Using baseball to teach history!

Ok, a topic that I actually have a very good understanding of, baseball. My husband lives for baseball; therefore I am along for the ride. I read a fiction book recently where the author compared baseball to life. Therefore, I can definitely see how I could incorporate baseball into history.
I thought it very interesting when Dr. Finkelman talked about how he felt there were three major things that led to desegregation and one of them was the great sport of baseball. I can totally understand his reasoning for this.
Baseball integrated in 1947. At this time baseball was the only national sport. It was the first televised sport. People love their baseball teams, usually no matter if there is one player that they do not like. For example, I have always been a die-hard Yankees fan. In fact we inherited a lab puppy a few weeks ago and her name is Yankee. (Luckily I married a big Yankees fan also.) Now, at the beginning of the season this year the Yankees traded for Randy Johnson, a player that I have never cared for. I can assure you that every time that I would watch a game in the past I would vocalize to my husband that I really didn’t like him. Now, while I still vocalize that I don’t really like him, it does not mean that I like my team any less, and since he is playing on my favorite team, I like him more and more.
Most of my students love baseball too. We talk about it often in my classroom. I know that they would love learning about Jackie Robison and his huge impact on baseball and integration. In fact, there is a great picture book out that is the biography of Jackie Robison that I have used in my classroom in the past.
While integration can be taught with baseball you could also talk about the women’s league that started up while the men were fighting in WWII. This would show the kids the impact that women had on this time period.
Baseball has just kind of gone with history always molded itself around what is going on in the world today. For example, after 9/11 there is now the singing of God Bless America during the seventh inning stretch at Yankee Stadium. I am excited to read Dr. Finkelman’s law review about relating baseball to history!

Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance covered many different areas of life. There was no precise beginning or ending point of the Harlem Renaissance. There were a few things that really surprised me about the Harlem Renaissance. One thing that surprised me is what Harlem is. I always thought that Harlem was a separate part of New York City. I did not realize that it was just a small section within Manhattan Island.
Another thing about the Harlem Renaissance that really surprised me was how many people with ties to Kansas were important to the time. I had always heard of Langston Hughes, the poet / author, but I had never heard of Aaron Douglas, Gordon Parks, Sr., or Claude McKay.
Aaron Douglas was born and raised in Topeka, KS. He earned his bachelors degree from the University of Nebraska in 1922. He was an art teacher for a period of two years in Kansas City, Missouri. He was a great African American artist.
Gordon Parks, Sr. was born in a town close to mine, Ft. Scott. He grew up in poverty, as his parents were very poor farmers. When he was a teen his mother died and his father send him to live with some relatives. He got into an argument with one of the relatives and was kicked out to live on the streets. He got a job working on the railway and bought a camera. He was a photographer, novelist, filmmaker, and in he worked for a short time with the FSA.
Claude McKay attended Kansas State University for two year, 1912-1914. He was born in Jamaica and came to the United Stated to attend Tuskegee. He was bright, but not cut out for a Tuskegee student. In Manhattan he says that he was introduced to W.E.B. Du Bois and the socialists. He moved to Harlem in 1914.

Touchy Subject

Hmmmm....What a tough topic. How would I teach riots and lynching in my classroom and basically the whole feeling of this time? There is a great chapter book that is out titled Leon's Story. I read it about four years ago so some of the topics are kind of sketchy, but I definitely remember the whole jest of the book. It is about a young boy named Leon who is living during the time period of lynching and the KKK. At one point I believe that he even watched his father die when some young rich white boys were out hotrodding and ran him over with their car, and then had no repercussions to them. The story shows some of the trials that Leon had to go through just because of his color of skin during this time period. It was very interesting.
By using this narrative text I would be able to introduce the concepts that were discussed today and be able to let the kids express their feelings about what happened. While my fourth graders are probably too young to then go on and learn about these things more in depth, they would gain a basic knowledge of these things that would then be expanded upon in the future.

Slavery & The Constitution

Well, while I did not feel as many wow moments today, I deeply enjoyed our speaker. I decided today that I think that I enjoy them so much because he talks about things in depth, instead of talking like we are all history grad students who should know the background information that he is talking about. He was even able to explain the constitutional law today in such a way that I understood it. I had always heard the name Marbury v. Madison, but had no clue what it was except a court case. Now, I know what it is and its importance in history. I also enjoy the fact that he takes all questions without even flinching. He goes into deep discussion with them instead of giving you a short answer to shut you up. :-) I feel that my knowledge of slavery has quadrupled over the last two days. I cannot wait to hear Dr. Wintz tomorrow.

#2 Slavery

Wow! What to say about this afternoons lecture. It was definitely an eye opener and I feel that it gave me some good ways to approach the topic of slavery. I have always been leery of how to approach the subject of slavery in my classroom. I teach in a school where approximately 35% of my students are African American. To top it off it is at the elementary level. I have never wanted to embarrass my students or make them feel bad when discussing this subject. I feel that the way Dr. Finkelman introduced the subject today was great. He lead in with the beginning of slavery and how it wasn’t just the Africans that were captured and taken as slaves, but many different groups of people in many different places over the course of history as we know it.

I also thought it very interesting that his discussion directly tied into one of the articles I read for my assignment, about the Civil War, Kansas, and African Americans. I did feel though that what he said and what the article said were conflicting. Dr. Finkelman felt that Kansans wanted slaves to be free because of the moral issue surrounding it. The article felt that the abolitionists in Kansas were a small minority and that most Kansans were against slavery only because they were small Kansas farms that could not compete with the large plantations with lots of slave labor. This gave me two different views on the same topic and made me stop and think. I can’t say that I feel one was right or wrong, but probably a mixture of both. I would love to learn more on this topic.

#1 African American Political Thought

While I had heard the names Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Dubois, Carvey, and Randolph I never had a true understanding of whom they were, what they stood for, or the large impact that they had on history. I do not ever remember learning anything in school about any of these gentlemen. Usually when it came to civil rights my mind would automatically go to Martin Luther King Jr. and the impact during that time period.

Dr. Wintz did an incredible job today speaking and explaining the beliefs and importance of these men. I found it interesting that these men all seemed to look at the same topic from a different point of view. The controversy just within the African American culture was new to me. It would seem that they would all have the same focus and direction when it came to the topic of civil rights when in fact that was not the case.

I also found it interesting to learn where each of these men came from. I believe that this truly made an impact on the views that they had. They all came from different places and all carried out different views that yet tended to run together here and there.