Things That Ought Not Be -- Part 2

2. Paper hoarding

What is really in the Permanent Record?

Most home school parents have never been teachers in the Official School System. As such, a lot of folks who are new to the process can get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of paperwork home schooling can generate. After all, their experience with being elementary school students involved bringing the papers home, taking back the ones that needed to be signed or finished, then bringing some more home the next day.

But what happened to all of those finished math worksheets, grammar exercises, and science papers that came home every day?

I don't know either. And that's the point.

Early on in our home schooling career, we knew we should keep records. Attendance? Of course. Report cards? Sure -- both on the computer and paper back-ups.

Beyond that, we read that we should keep a "representative sample" of our kids' work. Year 1 that meant keeping one out of every 100 pieces of paper our kids generated in their Student Notebook. But even that was too much, so year 2 we decided that we would either keep it forever, or throw it away. And when the "Keep forever" folder got too thick, we pared it down again. This happened about once every six weeks.

Year 3 we got even stricter. One paper or project per subject per nine weeks. If you want to keep this one, you have to throw the other away. No exceptions. What was amazing was that a) we didn't feel any nostalgia at all for a random Wednesday in February's multiplication drills, b) the paper flow is much easier to manage, and c) now that we've gotten into the habit of throwing school papers away, it's much easier to get rid of other stuff we don't need anymore.

Now to be fair, we haven't had any kids apply to college yet, so we haven't seen the full impact of throwing away all of those 3rd Grade Easy Grammar assignments. But I for one am willing to take the chance that it won't come up on a daughter's application to Vanderbilt.

The trash can is your friend. And he's hungry. Feed him well, and everybody's life will be happier.

Things That Ought Not Be -- Part 1

Now that a new school year is starting, it's time to get back into blogging mode. Now this blog is primarily for dads, but moms are occasionally welcome to listen in. Mostly it's me running my mouth, or posting notes for classes I teach. This fall it'll be Creative Writing, Story of the World Part 3, SAT/ACT prep, and Microeconomics.

But before we get to what is and what will be, I feel compelled to mention some things that exist, but shouldn't.

1. Home school scrapbooks. Memo to home school mom -- You have enough to do. Between teaching, planning lessons, grading papers, and -- especially is you have high school kids -- learning the stuff you have to turn around and teach, just the academic stuff is a 20+-hour per week job by itself. And that's not including all the activities kids tend to be involved in that demand Mom's time behind the wheel of a car. Then throw in your local home school group (and yes, you need them and they need you), and pretty soon a schedule gets so full it will explode.

Yet in many home schooling magazines, I see articles about scrap booking.

Seriously.

Stop it. Just stop it. If you're going to survive as a home school parent -- let alone thrive -- the first and most important thing you have to know is your own limits. Know what you can do, do what needs to be done, then start telling things no.

I know you can do this. Good home school moms tell their kids "No" all the time. And you know what to do when they get all sad-faced at you.

Now is the time to take what you've learned and use it on the sad-faced person in the mirror.

Be as organized as you need to be to stay sane. Keep as many records as you need to keep so that those who need to look at them later can see what you've done. If you want to include scrapbook pages as part of your kids' "make your own yearbook" assignment, go for it.

But don't get so caught up in preserving memories that you lose the capacity to make new ones.

Get some rest, Mom. You've earned it.

Commencement Address -- LCHE, 2011

Here is the speech I made at the LCHE Graduation exercises last Friday night. Enjoy . . .

*******
Lewis & Clark University theater professor Stephen Weeks once said, “Life should be lived so as to generate the maximum number of really interesting anecdotes.”

So when Donna Baker asked me to speak tonight, I made a list of possible stories I could tell that would produce useful advice for graduates.

Over the last few weeks, I've written this speech nine times, each draft telling a different story, and offering a different piece of advice.

I wanted to tell you about Mr. Nick, a man who knows something about cultivating highly-successful weirdos having raised one of his own, and the permission he gave me to be my own self, as gloriously strange as that might be.

I wanted to tell you about Erwin Schrodinger, Gordon Hayward, and the intersection of theoretical physics, a basketball championship, and the contentment that only comes from living in the moment.

I wanted to tell you the love story of Troy and Genevive, and how, just when you think you understand all the consequences of your actions, you're wrong.

I wanted to tell you about the life lesson I learned watching Erica watch basketball.

I wanted to tell you about the Eagles, and the greatest victory in my soccer coaching career – a 3-3 tie against a team that didn't win a single game all season.

I wanted to tell you about Fred Merkle, and how the most famous on-field mistake in baseball history led a future teammate to set a record that would stand for over 50 years.

I wanted to tell you about Sven and Pastor Dave, Vijay and Robert, and how much better it is to have a hand in somebody else's dream coming true even than realizing a dream of your own.

I wanted to tell you about my second-favorite character in the Bible: Malkijah son of Recab, the goldsmith from the book of Nehemiah who most beautiful, longest-lasting creation was a sewage dump, and how he was OK with being remembered for that and nothing else.

I wanted to tell you my own story, about addiction and recovery, death and resurrection, bubbles and roller coasters, and trying to do better today than yesterday.

And I'd love to be able to deliver all nine speeches. But I won't, for two reasons. One, Kathleen West told me I should only be up here for ten minutes, and if I go over, all she has to do is press a button and I disappear through the floor.

But the other reason is that somehow, every interesting anecdote in my life and all of my favorite stories in history end up bringing me back to the same place, to my favorite character in the Bible. We never know his name, and he's completely imaginary, yet his story resonates with me in some powerful ways.


The story is found in Matthew 25, beginning in verse 14:

14For (the kingdom of heaven) is just like a man about to go on a journey, who called his own slaves and entrusted his possessions to them.
15"To one he gave five talents, to another, two, and to another, one, each according to his own ability; and he went on his journey.
16"Immediately the one who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and gained five more talents.
17"In the same manner the one who had received the two talents gained two more.
18"But he who received the one talent went away, and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money.
19"Now after a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them.
20"The one who had received the five talents came up and brought five more talents, saying, 'Master, you entrusted five talents to me. See, I have gained five more talents.'
21"His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful slave You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.'
22"Also the one who had received the two talents came up and said, 'Master, you entrusted two talents to me. See, I have gained two more talents.'
23"His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.'
24"And the one also who had received the one talent came up and said, 'Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed.
25'And I was afraid, and went away and hid your talent in the ground. See, you have what is yours.'
26"But his master answered and said to him, 'You wicked, lazy slave, you knew that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I scattered no seed.
27'Then you ought to have put my money in the bank, and on my arrival I would have received my money back with interest.
28'Therefore take away the talent from him, and give it to the one who has the ten talents.'
29"For to everyone who has, more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away.
30"Throw out the worthless slave into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." (Matthew 25:14-30, NASB)

My favorite character in the whole Bible is the guy in the middle. Oftentimes when we think of success and failure, we pay most of our attention to the extremes. The billionaire business mogul, the once-in-a-generation athlete, the TV host/magazine publisher/human brand name, and we run ourselves ragged trying to live up to that standard of success.

Or, we look at the bottom end of society – the criminal, the self-destroyer, the mind ravaged by drugs and the body ravaged by what it takes to get them – and wonder what we have to do to make sure we, and especially our kids, don't end up like that.

But for all of the attention we pay to the extremes, it is my belief that most of us live somewhere in between mind-boggling success and abject failure. And so for us, the telling example of this parable is not the super-success or the super-failure, but the two-talent man in the middle.

This is my favorite character in the entire Bible. Think about it. He starts with only the slightest head-start over the person who ends up thrown out. By the end of the parable he hasn't yet caught up to where the five-talent servant started. Yet when the Master comes to reward His servants, what matters is not what the two-talent man was able to give back to his Master, but the fact that he did the best he could with what he had.

And as I wrote those nine speeches over the last few weeks, I always ended up back at this central idea: success in life is about making the most of the opportunity. The first step in becoming a failure is to hide from the world. But the great stories are always about people who saw the world as it is and engaged it. Success in life happens when we're willing to risk getting hurt.

And sometimes hurt happens. Gordon Hayward missed the shot that would have given Butler the national championship. Mr. Nick died the night my Jeopardy show aired; I'll never know whether he saw it or not. For every dream I've had a hand in seeing come true, I know of ten that are still waiting.

I miss Amanda, too.

As home school parents, part of our motivation might be to protect our kids from the big bad world. And there's no denying that the world is big, and the evil in it is dangerous.

But to the graduates tonight, I want to say this – Don't let the potential for getting hurt lead you to hide inside a bubble. Don't bury your talent. Even if you don't become the superstar, do the best you can with what you've been given.

I can't wait to hear the stories you'll be able to tell.

Discussion Questions about the Constitution

1. What is something about the Constitution that needs changing? How would you change it so that your change solves a problem, but doesn't another set of problems that are worse than the one you're trying to fix?

2. The first amendment gives Americans the right to ask the government to change something it's doing. What is the best way for a citizen to do that -- through his own representative(s), through the Presidency/Executive branch, or in federal court?

3. How has the "balance of power" between federal government, states, and individual citizens been tested in history? Does one of these power bases usually win?

Constitution -- Amendments

U. S. CONSTITUTION
First Ten Amendments: Bill of Rights

1 – Religious neutrality, free speech, press, assembly, petition
2 – Guns
3 – No forcible housing of soldiers
4 – Search & seizure
5 – Due Process (Miranda rights, eminent domain)
6 – Fair trials in criminal courts
7 – Rules for civil cases
8 – Standardized punishments
9 & 10 – Everything not covered

13-15 – Civil War Amendments

13 – Slavery banned
14 – Citizenship defined, representation guaranteed, consequences for rebels and states
15 – Voting rights guaranteed

RIGHTS

18 – Prohibition
19 – Women's right to vote
21 – Prohibition repealed
24 – No poll taxes
26 – 18-year-olds get to vote

PROCEDURAL AMENDMENTS

11 – Jurisdiction of federal courts
12 – President and VP elected separately
16 – Income tax legalized
17 – Direct election of senators
20 – Presidential terms & succession
22 – Presidential term limits
23 – D.C. Electors
25 – Temporary Presidential Succession
27 – No Congressional pay raises

Constitution, Part 2

Article 2 – The President

Minumum 35 years old
Natural-born citizen
Replaced by Vice President if needed
Elected by Electoral College

President – Powers & Duties

Command the military
Assign executive duties to secretaries
Give pardons for federal crimes
Execute laws passed by Congress

With Senate consent:
Make treaties (requires 2/3)
Appoint officers and judges

Can be removed from office by Congressional impeachment process

Article 3 – The Court System

Judges & Justices nominated by President, approved by Senate
Lifetime appointments with no salary reductions, provided “good behavior.”
With very few exceptions, hears cases on appeal.
Criminal trials must be by jury
Criminal trials must happen in the same state as the crime. Territorial crimes and federal crimes tried where Congress puts the court.
No punishing kids for parents' crimes.

“Checks & Balances” – Examples:

Congress gets to make laws, but President has to approve and Supreme Court can review.

A federal court can strike down any law it wants, but has no say over who gets to be a judge, or even how many judges there will be.

President makes foreign policy (wars, treaties, etc.), but Congress has to approve.

Article 4 – Relationship Between States

States must recognize other states' arrangements

Federal rights carry over state to state

States can't harbor other states' fugitives

No carving new states out of old states' territory without their permission and that of Congress.

Congress decides what makes a new state, but they must be a republic

Article 5 – Changing the Constitution

2/3 of both houses of Congress propose an amendment

3/4 of states ratify

Article 6 – Supremacy

The Constitution is the final word. If you want to be a state, you live with what it says until you can generate enough support to change it.

Everybody who gets a job under the Constitution must take an oath to work under its jurisdiction.

Nobody can be denied a properly-appointed Constitutional office because of religion.

Article 7 – Ratification

When 9 of 13 states ratify, the Constitution officially replaces the Articles of Confederation.

Constitution Notes

U. S. CONSTITUTION
Preamble – Tells why the Constitution was written

Articles (7) – Set up the structure of the government

Amendments (27) – Address issues that have come up as people have lived under the Constitution

PREAMBLE
Solve problems with the Articles of Confederation:

“Every state for itself.”

Different “inalienable rights” in different places

Basic foreign policy functions

ARTICLE 1 -- LEGISTLATURE

House of Representatives – One man, one vote

Senate – Equal representation for each state

Job: Write and pass laws.

Generally, majority rules with Presidential approval, 2/3 to override veto.

Powers of Congress:

Tax
Borrow Money
Spend Money
Declare war
Remove criminals from office
Regulate commerce between states (money, post offices, patents, courts, etc.)
Running the capital
Whatever else they decide they need to do.

Congress can't:

Change laws after the fact
Make something illegal only for certain people
Tax exports
Suspend the right to be seen in court
Spend money without accounting for it
Grant titles of nobility

Because there is now a Congress, states can't:

Declare war
Enter into separate treaties with foreign countries
Print their own currency
Tax imports separately
Tax imports from other states
Do anything Congress can't do either

Questions From John Adams Movie

1. If you were John Adams, would you have taken the case?

2. If you were on the jury, would you have convicted the soldiers?

3. Adams argued that America was a country ruled by laws instead of by people. Is he right? Who is in charge, the people who make and enforce the laws, or the laws themselves?

Hobbes vs. Locke

Thomas Hobbes:

• People are basically evil.
• Because of that, God puts kings in power to keep order.
• We need someone in authority to settle religious disagreements for us.
• In order to function properly, a society needs a religious framework everybody can agree on.

John Locke:

• People are basically good.
• Because of that, governments only have the right to exist when good people allow them to.
  
• When a Christian is in power, he should tolerate those who disagree with him, because some day someone else will be in power.
• In order to function properly, society needs to trust its members to be good and do good and only put as many limits on freedom as are necessary to protect the freedom of others.

Thomas Jefferson:

• "The Laws of Nature and Nature's God entitle [people] to separate and equal station . . . among the powers of the Earth." -- People are basically good, but have a Creator they are accountable to for that goodness.
• "We hold these truths to be self-evident" -- There are truths that are beyond dispute.
• "All men are Created" -- Whether through the people or through kings, ultimately all government derives from God.
• "Equal" -- Either we're as good as the king, or the king is as bad as the rest of us.
• "They are endowed by their Creator" -- See above
• "Unalienable rights" -- The rights of the people to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness supersede the right of the king to be in power, even if that right also came from God.
• If the evils of the king can be tolerated, they should be. Don't change a government just because you disagree on a point of opinion that doesn't measurably impact your life.
• If the evils of a king actually hurt people, the people have both the right and the duty to throw him out.
• "We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity" -- We want to trust that the British government is made of good people, but the evidence is to the contrary.

There are hints of both Hobbes and Locke in the Declaration of Independence. Here are some discussion questions:

1. Since Locke and Hobbes are virtual opposites, do you have to take one side or the other, or can you blend them together?
2. Can you have an orderly society if agents of the state inject their religious opinions into their duties? Can you have an orderly society if they don't?
3. Does government exist to create an environment to let good people do as much good as they can, or is its primary purpose to stop people from being evil? And can a government ever fight evil if it is made of evil people?
   

Battles You Should Know

YORKTOWN – October, 1781

Last major battle of the Revolutionary War

France cut off Cornwallis' escape route

Washington led American and French troops in a siege operation

After the surrender, the British parliament switched parties and voted to end military operations in America, even though they still controlled several major cities.

ALAMO – March, 1836

Mexican army destroys a garrison of Texans and their American allies.

After the defeat, American volunteers rallied to the Texan cause, eventually winning Texas independence from Mexico.

GETTYSBURG – July, 1863

Confederate invasion of Pennsylvania, designed to force Union troops to defend home territory and ease the siege of Vicksburg, MS.

Union victory convinced Britain and France not to enter the war on the Confederate side.

Confederacy “plays defense” the rest of the war.

PEARL HARBOR – December, 1941

Japan simultaneously declares war and bombs the US Pacific fleet.

Brought the US into World War II by virtue of Japan's alliance with Germany and Italy.

D-DAY – June, 1944

US and Allied forces invade France from the sea.

Failure to repel thee? invasion was the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany.

9/11 – September, 2001

19 terrorists hijack 4 American commercial planes and crash them, destroying the World Trade Center and damaging the Pentagon.

Attacks trigger first major US military response to Al-Qaeda terror network.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Of the 6 battles on this list, which one was the most important for the US to win?
2. Is there a battle that isn't on the list that made a bigger impact on American History?
3. What was the biggest mistake made by the losing side in a battle that they should have seen ahead of time?

War Notes

Here we go.

Remember: Your posts on this blog's comments section are worth TWICE AS MUCH to your grade as the quizzes.

Also, your grade on the Presidents quiz (and subsequent quizzes) are based not on how many you get right, but how long it takes for you to get all of them.

Below are the notes and discussion questions for last week, this week, and next week.

Go get 'em.

AMERICAN WARS

1756-2010

FRENCH & INDIAN WAR
1756-1763

Cost of war led to colonies being taxed

George Washington becomes field commander

Native Americans cast their lot with the French against the English.

AMERICAN REVOLUTION
1776-1783

Established America as its own country

Showed the vulnerability of the British army

America and France become allies

WAR OF 1812
1812-1815

British force American sailors into their Navy

America fights England to a draw

England pulls out of US territory

MEXICAN WAR
1846-1848

Monroe Doctrine

Missouri Compromise Line

Combat experience for future Civil War generals

CIVIL WAR
1861-1865

“Becoming a Singular” – Ken Burns

Racial integration

600,000+ casualties

SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR
1898

Expansive foreign policy

First major victory against a European power

First war waged entirely on foreign soil

WORLD WAR I
1914(7)-1918

U. S. is the decisive factor in a stalemate war

U. S. becomes a dominant player in the world

Woodrow Wilson's idealism (International law, world government)

WORLD WAR II
1939(41)-1945

U. S. and U. S. S. R. the last two standing

European rivalries dead

Advent of the nuclear age

KOREAN WAR
1951-1954

First test of united western world vs. communism

Hindered China's desire to dominate global communism

Never resolved – just stopped

VIETNAM WAR
1950(6)-1975

Signaled the end of European colonialism

“The war that would not die”

Last war fought with drafted soldiers

GULF WAR
1990-1991

First major military conflict after the fall of the Berlin Wall

Central role of oil in American foreign policy

Advent of “New World Order”

AFGHANISTAN
2001-present

Response to 9/11 attacks

New kind of war: Nations vs. non-nations

Perpetual skirmishing vs. pitched battles

IRAQ
2003-present (kind of)

Pre-emptive war (Bush Doctrine)

Legitimacy of the UN

Nation building

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:

Agree or disagree with one of the following statements, telling why:

1. America became a powerful nation in the 20th Century primarily because the wars were fought everywhere but here.

2. The most significant wars and battles are those that involve the most people in combat.

3. Of the five “big stories” we talked about earlier, the one with the biggest impact on the outcomes of wars has been technology.

Notes from Tuesday

The Weirdest Presidential Elections in US History

Things to know about Presidential Elections going in:

• The outcome is decided no by the popular vote, but by the Electoral College.
• Who gets to vote is determined state-by-state, with four exceptions in the Constitution.

1800 – JOHN ADAMS VS. THOMAS JEFFERSON

Pre-12th Amendment, President was the winner in the Electoral College and VP was the one who finished second. Jefferson and Aaron Burr end up tied (since each elector gets two votes. The election is then thrown to the House of Representatives, where each state gets one vote. In 1800, there were 16 states.). As long as the Adams people in the House of Representatives could keep the election tied between Jefferson and Burr (8 states each), Adams stays President.

1824 – JOHN QUINCY ADAMS VS. ANDREW JACKSON VS. HENRY CLAY

Jackson won the popular vote and the Electoral College, but did not get a majority of electoral votes. So since the election was thrown into the House, the 2nd and 3rd place candidates pooled their support. 2nd place (Adams) is President, 3rd place (Clay) is Secretary of State with a promise of Presidential campaign support in eight years, and Jackson is just out. It works, but only for one term, as Jackson blows out Adams in 1828.

1860 – ABRAHAM LINCOLN VS. STEVEN DOUGLAS VS. JOHN BELL

A popular vote split three ways, but Lincoln got enough of a plurality in enough states to win the Electoral College.

1876 – RUTHERFORD B. HAYES VS. SAMUEL TILDEN

The Crown Prince of weird elections. Three states submitted two slates of electors -- one with black votes counted and one with only white votes. If the white votes are the only ones that count, Tilden wins easily. But if the black votes count, Hayes wins 185-184. The result is the Compromise of 1877. In return for letting black votes count, the South gets to have all of the Northern occupying troops removed, and Hayes doesn't run for re-election in 1880.

1912 – WOODROW WILSON VS. WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT VS. THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Taft runs for re-election, but his supporters are split between him and former two-term President Teddy Roosevelt.

1948 – HARRY S TRUMAN VS. THOMAS DEWEY

The first time computers try to predict a major national election. The computers vastly overstate the impact of Strom Thurmond, who gets a handful of electoral votes, but not nearly enough to allow Dewey to defeat Truman.

1960 – JOHN F. KENNEDY VS. RICHARD NIXON

Close election. Both sides agreed later that nobody cold ever know who would have won if both sides had played fair.

1968 – RICHARD NIXON VS. HUBERT HUMPHREY

Sitting President Lyndon Johnson chooses not to run for re-election. First time since Chester Arthur.

1992 – BILL CLINTON VS. GEORGE BUSH VS. ROSS PEROT

Another split-vote where Bush supporters defect to Perot, opening the door for Clinton.

2000 – GEORGE W. BUSH VS. AL GORE

The king of the weird elections. Several close states -- New Mexico, Oregon, Iowa, and Florida. Final tally 271-267, and that only after a month of legal wrangling about who really won Florida. Lots of fun to watch, unless you had an emotional investment in the outcome. Then it was pure torture.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
Is there a good way to settle a close election, especially when the outcome is statistically too close to call?
Did the Supreme Court get Bush v. Gore right?
Who lost a Presidential election he should have won?
Who was the most qualified Presidential candidate never to win an election?

Big American Story #5 -- Prosperity

Remember that I need postings every week, so if you need to go back and pick up last week's discussion go ahead.

Prosperity was instrumental in:

Providing a motive for exploration -- Columbus was followed back to the New World because there was gold. Puritans came from England with the promise of being land owners.

Sparking the revolution -- Many of the complaints raised in the Declaration of Independence were economic. The Tea Party was in response to a corporate bailout, after all.

Bringing people out of the east and across the plains to the west coast. -- Sure they believed in Manifest Destiny, but it took the promise of wealth to get people to act on it.

Launching the gilded age. -- Robber barons, tycoons, and the advance of technology led to decades of prosperity.

The Great Depression became the formative experience for multiple generations. (What ended the Depression -- FDR, World War II, or just better weather -- became an interesting discussion.)

The American message in the Cold War was western-style prosperity for all.

After the Cold War, we entered the era of bubbles. Beanie Babies, Internet stocks, Real-estate flipping, sub-prime mortgages. American economic theory since 1989 has been that people can consume as much as they want and not have to worry about paying off the debt. (A significant number of home foreclosures have been on people who put their credit card bills on their home mortgages.)

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. When has America acted against its political interests in the quest for prosperity?

2. Can an American politician get elected if he tells people not to consume so much?

3. Which is more important to Americans – personal prosperity or collective opportunity?

Technology in America

Reminder -- The Presidents test is due next week.

Highlights:

Technology advantages (steel, boats, etc.) allowed Europeans to hold a position in the New World.

Eli Whitney's cotton gin made slavery profitable, then his invention of interchangeable parts allowed for much more massive slaughter in the Civil War.

While transportation technology allowed Americans to take up more space, industrialization compressed the population into smaller and smaller areas.

America's technological and industrial might made them a deciding factor in both World Wars.

The Cold War was in a lot of ways a battle of technology -- Space Race, RAND corporation.

The advent of the Internet allows America to be an even smaller country even as more and more people fill up the available space.

EXTRA CREDIT ALERT!!!

Go to historybee.com for details on entering the National History Bee. The regionals are in Nashville in January. There will also be an event in Owensboro, date TBD.

If enough folks want to go, we can even enter a team. Let me know if you're interested.

The Five Big Stories

Link to class audio here

We talked the last couple of weeks about historical significance. Here is one way of assessing significance: How big an impact did the person or event make on one of the major stories in American history?

EXPLORATION
Christopher Columbus
Lewis & Clark
Manifest Destiny
Apollo Program

LIBERTY
Pilgrims & Puritans (vs. Roger Williams)
Declaration of Independence & First Amendment
States Rights
Fascism, Nazism, and Communism
Culture Wars & the Supreme Court, 1960-2000
God, faith, and country in the 21st Century

EQUALITY
America vs. the rest of the world
Jacksonian Democracy
Black equality (Slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, Post-WW2, King, & Obama)
Immigrant Assimilation

PROSPERITY
European explorers
Jamestown, Georgia, New Amsterdam
Alexander Hamilton (Bank of the US, Western empire)
Gold Rush
Gilded Age
Great Depression & Dust Bowl
“Great Society” & the Welfare State

TECHNOLOGY
Education as means to virtue
Agricultural inventions (cotton gin, reapers, tractors)
Transportation inventions (steamboat, railroad, cars, airplanes, spacecraft)
Communication inventions (telegraph, telephone, radio, TV, computers, Internet)
Medical & quality of life inventions (vaccination, refrigeration, electric lights, scanners, DNA & the human genome)

Questions for Discussion:

Choose one of the five big stories and answer one of these questions about it:

Who (not a President) did the most to advance the story?
Which story had the biggest effect on a President's legacy?
What event shows the most overlap between multiple stories?

Presidents, Part 2

The Link to the audio from today's class is here in MP3 format.

Theodore Roosevelt 25th president (1901-1909)

• Tried to run for a third term (Bull Moose)
• Established national parks
• Trust-busting
• Nobel Peace Prize & Medal of Honor

Woodrow Wilson 28th President (1913-1921)

• Decisive factor in WW1
• League of Nations/14 Points/Treaty of Versailles
• Wilsonian Idealism

Franklin Roosevelt 32nd President (1933-1945)

• Four elections
• Great Depression/New Deal
• “Arsenal of Democracy”
• World War II

John Kennedy 35th President (1961-1963)

• Space Race
• Cuba (missiles, Bay of Pigs, Castro)
• Changed the objective of the Cold War
• Televised Presidency

Ronald Reagan 40th President (1981-1989)

• Finished what Kennedy started (Cold War)
• Rebuilt Republican party after Watergate
• “Patron Saint” of present-day conservatives
• Economy-based campaigning

Barack Obama 44th President (2009-present)

• First black President
• Global campaign

HOMEWORK: Post comments in the Presidents, Part 1 thread, or in this thread's comments tool.

Next Week:

The five big stories: Exploration, Equality, Liberty, Technology, & Prosperity

In Two Weeks: Ben will be out of town, so Laura will be talking about historically-significant books.

Presidents, Part 1

What we covered today

Top Ten US Presidents
LCHE Homeschool Co-Op US History

Top Ten US Presidents

• Based on historical significance
• Not an evaluation of their quality
• In the order they served, not a ranked list
  

George Washington -- First President (1789-1797)

• First President
• Established two-term tradition
• Warned about entangling alliances
• Established the “civilian Presidency.”

Thomas Jefferson -- Third President (1801-1809)

• Peaceful Transition from Adams
• Louisiana Purchase/Lewis & Clark expedition
• Strict constructionism vs. Opportunity
• Got two successors elected.

Andrew Jackson -- Seventh President (1829-1837)

• Federal government as defender of liberty
• Veto, veto, veto . . .
• First President not from MA or VA
• “Jacksonian democracy”

Abraham Lincoln -- Sixteenth President (1861-1865)

• Civil War
• Emancipation of slaves
• “National Union” Party
• First national-level Republican

NEXT WEEK: Presidents 5-10. Also, read the Constitution.

Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama.

IN TWO WEEKS: The five most historically-significant storylines running through US History.

Exploration, Equality, Liberty, Technology, & Prosperity

Discussion Questions (open for two weeks):

• Who is on the list who doesn't belong there, and who would you replace him with? Why?
• Is the significance of a Presidency defined more by circumstances or by the person?
• Can a President make a historically-significant contribution in only one term?

Notes from History Class -- September 14

We didn't cover much history today, just some basic "learning theory" material that will help make the rest of the class make sense.

Here's the link to the Presidents song:




The first quiz of the year will be the lyrics to this song. I'll provide everything but the names. You fill in the blanks. You have until Tuesday, October 19 to complete this quiz for full credit.

If you like the learning theory material, read Prisoner of Trebekistan by Bob Harris. Some of the scenes may not be suitable for little brothers and sisters, but that's what makes them so memorable, right?

For parents checking in, here's a rundown of what we did today:

The Trebekistan Method
Becoming Smarter Than You Ever Thought Possible In Eight Easy Steps

Step One:
Pay Attention to the Obvious.

If something comes up over and over again, it's probably important.

Step Two:
Let your feelings help you.

Learning is, at its core, an emotional process. We are emotional beings. Use that fact to your advantage.

Step Three:
Create a setting for remembering.

Re-creating the environment in which you will eventually have to remember will help you recall the information when you need to.

Step Four:
Better to do nothing than to do something dumb.

Consider the circumstance in which you've been asked to remember something. Know the price of being wrong.

Step Five:
Remember how little you really know.

Much of memory hinges on confidence. It's not enough just to know, but to know you know.

Step Six:
Everything connects to everything else.

Learning how the puzzle is framed helps you fill in the details.

Step Seven:
You can only see what you think you'll see.

No matter how hard we try, we can only see the world from our own point of view.

Step Eight:
Answer one question at a time.

Take learning and remembering one moment at a time. You can only do what's right in front of you, right now. The more you worry about what you can't control, the less control you'll have over what you can.

BONUS FOR WEBSITE VIEWERS: Embrace your inner weirdo.

One of my mentors growing up was a man we called Mr. Nick. He was the guy at church who always had candy in his pocket for the kids. One day I was wondering about being a preacher because I wasn't one of the popular kids. I made the comment that if the church was going to grow it needed somebody less weird representing it in the world of normal people.

I'll never forget what he told me. He said, "Ben, weird can be good." He went on to tell me that he saw a lot of his son in me, and instead of hiding my weirdness I should embrace it.

Turns out Mr. Nick knew a thing or two about cultivating weirdos into successful adults. Mr. Nick's only child was named Al.

You guessed it. Yankovic.

So let your freak flag fly, people. By the end of this class, we'll have enough freakiness for a parade.

LCHE US History -- Here's How We're Going to Do This

If you're in LCHE US History, you've come to the right place.

Every week I will post my notes on this blog, then open it up for comments. I will also try to embed as many links as I can in the notes if you want to read further on any given topic.

At the end of the notes there will be three discussion questions to be discussed in the comments section.

What I expect of you:

1. Answer at least one of the DQ's each week. Answers should be at least 100 words, but no longer than the capacity of the comment box to hold.

2. If your comment generates a response or a question (from me or anybody else), post a response.

Three rules on this: 1 -- The original post should be the longest post in the discussion. 2 -- The original poster gets the last word. 3 -- Disagree without being disagreeable. Anybody who has seen cable news knows that meanness is the last refuge of the wrong-headed. Play nice, and don't stab.

OK, 3a. -- Don't freak out if you find out you hold a minority position. Disagreeing with me will get you bonus points, provided you can make a coherent case.

3. Post at least one response to something somebody else says. Indicate who you are addressing with an @ sign followed by the person's name, as in @JabbatheHut07. Keep your responses to a sentence or two, and phrase them in the form of a question the original poster can answer.

Your grade in the class will be 1/3 what we cover in class, and 2/3 what happens online. If you want extra credit, talk to me privately.