Debate

Yesterday and today we had a debate in class on whether or not we (the US) should have dropped the atomic bombs on Japan in 1945.

In some classes, the debates went well. I was really impressed with the effort and the research they put into their arguments. Other debates were not so good.

One group argued the atomic bomb should not have been dropped because the radiation from the explosion mutated the people in the cities -- thus creating the Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles

Another group's concluding statement was as follows:

"To put it in relatable terms, Japan is like Mr. [my last name]'s beard. If we had not come in and shaved it then it would have grown and continued this terrible war. If we had not done what we did then his beard, AKA 'America', would not be the way it is today. It ended the war and all the additional deaths that would have occurred."

wow. my beard was just called America.

another group started their debate,

"I want everyone to close their eyes. Picture you are in a field. It's a huge field, full of colorful flowers. It's a bright, sunny, and warm day. Now picture you're lying in the field, surrounded by hundreds of cute puppies. Now imagine they are all dead ... that is what the bomb did."

teaching is weird.

WWII

On Monday we started our next unit: WWII. I have really planned this one out, and although it doesn't have many activities, I'm pretty happy with what we are going to be doing.

On monday we started with Pearl Harbor, then for homework the kids read FDR's "day of infamy' speech and compared it to President Bush's speech after 9/11. It went pretty well, I would have wanted a little more discussion, but I was happy with the classes.

Tuesday we went a little back in time and did a whole lesson on Hitler's rise to power. The kids seemed really attentive and wanted to learn a lot about him. I wish I knew the answers to all of their questions, but I was able to hold me own.

Today we talked about the European Theater and five major battles. It was a lot of notes today, but for the most part the kids were receptive.

For homework tonight, the kids are reading a speech by Heinrich Himmler about concentration camps, and then the testimony of the commander of Auschwitz during the Nuremburg trials. We are going to have an in-class text based discussion tomorrow and for homework they're going to be reading an excerpt from "Night."

My hope is that the students will be able to see the huge contrast in the ways the different parties talk about concentration camps, the demeanor, tone, and language will be very different. Hopefully it will spark a good discussion in class.

Happy Valentine's Day

Hey Mr. [my name],

It's Hannah [last name]. um, last time i emailed you, you didn't respond but this is legit so i need for you to please answer this one. okay so my faith teacher, Mr. [name], is having our class do projects about people who are living a single vocation either temporarily or permanently. I'm like, 99% sure you're single.. Unless you really are dating Miss P.

This isn't supposed to be offensive, like i hope you don't take this weird? But I can't think of any famous single people that I feel like researching so I was hoping i could do my project on you? Don't worry it's nothing super creepy, I just need to ask you a few questions in school or something. PS you can obviously say no to being my project topic but i promise that if you say yes it's not going to be creepy/stalkerish or anything. okay that's it.

BYEEEEEEEEEEE :]

Hannah

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awesome

"if we can't spend money we don't have, why can the government?"

Movie is finally over. It was a great movie, but it got boring watching it 5 times a day. The students had to complete a series of 6 different homework assignments (that addressed 4-5 different learning styles). We took a quiz on the movie, and they had to complete an online evaluation that I made.

Now we've started to take notes again, and it surprisingly feels good. I like actually teaching, it's fun. I missed it. Right now we're covering the New Deal. We are going through a small list of all the alphabet agencies, the students are getting the major progress that was made and why our current recession is not as bad as back then because we have made these precautions (deposit insurance made the most sense to them).

The thing that the students, and I, could not seem to understand was deficit spending. I tried to explain, but really I had no idea ... and I told them that.

We'll see how the rest of the unit goes, but it is good to be actually teaching again.

Snow Day #5

Cinderella Man

Midterms are over and all graded. Sadly my CP1 class average was a 73 and the class average for my Honors class was a 78. A little low, it was hard test, but I could tell some kids didn't study. However, some kids did crush the test. Two girls got 95s.

But now that those are all done, my classes have gotten back into the swing of things. Right now we're in the middle of the Great Depression. We're now watching the movie "Cinderella Man"

This is going to take us a few days to get through (easy week for me) and then we'll finish off the notes and take a test.

what's this like number 11?

Snow Day.

Now the exams that were supposed to be taken today have been pushed back to Monday. I'm still leaving for that field trip sunday morning. Someone else is going to have to proctor my exam. Plus, final grades for the semester are due tuesday morning now. (I don't get back until tuesday night, awesome).