Short

Today we are finishing up comparisons between the office of Pharaoh in Egypt and Hobbes' Leviathan. Students are looking for the shared characteristics of the two as political offices. Today we will briefly *discuss* the role of a citizen in these two systems and will then move on to Locke, Jefferson, the Declaration and Mandate of Heaven; students will once again search for common themes.


* I feel compelled to asterisk the discuss because I find it to be an overused word. Often teachers say we will discuss ________. In reality, is it a discussion or a lecture? Discussion means conversation and conversation means give and take. In order for students to discuss they have to come up with ideas and they will be wrong. Being wrong isnt a bad thing as it leaves grounds for comparison and growth. The only error is if you leave without recognizing the difference between wrong information and right information. Is it WRONG of me to think that i would rather see a student create wrong information than LEARN right information? At least using the former we get to build the connections to strengthen their logic and make them right more often.

Handshake

I shook the hand of a holocaust survivor today, it was a moment in my life that I will never forget.

Posting

I dont know an appropriate post for today... I am just going to put this and leave it--

It isnt time yet but when it is we need to be stronger together, we need to be better for each other and we need to come together. The greatest struggles are the biggest opportunities, we cant replace what we lost and we cant make the hole go away. What we can do is heap in love for each other and bond as a community. Staff, students, faculty, community members, religious affiliations, I dont care who... we need to make this community one and be there for the people who need us when they need us. I can think of one family that should be the center of our community right now, not that we should be in their faces or in their lives but we should be there for them every instant they need us when they are ready for us. Most of that piece of advice came from a 7th grader today...

6 Goals

We came up with 6 big goals during the last two inservice days and i must say... I LOVE them! Furthermore we have discussed converting our grade 7-8 history courses into a broad based exploration in the social studies and making it about skills as opposed to purely content. Students would do a survey of things like how to units on critical thinking and studying history, anthropology, economics, political science and geography. Building these skills would make them more successful in later years and would facilitate growth in the big 6 we came up with.

If you are wondering the 6 skills are listed below. This is the way they are written for seniors leaving KHS. We tiered them back through kindergarten and are hoping to improve and adapt them throughout the rest of our training. I think these are a great start. Of course this list must be infinitely adaptable and remain a living document.

A Senior leaving KHS WILL be able to...

- Make logical decisions based on individual research.
- Evaluate the purpose of bias.
- Judge the causes and impact of personal and group decisions on worldwide issues and events.
- Evaluate the cause and effect of changes in society based on historical events.
- Make logical decisions based on primary source documents.
- Evaluate the impact of worldwide cooperation and conflict on historical and current events.