope that you all are having fun AND learning something valuable as well!

Adopt me

A story that I've been following relatively closely these past few weeks is the Madonna adoption story. For those of you who have been living under a rock, here's the deal: Madonna went to Malawi, a nation in Africa on a humanitarian mission. While she was there she met a one year old boy who she later decided to adopt. Evidently, she and her husband had discussed the possibility of adopting a baby before even going there. Madonna has since taken the child to her home in England and plans to make him an official part of her family.

It sounds nice and like she at the very least is giving this child the chance to have a very nice life. Critics, however, say that she should not have been allowed to adopt the baby since Malawian law requires a person to live in the nation for a significant amount of time before the adoption can be finalized. They say that she was allowed to bypass that law because of her fame and fortune (she did donate $3 million to the orphanage). Additionally, many are saying that she is taking the child away and by doing so is taking him away from his culture. There has even been an analogy between the increasing amount of international adoptions of African babies with as a new type of slavery. Pretty strong language!

We will be examining this issue in Global II when we discuss imperialism of the late 1800's and discuss the forms that imperialism takes today. In the mean time, here are some articles that I have begun to gather on the subject. Take a look and them and then report back. What do you think, are these adoptions a generous thing that westerners are doing that is good because it is helping one child at a time or is this new trend working to rob African people of their cultural identity one by one?

Adoption workers see pros, cons to high-profile celebrity adoptions

Alternative to adoption bleak for African orphans

Born in America, adopted abroad

Dad in Madonna Adoption Blasts Critics

In Britain, Madonna's Either a Saint Or a Sinner

International Adoption: Opening Pandora's Box

Inter-race adoptees say worried about Madonna child

Madonna's adoption statement

The ethics of celebrity adoptions

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New Links
CIA Factbook page on Malawi
Wiki Page on Malawi
Malawi City Travel Guide- with news flashes
Clinton Global Initiative- Explains help that is being given to developing nations
The ONE Campaign- Organization created in part by Bono from U2
African Orphans- organization to help the orphans of Africa
EBAY adoptions of "orphans"
The other orphans
Human trafficing

Happy Halloween!

To keep up my rep as being one of the coolest people around, I spent this evening playing around on the computer with my Free Cell game (a kind of solitaire) and trying to improve my score. Since I didn't think that alone would qualify me in the coolest of the cool category, I also was playing around with a game that Mr. Burns sent a bunch of us Social Studies teachers.

Now, don't let the fact that it was Mr. Burns who sent it to me deter you, this game is really awesome! It's called the "Place States" game and the object is to put each state in its rightful place on a map of the US. The challenging aspect is that there are no state borders given and you just sort of have to know where the states are supposed to go. Too nifty, huh?

So far my high score is 94% accuracy in 331 seconds with a 6 mile error. See if you can beat that!!!! It's a great way to prepare for a 50 state map quiz which we will be having at some point! Good Luck!

Constitutional Convention?

Well, I hope so! Click this link to see what my Period 8 class is up to!

School Violence

In the past few weeks there have been a rash of school shootings around the nation. As we have learned about these shootings and discussed them in class we have all had a variety of reactions: anger, fear, concern, surprise, etc. I wonder, however, how many of you had the idea that we as teachers and students should arm ourselves against potential intruders of our school? A school district in Texas has done just that!

Burleson Schools, in a suburb of Fort Worth Texas, has mandated that all students (including elementary students) and teacher be trained to fight back if a gunman enters a classroom. This training was even a part of Freshman Orientation for high school. The kids are being taught to "rush him and hit him with everything they've got -- books, pencils, legs and arms". Additionally, the students are being told that they should "not to comply with a gunman's orders, and to take him down".

The school district got this idea from events like Columbine in 1999 and Flight 93 on September 11, 2001. They state that"At Columbine, teachers told students to get down and get on the floors, and gunmen went around and shot people on the floors. I know this sounds chaotic and I know it doesn't sound like a great solution, but it's better than leaving them there to get shot".

Critics of the plan say that students are being put in the position that typically specially trained tactical officers are usually in. Their concern is that this plan could result in more students being killed or injured if this type of event were to occur.

I was wondering what you all think about this. Would you feel better having some sort of options in case someone were to come into the school or do you feel like this is a huge responsibility for a student of any age to take on? If you had the training, would you be willing to give your life to protect your fellow students? Let me know what you think!

Crash

As you all know, my weekends are packed with excitement that is so intense that I couldn't begin to describe it to you! ;)

Anyway...

Tonight I caught the movie Crash on TV and I was blown away by it. If you haven't seen it, you really have to. It has several interconnecting stories which all deal with race issues in America. Think of it as American History X without some of the violence and dealing with more racial stereotypes on an everyday basis. I'm actually going to try to get Ms. Dahl and Mr. D. to consider showing it in class. It really makes you think about the way that we all view each other.

I hope that you get the chance to see the movie. Let me know what you think about it!

Hopes and Dreams

Eventually I want to create separate pages within this blog for various topics like history, current events, and just general niftiness but I'm currently not sure how to do that. For now, I'll just post everything in the general discussion section. That being said...

Hopes and Dreams
I just wanted to share with you all a few nifty places on the web that may be of interest.

*43things- I am totally addicted to this site!!! The purpose of 43things is to make a list of 43 (or less) things that you want to accomplish. It can range from cleaning your room to becoming famous to creating your own secret language. I have found that it has really helped me to prioritize my goals and to work to complete the things that I want to do. It's really awesome; check it out!

*NaNoWriMo- Have you ever had the dream to be a writer? I always thought that it would be cool. Well, November is national novel writing month and this particular site (see link) challenges people of all ages from around the world to write a novel in a month. I think I'm going to attempt it this year. Want to join me? It's supposed to be a lot of fun and all about actually writing something, not necessarily writing something that will be part of Oprah's book club!