Blog Archives

2021 Proposal: Artifacts for Engagement

2/28/2021

I am currently putting together two proposals for the virtual state convention of the Missouri State Teachers Association. Entitled Artifacts for Engagement, the first presentation is about presenting a set of objects on a central table for students to observe, manipulate, and evaluate.

This proposal is worded thusly:

Put objects into your students' hands. Organize a table to engage your students in three dimensions. Create a situation in your classroom that encourages academic rigor, while at the same time introducing your students to profound topics. Curate sets of items to increase focus on comprehension, curiosity, and creative thinking in any subject.

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The Lost Colony

2/27/2021

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Art Appreciation

Analyse the artwork shown here (left).

What do you notice?
What do you think is happening?
What caused the scene in the painting?
What might happen after the scene shown?
What does this piece make you wonder?

The Dare Stones

Had enough mystery yet? I think we can handle a little more, don't you? Explorers have spotted some stones in our own nature trail area behind the school. Archaeologists have their hands full on other sites, so it's up to us to excavate and translate the stones. Be careful...and good luck.

Here is another online reference to study, as well: The Dare Stones (Brenau University).

What Happened?

Here are some questions for you to answer as we watch this video from the History Channel. Keep in mind that history is a mystery.

Who was Virginia Dare?
Where is Croatoan?
Who was John White?
Who was Sir Walter Raleigh?

TEACHER NOTE
We're only watching the first half of this video:
there is some inappropriate language (two words)
in latter half of the video.

MUSIC APPRECIATION

Carried Me with You
Compass
Lost Boy
Roanoke
Somewhere Out There
When Can I See You Again?
You Will Be Found

WHILE WE'RE ON THE SUBJECT

The teacher will provide a worksheet for you to complete
as you research the information at this link:

What Happened to the Lost Colony?

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The Strongest Link

2/26/2021

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A busy activity invaded our class on Thursday - something I call The Strongest Link. Students were first given a selection of colorful paper clips and a series of clue. With these, student teams had to solve the clues and logically place the paper clips in the correct order. For each clue correctly solved, the team was allowed to advance on the point scale displayed on the white board. If the solution was incorrect, they had to begin at the first level again. The good news was - in the spirit of The Weakest Link game show on television - groups could also "bank" points, protecting them just in case. This year, I also awarded a gold coin for every five successive levels achieved. This gold coin was an extra life that could protect a group from having to start at the bottom of the point scale. Any unused coins were cashed out when our time was depleted: each was good for a "boost" to the next point level.

Our highest team never banked any points, but chose instead to barrel through the levels with ease, eventually racking up 1 billion points!

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Chain Gang

2/25/2021

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In September of 1780, defenses in Upstate New York were extremely important to the Continental Patriots. It was imperative to block the British from traveling past West Point, so all kinds of items - sunken ships, underwater spikes, and the like - were used to create a blockade the river and impede enemy ships' passage.

Key players worked in a nearby forge to create a massive chain with two- to three-foot links that would cross the river and achieve the needed defense. Part of that chain can still be seen, now preserved on the property.

Yesterday, I gave students 30 links of their own. They were tasked with constructing their own chains. The kicker was that the links must be placed in the chain in the correct order. On each link was a clue to hint which link came next. This was a huge review of American history up to the point of our current study in 1780. They did not come close to extending the 300 yards of the original chain about which we learned.

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Benjamin Franklin Inspires Further Study

2/24/2021

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How does anyone talk about Benjamin Franklin without bringing up his inventions? We found out he invented swim flippers and bifocals, but we also wondered about his connection with electricity. After seeing depictions of Franklin flying a kite in a thunderstorm, we decided to take a milder approach to our own learning. First step: light a bulb using only a battery and a wire.

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Major Melting Makes Massive Muddy Mess

2/23/2021

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Here is the result of a bunch of snow all quickly melting. Our playground has its normal amount of obstacles for students and teachers to navigate, but after our large snow amount of the last couple of weeks, temperatures in the forties melts everything so quickly that the ground is now saturated. Our high temperature for today may even reach the 60s. We're ready for the water to go away, so we can, once again, enjoy the entire playground. This, of course, is often the case when we get spring and fall rains, so we'll continue to avoid soft spots whenever necessary. Naturally, there is always that one kid who goes rogue (not anybody in our class, of course).

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Quote: Encouragement

2/22/2021

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"How easy it is to forget
that while we spend our time chasing sunlight,
the darkness spends its time chasing us."
(Tyler Knott Gregson)

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"Teach Them Well and Let Them Lead the Way"

2/21/2021

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Originally Posted June 18, 2015

Whitney sang it: "I believe the children are our future." I know she sang it, because I heard her with my own ears. I was the manager of an outdoor recreation area in El Reno, Oklahoma, at the time. One of my employees and I took to the big city for the Whitney Houston concert when she came through on tour. During the opening act, my buddy spotted some empty seats, much closer than ours, and we moved before Whitney came on stage.

I had first heard of Whitney while student teaching in a speech class in Yukon, Oklahoma. The students there touted her name as the next sensational star, and I soon came to love her music (I Wanna Dance with Somebody). She seemed wholesome enough at the time, and I really enjoyed the words to a song called The Greatest Love of All.

I believe the children are our future
Teach them well, and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside
Give them a sense of pride to make it easier
Let the children's laughter remind us how
we used to be

Maybe it was the "Teach them well..." part that struck a chord with me, sitting in a concert venue in Oklahoma City, having just recently graduated with my first bachelor's degree, this one in communication, with my certificate to teach middle school and high school speech, drama, debate, and journalism (Of course, I had no resolve to actually enter the profession, but that's something for another time.).

Years later, and I still believe children are our future. One wouldn't want a teacher who believed anything different, would one? But it runs deeper than that. Belief, for me, is never enough. It's not enough in my spiritual life, and it's not my way of thinking in my professional life. You see, every teacher worth his salt will tell you he believes that children are our future, but when it comes to applying that belief, some don't know what to think. The reality is the implication that comes along with that belief: if children are our future, and if I am a teacher of children, don't you think I have some responsibility for what this world is like in the future? That's serious!

One of the things master teacher Ron Clark talks about (Ron Clark is the developer of the Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta, Georgia.) is his belief that a future president IS sitting in his classroom. He emphasizes that he has to think in such terms in order to understand the serious responsibility he has as a teacher. I know the odds of a future president coming through my fourth grade classroom in Joplin, Missouri, are slim to none, but it could happen. If a president could come be born in Lamar, Missouri, another one could come from a few miles south of there.

And there you have it. There is one reason why I wish to teach my students the manners of respect to others: Teach them well, and let them lead the way/Show them all the beauty they possess inside/Give them a sense of pride. Those words become more and more important as I instruct students on how to greet others, how to speak publicly, how to address and impress adults. Beauty, pride, leadership, and an eye toward the future. These will come in handy.

Thanks, Whitney.

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Discovery?

2/20/2021

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Mood Music

Allow this music to transport you into a scene that has yet to be written. Draw the scene as you listen. Then write, using all the visual imagery you can muster.

Who Discovered America?

Assign each person in your group to watch one of the videos below (A through D). Pause the video when necessary and take notes along the way. When everyone has finished watching, report back to your group and discuss what you have learned.

Part of the problem with any study of history is that opinion enters the conversation without being reinforced by facts. History can often be an inexact science. Historians do their best to use the evidence to make educated guesses to fill in unknown gaps.

Word Wise

discover
explore
found

Number of the Day

What can you tell me about the number 1,492?

Art Appreciation

Analyze the painting shown below. Check out the details.

What do you notice?
What do you think is happening?
What caused the scene in the painting?
What might happen after the scene shown?
What does this piece make you wonder?

How does this experience (watching separate videos and discussing with your group) emphasize the difficulty of studying history.

Video A: Leif Erikson

Video C: Christopher Columbus

Video B: Amerigo Vespucci

Video D: Natives

Music Appreciation

How Far I'll Go

Movin' Right Along

A Whole New World

While We're on the Subject

Explore more:

What Happened to Explorer John Cabot?

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Thawing

2/19/2021

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As the nation digs its way out of two weeks of brutal temperatures and snowfall, we pause to notice the beauty of winter. The pure white snow. Birds singing. The drip drip of water succumbing to the sunshine. I haven't been out much - just to shovel the driveway and check the mail - but when I do go out, I pause to look, listen, and appreciate our natural world. Too often, we forget to take our noses out of our devices to appreciate what we have.

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Weather: a Competition?

2/18/2021

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Why do people use weather as a competition? One says their temperature is seven degrees, and someone else says theirs is three. One says there are four inches of snow in the area, and someone else measures eight.

Then things get interesting: whole states get involved. Someone says, "In Missouri, we have 12 inches of snow," then someone else tells us, "In Oklahoma, drifts of snow are eight feet deep." In Kansas, it's colder than it is in Alaska, but in Texas, millions are without power.

Memes from one state are the same as in others, just with the name of the state changed. Someone writes something original and pithy about the weather in their state, and someone else swipes it to change the name of the state to their own.

It's a competition to be the most afflicted. "We've got it worse than you!" they are saying. Give us your pity. Be impressed by our tragedy. Our weather is stronger than your weather. And yes, they do it in every season of the year. In the summer, our heat is sweltering more than yours. Our flooding is deeper than your flooding. Our tornados are stronger. Our hurricanes are more destructive. Our wind is faster. Our raindrops are thicker. Our hail is more massive. Our fog is more opaque. You've never experienced more extreme weather than I have in [name your preferred state here].

The truth is, it's colder than it was last year. There is more snow than we've had in a decade. In some places, long-time records may have been broken. I will remind you that every season comes in time, that every year the weather follows different trends, and that my storm is only worse than yours because I'm living through my storm and not experiencing yours.

Mayhaps there is a life-lesson in there somewhere - that we all live unique experiences and have inner storms brewing that appear to us to be worse than the ones others have. Our own stresses may seem extreme because we don't see the storms brewing inside the people around us.

And for the record, our rainbows are more colorful, our sunrises are more beautiful, and our moon is fuller than yours!

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Wish List

2/17/2021

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Yes, we have one of those Amazon Wish Lists, and as you might have guessed, our list is quite different from other teachers' lists. As long as I have been teaching, I don't need a lot of math manipulatives or books, but instead I focus on atmosphere and special projects. Experience tells me that atmosphere and personality are among the greatest aspects that allow teachers and students to develop positive relationships. We connect with each other out of a mutual interest and intrigue. Our list: (Hoggatteer Classroom Wish List) includes the following:

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Tricks of the Times Tables

2/16/2021

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The next wave of our timed multiplication quizzes was to be this week (actually last week and this week), but it looks as if the weather is not going to be on our side. In the meantime, as long as we're sitting at home, keep it fresh by thinking about multiplication.

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Who Are We?

2/15/2021

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Originally posted in June 2015

We used to be the Cecil Floyd Cougars. About a decade ago, that changed. Dr. Simpson, then superintendent of Joplin Schools, had a plan to help unite our schools and our city by having all of our schools share the same mascot - the eagle. It was the high school mascot, and therefore we could all be Eagles from kindergarten through twelfth grade. It made sense.

But I didn't like the idea at first. I thought it would rob our individual schools of their identities, their personalities, their individual pride. I thought we were turning into cookie-cutter schools. Every school would look the same, every teacher would act the same, and every kid would be...well, a cookie. No sprinkles or icing - just a cookie that looked and became like all the others.

I was wrong.

At the same time this change was occurring, another change came along - the design of the official Joplin Eagle. Yes, I think we all see the similarities in our local eagle and one from Philadelphia, but the Joplin Eagle is now iconic in our region. Before, businesses did not tout our schools in their windows. Real estate ads did not promote housing as being in Joplin Schools as they did the surrounding communities. But that changed, and it gave us, again, unity.

And from that moment, the eagles - the Joplin Eagles - began to soar.

Nowadays we talk extensively about soaring, flying, gliding along the air currents well above our prey. We think of the eagle as a predator, diving to the surface of the sea and plucking a plump fish to rip up and swallow. We imagine soaring above this terrestrial ball, looking down on people, and rooftops, and mountains majesty. Indeed, the eagle is our national symbol, a resplendent and powerful representation of an entity with which others must contend and respect.

Our little Eagles are taught much of this from the beginning, in kindergarten. They are encouraged to soar.

But I wonder...

When Dr. Simpson pushed to consolidate all of our mascots into one, I encouraged him not to call the elementary eagles by some other name, like the Eaglets, or the Hatchlings. To call us by smaller names just because our clientele tend to be smaller people was still derogatory. It would make us feel like less a part of the same team, like the older kids had more value than those who were just hatching. And even so, it would mean that our visual mascot would be a fuzzy ugly runt of a thing and would lack all of the majesty of an eagle in its full wingspan. Or worse: the elementary mascot would be cute and cartoony, indicating subconsciously that we were not to be taken as seriously as the older kids.

I'm happy to say that we are all Eagles today, sharing a single icon.

That being said, I respectfully disagree with the manner in many schools in this great nation are depicted as "poverty schools", or "low-income schools". In fact many in the educational system would subconsciously desire to be labels as Title One - an indication that a threshold number of students are not capable of paying full price for their hot lunch from the school cafeteria. School officials at all levels tend to lament the day they lose that distinction, because it means losing some federal funding.

But isn't that the goal? Isn't it our goal to lift our children out of "poverty"? Isn't that a noble goal?

Must we continually refer to our patrons as poor? Must we constantly talk about our schools as social programs accommodating people who are incapable of providing for themselves. I don't mean that they are really incapable, that they are truly helpless, because they absolutely are not; I mean, by constantly degrading our patrons, by repeatedly calling them poor, lazy, disengaged, and even apathetic, we are painting with very broad brush. And it is a brush that paints false picture.

I believe that I can and do influence the world around me. I believe that the children in my class can grow and positively change. I believe they can take things from our classroom and apply them to improve their personal and professional lives in the future.

I believe that repeatedly calling people idiots produces idiots. Seriously calling someone stupid produces stupidity, just as taunting people with the terms of victim, bully, racist, poor, and lazy - even with the best of intentions - only promotes those feelings! I would rather we think differently about ourselves. If we are any of these, if we truly are disengaged from our community and apathetic to community standards and achievement, we must check ourselves and change.

When I was a boy, my parents subjected me to the horribly boring (I thought so at the time.) television series, The Waltons. The show was about a multi-generational family living on the side of a "mountain" during the Great Depression. I remember, on several occasions, that the poor people living near "Walton's Mountain" would attempt to help each other in their need. While this is the right and noble thing to do, and while it was even the right thing to do during the 2011 EF5 tornado that struck Joplin, the people on the TV show would often be heard refusing the help. They would, more times than not, tell people that, "We don't accept charity," or that, "We have our pride." How long has it been since you heard something like that?

Instead, because we have torn people down so long by telling them that they are hungry or shoeless, they have come to expect us to feed and shoe them. After all is said and done, we haven't done them a favor by calling them names or identifying their problems for them.

In fact, we are sending mixed signals! We tell them they are poor and helpless, lazy and don't care, and then we expect them to soar with the Eagles. I'm all for saying the truth, but at the same time, we must not continue telling them that, since they are these things and those things, that they are incapable of being anything else. Friends, we are never destined to be what we have always been or what our parents are; instead, we can be so much more - in spite of what someone else tells us and in spite of our current circumstances.

Together, we will soar...because we can.

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National History T.O.Y.: Notification

2/14/2021

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I recently received this notification about my nomination for the National History Teacher of the Year award from Gilder Lehrman:

Congratulations! We are pleased to inform you that [students have] nominated you for the Gilder Lehrman National History Teacher of the Year Award. You have been recognized for your teaching excellence, and we encourage you to complete the application process to be considered for this honor.

Started in 2004, the History Teacher of the Year Award highlights the crucial importance of history education by honoring exceptional American history teachers from elementary school through high school. The award honors one exceptional K-12 teacher from each state, the District of Columbia, Department of Defense schools and US Territories. The National History Teacher of the Year is chosen from this list of state winners.

State winners receive $1,000, an archive of materials for their school and recognition at a ceremony within their state. The National History Teacher of the Year Award, a $10,000 prize and is honored at a ceremony in New York City. The award is sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and Preserve America...

...One letter of support from a supervisor or administrator. This can be a former or current supervisor. Supervisors can include but are not limited to department chairs, principals, or assistant principals.
A sample lesson plan, student project, or unit that highlights the nominees’ creative and effective use of primary sources.
The submitted material must be no more than fifteen pages.
Student work samples may be submitted but will be included in the page limit.
We strongly encourage you to complete the application process to be considered for this honor. The deadline to submit materials for the 2021 award is May 30, 2021...

Sincerely,
Jamie Marcus
Coordinator, National History Teacher of the Year Program

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Art Appreciation

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WHILE WE'RE ON THE SUBJECT

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Who Discovered America?

Word Wise

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Art Appreciation

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