Little House on the Prairie

The experience of taking a field trip to the actual place that something happens is always a valuable learning experience.
When you can actually see where events have taken place in our past it should enrich your teaching due to the fact you can make valid points to the class since you have been in the place. The novel series known as the "Little House" series are in fact historical fiction but can be used to identify our students with a period of pioneering America as well as a primary source. After viewing the grounds and being presented with new information about Laura Ingalls Wilder I feel that it provided me with a better understanding of what it was actually like on the Kansas Prairie and seeing the actual size of the house that was used by the family it opens up new possibilities for instruction. The other structures on the site also gave us a better insight so we plant better images into our students as to what it was like to live on a Kansas Prairie. The trials of the people like the prairie fire or crop failure seem very real when visiting the actual place that it happened. The concept of living history always helps and field trips for both instructors and students sometimes is the best way for a hands on experience.
I also did not realize that the Dr. Tann in the book was a real person and in fact is buried in Independence , Kansas. Anytime that facts like these are presented it makes our job easier when we can tell a student I have seen this or I have been there. The experience of being on the same place that an artwork like the "Little House" was created can also let the teacher help recreate better for all of the students. The actual trials of the family from Wisconsin, Missouri,Minnesota,and South Dakota is something I never realized and in fact helps me understand the pioneering spirit the family actually had. I also realized that it took very patient and tough women to go along with being uprooted as many times as this family was.
Little House On The Prairie

Life

My first reaction to the exercise that Dr. Mathews presented was to look at what I knew happened and since we probably do not start to remember much of anything about our first two years of life I had to speculate. This created more things for me to look at and reflect on. This is a very good exercise to look at why Laura Ingalls Wilder when reflecting back when writing her books had to either combine characters and even speculate on what happened. This simply means that she had to use historical fiction. Historical fiction that I have used in the past are images from the movie "Pearl Harbor" and they have been successful. The "Little House" nostalgia can be very useful and doing this exercise is useful when looking at how it was like on the Kansas Prairie and I felt this exercise reflected on what Wilder had to do.

"Agriculture Today"

The trend in today's agriculture is a great subject to cover and give a unique view because of the location we live in. Southeast Kansas in many cases has not seen the drastic changes that Hurt points out in his book that have occurred in other areas of our nation. In certain areas of Southeast Kansas farming is still a major part of what makes the local economy go. My examples here are in Bourbon County especially it's western and northern portions and in Linn County with that entire county be agriculutral oriented. There are other counties like Labette in it's southern portions that also show agriculutre still to be a driving force in the economy.
This is not the case nationwide as Hurt points out in his book. There are fewer and fewer family farms and in many cases the farm population has been drastically reduced. This is one trend that has been seen throughout our state and rural populations have been on a steady decline since the 1960's. The loss of farmland has also been noticed especially in the Johnson County areas of Eastern Kansas and areas north and east of Topeka have also experienced this loss of valued farmland for residencial construction.
Hurt points out that farm economies in the Midwest,South and the West have shown signs of steady decline. He points out that in the South, where agriculture was such a way of life, has seen drastic numbers of farmers especially those of African American backgrounds decline since the late 1960's. This is also true in the Midwest and the loss of land in California the agriculural giant of the west has forced agriculutural production into fewer and fewer areas for crop production.

Bakke Case

In his book "The Bakke Case" Howard Ball gives a great look at the issue of affirmative action that in this case dealt with admission to a California Medical School at the University of California At Davis. The book can be a very useful tool for the classroom teacher in several areas. First you can apply it directly to 8th Grade Standards #1 which would deal with our nations early developement after the Revolution and how it would fit here is when teaching the constitution you could use it as an example of how the Federal and State Court Systems work in our federal system. I also feel that it would be a great addition to any unit that would teach tolerance or it can be used to show other perspectives during a Black History Unit. The idea of reverse discrimation could provide any teacher with great background for historical thinking skills that are needed when we cover Standard #4 in American History which encourages this in the indicators.
The quota system for admitting races other than whites will always be a sensative issue and living in Southeast Kansas with our lower socio-economic pressures the idea is something that all students need to understand.
The two other cases that can be used to help students work through this issue are Gratz and Hamacher/Grutter vs Regents of the University of Michigan and Texas vs Hopwood. In both of these cases affirmative action as spelled out in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was basically found unconstitutional if quota systems were used for admissions.

Vietnam-National Archives

ARC Identifier532477

A machine gunner and a rifleman from the 5th Marine Regiment fire at the enmeny near the Demilitarized Zone in Vietnam., 05/23/1967

Still Picture records LICON, special Media Services Division (NWCS-S), National Archives at College Park, 8601 Adelphi Road, college Park, MD 20730-6001

The reason that I selected this photo is because it immediately can bring up interest because it is an action photo and my students always seem to be more into combat action than other types of war propaganda. It immediately gets several questions by student i.e. "Who are they shooting at?". "What war are they fighting in?". Where is that place they are fighting at?" This type of question format is good to stimulate thinking and fits right into American History Standard Benchmark #4 which has as it's main purpose to develope historical thinking skills among our studetns. A photograph is maybe the best primary source we can use to stimulate this and this meets the goal of indicator #1 for that standard. This photo can also be used for other areas of our curriculum as well such as geography if students are asked to locate an area such as Vietnam. It can also be used in government to show the role of the armed forces and in this case the fight against a Communist Government.

Truman Presidential Library

Truman Presidential Library

The user friendly access to this site will make it a great tool that I can use in my classroom when we study the American Presidency Unit each year. The Truman Presidential Library has listed within it’s activities something called the “White House Decision Center” where students are actually given the chance to make what I like to call “ West Wing” types of decisions while using the program. This program is only available if you take a group to the library site but this field trip is one that I feel could be worthwhile for any high school or middle school group with an interest in a study of the presidency. This type of hands on learning is what I feel my students benefit the most from when presenting different ways to get through our standards.
I also felt that the education link had an excellent power point on the Truman presidency that I have already downloaded for future use in the classroom as well. This power point also comes with a quiz at the end so it blends right in with better ways that can be used to assess student’s knowledge.
Probably one of the best items that I found was also located on the home page of the site that provided a link to Truman’s Memoirs and after reading one of these treasures I realized how valuable this portion of the site can be. The story that I found best to use out of these is one that relates to when Truman was running for re-election as a county official in Jackson County, Missouri. It seems that Truman who became noted as one of the most honest politicians in our countries history had received a threat on his family from the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. This type of courage is what Truman was like his entire life.

To get more information please try this link to the Libraries Home Page. Truman Presidential Librarya>

War Without Mercy

The major thesis or idea that John Dower was attempting to get across in his book is that during the World War II conflict in the Pacific there was duality in racism. He does a great job of pointing out how both sides felt that their race was by far the most superior. He first looks at the Yamato model for global superiority and how the Japanese used their cultural ties to Shintoism and the Samuri to push the agenda to the Japanese populace. The book points out that Japanese military leaders took dim views of surrender and this in turn led to the images of thousands of Japanese soldiers being killed throughout the war in the Pacific.
Dower then looks at American racial views and of course he finds an easy target that had already existed in African Americans and Native Americans to show how poor treatment of any race could become a fabric of a society. It seems that Americans viewed “Japs “ like animals and in fact images in propaganda leaflets and posters portrayed them as looking like apes or monkeys.
Where I really feel America went overboard was when they imprisoned over 120,000 Americans of Japanese decent in 10 different relocation centers around the country. This like Japanese brutality in the war cannot be overlooked.
This setting would give any instructor a chance to use tremendous amounts of photo archives to help meet 7th and 8th grade American History Standard Benchmark #5. These would be excellent sources for primary resource projects students could use as they learn about this event and it’s significance in our history.