Hurricane History

* please forgive my typos and mistakes. I'm typing from the car. 

First and foremost, I hope you and your loved ones are safe and ok. 

It has been a wild week, hasn't it? The evacuations, the hunkering down, the junk food (that wasn't just me, was it?), the usage of our collective armature meteorology skills, the lack of power, the brush-clearing, the constant Florida sweating, the waiting for power.

We have all just lived through a major historical event. Together. 

Irma was historic in many ways: the 37 continued hours at 185+ mph, the largest evacuation in American History, the largest power restoration effort in American History, the longest stretch of no-school hurricane days in MY memory, the widespread damage from the Keys to Jacksonville to Naples and even into Georgia and South Carolina.

Even if Tampa Bay "dodged a bullet", as all the news reports keep saying, it was still a big darn deal to all of us. 

When kids come back to school Monday, many of them are going want to swap Irma stories. Heck, most adults I know are going to want o swap Irma stories. 

And some kids won't want to talk about it. And that's ok, too. 

This is a chance to teach about the many different stories that make up historical events. 

This would be a great opportunity for your kids to write about their Irma stories and compare a few (being SUPER sensitive about kids who may have been genuinely traumatized either personally or by connection)

You may consider sharing your Irma story and sharing another Irma story (maybe a student volunteer or one from the news). 

Then, discuss whose story was the "true" or "real" story of Irma. 

Chances are, your students can tell you immediately that there is no one "true" or "real" story of Irma. Instead, major events are made up of many different perspectives that are complied to make History-with-a-capital-H. 

And that's the point to history. History is never ONE narrative, written by ONE person to create The Textbook. 

Instead, History is created by thousands of stories, complied together to create a bigger picture. 

We were all a part of history this week. Until we are 100+ years old, we will remember where we were during Hirricane Irma and what our communities were like. What effects they felt. How they acted.

And while we're discussing this week as History, remember how many variations exist. Not everyone evacuated. Not everyone lost power. Not everyone suffered damage. Not everyone boarded up. Not everyone hunkered down. 

This is history. 

And if kids can understand history in this way with Irma, it will make it easier when they look at the many varied stories that make up the American Revolution or the Plague or the Great Migration. 

On a personal note, I'm writing this as I ride "shotgun" as we head home from Tennessee, where we evacuated. I-75 is closed due to flooding in North Florida, so we're learning all different back roads today. 

My story is different from your story. But added together, we make the story of Florida (and Georgia and Souh Carolina) during HurricaneIrma. 

This is how History is written - many different stories. And every one of us is a part of history, particularly this week. 

How can you use Irma to discuss history and geography and government economics this week? 

And if you want some more thoughts about teaching after Irma, check out these thoughtful ideas from a counselor who worked with schools after Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita - https://m.facebook.com/patti.m.ezell/posts/10214304169257010 

My favorite was the "don't rush to catch up on pacing" one. 

Again, I hope you all are well and getting back to normal! 

 See you soon! 

-Tracy

Luke, I Am Your Father

One of the most iconic moments in pop culture is this: 

Darth Vader, breathing heavily (loudly) and uncomfortably confessing, “No, I am your father”

Of course he is Luke’s father. The next few Star Wars movies are built around that premise.

But that was a HECK of a bomb to drop on Luke (and the millions in the audiences around the world) at the time.

We forget how absolutely SHOCKING that was in 1980. We forget how audiences had hated him as the ultimate enemy through two and a half movies (and three actual years).  With those four words, Darth Vader went from a stereotypical villain to a three-dimensional, complicated human being.

Well,  I haven’t seen the new Star Wars movie yet. My vacation was ridiculously busy and I need to find a babysitter.

But I think about Darth Vader and the enormity of that one line -- both in the Star Wars franchise and in pop culture in general. How when we know the end of the story, like we do in 2016, everything is predictable. For those of us who watch it NOW, of course Darth Vader is Luke’s father. Of course! that explains so much.

When we know the ending, the story seems predictable, almost destined, inevitable.

But Darth Vader is not really that simple.

Neither is most of history.

We tend to teach history like readers who skipped to the final pages of the novel (Full disclosure: I’m totally guilty of this on occasions). When we know “whodunit” in the mystery, we can see all the clues light up before us to create an obvious path to the “right answer”.

But when we live our lives and make our decisions, we don’t know how it is going to turn out.

When people in history lived their lives and made their decisions, they didn’t know how it was going to turn out either.

The National Standards for History (which are optional standards not adopted in Florida but are good for pondering...) say this:

"The student is able to challenge arguments of historical inevitability by formulating examples of historical contingency, of how different choices could have led to different consequences."

What many kids get out of textbooks is what I get when I flip to the end of the novel to find out the ending. We lose what author Philip Roth calles "the sense of inevitibility".

My favorite SS blogger, Glenn Wiebe asked, "Do we know what's going to happen ... in middle eastern countires? Will China actually become a superpower? In the moment, no one really knows what's going to happen but we teach history as if what actually happened was 'inevitible' ... Roth says that 'the terror of the unseen is what the science of history hides'. We lose the 'unseen' when we don't ask good questions and don't encourage kids to solve interesting problems.

If a few things had been different, maybe the US would not have won its independence from Britain. Maybe slavery would have ended earlier or the Civil War would have been different. Maybe WWI could have been avoided. Maybe different people would have won different elections and made different choices.

Not everything in history was predestined. History happened because of both decisions and indecision, because of both human effort and human mistake, because of both chance and calculations.

To every action is a reaction. From every cause is an effect, intended or unintended.

History is not (and was not) inevitable.

Teach your students to not assume that every moment in history was part of one unbroken line that was destined to be that way.

Teach your students about the decisions and indecisions that real people made in history and how those things impacted the towns, countries, and world in which they lived.

Then, teach them that their choices, too, impact the world in which THEY live. Their words, their actions, their votes impact their world as much as the actions, words, and votes of people in the past did.

There’s power in knowing that the world is not destined to be a certain way and that we can influence it.

Use the idea of historical inevitability to engage your students about the past AND the present. Use the idea of historical inevitibility to raise "big" questions and to get students thinking.

The world isn't always predictable. Darth Vader certainly wasn't.

Do you teach about historical inevitability? Or do you “skip to the end of the book” and teach the ending first? Can you find the Franz Ferdinand trivia in this email? How do YOU teach about historical inevitability and human choice? Can you imagine a world in which we DIDN’T all know that Darth Vader was Luke’s father? What did you think of the new Star Wars movie?

As always, I love to hear from you! email me at newmantr@pcsb.org

-Tracy

Beyonce and Lincoln: Public and Private

There was a small internet kerfuffle recently when photos of superstar Beyonce -- without makeup -- were leaked online.

Beyonce, of course, has tons of public pictures of herself available to the average Googler. She’s a pretty big star and has been for almost twenty years!

But there’s a difference between a picture Beyonce meant to share and one she didn’t. There’s a big difference between public and private.

The internet is full of the problems like that from politicians to starlets to regular Joes. Because, really, we write and create things for two different purposes -- for public (published) use or for private use.

When we look at history, documents tend to fall into the same two categories -- public (published) and private. Meaning, stuff that’s meant to be read and stuff that’s not. Often, there’s a difference between the two.

Abraham Lincoln is a person who sometimes wrote one thing in his personal writings and said something very different in his public writings and speeches.

For example, what did Abraham Lincoln REALLY think about slavery?

His private letters say:

"Do the people of the South really entertain fears that a Republican administration would, directly, or indirectly, interfere with their slaves, or with them, about their slaves? If they do, I wish to assure you, as once a friend, and still, I hope, not an enemy, that there is no cause for such fears. The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume IV, "Letter to Alexander H. Stephens" (December 22, 1860), p. 160.

But another private letter says;

"I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VII, "Letter to Albert G. Hodges" (April 4, 1864), p. 281.

But the Emancipation Proclamation says

“all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free;” Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation January 1, 1863

What beliefs were personal and which were political? What did he really believe? Did his beliefs evolve? Or was there a big difference between public and private beliefs?

It’s complicated.

And, it’s hard to tell without a lot of context surrounding the documents.

And, it’s possible to be anti-slavery without being an abolitionist. Politics are complicated. People are complicated.   

When we read historical accounts, we find documents that were meant to be read by others -- newspapers, speeches, legislation. We also find documents that were NOT necessarily meant to be written by many others -- shopping lists, receipts, diaries, personal letters.

We do this personally, in our own modern lives, too. Sometimes we post things publicly on social media or in emails where we expect others to read them. And then sometimes, we write things just for ourselves -- like lists, receipts, notes.

So while the idea of writing for public OR private readers is not new, it’s time to transfer that idea to our classrooms.

We have two basic types of writing in class:

 

·         We can have our kids write for public -- that is, for publication, for others to read, for a 

red pen and a big grade. We can have them do final writing assignments where we expect fully-formed thoughts, correct grammar, and real punctuation, like essays, articles, posters, blog posts, final projects.

AND SOMETIMES

·         We can have our kids write for private -- for learning, for themselves to read and think through. “Thinking is clarified by writing” says the DBQ Project’s Core Beliefs. We give kids “writing for learning” tasks -- lists, brainstorms, quick writes, document analysis sheets, exit tickets, etc. -- writing where kids are thinking-on-paper and figuring things out. Writing where kids don’t necessarily have to have all the right  answers or use full sentences. (This is the kind of writing I LOVED as a teacher because I didn’t have to grade it too closely.)

It’s okay to do both. Really, it’s important to do both.

“Writing for publication” is often used as a type of summative assessment -- to see how much the students have learned.

“Writing for learning” is usually used as a type of formative assessment -- like a check-in to monitor student learning and see where our students are with content and skills and how we need to adapt or adjust our teaching.

For ideas of “Writing to Learn” assignments, check out this handy list from Colorado State University http://wac.colostate.edu/intro/pop5.cfm

Take a look at your assignments. Are they “writing for publication” or “writing for learning”? Are you getting to both in your class?  What does each type of writing tell us about Abraham Lincoln’s views on slavery? What does each type of writing tell us about what our students are learning? As always, I love to hear! Email me newmantr@pcsb.org

-Tracy

Kent State, Historical Messiness, and Historiography

From the song “Ohio” by Neil Young (performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young)

Gotta get down to it

Soldiers are gunning us down

Should have been done long ago.

What if you knew her

And found her dead on the ground

How can you run when you know?

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,

We're finally on our own.

This summer I hear the drumming,

Four dead in Ohio.

For those of us who weren’t there in 1970, four college students were killed when the National Guard opened fire on anti-war protesters at Kent State University in Ohio.

What could we use the above picture for? Is it accurate? What could we argue about the incident, using that photo? What part of the story does it tell? What part of the story is it missing? What other document might have more value?  What can we know about the photographer? For what did/would she use the photo? What effects might this photo have on the school, the different groups, or America-as-a-whole?

During my senior year of college, I took a Historiography course. Nobody had ever taught me about historiography being the study of historians’ methods -- how historians do what they do. I did my senior thesis paper on the Kent State shootings of 1970 thinking that the topic was relatively contemporary and I could find a lot of sources to prove “the answer”.

I read newspaper accounts. Eyewitness accounts. National Guard hearings transcripts. Court records. Commission findings. Life magazine articles. Rock and roll lyrics.

It turns out that the whole thing was kind of a big mess. And hard to piece together.

All that research was an eye-opener to me.(I was a pretty concrete-minded kid) I had an extremely tough time creating a thesis about what really happened and who was at fault for the incident and how that happened. I had wonderful social studies teachers in middle school, high school, and college but I had never put together the ambiguity and multiple perspectives and “grey area” involved in real research.

History is not black and white. It’s grey. And purple. And green. And messy.

Think about the last time you saw a fight or similar incident at school. If you tried to find out what really happened and asked each student who was fighting, several eyewitnesses, nearby adults, administrators who took statements, viewed the campus cameras, and watched the phone video footage, sometimes you can’t STILL come up with the absolute coherent picture then either.

Now, try to piece together the Kent State shooting, where hundreds of people were around doing hundreds of different things without the video cameras or cell phones.

Now try to piece together something like the crisis in Ukraine or the sinking of the south Korean ferry -- or Apartheid or the Cuban Revolution and you will see how complicated the world really is.

People are complicated.

As we wind down to the end of the year, folks with AP exams or EOCs are done or finishing with their content. There are many different things you can do with these last few weeks (and you probably LOVE the freedom to teach what you want, instead of running at breakneck speed through the pacing guide).

If you’re up for a new challenge, I’d like to propose some historiography work with students. It can be as big as a traditional research thesis paper or as small as examining the author’s perspective and background to read the “invisible text”. Invisible text is the perspective -- where the author is coming from -- socially, politically, economically, geographically, etc. It can be practicing reading and using documents for different theses. It can just be imagining effects of certain documents.

Give the kids two different takes on an event and ask them which is a better perspective, which is the “right” answer, or the “real truth”. Then, engage them in a conversation about the differing usefulness of various sources. What is the value in each source? What can you use it for? What might it argue for?

Any thoughts on historiography at the end of the year? I’d love to hear from you!

-Tracy