Hero Week 4

Good Saturday!

FYI - I am sending this directly to you as well as posting it, so you SHOULD receive it twice.

As I write this, the sun is shining through my window; it is gorgeous outside today, and it makes me glad to be alive! I am grateful that we enjoy the many freedoms of today in this great nation, due to the sacrifices of so many great heroes gone before.

This week in class we had a discussion and activity learning about some of the political and military leaders of WWII. 

We also discussed what a demagogue is, and how they garner power through appealing to prejudices and popular desires, rather than appealing to rational argument. We saw how the leaders of the Axis powers (chiefly Germany, Italy and Japan) used demagoguery to manipulate their respective populaces.

We also took an IMPROMPTU quiz on WWII, and each of you were allowed to keep those quizzes and take them home.

If you would like to change/amend any of your initial answers, please do so on another page. 

We can go through the answers next week in class (if Gen. Schmieder has time).

ASSIGNMENTS:

Complete and bring your beautiful, detailed, colorful timelines of WWII

Amend your quizzes (if desired) but at least BRING them back to class next week

Read/finish The Hiding Place - book discussion is March 3rd!

Keep up the great work...see you next Thursday!

-Gen Walk

HERO Week 3

Hello all Heroes!

Class yesterday was AWESOME, because Gen. Schmieder does amazing things when she prepares a lecture!

We learned quite a bit of American History during the 30's, and listened to some most excellent big band music. So much fun to dance to that genre!

General Schmieder also walked us through a brief history leading up to the beginning of WWII, and we learned that the SS stood for the Schutzstaffel...Hitler's paramilitary organization which provided intelligence and protection for Hitler and his goons. Yeah, I said goons.  😉

We had an excellent discussion on "Flags of our Fathers" and we were so happy that 3 of you fininshed the book.

For the other 3 heroes, we would LOVE for you to finish ASAP and call us to set up a time to discuss in person. Group book discussions (colloquiua) are an excellent component of the class, and if you miss out on the group discussion, we all miss out on an enhanced learning opportunity!

Homework for this week:

1 - Continue or finish reading The Hiding Place

2 - Finish your hero journal homework assignments

     Two weeks ago - Write your own definition of a hero

     This week - Make a list of kinds of oppression/repression and their causes

3 - Finish Flags of our Fathers if you haven't already.

Below is the list of all requirements for hero certification this semester:

1 - Create your own individual hero project (see binder)

2 - Read and discuss Flags of our Fathers, The Hiding Place, and Hiroshima

3 - Watch Tora Tora Tora, The Longest Day, Life is Beautiful

4 - Identify 3 people (from WWII era) you will interview about that time period

5 - Conduct and record the interviews (see binder for help)

6 - Complete ALL writing assignments -homework and hero journal entries in class

7 - Participate in a simulation (this will be done in class)

Questions/Comments/Suggestions?

Feel free to email or call us anytime!

Have a great week, heroes!

HERO Week 1

Hello Hero Generation!

This is a repost...I just posted this on Sword but needed to get it onto the right blog. Thank you Webmaster Lisa! 

HEROES - please make sure to subscribe to this Hero blog! THANKS!

I hope you enjoyed class today. I certainly did!

We went over the format of the class, the requirements, etc. For those of you who have not ordered your binder/books, please do so ASAP!

We did a simulation where you played the part of the British parliament facing total economic decimation of England. It was really exciting watching you argue over policy, plan, and legislation that would/would not help the breakdown of the island nation. You really got into it, very heated, and very strong in your opinions! We had a little insight into what Congress might be like in this great nation. Partisan gridlock makes a little more sense now, right?

We had a lecture on Heroes and your generation. Remember the cycles of history...the fourth turning is here, and you heroes play a critical role!!

We identified you all as heroes, and we analyzed what your role will look like in the upcoming crisis. You have ways in which you can prepare yourself, and hopefully you took notes on that, because yes....they may be a quiz with candy in your future.   ��

We talked about to whom heroes have allegiance. You all asserted that was to themselves, God, their families and their country. GREAT ANSWERS!

We finished up with a portrait of a hero: Mother Teresa. Her example of pure charity and boundless love is truly an inspiration to me, and hopefully to you as well!

YOUR HOMEWORK for this week:

**Write your definition of a Hero (you can put this in your Hero journal if you like)

**Finish Flags of Our Fathers

Remember next week, Teacher Genne will sit in for the Generals Kellie(y) - so please help her get the tv/dvd player ready...wherever she will want to use it, as our classroom is not too accessible (two pesky stairs!).

Pay close attention. She may quiz you when it is over!

Take care and see you soon-

Gen. Walk

Almost Done

Wow!  Time has flown by.  I didn't realize that it's been this long since I last updated the blog.

Last week we held our Nuremberg Trial simulation.  Everyone did a great job keeping cool under pressure and presenting what you had prepared.  We also had five wonderful judges making up our tribunal and we are most grateful for their donation of time to come and help us out.  I think everyone learned much and had a great time.

This last week of class, everyone will be doing a presentation on their WWII interviews.  We'd like the presentations to be 10-15 minutes long.   We love visual aids as well.  I will bring my projector and speakers with the various connection options that I have.  I do not have a VGA cord, so if you need that to connect your laptop/device, you'll have to bring the cord.  I do have HDMI.

As a quick recap of prior weeks that were not blogged, we've covered the following:

• The Pacific Theater
• The Americans in the War
• From D-Day to the Liberation of Europe
• The Atom Bomb and the book Hiroshima by Hersey
• The End of the War
• The Occupation
• The War Crimes Trials

Don't forget to email me if you're going to have all of the class requirements completed in time.  I need to order your awards.  Remember that we removed the Biography requirement and the number of papers required was reduced to how many are actually found in the blog posts.  (As the semester progressed, we realized that we needed to adjust/prioritize some of the requirements.)

See you all on Thursday!
~General Lisa & General Paige

Week 8: The Allied Leaders

General Paige taught the first part of class today.  She shared a little bit about the hairstyles of the 40's.

She also presented "The Big Three" of the Allied leaders -- Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt.  The lesson ended with a guessing game of who said which quote.  Here's some links to the quotes:

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/f/franklin_d_roosevelt.html

 http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/winston_churchill.html

 http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/joseph_stalin.html

 

Then we did a document study of a speech that Winston Churchill gave at Harrow School in 1941.  There were several great points of discussion in the speech, but I think the class favorite was:

"Never give in.  Never give in.  Never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense.  Never yield to force.  Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."

Another favorite was: 

"You cannot tell from appearances how things will go.  Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done."

HOMEWORK:

• Keep working on your interviews.
• Keep working on your personal Hero Project
• We're discussing the book Hiroshima by John Hersey in two weeks.
• We're discussing Flags of our Fathers next week if you didn't already finish that one.
• Get started on your biography book.

Next Week:  The Pacific Theater

Week 7: The Holocaust

We opended class with a video of the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 1940.  The collapse happened in our own backyard while America was still at peace but Europe was already involved in WWII.  Even though it had nothing to do with the war, it was relevant to the time period and caused America's engineers to make some significant strides in their designs and ideas that probably had some impact on the structures built for WWII when America joined in 1941.

http://youtu.be/j-zczJXSxnw

Near the end of the video, our class simulation began.  A German authority banged into our classroom and demanded everyone's name, birth date, religion, and ethnicity.  Then gave everyone a gold star they were required to wear pinned onto their clothes.

After the German left, we learned a bit more about the Holocaust.  It was a "systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators."

We learned a little about the concentration camps and the death camps.  Children under 12 were sent to the gas chambers upon arriving at Auschwitz unless they were a twin.  They kept the twins for medical experimentation.  The Nazis used the people in the camps as forced/slave labor in the factories for the German war effort.  Those that were too old, young, or sick to work were sent to the gas chambers and replaced with new arrivals to the camps.  

Then we started our book discussion of The Hiding Place.  As we were discusing, the German came back and scared us enough that we decided we should find a place to hide.  We found our hiding spot and practiced getting to it quickly.  Then we set up General Paige as our lookout in case the German came back.  Then we went back to our book discussion...sort of.  We were all a little nervous and rattled so it was hard to do anything that resembled normal.  When the German came back, we had enough warning that everyone was able to hide and the German found nothing.  That was the end of our simulation and we had a debrief of the simulation mixed with the rest of the discussion of our book.  

We finished up with our journals.  The prompts were:  How were you changed by today's simulation?  What did you learn about yourself?  What are you going to do differently from now on?

HOMEWORK:

• Write a short paper on a "Righteous Gentile."   http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Righteous_Among_the_Nations
• Keep working on your personal Hero Projects
• Start reading Hiroshima
• How are those movies coming??
• Interviews??

Next Week:  The Allied Leaders

Week 6: The Japanese Invasions & Pearl Harbor

This week we watched several fun videos from the WWII era while we were preparing for our Pearl Harbor simulation.

Charlie Chaplin -- The Lion's Cage   http://youtu.be/79i84xYelZI

Charlie Chaplin -- Factory Work  http://youtu.be/DfGs2Y5WJ14

Abbott & Costello -- 7 X 13 = 28  http://youtu.be/MS2aEfbEi7s

Bugs Bunny's Debut -- A Wild Hare   http://youtu.be/Hcl2QZWHatA

After we finished making paper airplanes and paper boats, we headed outside to the parking lot where Pearl Harbor was located.  We placed our boats and planes and then walked thru the morning of December 7th, 1941 in Pearl Harbor.  We got a little wet as the weather was misty, but we were at the harbor so that made sense.  :-)

We finished up with FDR's speech asking Congress for a Declaration of War on December 8th.  America wasn't the only country the Japanese attacked on the 7th.  They also attacked Malaya, Hong Kong, Guam, the Philippine Islands, and Wake Island.  They attacked Midway Island the morning of the 8th.

It was interesting to note that the Japanese had initiated formal negotiations for the maintenance of peace in the pacific and there ambassadors were still in Washington DC for that purpose when they attacked Pearl Harbor.

HOMEWORK:

• Make a simple timeline of the important events in WWII
• FINISH READING:  The Hiding Place  by Corrie Ten Boom
• Keep working on the interviews.  You can interview anyone that lived during WWII.
• Keep working on you personal hero projects.  You should have 4-6 of them done by now.

NEXT WEEK:  The Holocaust