JFK Assassination 50th Anniversary

biography.com

As a history teacher, these types of anniversaries come and go and some of them are big enough to share with our students.  I hope that today a lot of teachers spent the time to go over the events of that day. Last week, my students and I started a DVD that I really enjoy showing to students about the assassination.  I like it, because it explains everything well and in ways that they can understand.  It also goes through the conspiracy theories and basically allows the viewer to decide for themselves--which is what I want my students to do. This great DVD is tricky to get now because it is a Peter Jennings Report from 2003, which was made to commemorate the 40th anniversary. However, I was able to get it from Amazon.

So I also like this DVD because the interviews are well done.  They find people involved in the investigations, the hearings etc. to give their take on what happened.  I am excited to add to the end of our viewing some of the clips that ABC News has been doing this week--and I want to see what NBC News has been doing too.

But to wrap up today, I had a stark realization today.  Growing up, I knew that the assassination was a big deal.  I wasn't even thought of when it happened---my mom was only a few months old.  But I understood the question, "Where were you when you found out the president had been shot?" because I knew the question, "Where were you when 9-11 happened?" My students can barely remember 9-11, and their parents might not have been alive, it depends on the kid.  Because they were trying to figure out why there was so much hype....even after he had died.  So I did my best bringing it to reality for them, and I think I got to at least a couple who were like,"Well if nothing else, history has a tendency to repeat itself."

So I guess I will end with this...how do we explain the national phenomeon that seems to surround historical events like this without thinking like you are ending a not really funny story--"I guess you just had to be there."

Five Favorite Front-Page Features...Teacher Style

I don't know if I have five things...but I have been doing current events moments with my kids at school.  So I thought I would share them with you.

First off...government shutdown:

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/us-government-closed-business-essential-employees-20439083?tab=9482930&section=1206853&playlist=20439766--I like this one because of the ping pong analogy

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3032619/ns/NBCNightlyNews/#53170284--More really life situations

Second off...Affordable Health Care Goes Live
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/obamacares-day-20439111?tab=9482930&section=1206853&playlist=20439766

We have also been reading articles from the NY Times Upfront---which is a great resource for teachers that have subscriptions---but right now its free :)

Magazine logo :)

The High Price of Cheap Fashion....all about our globalization--the pros and cons

10 Things You Need to Know About Washington Part 1 and Part 2--this is great for government classes...they talk about the nitty gritty of the works of government

Has the Arab Spring Failed? --Great to talk about world geography and world events because they do a nice job bringing the kids up to speed

Five Favorite Front-Page Features

With Friday being a Bout of Books challenge day, I did not do current events yet this week.  So, I thought I would do some now.  The trick with this is that shockingly enough I have been out of the news the whole time I have been in St. Louis--so I am actually catching up to write this post :)

Manning Sentenced to 35 Years--This is a bit of a double edged sword to some people I think, on the one hand it is considerably less than the maximum sentence and he can be up for parole in 7 years.  On the other hand this is the longest someone will serve for leaks yet...so it is an interesting historical moment.

Following King's Path, and Trying to Galvanize a New Generation--It is cool that 50 years later we are commemorating the March on Washington with another one....and it is interesting that this march was more of anti-discrimination in general, not just racial.  We can always improve as humans right?

Yosemite Wildfire Increases in Size- Wildfires are the story of the past few weeks....this is the most recent one in the news between the Idaho fires and the Utah fires, we are sure are getting use to this.

This video is all about Obama's status on Syria right now....it is hard for some people to believe that we really haven't done anything here yet.  But do we want to get involved?  It is really hard to say.

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This video is all about Nidal Hasan found guilty for Fort Hood murders....not a big surprise, but to me it is nice for the trial to be over for the sake of the families.  Him wanting to be his own lawyer and say he didn't do anything really wrong must have been hard for them.

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Well now you and I are officially caught up on the world's stories from this week!

Five Favorite Front-Page Features

lonelyplanet.com

This week for Five Favorite Front-Page Features....more like four this week.  I have been closely watching the Egypt crisis, and I thought that this week I would focus on four articles/clips about Egypt from this week.


Dozens reported killed as clashes break out on the Day of Rage
When I heard about this on the news this morning, I was sadden to hear that things had gotten bad enough that they were just planning on killing one another this morning.

Obama's reaction to Egypt
We can't really take away the foreign aid because that's just giving up all the cards.  But he did cancel military exercises, so that's something

This week, CNN Student News came back and did a recap of the summer.  They started off with the situation in Egypt--which is great to catch up on.  Click this link

Last Saturday the article in New York Times set us up for this week....read Lawless Sinai Shows Risks Rising in Fractured Egypt

Five Favorite Front-Page Features with Cedar Ridge Academy

Today in my U.S. History and Government class at Cedar Ridge Academy Therapeutic Boarding School we were able to go over some current events that have affected the world around us. We focused on three main stories: the Zimmerman juror speaking out, Ariel Castro's trial, and the Manning/Snowden situation. We get to have great discussions, watch videos, and the students write great opinions as to what they think the situation should be/change to.  Click here to see what they wrote today, and go below for the videos that we watched courtesy of ABC News and NBC News.

Zimmerman Case:

Zimmerman Juror Speaks Out
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/george-zimmerman-juror-stands-decision-19777201?tab=9482930&section=1206853&playlist=19778064

Travyon's Mother Speaks Out
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/juror-b29-interview-ignites-emotion-travyon-martins-mother-19787910?tab=9482930&section=1206853&playlist=19720024

Ariel Castro Case:

Castro Pleads Guilty
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/cleveland-kidnapper-ariel-castro-spend-life-bars-19787899?tab=9482930&section=1206853&playlist=19720024

This video discusses Ariel Castro's final day in court

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Snowden/Manning and Espionage:

Bradley Manning's Conviction:
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/bradley-manning-guilty-aiding-americas-enemies-charge-19821294?tab=9482930&section=1206853&playlist=19821973

More Leaks from Snowden
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/nsa-secrets-revealed-19832057?tab=9482930&section=1206853&playlist=19766051

Edward Snowden is out of the airport...

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Five Favorite Front-Page Features

This week I am going to feature NBCNews.com

Venezuela, Nicaragua offer Snowden asylum Being so long a man without a country, I bet he is grateful--but I bet the NSA is frustrated

Alleged plot to extort Paula Deen exposed; FBI makes arrest As if things couldn't get worse for her, talk about drama!

Zimmerman trial The plot thickens with the prosecutors closing their case and the defense asking to let the judge to throw it out--I really wonder where this will fall

Immigration reform--As mentioned last week, it passed the Senate--but the House still needs to vote.  It becomes really tricky with the ideas of this issue because everyone is opinionated about it...it becomes a "do I vote on my own" or "with my constituents" decision

Is Egypt headed for a civil war? There is a military coup going on and then there is the group that still support the elected president....it will be interesting to see how this one shakes out too

From NBCNews.com

Five Favorite Front-Page Features

So...today isn't going to be exactly five different news stories....just five (maybe more) different things all about the same thing. Today in my US History/Government class, we talked about the Edward Snowden/hacking thing.  Time Magazine did a great article this week about him and past hackers, and it really seems to be becoming an historical and political issue--great for my class.  So I started off with these video clips to give them the background.

These first two are in the same broadcast, back to back,and occurred that first day the media starts talking about the phone monitoring and the Internet monitoring.
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/52126041

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/52126065

This next clip is probably the day after the other two because we are learning that this wasn't on purpose and the government is having to acknowledge that there was a leak.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/hunting-nsa-leaker-19351792?tab=9482930&section=1206853&playlist=19352311

Then I showed this clip that reveals Snowden and who he is.  

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/edward-snowden-claims-nsa-leaker-19362889

Finally, I showed this clip to give them a bit of an idea of what PRISM is and to transition into the Time Magazine article.

http://www.time.com/time/video/player/0,32068,2472288673001_2145377,00.html 

This article is on: http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,2145506,00.html 

I loved this class because we had a great discussion and didn't even get through the whole article. They are really curious, and offer opinions which is the whole reason why I talk about current events in the first place.  We are going to finish it up next week, and I think it will be great.

The cover of this week's Time