The Graham Stamp! {Praise the actions you want to see repeated}

Years ago, I was reading about the coaching philosophy of legendary UNC basketball Coach Dean Smith when I came across one of his core tenants, "Praise the actions you want to see repeated."  This simple mantra became a throughline in my teaching career, and remains a central tenant of my beliefs about rewarding student effort and greatness.  I have always hoped to build a classroom culture that is centered on positivity - and one in which students feel acknowledged and praised for hard work and achievement. 

And this very concept has helped me grow as a person, as complimenting people is literally one of my favorite things to do.  I just love to watch people be rewarded for accomplishing something, so being a teacher is a good gig for this!

Anywhooo - my wife presented me with an incredible gift in a stamp, with my face, showing approval.

 We have taken to calling it "The Graham Stamp" and I LOVE using it on my students' work. Now I can praise the actions I want to see repeated through pressure and ink!

Class Hoodies - Lithuania Style!

Continuing our tradition of making shirts to commemorate our year together in AP World History is one of my favorite end-of-the-year celebrations.  Some quick math makes me think that this is year 20 of the shirts.  This year's design, however will go down in the lore as one of my all-time favorite designs.  Some historical context for you, dear reader:

The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, essentially creating 15 new countries in the process. Lithuania was one of those new countries, and come to find out...they loved basketball.  Incredibly, they qualified for the 1992 Olympics, but (being a new country coming out of Soviet controlled communism) they could afford uniforms and/or travel.  So, the fantastic hippy jam band The Grateful Dead paid for their uniforms and travel - creating one of the coolest uniforms in the history of the world. 

 We decided to pay homage to that great 1992 Lithuania jersey with our class hoodie this year and I couldn't be more proud of the result.

 

North Carolina has {world} History too!

Our AP History classes enjoyed an incredible trip through an historical tour of our home state in North Carolina.  The students toured the NC Museum of Natural Science, the State Capitol building, and NC State University.  From there, they experienced the grandeur that is Duke Chapel, then toured Duke University.  They had fun as well, taking in a Hornets game in Charlotte and wrapping it up with Carowinds.  

These kids have worked so hard this year, through Hurricane Helene and finishing up their AP curriculum in time for their exams.  

We are proud of them.

Collaborative Work For the Win!

 AP World History class projects have recently reached a new level.  From dramatic reinterpretation biographies to "autopsy of empires" - the students are absolutely crushing it.  Creating more opportunities for student groups to work collaboratively has been my emphasis this last year of teaching, and though final results can be mixed - this particular group of students are consistently excellent.

Haywood Street Fresco

I was fortunate to work at UNCA, with some great local educators this last week on the Haywood Street Fresco Project.  We gathered for a week to create lessons and content around the (pretty amazing) fresco at the Haywood Street Congregation in downtown Asheville.  This fresco was created by Christopher Holt in September 2019 and is one of very few examples surviving of this Italian Renaissance technique of "painting with plaster."  Based on the beatitudes, but using local Asheville people and landmarks - this fresco was created to bring life to idea that a community must be judged by how it treats its most disadvantaged citizens.

Wake Forest University recently completed and excellent documentary on the fresco that you can watch here.

I am proud of our work and feel like we have created a fantastic framework for local educators to use in an effort to explore the history of Asheville and how art can help explain and push our community to new levels of understanding.  

In addition, I am always grateful for the chance to work with other teachers in any type of professional setting.  I always come away inspired and fired up to be a better teacher, and this experience was just what the doctor ordered.  If you get the chance, go by Haywood Street and see this fresco!

Former Student Globetrotters!

Teaching world history is one of my greatest passions.  Connecting with students and continuously being inspired has changed my life, but watching many of them go out and explore the world just makes my heart grow 40 times bigger.  Creating an Instagram account (@punkrockpedagogy) for my teaching has reaped benefits, but nothing has compared to catching up with my former students, especially when they travel all over the world!  

I am so proud of each of my students, but check out these recent travels by Abbey (Egypt), Sam (Spain), Adrien (Taiwan), Travis (Guatemala), Daphne (Greece), Isaac (Singapore), Molly (South Africa), and Stella (Scotland).  

There are so, so many more that I could add to this list, but this is awesome!  

Way to go globetrotters!

Sam A, in Spain

Adrien C, in Taiwan

Travis B, in Guatemala

Daphne C, in Greece

Isaac B, in Singapore

Molly A, in South Africa

Stella M, in Scotland

French Revolution Protest Posters

Just wrapped up the long term impacts of the French Revolution on global history in AP World this week.  In order to help students recall the causes and impacts, they designed their own posters of protest for the revolution.  

The project also required students to write a short essay (with timeline) about the long term impact of the revolution on the reverse side.  

As usual, these kids did an amazing job and exceeded my expectations (hence this blog post!).