Little House on the Prairie

The first thing that hit me was the vast openness that would have faced the family. If you took everything but the house away, it would be a very lonely place. Independence is only 12 miles away, but in a wagon you are still a day’s trip from town. I also thought that (if this is the true location) the location was not a great one. The wind in the summer would have been great, but the north winter wind would have eaten them alive. I would also suspect that they would have been closer to the creek.

I was also amazed and the size of the cabin. I realized that they were small but until you are in there you do not realize the proximity, especially for all 5 people. However it also makes you understand the culture of families during the period. They were close because they had to be, you could not get away, and there was nothing else to entertain you but each other. Family dynamics would have been very important, probably more to the women.

I also learned a lot in the presentation from the Park Attendant. I never realized how much the Ingles moved around. It would be interesting to study and find out why. It was brought up that Pa was not successful, but it would be fascinating to know why. Was it due to poor crop conditions and grasshoppers (which the grasshopper plagues were at this time) or was he just a poor farmer?

For more information check out their website http://wwwlittlehouseontheprairie.com

LIFE

The largest thing I learned from this is how to take journals, diaries, personal accounts, and even fictional history into account when I encounter it both for personal research and in use in my classroom. Everything can be taken into account when you remember to place it into context of how and why it was written. There are questions you ask (why was it written, for whom etc), and clues to as why it was written that help you detemine its significance.

I also think this can be a great lesson for my high school students to do the first time that I use a document that falls into one of these catagories to help them realize this.

Bakke Case

Frankly, teaching affirmative action and the Bakke case is difficult in my school setting. I teach in a predominantly rural white community, we currently have no African Americans in my school, and in my 13 years there we have had fewer than 8 African Americans. I can lay out the principals of the Bakke case and discuss the reasons for it, but my students simply see it as reverse discrimination. They cannot get the job or into a school because they are white, which after teaching the 14th amendment, to them is discrimination. I also find it hard since other court cases seem to contradict previous ruling.

Bakke ruled that a school could take race and ethnicity into account, but could not use quotas. Admission programs must be narrowly tailored to harm as few people as possible. Since Bakke, the court seems to have 2 different views on the issue. Those in favor argue that affirmative action programs should be a modest response against discrimination and that strict scrutiny standard must be used to evaluate the constitutionality of affirmative action programs. Justice O’Connor states that “all federal classifications must serve a compelling government issue” and by applying strict scrutiny was the best way to ensure that courts will give consistent racial classification detailed examination. (Justice O’Connor was the swing vote in many affirmative action cases following Bakke) In the Adarand case, the majority agreed that strict scrutiny was the appropriate judicial standard.

Justice Marshall wrote that race conscious remedies that serve government objectives, and are related to the achievement of these objectives are constitutional.

On the other side you have Justice Scalia who argued that the government never has a compelling interest in discriminating on the basis of race in order to make up for past racial discrimination. Our constitution is color blind, he argues, and under our constitution there can be no such thing as a creditor or debtor race. That concept does not align with the constitutions focus on the individual.

So the question is how do we teach affirmative action to our students in today’s society? It seems, with the new rulings, that affirmative action is under attack, and there seems to be support building to do away with it, “to take the training wheels off”, is how I have heard it put. I think it is very important to teach students first the reasons behind the rulings. So often students (and ourselves) form our opinions with out understanding the entire situation. Students must understand the history and issues of the time of the Bakke case. They must also understand the history of civil rights over the period of time from the early 70’s to the present. As educators we need to teach them both sides of the issue as far as the court is concerned, and how those are tied into the history of the time. Can those ideas change; certainly, they always do with time (Plessy and Brown).

I think that in today’s classroom, you give them the historical evidence, the reasons and factors behind the courts rulings, and teach them to make decisions and form their opinions on that basis. It is not the educator’s job to teach them whether affirmative action today is right or wrong. It is our job to equip them with the ability to make those decisions based upon historical evidence and their own research.

Agriculture Today

One of the largest changes I have seen in the agriculture of my area is increase in the “part time farmer.” Fewer and fewer farmers in my area can afford to make it by just farming. Most have had to take a day job in order to make ends meet, then come home and take care of their chores and the farm. The family farm cannot make it on its own anymore.

Another trend I have noticed in the last couple of years is the removal of hedge rows. It seems farmers are trying to plant every last piece of ground that they can. The older generation still remembers the dust bowl and warns of another one, yet the new generation of farmers holds that with the new technology and no till planting that the risk of another dust bowl is minimal. I guess only time will tell.

I have not noticed a decline of farm kids in my district. I think that agriculture is a strong in our community as it was when I moved here 13 years ago. It has changed, as I stated above, but still strong.

To find out more about agriculture in my community I would first check with the county extension office. Since this office is funded by K-State, an agriculture school, one would be able to find abundant information, best of all it would be free. Second place is on line, the National Agriculture Statistics site shows trends, moving patters, changes in production for all areas, about all you want to know. Last and maybe the most overlooked would be the local Ag teachers themselves. Most work with the local farmers and have their kids in class and can be a wealth of information.

Vietnam - The National Archives

The document that I choose to use is a copy of the MACV SEER Report-A System for Evaluating the Effectiveness of the RVNAF (Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces) for the 3rd quarter of 1969. ARC identifier 305348.

I choose this document because it shows how the United States was attempting to Vietnamize the war, and this document shows the progress of that attempt. It gives me documentation that shows the United States attempt to hand the war over to the South Vietnam and begin to withdraw. The entire document is 102 pages, I have chosen to use the first page which explains what the document is, and the first three pages which include the main topics I will use.

The first is the performance of the the RVNAF, and includes areas such as Killed in Action, contacts, friendly losses, and the progress of pacification. The second is problem areas and includes battalion strength, casualties, shortage of qualified leaders, training and ineffectiveness.

Truman Presidential Library

First of all the online Truman Library is easy to use and navigate. The features and topics are all on the front page so you do not have to go searching for them. Once you decide on a topic to look at they are easy to read, other subtopics or places to go are highlighted with links attached to get to them as well.
Of the topics listed and available I found the information and links to the desegregation of the Armed Forces the one that had the most information that I would use. Among the information available is a copy of Executive Order #9981, both in original and text version. Also available are two timelines of the desegregation. One is a chronology of events from 1945-1953. This would be easy to adapt to my class because it is simple and easy to read. The other is much more in depth and includes documents, photographs, oral histories, and lesson plans. The documents would be great to use with an upper level class, much too in-depth to use in a survey course. Although there is some good information to supplement what you currently use. The photographs section has some good prints you could use to bring some primary source documents into your lesson.
I looked at the two lesson plans. One I could not get to come up and the other looked interesting, but would take to much time in my survey course. Again if you had an upper level course where you could take time it might be something for you to take a look at.
The other thing that would be useful for teachers is the Special Features section. Here you will find links to information such as Truman’s biography, calendar, cabinet, and diary. These are easy to read and give you quick information and facts. If you go to the Cabinet tab you will find the head of all his cabinet positions, and well as links to get their biographies, oral histories, and personal papers.

War Without Mercy

One of the points that Dower makes in the early chapters of War Without Mercy is how race played a major role in the founding of WWII. I do not believe he provided enough evidence of this to support this idea. I did find it interesting however. I often teach about the race issues with Germany and the many races he found inferior, I never thought or have been exposed the race issues in the East. I gained new knowledge in this area that I can use.
Part two, The War in Western Eyes, really interested me, mainly because of personal accounts. My wife’s uncle fought in the Pacific Theatre, and to this day still uses the slang terms and derogatory names for the Japanese. He will have nothing to do with them. This section made a lot of sense, as well as helped me understand some of his prejudices. I especially found it interesting the terms names that were used to picture the Japanese soldiers, although I am still not really sure of the significance of picturing them as monkeys. I also found it interesting the propaganda cast of them wanting white women, a throw back to the prejudice and hatred of the African Americans in the United States. There is a lot in this section that I will use to teach about not only prejudices, but also propaganda.
The last section was equally interesting. We are not the only ones to use race as a method of propaganda. A couple of years ago I had an exchange student from Germany and it was interesting to hear Germany’s view of WWII and the United States role in the war. It was also interesting how they taught that the war was everyone else’s fault and they were just going to straighten up the mess and make the world safer. How many other times have we heard that one?