#promises documentary

Did I misspell “Wainwright” on my Court Madness brackets? Sure did. Did my students correct me this morning? Sure did. 

Keeps me humble. 

It wasn’t my best day of teaching ever. I had to explain the debate rules for Court Madness a couple of times because various things weren’t clear to my students, at first. I should’ve anticipated their questions and added more information to my written instructions, so that’s something to improve for next time. But I apologized, clarified, and we got on with it. And as students started to prepare their arguments, they started to get excited. I think the match-up I’m most looking forward to is Roe v. Wade against NYT Company v. United States because those cases are so different from one another, and the six students who’ll be conducting that debate about which is more significant are all really talented speakers. 

Oh man. My day was SUCH a whirlwind. It started with the opening rounds of Court Madness in APUSGOV: Roe v. Wade against New York Times Company v. United States (Roe, by one vote), Gideon v. Wainwright against Schenck v. United States (Schenck, by three votes). These debates over the cases’ significance were EPIC; I was so impressed with the work all the groups put in. They’re so fierce when they speak. 

I got to see that on display again, about two hours later, when they sat down with Deval Patrick for a Q&A. So, here’s the thing: I know candidates have tight schedules, so when their staffers ask me if such and such a time is all right for a visit, I just say yes and make it happen. In this case, it wasn’t difficult because Governor Patrick arrived at 10:00. Block 2 ends at 10:10, and then it’s flex time, so my APUSGOV students just had to leave their classes a smidge early and come to my classroom for flex. Of course, I have my own Block 2 students, but Mrs. T and Mr. F each took half of them once Governor Patrick’s advance staffer arrived (funny thing: I had the ninth graders tell this staffer, who’s probably thirty or so, what year they were born in because it’s so painful to folks who aren’t around the teenagers everyday, heh) so that I could straighten up the room and make sure everything was ready. 

The governor was really nice, and made a point to say hello to The Principal and all the office staff on the way into the school. Once he got to my classroom, he gave a quick speech about himself and then took questions about climate change, cap and trade, education, gun safety, prescription drug costs, partisan gridlock, and more... I’d told his staffers that I teach impressive kids, but they were still kind of blown away by the questions. So that was fun and awesome.

My Block 4 World class was so low-key by comparison. I defined vocab words- student choice words, this time- and the boys in class decided these were excellent words. They told me so after I’d defined them. The words:

Ardent

Fastidious

Capricious

Amenable

Misnomer

Ubiquitous

Frivolous

Zeal

Divergent

Malleable

Indigenous

Precarious

Obfuscate

Scintilla

Divulge

Capitulate

Insouciant

Equanimity

Diaspora

Cognizant

I think a third of my students are sick right now. There were a bunch of absences, and the kids who were there were coughing and sneezing. I washed and disinfected basically everything before I left.

My APUSGOV students came in with SOTU memes, assuming (correctly) that I'd let them share those for the first ten minutes of class. Afterwards, I showed the PBS highlights of the speech, and we discussed it seriously. My students had a lot to say about the President’s remarks on abortion, his “partisan investigations” comment, the “USA! USA!” chants, and the glimpses of NH’s representatives in the audience. I let them say what they had to say, then gave them the rest of class to prepare for Court Madness.

I had former students stopping by to talk SOTU throughout the day, too, which was great; I love that they care, and that they want to talk to me about it. Plus, some of my ninth graders asked if I’d answer their SOTU questions at the start of World, and, of course, I agreed. Afterwards, a few said they want to take APUSGOV as seniors.

AWESOME.

I was tired today, as were many of my seniors, but we still rocked and rolled through APUSGOV. We picked up where we left off: with Marbury v. Madison. I had students group up, get out their copies of the Constitution and Fed. 78, and try to figure out how the Court ruled in that case. 

We discussed their thoughts, and the actual holding, and I gave them a study sheet with all the salient points. Then I told them they were each going to make a similar study sheet on another significant case (I had slips of paper with the case names; students drew them from a cup). That’s in preparation for Court Madness!

It’s going to be fun.

In World, I started teaching about some of the current issues in the Middle East. I introduced the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict by showing a bit of a documentary film called Promises. I’ve shown it in past years, too, but never as part of my introductory lesson. I think it worked really well this way, though; my students were wicked curious about the conflict after watching, and eagerly started researching its history.

Well. It’s the first day back from break, and a lot of us spent it talking about guns. I figured that’s how it was going to go for me. I teach government and world affairs, and I’m a known political organizer, so I get asked for my opinions about things all the time. And when I’m asked, I answer.

My students wanted to know what I thought about the protests being planned- and then they wanted to talk to each other about that, too, so I let them (carefully... emotions were running high). They also wanted to know what I thought about our school’s existing safety measures. One thing I told them was that, while I don’t like lockdown drills, I know they can be effective. My own high school was locked down during my senior year while a student who’d been planning to attack others was apprehended. There were weapons in the student’s locker, so it was for real. I don’t know how bad it could have been if the police hadn’t been tipped off- I don’t know how many weapons, what kind, etc...- but I remember thinking it would change things. 

I’m so sorry that students today have grown up thinking otherwise. 

I can’t imagine what this is like for them. 

It was interesting to juxtapose all that against my actual lesson, which was showing the documentary Promises (about kids in Israel and Palestine). Young people in different, violent situations... It was striking, to say the least. 

I’m due for a formal observation soon, so I had a pre-observation meeting with the Vice Principal. We ended up talking about guns, too; I went over how my convos had gone in class. She told me what’s going on in her office. And we both aired some thoughts about... everything. I was glad for the talk. 

I got back to my room with a bit of time to do my grading. I thought I had PD this afternoon, but Mrs. T let me know I had my dates wrong, so I found myself with a free afternoon. So I walked out with Mr. F and Mr. W, talking the whole way about- you guessed it- guns.