clair057

I've written and published a book! Of course, that was my intention when I began this blog way back in 2006 when I was still in the classroom, but the book I've published isn't exactly the book I had planned. The planned project - a teaching memoir - will still be published along with a few other projects, but the book you see to the left is what fell in my lap along the way. It needed to be done. History education is my prime focus along with writing curriculum. Over the last couple of years I've written a few college courses used by teacher candidates at Johns Hopkins University School of Education, and I have some other curriculum ideas up my sleeve, but local history has taken a front-burner position over the last year. I've been researching and writing the local history of Douglas County for the past four years, and have had a weekly column the Douglas County Sentinel for a year and a half. I've been a longtime fan of the Images of America series of books ...

In my opinion the least taught war in United States classrooms has to be the Korean War. The U.S never declared war on North Korea because we weren’t there on our own. Our involvement was a result of the United Nations aiding South Korea with the United States supplying 88% of the forces. The People’s Republic of China entered the war helping North Korea. Officially the Soviet Union provided material aid as well for the North Koreans, but talk to anyone involved, and they firmly believe the Soviet involvement included men on the ground and in the air. I feel that events in Korea during the 1950s have a real place in the classroom, but ignorance keeps it from being fully explored in the curriculum. We don’t take the time to fully explore all the possibilities the content of the Korean War could have in our classrooms. Take any history textbook and thumb through pages and you see that very little is given about the Korean War. Most of the time it’s treated as a “breather” of sorts betwee...

I've had military memorials on the brain this week.   Perhaps it's because my high school Homecoming was this past weekend.  My last three years of school was spent on a campus heavily laden with military memorials pointing back to the time my school, Woodward Academy, operated as a military school.  Even today there are heavy auras of miltary attitude as you walk across the campus. Most certainly my military mindset derives from a  recent outpouring of support and grief for a local family who lost their son in Afghanistan.  Many citizens of my small town turned out to support the Harper family as they brought their son home.  During the last few days since the touching procession my thoughts turned to how we recognize fallen soldiers and my mind settled on a local park named for an Air Force pilot who lost his life during a bombing mission over Laos during the Vietnam War.  That particular military man, Robert G. "Jerry" Hunter, was a graduate of...

Several weeks ago the book A Nation Rising by Kenneth C. Davis was sent to me for review. If you don’t recognize the name you should…..Mr. Davis writes the Don’t Know Much About ® series and other works such as America’s Hidden History: Untold Tales of the First Pilgrims . The complete title of A Nation Rising includes the sub-title Untold Tales of Flawed Founders, Fallen Heroes and Forgotten Fighters from America’s Hidden History . Hmmm…the flawed, the forgotten, and the fallen – sounds like MY kind of history. Curing the myths, making connections that are rarely taught in the classroom and giving credit….the good and bad…where it is due – that’s MY style! Mr. Davis certainly comes through on his promises and more…. The premise of the book seeks to explore the ideals that birthed our nation – All men are created equal and life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - and parallel them with the knowledge that so many Founders owned slaves and condoned the systematic removal and murde...

Out of all the historical content I have shared with students over the years the content that I find most satisfying to share with them is the information and activities I present regarding how our government came to be and how it works. As citizens we are all about our rights….in fact, these days it seems we all overdose a little about what government should be doing for us. We often forget that an important aspect of being a citizen of the United States involves not just having a laundry list of rights….that list includes responsibilities as well. YES! There are things that WE….we the people are supposed to do in order for our government to work right. One of our primary responsibilities as a citizen is not just to know our rights, but to know how our government works….not how we think it works, not how politicians tell us it works, not how the media wants us to perceive how it works, but really KNOW how it works. A few years ago I was required to not only teach a few social studies...