Unread scripture: Come, let us reason together*

November 23, 2007

The right-wing nominally Catholic journal First Things features another assault on the quest for reason in its October issue.

Pope John Paul II said evolution is a scientific understanding of creation and should be studied by people, with no claim that it conflicts with Christianity. Since his death, and since the installation of Pope Benedict, Benedict and several cardinals have been backpedaling as fast as they can. When they get called on some of their more radical statements, they claim that “radical atheists” have forced them to their public relations firms and far-right magazines. So far, Pope Benedict has not directly claimed Pope John Paul II to have been in error about evolution. He seems happy to let others make that inference explicitly, however.

I am particularly troubled by Cardinal Dulles’ citing of an article by Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, the archbishop of Vienna, published on July 7, 2005, as an op-ed in the New York Times. Schönborn’s view sounded oddly as if it squared completely with the fundamentalist Christian view espoused from the Discovery Institute in Seattle. It turns out that Schönborn had not written the piece at all, but instead was asked to sign his name to a piece written by one of the Discovery Institute’s commercial public relations groups.

It is probably not fair yet to say that Pope Benedict has been purchased by the Discovery Institute. But it would be good if Catholic officials were to stick to Catholicism and leave the petty, erroneous science politics and destructive education politics to the Discovery Institute; it would be better still if the Discovery Institute were to abandon such things, too.

Tip of the old scrub brush to a commenter at Telic Thoughts. [And, yes, this sat for a while in my draft box.]

* Isaiah 1:18

The verse is almost always cited out of context. In this verse a prophet Isaiah recites words he’s been given from God, by his account. This opens an invitation, from God, to the people of Judah, to discuss their actions. God was particularly concerned about injustices and inequities practiced by the people; for example, in the verses immediately preceding, Isaiah quotes God (CEV): “No matter how much you pray,/I won’t listen./You are too violent./Wash yourselves clean!/I am disgusted with your filthy deeds./Stop doing wrong/and learn to live right./See that justice is done./Defend widows and orphans and help those in need.” It is my view that Cardinal Dulles is missing that context here. The scriptures call us to see that justice is done, first. Slamming evolution and the rest of science is not such action.

Other sources

Leave a Comment » | Academic freedom, Accuracy, Biology, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Education quality, Evolution, History, Intelligent Design, Natural history, Religion, Science, Textbook Selection | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Oswald’s Ghost appears in Texas Theatre, 44 years later

November 22, 2007

President John F. Kennedy died 44 years ago today. Five year anniversaries tend to get more attention.

High school U.S. history students have been alive less than half the time since the assassination. To them it is ancient history, even more than the Vietnam War. Teachers need to find ways to make the history stick even in years that are not multiples of 5.

President Kennedy greeting a crowd in Ft. Worth, Texas, Nov. 22, 1963

A new film offers some aid. “Oswald’s Ghost” had it’s world premiere at the Texas Theater in Oak Cliff, the place where Lee Oswald was arrested. Restoration of the theater is not complete, but it is far enough along to host events.

The movie is in severely limited release prior to a January 14, 2008 premier on PBS stations. Director Robert Stone places the assassination in history and tells some of the effects on America, rather than dwelling on facts or controversies around the shooting. The movie got a good review from the Dallas Morning News:

“Nobody had stepped back and told the story of the debate itself,” he says.

“How did these ideas come about? Who propagated them and why were they so widely believed? And what had they done to this country? Seventy percent of Americans still believe the government was involved in the Kennedy assassination or has worked to cover it up. And that’s had a huge impact.”

In the end, a seemingly disparate chorus of voices – including the late Norman Mailer – accomplish the filmmaker’s objective.

As he says, Oswald’s Ghost is “a way of explaining the ’60s. We’re not arguing anymore about what happened in Dealey Plaza. It’s an argument about explaining what came after … and how did everything go so wrong.”

With luck, it will be on DVD for classroom use by early February.

Dallas’s PBS outlet, KERA, is showing another locally-produced film this week that I have found useful in the classroom, focusing on the news coverage that day, JFK: Breaking the News. For slightly more adult teachers, there is the fun of finding news people in their infant careers, people like Robert McNeil then of NBC, Peter Jennings, and then-local Dallas reporters Jim Lehrer and Dan Rather, and Fort Worth reporter Bob Schieffer. Few other one-day events have produced such a stable of news greats — the Kennedy assassination spurred the careers of more new people than any other event with the possible exception of World War II. Jane Pauley narrates the story.

The Baltimore Sun’s Frank James offers serious thought on the historical influence of the day in a blog post, “The Big ‘What If?‘”

There is a webcam view of Dealey Plaza from the Texas Book Depository Building — the cam claims to be from the 6th floor window from which Oswald shot, but it looks like the top of the building to me.

The Kennedy assassination kicked the wind out of America. In many ways it was the event that triggered 1968, perhaps the worst single year in American history.

44 years, and we still don’t know the full set of ramifications of the events of that day. Historians keep chipping away.

1 Comment | Disasters, History, History images, History museums, History video sources, JFK assassination, Texas, Texas history | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Texas was thankful first

November 22, 2007

Thanksgiving? Texas had it first. No kidding (unless you count the Vinlanders, who probably were grateful to be out of Greenland, but left no records that they ever actually had a feast to say so — but see the comments in the posts linked at various places).

Mrs. Bathtub is in the hospital. Nothing major, but it appears the staff who should have signed her out yesterday all headed off for Turkey Day and may not return until mid-December, so Mrs. Bathtub languishes at the expense of the insurance companies because security is tight and there are only enough sheets to get her down two stories, and she’s on the third floor (and the people-with-unknown-fathers at the hospital have sealed the door to the balcony anyway — that’s got to get you thinking). So Mr. Bathtub is frantically reading the back of the Libby’s Pumpkin can, and you can imagine what antics are up in the kitchen today. Blogging will be sparse.

So it’s reprise post stuff, mostly, today. If you need more, go here:

Google's Thanksgiving logo, 2007

Here’s the main reprise post, text below (there were some good comments last year); Margaritas and nachos do sound good, don’t they?
___________________________
Patricia Burroughs has the story — you New Englanders are way, way behind.

Palo Duro Canyon in a winter inversion

Palo Duro Canyon during inversion, Winter 2001, site in 1541 of the first Thanksgiving celebration in what would become the United States. Go here: www.visitamarillotx.com/Gallery/index3.html, and here: www.tpwd.state.tx.us/park/paloduro/

Update, 11/27/2006: Great post here, “Top 10 Myths About Thanksgiving.”

_______________________

Resources for 2007:

1 Comment | Abraham Lincoln, DBQ sources, Fly your flag today, Food history, Franklin Roosevelt, George Washington, Historic documents, History, James Madison, Rachel Carson, Separation of church and state, Texas history, Thomas Jefferson, Travel | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

“Evening at the Fed” Dallas registration deadline Nov. 22

November 21, 2007

Dallas-area economics, government and history teachers need to watch the deadline to register for the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank’s “Evening at the Fed,” scheduled for November 29, 2007.

Deadline to register is November 22.

Good dinner, continuing education credits (professional development), a few good ideas for your classroom. See my previous post, here.

Leave a Comment » | Federal Reserve Bank, Freedom - Economic, Geography - Economic, Government, History, Lesson plans, Teaching | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Brits struggle to save Sherwood Forest

November 21, 2007

Worldwide fans of Robin Hood should be concerned: Sherwood Forest is not even a ghost of what it once was.

The Associated Press carried a story detailing efforts to preserve and revive the forest made famous by the stories of Robin Hood. 900-year-old oaks, encroaching development, a sense of history, and a need to save green space — it’s a good story for warm-up on conservation, development, historical myths, or England’s geography.

Leave a Comment » | Economics, Environmental protection, Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, Heroes, History, World history | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

DDT works! (When used carefully, in IVM, and sparingly)

November 20, 2007

Discover Magazine’s site has a solid story on DDT and malaria, “Can a maligned pesticide save lives.” Among other things, the article notes that Rachel Carson was scientifically accurate in her cited concerns that DDT was killing birds, and in fact later research of more than 1,000 peer-reviewed papers has born out her worries, and provided even greater evidence of damage.

Cover of November 2007 Discover Magazine, featuring an article on DDT's continuing use in the fight against malaria, and vindicating Rachel Carson's research citations with regard to injuries to birds.

Cover of November 2007 Discover Magazine, featuring an article on DDT’s continuing use in the fight against malaria, and vindicating Rachel Carson’s research citations with regard to injuries to birds.

The article details how DDT is used in integrated vector management (IVM), where pesticides are sparingly and carefully used to prevent their target pests from evolving resistance and immunity.  DDT’s abuse had bred widespread resistance in mosquito populations in Africa and other malaria-endemic locations, forcing the World Health Organization to abandon its ambitious program to eradicate malaria in a program dependent on DDT working for at least a year.

Steven Milloy and the Usual Suspects and Comrades in Junk Science, in the War on Science at AEI and CEI will start their distortions of the Discover article any moment now . . . three, two, one . . .

1 Comment | Accuracy, DDT, History, Junk science, Malaria, Rachel Carson, Research, Science, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Constitution survives Chuck Norris roundhouse kick

November 20, 2007

Chuck Norris’s brain waves could be picked up on a transistor radio — nobody knows because he doesn’t think.This must be a television advertising spot, but I hope it’s not rated as a public service spot, since it encourages stupidity and illegal school board actions.

(Is it my imagination, or is Norris using the same bottle of orange hair dye that Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-Mars, used in the last 65 years of his life?)

Norris is promoting the suspect curriculum of the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools (NCBCPS), a group of fundamentalist right-wingers who originally promoted “Thou Shalt Not Steal” with plagiarized material. Do not trust that curriculum.

Analysis of this curriculum for the Texas Freedom Network by a distinguished Bible scholar from Southern Methodist University, Dr. Mark Chancey, showed that the curriculum as revised still presents enormous legal problems — it promotes fundamentalist Christian theology — as well as being academically flaccid. Despite an update in late 2005/early 2006 designed to alleviate some of the more egregious errors of fact, Bible fact, and plagiarism, NCBCPS refuses to release their curriculum for analysis; copies obtained from schools in Texas show many of the old problems remain (see page 61 of this document).

Errors in Norris’s claims:

  1. The U.S. was not “founded on Biblical principles.” For Texas, teaching this would lead students astray of the state’s Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS).
  2. The Supreme Court has never ruled that it’s legal to teach with the Bible as a textbook. In obiter dicta in religion in the schools cases, the Court has noted that a non-sectarian, fair teaching of the Bible as literature, or as it relates to history, should be part of a full and complete education. Specifically, the Court has never ruled that a course such as the one Norris proposes would be legal; instead, the Court has held consistently that course content that appears to be religious indoctrination as this course, is illegal, a violation of students’ religious rights and and over-reach by government. School boards may not endorse one faith over another.
  3. The count of schools using the NCBCPS curriculum is inflated. The group refuses to identify any school using their materials, but their claims in Texas were found to be inflated when compared with the materials school districts actually used.

Religion has played a big role in U.S. history. No student needs to be converted to Christianity in order to study that role. Nor does the role of Christianity need to be exaggerated.

Good Bible curricula exist, open to inspection, passed by religious scholars, approved by First Amendment and education lawyers. See the materials from the Bible Literacy Project, for a good example. NCBCPS’s curriculum, the one Norris promotes, is not that approved, educationally valuable curriculum.

Tip of the old scrub brush to “Why, That’s Delightful,” in the post “Chuck Norris Fact #277,090 : He’s an idiot”

Below the fold: Texas Faith Network’s guidelines for using the Bible in public schools

Read the rest of this entry »

3 Comments | Accuracy, America's founding, Bill of Rights, Blog Against Theocracy, Bogus history, Curricula, First Amendment, History, Religion, Texas Freedom Network | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863

November 19, 2007

 

Prior to 2007, this was the only known photo of Lincoln at Gettysburg, on the day of his address - Library of Congress

Prior to 2007, this was the only known photo of Lincoln at Gettysburg, on the day of his address – Library of Congress

 

144 years ago today, Abraham Lincoln redefined the Declaration of Independence and the goals of the American Civil War, in a less-than-two-minute speech dedicating part of the battlefield at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, as a cemetery and final resting place for soldiers who died in the fierce battle fought there the previous July 1 through 3.

Interesting news for 2007: More photos from the Library of Congress collection may contain images of Lincoln. The photo above, detail from a much larger photo, had been thought for years to be the only image of Lincoln from that day. The lore is that photographers, taking a break from former Massachusetts Sen. Edward Everett’ s more than two-hour oration, had expected Lincoln to go on for at least an hour. His short speech caught them totally off-guard, focusing their cameras or taking a break. Lincoln finished before any photographer got a lens open to capture images.

Images of people in these photos are very small, and difficult to identify. Lincoln was not identified at all until 1952:

The plate lay unidentified in the Archives for some fifty-five years until in 1952, Josephine Cobb, Chief of the Still Pictures Branch, recognized Lincoln in the center of the detail, head bared and probably seated. To the immediate left (Lincoln’s right) is Lincoln’s bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon, and to the far right (beyond the limits of the detail) is Governor Andrew G. Curtin of Pennsylvania. Cobb estimated that the photograph was taken about noontime, just after Lincoln arrived at the site and before Edward Everett’s arrival, and some three hours before Lincoln gave his now famous address.

On-line, the Abraham Lincoln Blog covered the discovery that two more photographic plates from the 1863 speech at Gettysburg may contain images of Lincoln in his trademark stove-pipe hat. Wander over to the story at the USA Today site, and you can see just how tiny are these detail images in relation to the photographs themselves. These images are tiny parts of photos of the crowd at Gettysburg. (The story ran in USA Today last Thursday or Friday — you may be able to find a copy of that paper buried in the returns pile at your local Kwikee Mart.) Digital technologies, and these suspected finds of Lincoln, should prompt a review of every image from Gettysburg that day.

To the complaints of students, I have required my junior U.S. history students to memorize the Gettysburg Address. In Irving I found a couple of students who had memorized it for a an elementary teacher years earlier, and who still could recite it. Others protested, until they learned the speech. This little act of memorization appears to me to instill confidence in the students that they can master history, once they get it done.

To that end, I discovered a good, ten-minute piece on the address in Ken Burns’ “Civil War” (in Episode 5). On DVD, it’s a good piece for classroom use, short enough for a bell ringer or warm-up, detailed enough for a deeper study, and well done, including the full text of the address itself performed by Sam Waterson.

Edward Everett, the former Massachusetts senator and secretary of state, was regarded as the greatest orator of the time. A man of infinite grace, and a historian with some sense of events and what the nation was going through, Everett wrote to Lincoln the next day after their speeches:

“I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as near the central idea of the occasion in two hours, as you did in two minutes.”

Interesting note: P. Z. Myers at Pharyngula notes that the Gettysburg Address was delivered “seven score and four years ago.” Of course, that will never happen again. I’ll wager he was the first to notice that odd juxtaposition on the opening line.

Resources for students and teachers:

3 Comments | 1861-1865, Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, Famous Battles, Heroes, History, History blogs, History images, War | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Another carnival of DDT

November 18, 2007

One of the clues that someone is financing a public relations campaign for DDT and against care for the environment is the way “news” keeps popping out about the benefits of DDT, though there is no natural process for making such news in back of the stories.

We old PR flacks recognize that without the push from an agent, these stories wouldn’t get written.

Just over a month ago there was a flurry of stories about how DDT was “effective” even after mosquitoes developed immunity to it, because it repels mosquitoes, too — even though that wasn’t what the researchers concluded, and that wasn’t the major thrust of the research article.

We also saw a Hoover Institute fellow call for DDT to be used to fight the spread of West Nile virus, though no public health official called for such action, though there is no particular need for such a drastic change in policy, and despite the fact that DDT spraying for the mosquitoes that carry West Nile is one of the least effective means of killing them (DDT is not a larvacide, and larvacides are called for to combat West Nile).

This month? No real news, but the American Enterprise Institute, which nominally is pitched at promoting business interests, issued a new report recycling all the old canards, calling for increased use of DDT in Africa to fight malaria, despite already expanded use, and despite a lack of call from health officials to spray more DDT.

Here’s how it looks on the internet:

November 5, 2007 – Wall Street Journal opinion piece by AEI’s Roger Bate, over the years one of the most ardent salesmen of DDT as the solution to nearly every problem, so long as it bashed environmentalists. WSJ notes the piece is a shorter version of the AEI report.

November 1, 2007 – TCS piece by AEI’s Roger Bate, complaining generally about environmentalists.

Random DDT stuff, some of which may turn into separate posts:

6 Comments | DDT, Environmental protection, History, History Revisionism, Malaria, Public health, Science, Voodoo science | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Pete Seeger → banjo → Steve Martin

November 17, 2007

Comedian Steve Martin has a couple of new books out, and the New York Times tracked him down for an interview. One may learn a lot from these interviews. In this case, we learn how far is the reach of Pete Seeger’s banjo, and the reach of instruction:

His [Steve Martin’s] early acts were a hodgepodge — some juggling, some magic, some balloon tricks, some banjo-playing — and to a great extent his style remained eclectic, with the crucial addition of irony; the act became in some ways the parody of an act, with no punch lines, and audiences found it even funnier.

“It was a great discovery,” Mr. Martin said. “There I was making fun of what I was doing, and yet I was still getting to do it.”

The only relic Mr. Martin keeps from those days is his banjo, which he taught himself to play as a teenager from a Pete Seeger instruction book, practicing alone in his car with windows rolled up even on hot summer nights. Waiting for the knock on the trailer door, and the summons to don his epaulets and marry again, he picked up the banjo and played a bluegrass song he had been learning. “When I play music, it’s like an alternate form of living,” he said.

1 Comment | Education success, History, Music | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Historic site vs. attractive nuisance: The famous Alaska bus

November 15, 2007

It’s being called the McCandless Bus, after the young man who died there, but its roots in local culture, lore and history are quite a bit deeper. Alaskans debate whether to preserve the bus where Chris McCandless died, how to preserve it, or whether to get rid of it, on Public Radio’s Talk of Alaska.

The rant of commenter Will Forsberg was the most informative and entertaining part of the on-line version — I didn’t listen to the radio program.

Tip of the old scrub brush to PB.

1 Comment | Capturing history, Disasters, History, Natural history | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

What if they gave a disaster and nobody cared?

November 15, 2007

Day in and day out, this cartoon of a poor African kid getting hit by a tsunami of drought is among the most popular posts on this blog, and one of the most popular cartoon images on the web. I think the cartoonist Alberto Sabat was trying to make a point, that kids in SubSaharan Africa were (are) being clobbered by a disaster as great as the great tsunami that hit the Indian Ocean after Christmas 2005.

In other words, there were other disasters, other victims, and we ignore them.

If Al Gore had a lot of media clout and enjoyed bias from media in his favor, you’d hear about a great storm ready to smash one of the poorest, lowest countries on the planet, where recent increases in povery-struck populations has put millions of people in a great river’s delta, in a most dangerous place to be in a cyclone. But you’re not hearing the story.

If our news media were biased to the liberal side, a story about such a pending disaster would be on the front page of every liberal newspaper, and leading every liberal television news broadcast.

If our private charity groups were groveling to the climate change Cassandras, they’d be begging for money to evacuate people from the path of a category 5 cyclone, now.

If Katrina’s aftermath alerted us to the dangers of powerful storms hitting areas of great poverty, we’d be glued to our television sets if there were another such drama unfolding anywhere on Earth.

If the Bush administration were concerned about preventing the growth of al Quaeda and similar movements, it would be doing what it could to help out a nominally friendly government of an Islamic nation in the path of a great storm.

Right?

The photos are spectacular. The news is . . . eerily quiet.

Cyclone Sidr, on the way to Bengla Desh

This is Cyclone Sidr. It’s a category 5, and it keeps defying predictions that it will weaken as it moves north, oddly acting as if it has targeted the low river delta regions of Bengla Desh. Chris Mooney calls it “beautiful but deadly.” P. Z. Myers raises an alarm about our ignorance of the storm. More details from Mooney. Lamentations from Mooney’s co-blogger Kirshenbaum (are they playing the role of Jeremiah or Cassandra? Rather depends on your reaction, no?)

Do any high school geography, world history, government or economics courses still do current events? Here’s the raw material for a good, consciousness-raising warm-up. Prelude to a disaster, we hope not. The lack of news coverage is disturbing.

Resources:

Horrible thought: Is the dearth of reaction partly because broadcasters don’t know how to pronounce the name of the storm?

5 Comments | Climate change, Disasters, Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History, Politics, Poverty | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

What happened in 1066, again?

November 14, 2007

If I ever run into a class of U.S. kids who know why 1066 is an important date, I shall be moved to smile. Hasn’t happened yet.

Here’s an interesting and almost-fun post on the Battle of Hastings, from Samurai Dave.

1 Comment | 1066, Famous Battles, History, History blogs, History images, TEKS, War, World history | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Live blogging NOVA and Dover evolution trial?

November 13, 2007

For the next couple of hours, I’ll be watching instead of blogging, mostly (“Judgment Day: Evolution on Trial”). PZ is liveblogging, he says. I’d go for the popcorn, but we just finished dinner.

These issues are still very much alive. Texas science standards are up for rewriting now (a bunch to come on that here, from Texas Citizens for Science, soon). Texas biology books will be updated in the near future. Creationists have flocked to Texas in anticipation.

Judge Jones was featured on The News Hour tonight — the man is a statesman of great stature, refusing to denigrate either side, but carefully explaining the law and the judge’s duty.

Stay tuned to PBS tonight. You will not see anything like this program on any commercial outlet, broadcast or cable. PBS remains one of the shining lights of our government, a wonderful idea executed with flair.

_______________________________

7:56 p.m.: The guy playing Kenneth Miller in the trial reenactment is good, but he’s nowhere near as engaging as Miller is. This NOVA is a good deal: I wish someone had a good video of Miller’s presentation to the Texas State Board of Education in the 1990s (1999? 1997? I’ll have to look that up). It was a stellar performance before a hostile crowd, and it was one of the big rocks that stopped the anti-evolution tide.

For that matter, I wish we had copies of the testimony of Andy Ellington and Stephen Weinberg from 2003. I understand a video may still exist (Discovery Institute taped the whole thing, but don’t expect to see them ever let this stuff out for others to see — it’s too powerful). Ellington was afire, and Weinberg was as statesmanlike as anyone will ever see him. It was great.

Nick Matzke got a little camera time earlier. He’s a hero in this story, and he was grand earlier in other states.

Watch this stuff carefully. The scientists and policy defenders of evolution are almost to a person, wonderful people. You’d enjoy a dinner with Eugenie Scott. You’d love to spend an afternoon with Andrew Ellington. There are scientific, political and religious differences galore, but very few really disagreeable people defending evolution. Funny: The pro-evolution side demonstrates the virtues of Christian charity better than the self-proclaimed Christian side. (And as if on cue, just after 8:00 p.m. Bill Buckingham shows up to attack the teachers as non-Christian, or not good Christians, even the ministers’ kids — and he looks crabby, if not downright bothered.)

8:07 p.m.: The actor playing Michael Behe has his voice and delivery down pretty well, but without the usual smirk. I wonder if Behe smirked through his testimony — anybody know? Maybe the ID folks would have been better off to hire an actor to play Behe.

8:10 p.m.: Behe’s irreducibly complex stuff, and bacterial flagella: Has anybody ever asked Behe why an intelligent designer wouldn’t have used a screw propeller, which would be more efficient than a flagellum? Is the designer irreducibly dense, too?

8:55 p.m.: IDists and other creationists won’t like the program. It was fair. In two hours, NOVA offers clear understanding of what happened at the trial, and to people who listen, it tells why evolution came out on top.

Great program. How many will it sway?

In the interim comes word that Kenneth Miller will be in Dallas day-after-tomorrow from something called “Pegasus News Service.” Since Pegasus is the flying horse logo of the old Magnolia Petroleum Company, which was adopted by Dallas-based Mobil (before Exxon-Mobil), it’s clearly a Dallas-based news group. Maybe SMU related. Here are the details of Miller’s visit:

On Thursday, Nov. 15 at 5 p.m. in the Hughes-Trigg Student Center Ballroom on the campus of Southern Methodist University, Kenneth R. Miller will lecture on the subject of science and faith in America, and how the falling out of favor of “intelligent design” will affect our understanding of science as a tool for understanding our world. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Only one Scout meeting conflicting . . . can I make it?

___________________________
Resources

6 Comments | Evolution, History, Intelligent Design, Junk science, Jurisprudence, Law, Public education, Voodoo science | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Texas History Day, and National History Day 2008

November 12, 2007

Your classes are gearing up for the competition, no?

Alfie Kohn might not like the idea of competition in history. In a state famous for competition in almost everything, but most famous for athletic competitions to the detriment of academics, I find great appeal in a contest that requires kids to find, analyze and write history.

Then the students get together to present and discuss history — and usually about 60 Texas kids go on to the National History Day festival. (Details here from the Texas State Historical Association)

Q. What is Texas History Day?

A. Texas History Day, a part of the National History Day program, is a yearlong education program that culminates in an annual state-level history fair for students in grades six through twelve. It provides an opportunity for students to demonstrate their interest in, and knowledge of, history through creative and original papers, performances, documentaries, individual interpretive web sites, or three-dimensional exhibits.

Over the course of the school year, students research and produce a History Day entry, the results of which are presented at a regional competition in early spring. From there, some students advance to the state fair in May, or even to the national contest held each June at the University of Maryland at College Park. At each level of competition, outstanding achievement may be recognized through certificates, medals, trophies, or monetary awards. The most important rewards are the skills and insight that students acquire as they move through the History Day program.

As many as 33,000 young Texans are involved in the program at the regional and state level each year. More than 900 students participate in Texas History Day, and approximately 60 students represent Texas at National History Day each year.

The 2008 National History Day Theme is “Conflict and Compromise in History.”

Texas has 23 regions for preliminary rounds. Details here. A list of sample topics for Texas students should give lots of good ideas.

The topics and the papers promise a lot. These projects could make good lesson plans. (Who publishes the winning entries? I have not found that yet.)

Don’t forget the Texas History Day T-shirt Design Contest — entries are due by December 14, 2007.

3 Comments | Capturing history, Education, Historic documents, History, Lesson plans, Pedagogy, Teaching, Technology, Texas history | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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