Curriculum Resource: The Most Underrated US President

Wow, it has been a week and a half packed with holidays and special activities--Valentines Day, the announcement of the winner of The Great Sea Slug Beauty Contest, The Great Backyard Bird Count (our best year ever in terms of number of different birds we spotted), Presidents Day, the 50th anniversary of John Glenn's orbit, and Mardi Gras (not to mention a sprinkling of snow in there).  Most of these included some science or history components along with cooking special dishes (Whiskey Shrimp and Apple Dowdy for Presidents Day and Chicken Bonne Femme and a new dish I invented, Mardi Slaw, for Fat Tuesday).  It's been a lot of fun, but a good bit of work to add to our normal homeschooling schedule.

But before we abandoned our Festive February events, I wanted to share an assignment I gave my son this week in regards to Presidents Day.  The Washington Post was having an online discussion with its readers about which presidents were the most underrated.  They eliminated from consideration nine presidents they considered to be the most frequently praised:  George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan.  Besides those nine, they asked, which presidents haven't gotten the amount of praise and respect that they deserve?

I found both the question itself and the online discussion to be really interesting.  For example, some argued that Lyndon Johnson's domestic achievements were remarkable--but does his mistakes in Vietnam outweigh the good he did in terms of civil rights?  Did Harry Truman's approval to use the atomic bomb on the Japanese people make him a courageous hero or a Western-centered murderer?  Was James Madison's sheparding of the US Constitution one of the most overlooked, but fundamentally important, contributions of all presidents?  Are we too focused on recent events and presidencies and forget the developments of the past? 

I thougth this was a great discussion to be having on Presidents Day.  Plus, it has particular relevence in our family, since my brother spent the summer visiting all the presidential libraries and is writing a book on the question of presidential legacies and the role presidential libraries play in how we remember our former leaders (read more about it on his blog, Across the Country with the Presidents).

So I gave my son a Presidents Day assignment to write a persuasive essay (another skill we're working this year) about the former President that we as a country should appreaciate more.  We talked about the Washington Post discussion, we looked at Wikipedia's collection of ratings of US Presidents, then told him to write a polished essay without telling me who his selection was until I read it.

Meanwhile, I was trying to come up with my answer.  I would probably end up with James Madison, because I think the country would have fallen apart way before the Civil War had it not been for his work on skillfully crafting a Constitution that all the original states could live with; however, I am somewhat predisposed in favor of Madison for some personal reasons.   The Washington Post didn't have an actual vote, but gave the following list, based on the number of comments and recommendations of comments by other people:
1.  George H.W. Bush
2.  Lyndon Johnson
3.  Jimmy Carter
4.  Harry Truman
5.  Calvin Coolidge
6.  Barack Obama (I excluded him from our considerations--we were only doing former presidents)
7.  Gerald Ford
8.  James Polk
9.  Chester Arthur
10.Andrew Johnson
(To learn more about the arguments in favor of these presidents, read the Post's article here.)

Personally, I'm not sure about Calvin Coolidge and Andrew Johnson, and I have mixed feeling about James Polk (I think he only got this high on the list of underrated due to the song below by They Might Be Giants):



AND, of course, I thought James Madison should be on the list.

But, in general, those were the presidents who came to my mind for being underappreciated.

However, when I got the finished essay from my son, he had not chosen any of the presidents mentioned above.  Instead, he chose to write about......

James Buchanon

JAMES BUCHANON?   He of the pro-slavery Dred Scott decision and Kansas constitution?  The president that, in the Wikipedia presidential rating system, was rated as one of the top five WORST presidents by 15 out of the 18 polls, and the very worst president by four of them.   Well, at least he definitely falls into the unappreciated category....

But I loved my son's take on his presidency.  He reviewed his actions and talked about how bad they had been for the country.  But he summed it up by saying that his goal was "desparately delaying the war," and then concluded:

It was quite a good thing that he delayed the issue of secession until Lincoln, the right man for the job,was elected. Putting the issue into the hands of the right person was an invaluably beneficial act...

I really loved his perspective.  What a great way to view those presidencies (or other leaders, or even people or events in our own lives) that we consider to be "failures"--that they were placeholders, or part of the process of getting the right people and resources in place for our latter successes!  He gave me some great perspective on the entire issue, as well as writing quite a good essay.

I recommend this as a great assignment to give your students for Presidents Day.  It certainly made ours more thoughtful and meaningful.

Who would you choose as the most underrated US President?  Share your choices below in the comments section.

Curriculum Resource: Mardi Gras 2012

Laissez les bons temps rouler!  Or Happy Mardi Gras!  Of course, the entire Mardi Gras season began a month ago in New Orleans, but today is the biggest day of the entire period, culminating in the most prestigious parade, the appearance of the krewe of Rex, King of Carnival.

As homeschoolers, we are used to not only squeezing blood out of a stone, but the educational tidbits from the most anti-intellectual of experiences, and Mardi Gras is no exception.  And, actually, it turns out that many of the parades do have themes with educational possibilities.

So it is with the big Rex parade that happens today.  The theme of the 2012 procession is "Lore of the Ancient Americas," so many of the floats will depict myths and folk tales from a wide variety of Northern and Southern American native people.   In fact, the krewe of Rex has even created a document that explains the topic of each float, along with links to versions of the story or other information that will help give the facts related to the subject.  It's really quite a lovely list of different native American tales.  And I suppose the floats are a unique approach to storytelling.

So to see the explanation for each of the floats (should you be watching the parade), or just to read about some traditional legends, check out the 2012 Rex Parade Notes.

Black History Month Curriculum Resource: The Harlem Renaissance

Black History Month is coming up, and it happens to coincide with the time we are studying the history of the 1920's and 1930's.  So what better topic to combine the two than the Harlem Renaissance?

We have already been working on it some, but I recently found what I think is a fantastic resource.  John Carroll University has created the Harlem Renaissance Multimedia Resource, which pulls so much information about this fascinating period of modern American history into a central site.  

What I love about this website--beside the fact that it is FREE--is that it includes not only the aspects of the Harlem Renaissance that most of us tend to think about, such as the music and the literature, but also the politics, the philosophy, the education, and even the international connections.  There is a whole section on religion as well; in fact, throughout the entire site I saw the predecessors of Martin Luther King Jr's thoughts, philosophies, actions, and words.  It not only has multimedia resources--pictures, audio, and a little video (all that I found was Billie Holiday)--but also lots of links to other websites with even more comprehensive information on that particular topic.  

Particularly helpful to me were the timelines included and the map of Harlem itself.  It has a general timeline of the political and artistic events during that period, which helps me put things in order.  Even more interesting to us right now, however, was the timeline of the music.  My son has been getting more interested in jazz, about which I am not that knowledgable (confessional--even though two of my brothers were performers, students, and aficionados of that musical genre, and my father is at least a long-time fan).  The timeline helped me understand how ragtime gradually morphed into swing, with dates, different jazz styles, artist bios, and short audios of outstanding pieces along the way.

So if you are looking for resources about black musicians, writers, thinkers, educators, or politicians, this  website is a great place to look.

What Happened to Wikipedia and Google?

I'm frequently writing about Google Doodles in this blog.  But today's Google "Doodle" is different than any before, at least as far as I know.  Today the famous logo does not appear at all, but rather is blacked out by a big black box.  However, at least that popular student resource is working.  If students go to the English site of Wikipedia, they will discover that it is down for 24 hours.  In its place is a short protest against two pieces of legislation and a request, complete with links to contact your representatives (according to the zip code you enter) and then tweet about it or post it on your Facebook page, to express your opposition to the bills.

The legislation in question is the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA).  The goals of both these acts is to protect US intellectual property, primarily from foreign sources that are selling it as their own.  The main supporters of the bills have been Hollywood and other entertainment producers who are trying to shut down foreign bootleggers of commercial media, such as illegal downloads or DVDs of US films and TV shows, music, etc.

So the goal is something that I think most of us would support.  People shouldn't be making money by providing us with illegal copies of performances they don't own and that the performers themselves don't make any money for, right?

The issue that many Internet-based companies, and many of their customers, have is that these bills address the problem not by going after the illegal producers themselves, but the sources that give these illegal producers access to American consumers online.  So, rather than suing or arresting the bootleggers, SOPA and PIPA allow the producers to take action against anyone who provides services or even has links to the illegal websites and demand that they block any US access to this site.

Many in the online community have major issues with this approach.  Some consider this approach to be censorship, which they vehemently oppose in any form, despite the reason.  Others argue that the legislation as written is overly broad and would impose onerous burdens on even the smallest Internet companies. Yet others say that this is just the wrong way to address the problem of intellectual privacy.  As Alexis Ohanian, the founder of Reddit (another online resource that has gone dark for the day), says about this legislation, "It's like taking action against Ford (Motor Company) because a Mustang (car) was used in a bank robbery."  Reddit has a lot of educational information about this issue (albeit more anti-legislation than pro) as does the SOPA Strike website.

So as much as we might hate losing our Wikipedia (along with lots of other informational sites) for the day, this is a great opportunity for discussing with your children or students some of these issues, such as the downside of everyone (including criminals) being able to access everyone in the world, and what is the best way to deal with problems like this.  (Besides, only the English site of Wikipedia is down, so you can search in a different language and work on your translation skills along with researching the subject.)

And if you think your students will use this as an excuse to play games rather than do their research on the Internet, don't worry--MineCraft is one of the sites that has joined the blockout.

Curriculum Resource: Dr. King's Original Documents Online

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Day 2012, the King Center has opened a new online resource.  With the help of JP Morgan Chase, the organization that continues the work of Dr. King has digitized over one million materials related to King's life and mission and is making them available for free over the Internet.

The collection is organized into themes, such as public opinion, economics, the Vietnam War, and such.  It contains many different kinds of materials, including articles, hand-written drafts or notes, telegrams, photographs, etc.  It is a premier resource for the original source material for one of the most important American thinkers and activists of the 20th century.

To view these documents, go to the Archives of the King Center.

83 Stores That Give Discounts to Educators

I had to take a break from my Newbery book contender reviews to share this great resource I just stumbled upon with those of you who are teachers and/or educators.  A site named Brad's Deals has compiled a list of 83 businesses that give some kind of price break to teachers and educators.  A lot of them I knew about and already use--Barnes & Noble and Apple Computer and Jo Ann's Fabrics and such--but this list is MUCH more extensive than any I've seen before.  It includes not only education-related businesses, like bookstores and craft stores and computers and educational supplies, but stores that sell lots of other things as well--cell phone, clothing, travel, contacts, insurance, vacation sites, and even pizza!

I haven't checked them out, and the article doesn't say, but usually these discounts are also available for homeschoolers, at least in stores around here.  

Anyway, look over the list yourself here, and see if any of these resources can save you some money.

Curriculum Resource: Teaching Evolution

So if you are a family that doesn't believe in and/or doesn't teach evolution, then you want to skip this post.

But for those who do...

I found a great series of lesson plans about teaching evolution on a website hosted by Indiana University.  These lessons were developed for teaching high school biology, but the authors say that, with some modification, they could be adapted to either an advanced middle school or introductory college level class.

There are over 50 lesson plans or mini lessons that are available on line, along with some titles that I suppose they are still developing.  It is broken into two big categories:

• Evolution Patterns
• Evolution Processes

Subcategories under Evolution Patterns are:

• Geological/Paleontological Patterns:  General
• Human Evolution Patterns
• Classification, Hierarchy, Relationships

The subcategories under Evolution Processes are:

• Adaptations, Imperfections, Contrivances
• Variation and Natural Selection
• Speciation
• Macroevolution

So it is a nice, comprehensive approach to the topic, it seems to me.  I haven't looked at all the lessons, but most of the ones I did read had an experiment or hands-on component.  Not all of them are suitable for an at-home science lab, but many of them can be done in a homeschool setting.

So check them out here.