Good grief...who'd have thought I'd have nothing to say? This is the first blog and suddenly I'm feeling shy. Hmmm...
Today I wore my heart-shaped red/white/blue necklace with my blue star earrings (since my heart-shaped flag earrings that I had for more than 15 years were stolen by the creeps who took my jewelry box during a break-in) and I, alone, wore anything remotely Americana. I thank our music teacher for making the musical theme for our morning assembly the Star Spangled Banner. It is the anniversary of the Battle of Baltimore Bay on Sept. 14. That is the occasion that prompted the poetry by Francis Scott Key which led to the song. She is preparing the students for Thursday morning when we'll join with thousands of other school children in singing it.
I feel an urgent need to teach more cultural literacy to my fourth graders here in a rather poverty-dominated part of Las Vegas, because so many of them know nothing at all if it isn't on TV. And many of them watch TV exclusively in Spanish, at that. So, today we sang "America" again (we practiced it last week) and then they made books with one phrase from the song on each page. They love drawing and coloring and I needed them busy doing something independently so I can work with individual students giving a reading placement test. Sigh...I'd far rather be teaching, but I must gather data and it'll take about three days.
Anyway, by next summer, at the end of our year round term, my class will know at least five songs about America, and will have sorted out the difference between Lincoln and Washington. Small goals, but strangely retro goals, since the whole design of free, universal public education as envisioned a century ago by Dewey and those radical reformers was to Americanize all those foreigners that were swarming to The Land of the Free and the Home of Brave.
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3 comments:
Earth Sign Mama is the bomb!!!
Wow. My mom thinks she has nothing to say. Nope, the world is still turning! Yay Earth Sign Mama!!
Maybe you could read your kids "The Westing Game". It's a fun book with clues to the mystery from from the song "America". It's a little complex, but there is a student study guide online and it's a Newbery book.
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