Finding folk music for lesson plans

October 16, 2006

Avoiding Aristotle’s warning that we shouldn’t introduce children to “music,” many teachers like to add a little music to a lesson plan from time to time. Especially useful is music that pertains directly to the stuff in the lesson plan.

If you are stumped on how to find such music as I am (and remember, I teach in Texas!), you may find this index of folk music to be quite useful, The Folk Music Index, by Jane Keefer in Oregon.

As useful as that index is, it is limited to material in Ms. Keefer’s personal collection. Fortunately, her site lists links to other folk music indices: Folk Music Indexes, Print and Electronic Sources. That index includes links to such important indices as Alan Lomax’s work at the Alan Lomax Database.

Just a pause to rant: Texas music suffers from profound neglect in Texas history courses in elementary and secondary schools. Oh, there are recordings available for teachers to use in classrooms, including a few old tunes from Native American tribes, some cowboy songs, and a few other Texas-related songs. Nothing for the classroom begins to touch the full range of Texas music students should be aware of, and take pride in.

Texas music would be a good project for a music major, or a copyright specialist, rather than a historian, perhaps. Or the subject would be a good one to make collaborators of lawyers, musicians and historians. Here are some of the great gaps in Texas music that I see, for social studies education:

  • There is not a good collection of good versions of the Texas state song, “Texas, Our Texas.” There is not a collection at all that I have found.
  • Texas blues as a genre is ignored; Robert Johnson’s recordings in Texas are not mentioned. The history of Dallas Deep Ellum section, with its rich connections to blues, is largely ignored.
  • Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys get mentioned, but not with the kind of explanation they deserve. Other Texas Swing bands are completely ignored. The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin features recordings of Bob Wills tunes by Asleep at the Wheel, but no Bob Wills himself. (Asleep at the Wheel’s story is another that should be featured, in my opinion.)
  • Scott Joplin is rarely mentioned.
  • Conjunto and Tejano and other forms of music popular among Texans with Mexican heritage are largely ignored. Any artists of great note from Texas’ Hispanic cultures are ignored — where is Trini Lopez these days, anyway?
  • Spanish-language music is difficult to find other than current pop hits.
  • Texas’ influence on modern country music needs more focus. If a text mentions Willie Nelson, it’s rare. Charlie Pride? Does anybody remember 20 years ago?
  • Texas’ influence on rock and roll is ignored. I have yet to find any mention of Doug Sahm; Buddy Holly usually gets a sentence. Z. Z. Top, Steve Miller, Janis Joplin — good luck. Roy Orbison? New Bohemians? Lisa Loeb? Forget it.
  • The Austin music scene get mentioned, but little more. A student could pick up more history of Texas music in a 6th Street bar when Jerry Jeff Walker plays, than she could learn in all of the Texas history texts. (If we’re going to compete with the bars for students’ attention, we’d better do a good job . . .)
  • Texas rhythm and blues gets little mention.
  • Texas rap has no mention — not even Vanilla Ice or Paul Wall.
  • Jazz in Texas is ignored.
  • Classical music in Texas is vastly under-reported. Most texts make no mention of Ft. Worth’s Van Cliburn piano competition, for example — one of the premier events in piano.
  • Texas marching band music with its unique styles gets very little coverage. Considering the University of Texas’ Longhorn marching band, the band out of Texas A&M’s Corps of Cadets, Prairie View A&M’s annual competition with Grambling State (of Louisiana), and two or three dozen outstanding, world class marching bands in Texas high schools, you’d think there would be a mention somewhere in a book about Texas history.

If you have a good source of music for history courses, drop a line. If you have a good source of music for economics courses, phone.

6 Comments | History, Lesson plans, Texas, Textbooks | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Turning Point Presentations: Nixon’s “Checkers” speech

October 7, 2006

During one of my phase-shift transitions between universities and public schools yesterday, I caught a snippet of a commentary that I thought was on Richard Nixon’s 1952 speech that kept him on the ticket with Dwight Eisenhower. Public reaction was reported to be overwhelmingly warm, the Eisenhower-Nixon ticket won the 1952 election, won again in 1956, and Nixon eventually took the presidency for his own in 1968.

Shouldn’t that speech be considered one of the greater presentations of the 20th century, at least? It probably should, especially when we consider what history might have looked like had Nixon left the ticket — no Nixon nomination in 1960 against John Kennedy, no later Nixon presidency, Nixon continuing in the Senate . . . gee, which path is more gloomy?

The Checkers speech does not wear well, I think. Reading it today, I see the origins of smear campaign tactics and diversionary tactics that mar so much of today’s election campaigns and policy discussions.

This all comes up because the transcripts of the famous 1977 interview series newsman/comedian David Frost did with Nixon is the basis for a new play in London, “Frost/Nixon” by Peter Morgan, with Frank Langella playing Nixon and Michael Sheen as Frost — a play that is already being made into a movie for Universal Pictures by Academy Award winning director Ron Howard, but after a Broadway run in 2007.

Nixon’s mea culpa answer to Frost on the entirety of the Watergate scandal — “I made so many mistakes” — in the NPR piece voiced by Langella, sounded exactly like Nixon. I mistakenly thought it a recording of the Checkers speech, hearing just a snippet. The Frost/Nixon interviews would probably never have been necessary, had the Checkers speech not been a success. Surely there is a direct line from the Checkers speech to Nixon’s attempt to revive his reputation in the Frost interviews.

Watergate on Broadway, with a movie in the works, should offer good opportunities especially for high school history teachers to bring Watergate to a new generation. Too many people today fail to understand the depth of the damage done to Constitutional institutions in that crisis, and how lucky our nation was to have survived it. There are many lessons there for us in our current Constitutional crisis.

A lesson awaits, also, in the career of David Frost, who crossed from news to comedy and back. Many kids today use comedians as their chief source of political news. We should not be surprised — but let us hope that today’s comedians have as much a sense of public duty as David Frost did in 1977, even while using his public service interview to revive his own career.

Sometimes free markets work spectacularly, don’t they?

4 Comments | Ethics, Famous quotes, History, Lesson plans, Movies, Presentations, Presidents, Quotes, Turning Points, Watergate scandal | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Ten best presentations – readers’ choice

October 3, 2006

KnowHR had a great post a while ago on the “ten best presentations ever,” mostly pertaining to IT and other technology. I noted it on this blog, and I also wrote in with some recommendations for other presentations that ought to be in a ten best presentations list.

Well, KnowHR has done another list of readers’ choices, including one of mine, perhaps the most controversial one.

It’s a useful list. Educators may want to make a special note of the presentation on creativity in education by Sir Ken Robinson.

Someone will always grouse about rankings of things that are difficult to compare, but I find that making such rankings is helpful to students in studying a subject, and such lists emphasize what is important to know when they refer to historical events. The rankings focus on two important facets: The effects of the event, which sometimes cascade over a great deal of time or great distances, and the relative importance of other events.

The Texas Education Agency ranks events in U.S. history, picking a eleven that are important enough students should know the dates by year. Here are the years; can you determine the events to be remembered?

  • 1607
  • 1776
  • 1787
  • 1803
  • 1861-1865
  • 1877
  • 1898
  • 1914-1918
  • 1929
  • 1941-1945
  • 1957
  • (and I would have sworn there was a date for the end of the Cold War, but I can’t find it just now at the TEA website . . . I list the date as 1991, the crumbling of the Soviet Union, which was officially dead at midnight, December 31, 1991) .

1957 stumped me a bit — which historic event was supposed to be the one Texas wanted? Once I learned the trick, I wondered whether 1969 wouldn’t have been a better choice.  (You can check out the link to figure out the event and the year — or pose the question in comments.)

In any case, check out the list at KnowHR. What’s been left off?

5 Comments | History, Lesson plans, Pedagogy, TEKS | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Teaching writing and persuasion

September 19, 2006

I’m biased. I debated in high school, and spent four years debating at the University of Utah under Jack Rhodes, and then I coached debate for a year under Tim Browning at the University of Arizona. That training got me through journalism school, into law school and through it, and did me yeoman service in politics. The ability to survive and thrive in the heat of public policy discussion is . . . fun.

Over at The Reflective Teacher, we get a great argument for using debate to teach 8th grade English, especially the persuasive writing paper and the research paper. Looks good to me.

3 Comments | Curricula, Education, Lesson plans, Pedagogy, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Constitution Day, September 18

September 17, 2006

 

First page of the Constitution of the United States of America, image from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

On September 17, 1787, delegates to the Philadelphia convention met at Independence Hall to sign the document they had labored all summer to produce, to send it to the Continental Congress to be sent to the states for ratification. Ultimately 39 of the delegates would sign it.

We celebrate Constitution Day annually on September 17 in honor of this event (September 18 this year, because the 17th is a Sunday).

Texas requires all students to get a dose of Constitution (and Declaration of Independence) in social studies classes, each year — Freedom Week*. For that matter, there is a federal requirement, too (it would be fun to analyze whether such a requirement runs afoul of the law that requires the federal government to stay out of curricula, sometime). Where to find materials?

The Bill of Rights Institute has wonderful stuff — posters, videos, lesson plans. Much of what a teacher needs for Constitution Day is available for free on their website page for Constitution Day. I had the great good fortune to attend a week-long institute put together by this group, at Mt. Vernon, Virginia. Their scholarship is top notch; their materials are well researched, keyed well to the various age groups, and packaged to make their use easy. The Bill of Rights on Demand feature is good for quick lesson plans, too.

Christy Painting of Signing of the Constitution

Here is one of my favorite sources: Prof. Gordon Lloyd of Pepperdine University created an interactive version of Howard Chandler Christy’s famous painting of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention. If you can project from your computer, you can show students the history — roll your mouse across the painting, and you get the name of the delegate with a link to get more history on that man.

The National Archives has lesson plans for Constitution Day, to get students to study and understand the Constitution and other contemporary documents directly.

This site, Constitution Day, makes me nervous. Yes, they have Colin Powell leading the nation in the Preamble this year — but they also highlight former Alabama Judge Roy Moore, who has little understanding or respect for the Constitution and Bill of Rights, in my opinion. Still, I haven’t found much other stuff that is objectionable, though I have a sneaking suspicion it’s there somewhere (they have car flags for sale, for example — they display of which is a violation of the flag code — but I digress). The authors appear to be well-intentioned, if less informed than I prefer.

Texas’ Region XIII Education Service Center features several lesson plans and other materials, keyed more to Texas but probably suitable for use in other states, too. Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment | 1789, Curricula, First Amendment, James Madison, Lesson plans, TAKS, U.S. Constitution | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Map projection lesson planning material

September 6, 2006

Ooooh. I love maps. I like teaching about them. Projection is an issue for middle schoolers, though — they seem not quite to grasp why it’s important to show Greenland smaller than Australia.

Well, that’s an issue I have not reconciled.

But I did stumble across some cool animations on the Fuller Projection, such as that shown below.

Go see. And see an animation here.

Update: In comments, spatulated at A Bit Tasty lists a source for a poster of the Earth done in Fuller Projection.

2 Comments | Geography - Physical, Lesson plans, Maps, TEKS | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Classroom tip: Marines, piracy and terrorism

September 6, 2006

How does a teacher make history interesting, especially to elementary school students? Here’s one way to make a lively discussion, from History is Elementary. You don’t need to mention Gomer Pyle.

1 Comment | Current History, History, Lesson plans, Pedagogy, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Remembering Labor, on Labor Day

September 4, 2006

Here in the U.S. we celebrate Labor Day on the first Monday in September. Throughout much of the rest of the world, Labor Day is May 1. The U.S. changed that because international labor movements, especially communists, celebrated the day (remember the annual parade of missiles and tanks in the old Soviet Union’s Red Square?); U.S. politicians wanted there to be no confusion that the U.S. doesn’t endorse communism. September honors America’s early union movement appropriately, too — the first Labor Day parade in New York City was on September 5, 1882.

America has much good labor history to celebrate, however, and we should make more of it. Textbooks we have in Texas classrooms tend to shortchange the labor movement, and especially the notable social gains made because of labor in wages, benefits like health care and vacations, civil rights, etc. Teachers need to supplement labor history offerings to keep kids up with Texas standards.

Memphis garbage workers in 1968

Memphis Sanitation Workers, striking in 1968, for suitable wages and treatment as human beings. It was in support of this strike that Martin Luther King, Jr., was in Memphis when he was assassinated. Photo by Richard L. Copley, from Wayne State University’s Walter Reuther Library’s I AM A MAN exhibit. You can sponsor a traveling version of this exhibit.

Read the rest of this entry »

19 Comments | Civil Rights, Education, Freedom - Economic, History, Labor and unions, Lesson plans | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Forgotten Texas history: Battle of Medina

August 19, 2006

1813?

Reporter Art Chapman in today’s Fort Worth Star-Telegram makes a plea to remember the deadliest battle for Texas independence, fought years before the Texas Revolution.

On Aug. 19, a group of battle re-enactors will commemorate the Battle of Medina, fought in 1813 between Spanish forces and members of the Gutiérrez-Magee Expedition. (Austin American-Statesman photo and caption)

 

Read the rest of this entry »

8 Comments | Famous Battles, Freedom - Political, History, Lesson plans, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Sutherland’s “Americana” cartoons

August 13, 2006

I stumbled across Bibi’s Box, a blog that appears to be devoted to finding videos available on the internet. Bibi wrote about John Sutherland, a producer for Walt Disney who struck out on his own in 1944. He became famous, or infamous, for doing cartoons for hire that capitalist enterprises wanted to make available for schools.

Some of us Baby Boomers will recognize almost every one of these films. Film distribution was always problematic back then, before Federal Express or UPS and overnight air delivery to almost anywhere in the world, and back when 16-mm film projectors were often old, cranky monsters that defied the most tech-savvy teachers to make a film dance on a screen. Consequently, to increase the circulation, many of these films also ended up in the afternoon cartoon fests that local television stations ran for “kiddies.”

The images are rich. There are time-bound charicatures of middle-class Americans, and full use of other American iconography. In a 1948 film, “Make Mine Freedom,” Sutherland’s film shows a Member of Congress dressed as a southern politician (though without an accent), the labor representative in denim overalls, the capitalist factory boss with a cigar and morning coat with striped pants, and the farmer in stereotypical straw hat. In a later scene, some of the characters parade in a “Spirit of ’76” fashion, with drum, fife and flag, across the Lincoln Memorial.

Some of the images are corny, but they are rich mines for classroom use, where the images form powerful mnemonic devices for kids who don’t know the history of that era. I have used chunks of “Schoolhouse Rock” for individual study on specific areas — last year I required high school history students to memorize the Preamble to the Constitution, and the “Schoolhouse Rock” version helped enormously. Sutherland’s films could be as useful, in certain topics.

In any case, Bibi has links to more than a dozen of Sutherland’s cartoon films.

If you find a good use for one, please let me know.

2 Comments | Cold War, Curricula, Economics, Education, History, History video sources, Lesson plans | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

1984: History of technology

August 3, 2006

A nicely-written blog, “I Had an Idea This Morning,” had a piece by Anne from Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, New York in the past week about just how far off the mark was George Orwell’s novel 1984 in its portrayal of the use of information devices, “1984 vs. the Blog: Orwell’s Big Blooper.” Instead of the government having a monopoly on the publication of news to be used to suppress the people, the people have fractured such distribution especially with the use of the internet. I find especially thought-provoking the last two paragraphs of Anne’s piece:

Looking back, it almost seems like the totalitarian regimes in Germany and the Soviet Union were the fruit of a never-to-be-repeated phase in the evolution of communications technology. For a brief, horrific period, governments had total control over powerful tools—television and radio—that they could use to communicate with their citizens. The internet, by design, makes such centralized control impossible.

But does that make us safe from groups of super evil mean crazy people? It’s been widely observed that new technologies—from gunpowder to nuclear fusion—have historically been harnessed to serve malevolent ends. Why should communications technology be any different? While mass communication technology helped enable the rise of totalitarian regimes that laid down the law, the internet is pretty good at empowering destructive entities that work outside the law—terrorists, for one. Just as the new technology has given us a billion little blogs and news sites and tv channels and video streams, it’s also giving us thousands of new, super organized hate-based groups to worry about.

The actual year 1984 is a generation gone, and we don’t see exactly the evils that Orwell wrote about. Read the rest of this entry »

5 Comments | Economics, History, Lesson plans, TAKS, Technology, TEKS | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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