I met up with a teacher the other day that has the privilege of introducing the Civil War to her fourth graders each year. The word “introducing” is a little misleading, however. I live in Georgia where natives, no matter the ethnicity, are born with “The War” ingrained in our souls. We can’t escape it, we can’t deny it – it’s always there. Some of our earliest collective memories are filled with the statues around the town square, old family photographs; we hear the stories and see the preserved battlefields that dot our landscape. I haven’t met a fourth grade student yet who doesn’t know something about the Civil War, but the fourth school year is designated by the Georgia Social Studies curriculum to formally learn about the war in an academic setting. My own personal experience indicates students are eager to begin the process. A formal study helps them connect to family stories still lingering around the Sunday dinner tabl...
When you stop for a moment and consider Franklin Delano Roosevelt you have to be amazed and filled with awe that a man who had suffered through such a tremendous physical tragedy as he did during the summer of 1921 was able to rise to the highest office in the land given prevailing opinions concerning the disabled at that time. FDR contracted polio…or what was thought to be polio while on vacation and even though various cures never worked to restore his legs he also never accepted the fact his paralysis was permanent and constantly felt he was getting better. Many state today his paralysis might have been from the effects of Guillain-Barre Syndrome and not Polio, but no matter the cause FDR was what our society deems as handicapped. Yet, at the time of his death in 1945 and for years afterward very few Americans knew the full extent of FDR’s physical limitations. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt....one of three public photos showing him in his wheel chair Once he entered...
This post first appeared here at History Is Elementary in June, 2006 . I’m currently attending a seminar on educational law, so it seems appropriate to re-run this today. Enjoy. Earlier this month we sidestepped another effort to amend our Constitution. That’s not surprising since there have been approximately 10,000 proposed amendments since 1789. Most of them never got out committee while some amendments, the Equal Rights Amendment, for example, gained great notoriety but expired while waiting on ratification. If it’s possible to love a document then Elementaryhistoryteacher absolutely adores the United States Constitution. My American identity rests in the stability and continuity of the United States Constitution. I really get into teaching my government unit even though some of the more intricate workings of our government I’m required to cover in fourth grade are a bit too lofty for the students to grasp. However, I try. I lay seeds that I hope will sprout later. I teach students...
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