US-India Collaboration {Global Poverty}

Recently, my AP World History class was offered the opportunity to engage with a class in India, in an effort to build relationships, and look for solutions to global poverty.  Officially, the collaboration was facilitated by UNC-Chapel Hill's Center for International Understanding program. They describe it as follows: US India Partnership is a curricular and educational program to enhance collaborative global learning linking high school classrooms in the States of Maharashtra, India and North Carolina, USA. 

Our Skype Session with the students of  the New India School

We were teamed up with the New India School, in Pune India. We interacted with each other through Edmodo and a Skype session.  Each class watched a series of videos about global poverty, and submitted questions for the film producers (which they answered).  My students were quite inspired by the short films made by the guys at Living on One. This is an incredible organization that works to find understanding by living on $1.00 per day.  (I HIGHLY recommend you watch these series of short films, documenting how these American college kids lived 56 days, with only $56, in the mountains of Guatemala.)

From there, our class researched local poverty here in Buncombe County, and created (and shared) a powerpoint on the local initiatives to alleviate the effects of poverty.  My students researched free/reduced lunch rates for the North Buncombe District, the CHIP Health insurance program, as well as local charities who work to end poverty.  Our friends in India did the same, and we compared notes via a Skype session this morning (or evening for India).


While having that face to face interaction, the students were also able to ask each other questions about local poverty, education, food, and entertainment.  It has been a great experience for all of us, and it is fair to say that we are all more engaged and curious about our world - and how we can improve it.  The opening page of my syllabus for AP World History states that our primary goal in this class is to explore the ties that bind.  This opportunity to meet students from the other side of the world, learn about each other, and discuss our commonalities in dealing with local poverty is a major step towards that goal.

I feel so lucky to have this job: and lucky to spend my days with these students.  They continue to inspire and amaze me.

Should Teachers be Performers?

• What makes a great teacher? 
• Is it enough for a teacher to simply know, and be able to communicate effectively, a lot of content? 
• Or, Should our best teachers be great performers?   

NPR has taken on this debate with this story about teaching's correlation to performance.
Please listen to it here. 

Full disclosure: I am a self-confessed performer-teacher.  I was most inspired to be a teacher by some of my own teachers, most of whom were amazing performers.  I was lucky enough to have teachers who had a passion for their subject and their craft.  Plus, they were funny,and made me laugh a lot.  These teachers also deeply cared about me, and I wanted to do well for them.

But Dead Poets Society was also my favorite movie during my teen years - and the hilarious performance of Robin William's Mr. Keating made me want to try my hand at it.  And my background is less academic, and way more performance.  I was always an OK student - who mostly did well in subjects that I loved, yet slacked off if I did not care. Instead, I spent most of my youth performing in punk rock bands, and in school plays.  I loved the stage, and teaching absolutely scratches that itch for me.

On my best days, I feel that I use my performance to instill curiosity and buy-in from my students.  In many ways - I am using comedy, music, and laughter to actively sell the study of history as something to believe in.  I teach public school, so my students are not choosing to be in my classroom.  But to really engage them, I need them to believe in what we do, ie: I can not serve the students until they come to the table, so my performance is sometimes a way to make the table seem appealing.  Once we are gathered around that table together - I am better able to engage and instruct.

But does my history in performance make me a better teacher?  Or just it just make me an entertainer?  Can I be both?  And if performance is a key to great teaching - how do we recruit these performers to our profession?

I encourage you, dear readers to post your thoughts on your best teachers in the comments section.  In your experience, what made your best teachers..your best teachers?

The Middle Ages {in 3 1/2 minutes}

We are currently finishing up our study of the Middle Ages in WHAP. One of the most challenging elements of teaching world history is to take extremely complicated events/causes/comparisons, and break the concepts down to something more understandable and relate-able.  It is especially tricky to do this without simply being reductionist, without true analysis.
All of that being said, sometimes a video using art and animation can accomplish this very feat.
 I recently came across this video.
 It. Is. Amazing.