The concert band at my high school performed Lincoln Portrait by Aaron Copland tonight, and I got to read the narration. Very cool experience! Something both Dr. J and Tom Hanks have done, although they did it much better than me
I am at the SLATE conference in Wisconsin Dells today through Wednesday (and presenting on Tuesday!). If any other Wisconsin teachers will be there feel free to swing by and say hello!
Played the Oregon Trail in class today. My day was filled with exclamations from students like “What do you mean Timmy broke his arm??” and “Three oxen wander off? Why would they just wander off??”
There are tweaks I'll make in the future, but my first impression is a positive one. Totally changed the atmosphere of the room and the body language of the students - there is much less "defeatism" and a lot more self confidence.
Had a #history lesson about the Spanish encomienda system yesterday in class, including a discussion about the difference between using the terms "explorers" and "colonizers”. Since that lesson every one of my students has used the word "colonizer" to refer to the Europeans in the Americas during that time period.
I think it’s impossible to ignore the way the COVID labor market and increasing interest rates have brought out all of the latent authoritarianism in the highest circles of Silicon Valley
Elon and Twitter, the spring tech layoffs, Huffman and Reddit…