First off - Thank you for a great start to the school year. When I've been by classes, things have been humming, students have been engaged, and learning is clear. From the way that the FA team is supporting each other to Lisa sitting casually next to her ClearTouch, flicking images back and forth, to the PLCs getting down to work, to Jen's and Jaime's students learning at full throttle --really to the things I've seen all across the department -- you've done a fantastic job settling in and getting your kids into the routine of active learning. It’s hard teaching with our masks on and also interacting with the mask-created-half-faces of our students, but that’s better than black squares/boxes, no? So, again, thank you for the extra energy that it’s taking this time to make learning great for our students. I'd like to start snapping photos of students whenever I'm in classes to put into these memos. The memos are closed from the public by the password, so we don't need to worry about permissions.
New Faculty
We all have met Alexis Plank, since she has been here since the beginning of the year. Another big WELCOME TO SOC! for Alexis. However, we have another new member as of yesterday: Aaron Donovan. His photo is to the left, so that you can greet him if you see him in the halls. He is a 2014 grad of LHS (a product of Steve and Lisa’s classes, in terms of our department). He is in rm 312 and is part of the US Topics 2 and Civics teams. Amanda Ernst has taken on a course in the department: “US History Through Our Eyes,” a yearlong look at American history through the lenses of six historically non-dominant communities. Stephen Gervais is not teaching in SOC, but is teaching US History in the EL department and will be touching base with many of you as he looks at aligning his department’s courses more closely with ours.
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NOTES ON PLCs this week and next:
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- This year, we need to make sure that COMMON ASSESSMENTS occur at the same time. The issue of lab space is now moot, so we do not need to stagger assessments.
- Departments all are asking teachers/PLCs to consider the WARM DEMANDER model for classes. It's here, with my take on it here. Please look at both as a launching point for reflection about your own classroom practice -- and for discussion in your next PLC meeting.
Housekeeping
BOOKS! There are a lot of our books in the Teach-out Room (aka, Rm. 306 Teacher Center, aka, my advisory room...) These were returned at the end of the year last year, to the main lobby and put in 306 by the Custodians. These need to go back to classrooms ASAP. If you recognize texts you need, let me know and I'll arrange delivery or you can send students to pick them up. If they are not picked up by Friday, I'll put them into the back storage. Please come get them.
COVID ISSUES:
- Masks must be worn by faculty and staff during meetings. This is Commonwealth DESE/District policy. There are no exceptions. The only time we can drop our masks are when we are alone in our rooms.
- When you see students in the hall with anything other than mask on and above the nose, please ask them politely and firmly to put their mask on. If they refuse and you are able to engage security right away, please do so. If you have the problem in your classroom, please tell repeat offenders that you will have to refer them to their House Office. For those of you who are hesitant to do so, this is a mandate from the Head of School, per District and Commonwealth protocol. Let the kids know that you are under orders to refer them. This is a non-negotiable health issue.
- From Roxane: regarding a frequently asked COVID Q: “The following close contacts are exempt from testing and quarantine response protocols: Asymptomatic, fully vaccinated close contacts: Individuals who are asymptomatic and fully vaccinated are exempt from testing and quarantine response protocols.”
9/11 Commemoration - Discussion
I was recently asked whether I was preparing something for the 20th Anniversary of the 9/11 Attacks. I answered truthfully that the AFJROTC has always handled it, that if I involved our department we would be intruding, and that I was wary, because a full historical examination -- beyond the presentation of the facts of the attacks and remembrance of those lost -- is fraught. AFJROTC does that basic historical work, whereas a larger, contextual piece brings in more painful and controversial questions, especially with the end of the Afghanistan War (personally, I think military policing action is closer to what it really was in technical terms, since the Taliban were a non-state actor until a week ago...) just occuring and issues like blow-back and our Middle East policies necessarily coming into the contextualization. We deal with that in MP4 (if we get to it), so it also isn't something we can spend a lot of time on during this part of the year. Ann deals with it more extensively in her elective course, but that is not the bulk of our students in front of us.
I am not sure what is best, but I have not been contacted by the AFJROTC folks or Mike to do something. This was a question from an outside party. I'd like to know your thoughts on whether we should set aside a day (this Friday? Next Monday?) in our history classes to do an activity (suggestions?) to commemorate. If you care to, please leave your thoughts here on a padlet. They can be either anonymous or you can put your name to it. Please try to respond by tomorrow afternoon and I'll take into account the consensus of the department on next steps.
I am not sure what is best, but I have not been contacted by the AFJROTC folks or Mike to do something. This was a question from an outside party. I'd like to know your thoughts on whether we should set aside a day (this Friday? Next Monday?) in our history classes to do an activity (suggestions?) to commemorate. If you care to, please leave your thoughts here on a padlet. They can be either anonymous or you can put your name to it. Please try to respond by tomorrow afternoon and I'll take into account the consensus of the department on next steps.
Constitution Day 9/17 (Friday) - Discussion
As you know, all history classes are mandated by Federal law to use the day on September 17 to mark Constitution day with instruction on the Constitution. Obviously, the biggest issues right now are the most controversial: Roe v Wade and voting rights. I want us to have grade-appropriate common work for all our history students. My thinking is that we would have Grade 9 and 10 look at voting rights and Grade 11 (which includes Grade 12 students usually) look at Roe v Wade. Each would be a structural analysis of the Constitutional issues, allowing students to see arguments from both sides of current debates and with the department maintaining a neutral position. If there is consensus on these topics, I will put together materials and give them to you. Whether you agree or disagree with the topics, please register your thinking on this padlet. (It's different from the one above.) If you disagree, please make suggestions for what you'd like to see. I'll need you to reply by next Monday (9/13) so that, if necessary, I can put topics to a vote of the department and gather the materials together and distribute them by Thursday. If individual full PLCs want to make a counter proposal for their work, I'm open to it. THIS DOES NOT APPLY TO THE SOCIAL SCIENCES COURSES.
DEI & CRT... (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) (Critical Race Theory)... - Discussion
The Mass Social Studies Frameworks have a significant shift in language and focus that moves toward DEI principles. I'd like to know if their is interest in having a study group (it would have to be outside of school) to go through what's going on in the field, the theoretical, political, and sociological inputs into it, and how it affects our instruction. If you are interested in joining a discussion group, please e-mail me and we'll set something up.
CRT, as it exists as a lens in legal and political analysis, doesn't really apply to anything we do, in case anyone asks. Because we focus on complex causes (officially in the department it's political, social, and economic, although I think we need to revisit it and potentially include religious, jurisprudential, military, and ethnonationalist to the mix for grade 11 history classes), we have a number of different sources, starting with the Annales School as the oldest of the sources for our current practice. If you want a brief overview of these schools, please see here. CRT is nowhere in sight, but using the lens of race and systemic outcomes is part and parcel of several of the schools that influence the modern standards we use, the NCSS, and the AHA. I'm not going to put another padlet up, but if you have thoughts about what we use for complex causality in history, e-mail me your thoughts.
CRT, as it exists as a lens in legal and political analysis, doesn't really apply to anything we do, in case anyone asks. Because we focus on complex causes (officially in the department it's political, social, and economic, although I think we need to revisit it and potentially include religious, jurisprudential, military, and ethnonationalist to the mix for grade 11 history classes), we have a number of different sources, starting with the Annales School as the oldest of the sources for our current practice. If you want a brief overview of these schools, please see here. CRT is nowhere in sight, but using the lens of race and systemic outcomes is part and parcel of several of the schools that influence the modern standards we use, the NCSS, and the AHA. I'm not going to put another padlet up, but if you have thoughts about what we use for complex causality in history, e-mail me your thoughts.
PBL (Project Based Learning) - Preliminaries.
I will be bringing PBL PD into the PLCs in the last part of Q1. If you are interested in getting a jumpstart, please see this website. For the US Topics 2 team, I recommend you look at it now, as it will inform our work moving forward with our pilot.
Tech
I'm working on supporting you as much as I can. Locally and district-wide, folks are stretched thin. We're working to help you as quickly as possible. In the meantime, Malinda has put a ton of stuff here. She is currently transitioning material to here, so be sure to join both classrooms to cover the most ground. Many questions you have will be answered in one or the other site. You need to be signed into your LPS Google Account to access it. And just for a bit of levity and perspective:
licensed, reproduction prohibited
Informational Sessions of Interest in our field
- 9 Sept 2021 (Thursday) at 7 pm EDT - Gilder-Lehrman “Into the Vault” looking at treason during the Revolutionary War (click here for informational .pdf)
- 10, 17, 24 Sept 2021 (Fridays) at 5 pm EDT (4 pm CDT) - Newslit.org (News Literacy Project) webinars on media literacy (click here for informational .pdf)
- 14 Sept 2021 (Tuesday) at 7:30 pm EDT - HUE (History UnErased) Virtual Evening event looking at LGBTQ-inculsive books (click here for informational .pdf)
Information from history/social sciences PD providers
- CES Emerging America (Collaborative for Educational Services)