Truman Presidential Library

I was totally impressed by the Truman Presidential Library website. I was able to visit the Truman Presidential Library when I was a sophomore in high school. There are two things that stood out the most to me. One, I had the best high school principal in the world. He actually grew up on the same block that President Truman lived on after he had retired from the presidency. He told us how he used to take walks with President Truman. I remember thinking how very cool that was! I also remember from my trip to the Truman Presidential Library that Truman was instrumental in the creation of the United Nations. The United Nations was in the news quite a bit due to decisions being made during Desert Storm that was going on at the time.

The Truman Presidential Library was very user friendly and had a GREAT kids page. I downloaded the Truman PowerPoint and I learned so much. I thought it to be very age appropriate, even for my fourth graders. There were several things that they talked about that I would love to discuss with my fourth graders, for example the fact that he memorized the eye chart in order to get into the military. WOW! I also liked the fact that he was just an everyday person like my students are growing up. There was even a quick little assessment at the end of the PowerPoint. AWESOME! The Mo the mule was a hoot. It was exactly what would draw an elementary student’s attention.

On the kids page there was even a section to help in teaching the branches of government. This is going to be very helpful in my classroom! Every year I find it a struggle to teach this. My students always have some trouble with this and these concrete materials should help them immensely!

I was just very pleased with the great, user-friendly resources that this site had to offer!

War Without Mercy

Wow, what an eye opener! Sometimes I think that I look at the world with rose-colored glasses. Growing up in America we believe that we are out for the betterment of all people, i.e. the current war in Iraq. I like to believe that our whole reason for fighting is that we are helping these people become a democratic society and defending ourselves against terrorism. While I know that there are ulterior motives, I sometimes find myself turning a blind eye. My husband just asked me recently what my views were on the harassment and torture of the Iraqi POW’s. I told him that while I don’t condone it, I choose to just not think about it. Is this a wrong view to take? Probably!

John Dower does a good job in this book of presenting prejudices that I have not given any thought to. While reading the part about human body souvenirs I remembered my college history professor talking about how his grandfather had talked about this and how he would still wake up with nightmares about it. I had known that there were Japanese interment camps, but was not aware of their magnitude or length. This book put a whole new look on WWII for me. There were so many prejudices that I had not even thought about. I think that the imagery in the propaganda really brought home for me the magnitude in which the prejudices reached.

After reading this book I find it even more important to talk with my students about prejudices. I feel that the more they are aware of people’s differences the more accepting they are towards those differences. We learn about the different cultures that settled Kansas and I could apply this frame of mind thinking towards this.