On Importance I saw an old friend yesterday. A high school classmate. We had a lot to catch up on. He’s doing very well, he says. He has a very responsible position. He makes major decisions all the time. People depend on his judgment. They call and ask his opinion: the plant manager, Vice President
Whenever I substitute teach for history (like the past two weeks), I always like to find something that makes the events more meaningful. My “Global” classes were studying the Cold War and all its ramifications, and that jogged a memory of a passage in a guide book I’d gotten a long time ago. Entitled Los
The formula is Tragedy + Time = Comedy. I first became aware of this when I heard about comedian Tig Notaro and how she turned her diagnosis of breast cancer into a comedy routine. Regular readers know my own mother died last Sunday, April 12th. The further away from that date, the more the sorrow
Periodically we run across a historical description that sounds unbelievable — “Could this really have happened?” Then we investigate and discover that not only did it happen, it was actually worse than we could ever have imagined. Some of the stories from the civil rights struggle in this country and the Holocaust are two ready
Tonight I found a link to a fun YouTube video on Facebook. Entitled “Finding the Speed of Light With Peeps”, it’s one of the more imaginative demonstration videos I’ve seen. This demonstration takes advantage of the fact that microwaves move at the speed of light. So take some of the Peeps left over from Easter
Congratulations to my niece for doing very well at her school’s track meet in the triple jump! Triple what? My best high school event was the hurtles. The triple jump is a lot like the long jump (which used to be the broad jump), except you touch the ground twice in mid-jump. It has been
RUTH MARY WELBAUM 1921-2015 Mom had been weakened by another bout of pneumonia. Thursday morning her caregivers put her to bed after breakfast; when they checked on her two hours later, she was laying on the floor. We don’t know what happened, but she had a broken leg. She deteriorated rapidly after that and
Some thoughts from the front lines of teaching — You may have heard of Channel One News, the daily TV broadcast that is seen in by about 5 million students in upper elementary schools, middle schools and high schools across the country. It appears in many of the schools where I’ve taught on dedicated television
This week I started a nine-day job as a high school social studies teacher. It’s bringing back all the memories of my student-teaching days, like the administrative problems I had. Normally as a substitute, I teach one, maybe two days and leave a report on everything that happened. Now I have to deal with the
For the next two weeks I’m filling in for a high school social studies teacher. I originally wanted to teach social studies, so I’m having a lot of fun during this time, although I have to keep reminding myself they’re typical high school students and not a history nerd like me. Remember Winston Churchill’s quote,