Am I the Tootsie Roll Owl?

Recently, I was watching television (ok, I am watching television right now as well you caught me) and I saw a throwback Tootsie Roll Commercial. You may recall the commercial, it has a boy coming up to "Mr. Owl" and asking him how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop. The owl responds with, one a two(whooo) and then promptly takes a bite of the tootsie pop. The joke of course is that no one is ever patient enough to lick off the entire sugary coating around the tootsie pop before biting into it.
My mind made a connection to the patience that teachers need to have. Children are naturally curious and teachers need to find ways to get their students to do their best to answer their own questions. The more students can do for themselves, the more they will learn! It is not easy to take a back watch students struggle to find the answer, and sometimes it is helpful for teachers to give some answers, but discovery is a hugely important part of learning (and self esteem).  Teachers like Mr. Owl, would rather take the easy way out and simply give their student the answer. Mr. Owl should have said "I don't know Timmy (I'm guessing), let me help you set up a structure for an experiment to find out the average number of licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop.

Trial of Columbus Activity

In my senior level Global Studies Class we started off the year with an activity called the trial of Christopher Columbus to get our students warmed up to the concept of imperialism. My CT starts off every year with this activity, which is a product of the Zinn Education Product (https://zinnedproject.org/materials/people-vs-columbus/). The activity beings with separating students into 5 teams, Columbus, Columbus' men, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, The System of Empire and The Tainos Indians. Each group is being accused of genocide, and they are given a one page dossier that gives them the events that occurred, and outlines why they could be guilty of the charge. It is up to the student groups to look through the dossier and find various facts that could acquit them of the charge, or admitting their guilt. Additionally, students are responsible for charging two other groups with murder, and explaining why. They spend one class writing up a defense based off of the dossier. In the second period, the teacher is plays the role of the prosecutor and questions each group in front of a jury of five, made up of one member of each group that has sworn to be neutral.

The dossier's are written in a way that clearly points to the guilt of everyone but the Tainos. However this lesson really showed me just how important the opinion of the teacher is to the students.

Two separate classes went through the entirety of this activity and I was responsible for structuring the jury's deliberation. Of the four guilty dossier's, the most difficult for students to understand was the System of Empire. In order to compensate for that, my CT was especially ruthless when questioning the System of Empire group. As a result, the jury met and decided that 75% of the blame should be placed on the System of Empire, with the remaining blame laid on the three European groups. That would have been a fair conclusion BUT when asked to explain their rationale for the verdict, they simply said "well that's what you said!" By spending more time with the System of Empire and placing emphasis on it during the questioning, the students assumed that they must be guiltier than the others!

In the second class period my CT intentionally put less emphasis on the SOE and interestingly enough it only got 5% of the guilt! I was surprised at the disparity between the two classrooms, and I began to understand why my CT decided to spend more time on the system of empire. Personally, I am sure that the SOE shares a big chunk of the guilt for the genocide (which is why genocide of "savages" was a fairly common occurrence during this time period) but because it is such a complex concept, high school students will either give it all the blame or none of the blame depending on the teacher's approach.

One positive aspect I saw in this activity was that students really advocated for themselves. Although there was no real punishment, the groups really took on the character and passionately defended their position (with the exception of the system of empire who seemed to be thoroughly confused). Even when students swore to be neutral in the jury, they were actively advocating for their group. One student even stated that Columbus' men, who according to the dossier slaughtered the Tainos by hand, held no responsibility because Columbus ordered them too. Thankfully there was one other student who was from Columbus' group who fought back against that argument, and they ended up sharing the blame.

Overall, I thought this activity was a huge success. I do wonder if there is a way to help students understand the system of empire better without "teacher think" (my replacement for group think) taking over the students' thought process. I hope to use this in my future classes, it is very engaging and a fun activity for both students and teacher!

Thoughts on the Grapes of Wrath

I am reading the Grapes of Wrath because it was recommended to me by my CT. I will be teaching a unit on the Great Depression and the New Deal for my edTPA and Grapes of Wrath is one of his favorite books. I was a bit apprehensive because I have read Of Mice and Men and I didn't really enjoy it at the time. Granted I was in High School and I was reading it during soccer season, so I didn't really like wading through the thick, stagnant marsh that is Steinbeck's writing every night. To high school me, his writing seemed at best slow moving, and at worst pointless.

Now, as a grad student, I am 75% done reading GOW (I will use GOW to refer to Grapes of Wrath) and I have really enjoyed it. The rich symbolism that Steinbeck uses throughout the book is no longer as taxing as it was to me as a high schooler. The best example of this symbolism is the land turtle that Steinbeck writes about in the early part of the book and then refers back to throughout the novel. When it first appears, the turtle has nothing to do with the story which leads many of my CT's high school students to grow frustrated and ask why they are reading about some turtle. Should this book be subtitled, "The Great Depression: A turtle's perspective"?

With age comes patience, which allows more time for processing sophisticated writing. I had a discussion about the book with a professor and he informed me that the turtle represents the Okie's. "Always goin' someplace. They always seem to want to get there." Mistreated, like when the truck swerves off the road to try to crush the turtle, the Okie's just keep their head down and keep going.

There are other instances of symbolism in the book but the turtle is easily my favorite so far. Because, come on, "every kid wanted a turtle at one time or another." 

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Loewen, Chapter One

Coming from a more conservative background I was cautious when I first began reading Lies. Having heard some conservative criticism of the book, I was prepared to read some radical revisionist propaganda! After reading chapter one, I realize that the points that Loewen brings up are research based facts that are for one reason or another have not been emphasized in traditional American history.

            Chapter One deals with the stories of Christopher Columbus, Thanksgiving and Woodrow Wilson. Traditionally, American’s think of Columbus as a great navigator who discovered the new world. This viewpoint is not wholly inaccurate but is certainly incomplete. Columbus, along with the soldiers under his command, was undeniably responsible for the annihilation of thousands of native Caribbean tribes. Choosing to view him only as a sailor is a way of marginalizing the perspective of Native American’s. Loewen goes on to show that Thanksgiving is presented in a similar manner, with the perspectives of natives either left out altogether or watered down to show a symbiotic relationship with Europeans.

            Although Loewen presented them in a unique way, the arguments over Columbus and Thanksgiving are fairly mainstream. The argument over President Wilson’s racist legacy was something new to me. I was surprised to hear that Wilson, who I understood had fought for the right of self-determination for all nations, actually only intended that right to be for Europeans. Segregating the Postal Service was perhaps the most overt, and least discussed, action that Wilson took to further a racist agenda.

I appreciated how thoroughly researched Loewen’s arguments were, backing his theories with facts from primary and secondary sources. I especially enjoyed his analysis of contemporary historians, like Morrison, who readily admitted that he was overlooking Columbus’ crimes against the natives.  I enjoyed the first chapter and once I have an opportunity to read more I intend to, but at the moment I have to finish the Grapes of Wrath!