I picked up a guitar when I was nineteen years old and learned to play some chords.  I strummed along with a dozen different simple chords that I could fit around most songs I wanted to play.  After several years, I realized some of the chords weren’t quite right in many of the songs, and I needed more sophisticated versions to play the tune well.  In addition, some songs were not just strummed, I needed to interpret more songs through different picking patterns to make sure  the melodies and the songs flowed correctly. 

After reflection, I realized that through the history we explored in Illinois, the United States went through the same process during and after the Civil War.  The Revolution and the Constitution separated us from Great Britain and organized how we would work together as a union of States.  In the words of Shelby Foote, the Civil War made us an “is” instead of an “are.”  (Foote, 1974, p. 1042)  People began speaking of the United States as one entity.  The Labor movement and the Progressive Era began the on-going process of interpreting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights for the country as a whole, and not for individual states with many different policies.  Ideas and values were shared across the entire country.  On a larger scale, people began standing up and espousing that the Bill of Rights applied to all Americans.  The Constitution and the Bill of Rights were being interpreted in more sophisticated ways by a population that viewed themselves as Americans, rather than Virginians or Ohioans.

Would my thoughts have evolved as quickly had I not gone to Chicago?  I don’t believe so.  I read all the books and wrote my reactions, but the theme running through the era didn’t gel until I was finally walking the streets and hearing the stories.  I needed more sophistication in my thinking.  The program set ideas in front of me, challenged me to think and assess, and finally synthesize the information into a coherent understanding.  The comments, blog posts, and presenters kept the balls in the air until we had a chance to follow their paths and comprehend a little better how those balls were moving.

So, I have been teaching this era with a few simple chords and strums.  Now I think I can add some more interesting tunings and maybe even finger-picking patterns to interpret and provide support for the melodies of thought through this time in our nation’s history.

 

Foote, Shelby. 1974. The Civil War: A Narrative: Red River to Appomatox. Vintage Books. New York

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances”

Michael Schwab was three miles away at the time, but was convicted because of a speech he made. Convicted and sentenced because he gave a speech.  Adolph Fischer was convicted because he printed a flyer.  Oscar Neebe was convicted and sentenced to fifteen years because he paid $2 in a donation to purchase a printing press.  Though at the time the state denied these men their rights, according to the first amendment to the United States Constitution, their rights to free speech were violated.  

Dr. Edelman related that after he spoke on television about the incident, the police statue was blown up.  Should Dr. Edelman be arrested for inciting a bombing?

Was the government right in putting Japanese-Americans into concentration camps during World War II?  Why was this different from German-Americans?

Some of these issues we immediately know how we feel while others are more gray.  President Obama has been pressured to close Guantanamo Prison.  I do not know enough about the evidence relating to reasons people are held there, and I haven’t heard any discussions lately that the first amendment is involved.  Does the Constitution extend to non-Americans?  I have not made myself the most informed person on the Guantanamo issue, so I need to elicit your responses to maybe help me clarify.  We Americans need to make sure we hold ourselves accountable to the tenets that built our country.  

The Constitution is not a static document.  The foresight that the men who constructed it continues to amaze me.  We need to get students to understand that it has been and will be changed, and even if it is not changed, the Supreme Court is there to interpret what the document means in the current circumstances.

I am now planning a lesson on the First Amendment and dealing with the interpretation of it.  Our students need to know the evolution of thought in our country toward the Consitution.

 

 

Pullman

The Pullman place was an interesting experiment, though every scientist knows that there will come a time when the experiment is over.  Was it irresponsible to set up this system with no place for the offspring to go once they were of working age?

After viewing Pullman, this song is a little more appropriate.

  

This is not written by Steve Goodman, but by a friend of his, Michael Smith.  It is a very good song nonetheless.

At the Wisconsin Historical Society this morning, Karen shared “Thinking Like a Historian,” a tremendously useful graphic organizer I intend to usurp.  She did mention that there was discussion of adding a “So What?” box to the page, but couldn’t come to a decision so they left it out.  I don’t believe they omitted it, it’s in a different spot and linked to all of they other boxes.  They asked, “Why Does It Matter?” on all four sections of the frame.

 

Thinking Like a Historian

 

 

 

Why history matters gets us into serious questions about who we are as teachers, who we are as a country and a people, and where we might head in the future.  The question allows our students to get to the top levels of thinking about answers to these questions, as well as providing justification to administrators that we are challenging our students on the upper levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy.  As we have shown in our responses to Jane Addams personal life, “so what?” becomes dominant in the discussion.  Does it matter if we know?  Does it matter if we don’t know?

The speakers in the afternoon were captivating.  I think I understand even more about the Progressive Era than I learned yesterday at Hull House.  And yes, Stan Schultz can still work a room.

 

In the antiquities room, the interview with Angeline Tonso intrigued me.  I had time to read almost the entire manuscript and I was struck by references I had heard when speaking with two aging retired miners an the little town of Aguilar in 1977-1978.  I was a young fool and did not record those conversations at the time, though some stories remain with me.  

A gentleman who was a young boy at the time remembered hiding a rifle under the bridge over the Apishapa River and shooting out the National Guard’s searchlights each night.  Mrs. Tonso spoke of the holes people dug in one corner of their tent as a rootcellar, storing vegetables for the family.  When shooting started, people would dive into the holes.  I remember the tears in his eyes as one old miner told me he jumped into the hole on top of his wife and child, only to find that they had already been hit by bullets.

 

 

 

Striking Miners called it the "Death Car"

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mrs. Tonso related meeting Mother Jones, and after asking for a drink of water while she was speaking, a storeowner gave her a mug of beer that was usually served to the scab workers.  Mother Jones threw the beer in the storekeeper’s face and told everyone she would not drink “scab beer.”  It was a wonderful document and I wished I could have finished it.  So what?  It mattered to Mrs. Tonso speaking in 1983, while the interviewer recorded her breaking up and getting animated.  It surely mattered to the men I met in Aguilar.  These were the first stories they told me.  It matters to our country as another chink in the armor of the American caste system, leading to others, such as women’s suffrage, the New Deal, and the Civil Rights movement.

The University of Wisconsin did Jonathan proud.  I hope he didn’t have to badger Matt and Scott too much to add it to the itinerary.  

 

Encouraging people to help and better themselves?  Teaching them to fish instead of giving them fish to eat?  Ludicrous!  It must be communism!  Call out the FBI!  Call out the National Guard!  Summon up the ghost of Ronald Reagan!  Shake a leg!  There’s no time to lose!  The America we all know and love is in danger of collapse!  I knew a mere pittance about Jane Addams and Hull House before today.  My information, as well as my admiration, grew this morning.

 

Hull House

Many of you have mentioned this already, and few will take issue, but I can’t get over the fact that she put so much emphasis into art.  Art is a universal language, and using this as the bottom rung on the later, Jane Addams encouraged thousands to take their personal bull by the horns and wrestle it to the ground.  It may gore you and bruise you, but at Hull House you had a fighting chance.  She didn’t just complain about social ills.  She didn’t just volunteer to cope with the symptoms of poverty and immigration.  Jane Addams and her colleagues attempted to identify the causes and possible solutions to serious problems in the community.  Together with the thousands who came to Hull House, they shook up the expectations of what life in America should be for everyone.

The University of Illinois in Chicago has conceived a living history piece to the museum.  The “Re-thinking Soup” lunches, growing and canning its own vegetables, shaking off the chains that tie people to conglomerate grocery warehouses, has shown visitors how Addams and her contemporaries accomplished their goals at Hull House.  

The self-sufficiency continues with her refusal to take public funds.  Mark Sims always quotes from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar- “He who eats my bread does my will.”  Jane Addams understood that by taking public money, she would be pressured to do whatever the government wanted her to do.  We observe this trait in teachers every day, afraid to step out of the box because of who signs their check.  We need more “stepping out of the box” in education.  You are the expert in that classroom.  Do what you believe to be the correct thing.  Shake up the establishment.

 

p.s.  The display and question about Jane Addams sexual orientation was inane.  It had absolutely no bearing on her importance in history.  Secondly, why would the museum be asking an under-informed public to decide the issue when the museum itself didn’t take a stand?

 

Post Meridiem

This afternoon, the rain put a damper on the Architecture Boat Trip.  Initially not overly inclement, a sudden decrease of comfort precipitated us moving downstairs.  Our guide provided a deluge of info on the buildings we were passing.  She would shower us with facts as we ferried up and down the river.  How good it was depended on weather you could see.

 

So long, Frank Lloyd Wright.

(We need to get on the bus.)

I can’t believe your song is gone so soon

(I long to spend more time in this neighborhood.)

I barely learned the tune

(Never before had I realized your important contributions to architecture.)

So soon, so soon…

(I can’t wait until the next opportunity to explore your work.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ll remember Frank Lloyd Wright.

(I’ll relate to many all I saw and learned today.)

All of the nights we’d harmonize till dawn.

(Your lines calmed me as I pondered each home and room.)

I never laughed so long

(A satisfied smile emerged from my soul.)

So long, so long…

(I’m sorry I must go.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

       Architects may come and architects may go and never change your point of view.

(Many structures have shown themselves to me in my many years.)

       When I run dry, I stop awhile and think of you.

(When I see them now, I’ll see the strokes your hand would apply.)

I’ll remember Frank Lloyd Wright.

(Always)

All of the nights we’d harmonize till dawn.

(I’ve imagined your day as I passed from room to room.)

I never laughed so long

(A satisfied smile emerged from my soul.)

So long, so long….

(I’m sorry I must go.)

 

 

 

My apologies to Paul Simon

Italicized words in the parentheses are mine

“So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright” by Simon & Garfunkel from Bridge Over Troubled Waters, 1970

Take this, Jonathan!

 

 

 

I did it right this time.

What an exhilarating presentation!  Quality stuff, interesting speaker, empathetic walk-throughs of the material.  Everyone in that room was involved evaluating what pieces of the DBQ they were already doing, what new pieces they felt they could add, and what new areas in which they could apply the process.  All this from a guy who didn’t know what he was trading in the stock exchange!  Amazing!

We already have the students report on a photograph from the Civil War, and it would be a natural step in that lesson to find documents related to a question to support the lesson.  Maybe we’ll have the kids research and find documents.

In discussions of the presentation and the material, we came across a different conundrum- if students did units like these every year in ways appropriate to their grade level, The high school teachers could receive learners that know the process, know how to question documents, and know how to write.  Should a district require a program like this at each grade level?  If it were a mandated program from the Administration, would it be effective?  Do we teachers have an obligation to tell the teachers in levels below us what they should be doing?

The afternoon was a walk through areas destroyed by the 1871 fire.  When building homes of wood and paving streets with tar-soaked wooden paving bricks, maybe you should expect trouble.  Why did they continue building with wood?  For that matter, I have a map of Boston, circa 1765,  which list fourteen or fifteen major fires since in settling of the town.  Americans knew the risks.  Did they continue because of accesible materials?  Did they build of wood because of the tremendous growth rate?  Or was it solely out of habit?

Where people tried to find protection

My father searched for decades.  Wanting to trace the roots of his side of the family back to Germany, the man scoured every database he could find, digital and manuscript.  He reached far into the past century and collected dozens of connections, most notably that I am a distant cousin to Joe Mauer, the catcher for the Minnesota Twins.  Beyond those connections, Dad hit a brick wall.  It seems several of my anscestors came through the city of Chicago before the fire of 1871.  All traces disappeared until all my father could surmise is that any records of them disembarking in the growing town at the southern end of Lake Michigan vanished in the conflagration that began in Mrs. O’Leary’s barn.

Dr. Marcus’s discussion allowed me to wonder: Why blame the cow?

Is it a way of reminding children to be careful with fire?  Is it a way to deflect attention from oversights and plottings of politicos and speculators?   Was it ethnic bias?  I’m pretty sure that the Peg Leg Sullivan story isn’t the truth.  Wouldn’t a guy with a wooden leg kind of avoid fire?

History myths hold our attention.  Should we dispel these myths too early, will we lose the ablility to catch the interest of very young little people.  I posed the same dilemma in one of my posts from Philadelphia (see “Childhood Myths- Shattered”): if a myth stimulates interest in historical subjects in young children throughout the early grades, should we shatter those illusions, or should we wait for the student to be old enough to shatter it himself?   We have fun in our classroom full of eleven-year-olds finding out the real story, but that would lose its luster if the children were brought up without the myths.

Ask and you shall receive!  My questions from yesterday’s blog were answered very ably in today’s early lecture on the origins of Chicago.  I never knew of the continental divide issue, how it was resolved, or even the growth of Chicago due to the distracted economies of St. Louis and Cincinnati during the Civil War.  It all makes sense.  A fabulous job on the website.  I can use that site to have students explore the origins of Chicago in relation to the Erie Canal , Hudson River, and the city of New York.  I may even do my final lesson plan on the World’s Fair of 1892- inspired by that url.