Category: history
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Teaching Local History
These are my notes from Liz Davis’ presentation “Local History: Universal Truths – Exploring and enriching Hometowns at the March 24, 2025 NCMLE ‘Middle School Matters’ Conference. MY THOUGHT AND REFLECTIONS ARE IN ALL CAPS. Liz teaches at Pollard Middle School in Chatham County Schools Liz grew up in Wilmington and knew very little about…
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Reading Wish List
Long form reading may be a relic of the past for younger generations in US society and culture for a variety of reasons, but I still believe in both the power of reading and its importance in our shared civic culture. For a number of years now, I’ve maintained a public aspirational reading list on…
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Ending Christian Nationalism
These are my notes from Amanda Tyler’s presentation about her book, “How to End Christian Nationalism” on October 22, 2024, at First Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. This was a conversation facilitated by Jennifer Roberts, former mayor of Charlotte. MY THOUGHTS ARE IN ALL CAPS. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THIS…
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Priceless Media Hostages
This evening I looked through an old box of media tapes and CDs which managed to survive our 1000+ mile move from Oklahoma to North Carolina two years ago. There are some priceless artifacts here. Basically all the Digital 8 and MiniDV video tapes which I recorded of our kids and family growing up are…
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Teaching the Conspiracies
This week on January 31, 2024, I’m excited to start facilitating a six week online course for educators titled, “Teaching the Conspiracies.” This “anytime learning course” is offered as part of the 2024 MediaED Institute by the Media Education Lab, with whom I’m an affiliated faculty member. The course description is: In this 6 week…
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Understanding Rising Populism, Warfare and Authoritarianism
We should not only be teaching “traditional courses” like history and social studies in our U.S. schools today, we should be explicitly studying warfare and the multitude of ways nation states as well as non-state actors wage war with each other across at least five dimensions: In extra-terrestrial space, in cyberspace, in the air, on…
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LISTEN Carefully to his Words
I’ve never previously recommended on my blog that anyone watch an official video from the National Rifle Association / NRA, but I am tonight. Today after school and following an evening school event, I watched the entirety of our 45th President’s recorded address this afternoon at the “NRA-IRL Leadership Forum.” He was the last speaker…
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Learning About Russia
The Russian-initiated war in Ukraine is continuing into its second year, and it’s hard to believe not only the harsh and cruel realities of that conflict which are ongoing, but also the dismal prospects for both regional and global peace at this point in human history. (March 2023) It’s a good time for all of…
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Putin and Christian Nationalism
Whether or not you are a follower of Jesus and publicly profess “Christianity” as your faith, it’s important to pay attention what many “Conservative Christians” have been saying and continue to say about Vladimir Putin and his cultural / political agenda. I want to recommend two recent articles and OpEds on these topics. First, check…
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10 Favorite Podcasts (December 2021)
It’s Christmas Day and 2021 is rapidly drawing to a close, so I’m doing a bit of reflecting on the past year as we look forward to 2022. In this post, I’ll share 10 of my favorite podcasts, which I’ve listened to often in 2021. I LOVE both listening to and creating podcasts, and continue…