Ferguson Redux?

I came across these items at East Carolina University's archives. They are of interest today considering events of late in Ferguson. I am a historian. I have no agenda. Please consider history as a guide and teacher.

Race hatred on trial, issued by Communist Party, U.S.A. [New York, Workers Library Publishers, 1931] 47 p. ; 17 cm. "The trial of August Yokinen before 1,500 white and Negro workers in Harlem for acts clearly based on race prejudice." Here is a link to the entire text 

I found this in a 1964 Daily Reflector newspaper in Greenville, North Carolina, while doing research about the history of schools in our area. Make your own judgments about it. What are the causes, effects, and remedies to social unrest? I do not have the answers. I am a historian. I look at the past so that others may use it as a guide for future actions. Please consider the image below this one, too.

BELOW, is an image from an East Carolina University school newspaper. Here is a link to further information about it.

DAWES ACT: an interactive approach

When I teach history to high school or college age students, I maximize the efficient use of visuals. We are all visual learners, no matter what your textual reading level. So, why not engage everyone in your classroom with visuals? First, I teach students how to perform a discovery based learning method -- VTS -- and then I have them use ThingLink to share their findings about the image with the class. Take a peek at this one. Drag your cursor over the "tags" on the image to see what I am talking about.

Wahl-Coates School: Greenville, NC

Wahl-Coates

Wahl

Coates

        This school is named after two people: Frances Wahl and Dora Coates. What is now Wahl-Coates School in Greenville, North Carolina, was formerly known as the “Model School.”  It served as laboratory for East Carolina education students and functioning grade school for children of Greenville. The elementary school was a place where educational theory met the real classroom. In collusion with East Carolina Teachers College, now East Carolina University, The Model School opened in the fall of 1914.
        As leaders of the Model School, Wahl and Coates’ philosophy shines through in the documents they have left behind. The East Carolina Teachers’ College Bulletin for The Training School of 1939 states: “We [The Training School Staff] have tried to avoid current (or future!) popular educational jargon, believing that latest popular –isms tend to obscure clear thinking in the profession, encourage fades, and advertize quacker.”   . . . “It does seek to help those who are concerned with childhood learn how to study the child objectively. It tries to stand for certain principles which its teachers believe, in light of study, experience, and observation, to be fundamental to child welfare. It seeks to develop teachers who are intelligent, who grow, who are professional in the highest sense, who believe in democracy, and who, with courage, stand for the welfare and rights of children.”
        During the 1953-1954 school year, the school’s building was renamed by ECU to the Wahl-Coates School in honor of two faithful benefactors: its principal Frances Wahl and primary teacher Dora Coates. Coates was also an ECU faculty member in the School of Education. A new Wahl-Coates School was built in January in 1972 and hosted grades K-6. As of 2009, grades Kindergarten to grade five are taught. Since its inception, Wahl-Coates provided educational opportunities for the children of Greenville as well as the students at East Carolina University studying to become teachers.

author: Steven A. Hill

Art in US History Class: 2014

I teach US History in a North Carolina public high school. Each semester I use art; however, this semester, I am taking pains to keep track of each and every piece of art and image that we analyze in class.  This link will take you to the page I am using to document this effort. It will be updated throughout the Spring Semester of 2014: Enjoy ! 

India and China: Buddha and Buddhism

The Great Buddha Statue

Website to Metropolitan Museum about Buddhist Art

Egyptian Book of the Dead

Anubis weighing the heart of Hunefer. ca. 1285 BCE

From the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead. The Ani Scroll, Spell 17.

Video about the BOOK of the DEAD 

Hail, O ye who gives cakes and ale to perfect souls in the House of Osiris, give ye cakes and ale twice each day to the soul of the Osiris Ani, whose word is true before the gods, the Lords of Abydos, and whose word is true, with you. Hail, O ye who open up the way, who act as guides to the roads [to other worlds] to perfect souls in the House of Osiris ..."  

-- 1240 BCE ,  The Papyrus of Ani, The Egyptian Book of the Dead.

Link to English translation of the BOOK of the DEAD

Hinduism and SHIVA considered

Indian artists Kandha Panday, right, and Shiva Sharma dressed as Hindu god Rama and his brother Lakshman have paint applied to their faces ahead of a religious procession during the Dussehra festival in Allahabad, India. (AP)

1. Intro to HINDUISM videos
.a. why are there so many different Gods ?
b.  More Basics of Hinduism

2.AUDIO and Visual: CLICK HERE for a quick but intriguing look at a SHIVA MASK at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

3. Click here for Video showing a FESTIVAL dedicated to SHIVA
4. More Hindu Art
5. HINDUISM BASICS.....AUDIO:         
     Questions for the AUDIO:

Hinduism  Audio : Questions

1.    True or False   Hinduism believes in rebirth or reincarnation

2.    True or False   Moksha means spiritual liberation

3.    True or False   Hindus usually disregard other religions and are                                       intolerant

4.    True or False    Hinduism has strict rules or orthodoxy

5.    True or False    There is no one founder of Hinduism

6.    True or False    Yoga is a Hindu practice

7.    True or False    Moksha is spiritual liberation and ends reincarnation                                               

8.    True or False    Vedas and Upanashads and Bhagavad Gita are                                                           Hindu texts

9.    True or False    War was never spoken of in ancient Hinduism

10.                       True or False    Warriors could never be good Hindus

11.                       True or False    The Caste System was rooted in Hinduism

12.                       True or False     The Caste System was banned by the British

13.                       True or False     Hinduism is polytheistic

14.                       True or False    Brahma was the created

15.                       True or False    Vishnu  is the preserver

16.                       True or False     Siva is the destroyer  

17.                       True or False     There are NO  female Gods

18.                       True or False      Hindus use rituals in their worship

19.                       True or False     “church” is held only 1x a month for Hindus

20.                       True or False     there is a hugging saint in Hinduism

21.                       True or False       The person interviewed sees Hinduism as                                    friendly towards Muslims and other religions.

Tuskeegee Airmen and Modern Art

Title: Tar Baby vs. St. Sebastian
artist: Michael Richards
date created: 1999 

The United States military was racially segregated until 1948. 

President Harry S. Truman ended the practice of having military units organized according to race.



Who were the TUSKEEGEE Airmen? 

Here is a WW 2 Era video that gives details about the Tuskeegee Airmen: "Wings for this Man" was produced by the U.S. military at the end of World War Two (1945). It details the trials and accomplishments of the first unit of African American airplane pilots in the U.S. military. The narrator is a very young future president, Ronald Reagan.

The video below is a more modern review of the history of the Tuskeegee Airmen.(part 1 of 2)

The piece of artwork below is an homage to the Tuskeegee Airmen. Examine the work and then read the informational placard at the end: an eerie twist awaits.

Here is some more information about the work from the North Carolina Museum of Art.

Eiffel Tower in ART

Eiffel Tower, c. 1909. Robert Delaunay, French, 1885 – 1941.
Oil on canvas, 38 x 27 3/4 inches (96.5 x 70.5 cm).
Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950.

Audio for this work above.

Link to article about Delaunay's other Eiffel Tower paintings: click here

Washington Crossing the Delaware

 click here for the AUDIO lecture

A SKULL by Otto Dix

Here is an awesome and SHORT audio clip about OTTO Dix's work below: click here

Tommy GUN in School ! ! !

The Industrial Revolution from the late 1700s to the present has impacted our lives in countless ways. We have learned how to mass produce food, clothing, building materials, and unfortunately methods of killing each other: rifled firearms, machine guns, poison gas, atomic weapons, and the Tommy Gun. As deplorable as the topic of firearms and warfare is to consider by some of you out there, to ignore history is even more deplorable.

If you are among the ANTI-2nd Amendment types and are enraged that I would talk about such a weapon in class, WATCH the HISTORY CHANNEL episode HISTORY OF THE GUN: THe Tommy Gun. After watching this, you will quickly see that this adds to a student's understanding of 20th century history.


click here for the TOMMY GUN VIDEO

Before I show students this History Channel episode about the history of the Thompson Submachine Gun, I have students fill out a sheet of paper and divide it into a quadrant with a circle in the middle.
-- The circle in the middle will have a student drawing of the weapon.
-- The top left corner will have  words describing the TOMMY GUN's appearance and sound
--The top right corner will have KEY FACTS about the TOMMY GUN
-- The bottom left corner will have KEY DATES about the TOMMY GUN's history
THIS NEXT PART, I do not tell them about until AFTER they have watched the video....
-- The bottom right corner will have a HAIKU about the Tommy Gun. A Haiku if you don't recall is a Japanese form of poetry with three lines. The first and last lines have 5 syllables each and the middle line has 7 syllables. While this is not a strict adherence to traditional HAIKU form, it is the watered down Anglo-version often used in American classrooms.
This is truly an exercise that crosses curricular lines: Writing poetry, art, history.
Here are two former students' work...