Thanksgiving Themes

Warning: this post has little to do with teaching Humanities. At best, it may have some relevance to Colonial North America and the phenomenon of nativism.


As we head into the holiday season, I am aware of the divide between my own experience and The Ideal Holiday which I see celebrated in commercial culture and public spaces. The disparity can leave me a bit unnerved.

Fortunately, there is NPR! While chopping away on Thursday morning, there was lots of great programming about Thanksgiving history on KUOW94.9, which I am going to summarize for you in lieu of presenting any original ideas.

What struck me in the themes of this programming is that Thanksgiving has always been an artificial celebration. It is true that the original settlers may have shared meals with indigenous people and may even have offered feasts of Thanksgiving. However, as good Puritans, the pilgrims would have been as likely to fast as to feast and might well have found the idea of a Thanksgiving "feast" a bit presumptuous.

In fact, the Thanksgiving holiday was an observance tirelessly promoted by a New England woman named Sarah Josepha Hale, who expressly intended it to be a didactic holiday promoting the virtues of an idealized New England life. To her, it was an important feature that the holiday would involve a return to the countryside and to a traditional domestic sphere where women had influence. (Hale opposed women's suffrage, though she was interested in expanding women's access to education and influence.) Hale pitched the idea of a national day of Thanksgiving to five successive presidents until she finally won the attention of Abraham Lincoln, who declared Thanksgiving a national holiday right in the middle of the Civil War--at a time when the nation was literally tearing itself apart. So Thanksgiving was created to simulate a sense of national harmony and unity which did not exist. This makes me feel so much better.

While my holidays may never resemble the Currier and Ives model, I am relieved to know that the Currier and Ives model was an idealized mock-up from the very start.

In Praise of Primary Sources

The other day, I spied a book on Daren's shelf: Aspects of Western Civilization: Problems and Sources in History, edited by Perry Rogers. As I was flipping through this text, I was reminded of the value of primary sources. Primary sources provide students with a strong particular viewpoint on history. Purportedly objective or blatantly biased, they offer a vivid picture of a slice of time. And best of all, many primary source documents are short--or can be excerpted.

Recently, we included a New Deal cartoon from one of Daniel's lectures on an 11th grade test. Students were asked to analyze the point of view expressed in the drawing: what issue is this artist referencing? what is the cartoonist's critique?

On a more sober note, consider the Balfour Declaration:

His majesty's government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

This single sentence is a goldmine of information which students can discover for themselves in a fairly short amount of time.

Decoding primary source documents can easily be turned into a hands-on collaborative exercise. Besides their inherent value, primary source activities offer a low-cost way to reduce homework load on any given night. They support all kinds of productive classroom activities that require no preparation for the students--and they can really animate material presented in lecture.

The Avalon Project at Yale Law School has a huge selection of primary sources from 4000BCE to now. I have a few other sources for primary sources in the "Random Great Stuff" section of my Teacher Page, though these are mostly geared to the 20th century. The ABC-CLIO database that Nancy is test-driving this year includes primary sources for almost any unit. Our Northwest School Library also has (among other things) a multi-volume set of primary source documents entitled Daily Life through World History in Primary Documents and a Witness to History series which features lots of primary sources as well. See Nancy for other primary sources.

Experienced Teacher Retreat

When I applied for this retreat, I was imagining I would come away with 25 practical ideas which we could all immediately implement in our classes. It turned out not to be that kind of retreat. It took me a while to adjust--what? no homework?--but once I'd settled into the reflective mode, I appreciated it deeply.

The heart of Menucha Retreat Center was built in 1927 by Julius Meier, founder of the Meier and Frank Department store, as a country retreat near Corbett, Oregon. Herbert Hoover and FDR both stayed there and the place has such an old-fashioned feel that you expect to see Harry Hopkins at breakfast. (There's a speakeasy in the basement.) Twelve of us were there representing eight schools, led by our own Jen Kulik and her colleague Sallie Warmath from Salt Lake City, Utah. Neighboring schools included Overlake, Lake Washington Girls Middle School, Westside School and The Little School. Our focus during the three days was on reflection: our journeys as teachers, our current challenges and the reasons we stay in education.

One of the most useful activities for me was a workshop in the "professional portfolio." I had never thought much past resume and references, but this group seemed familiar with the professional portfolio. This includes a regularly updated resume, with some of the following headings:

• Education, starting with BA
• Job History, starting with most recent
• Special Interests
• Relevant Experience
  
• Related Training
• Skill Sets
  
• Successful Projects

Jen shared that she maintains a word document called "The Big One," in which she maintains a record of all professionally relevant experience and qualifications. She draws from this list to customize resumes for specific opportunities.

In addition to an updated resume, a professional portfolio might also include: a Statement of Teaching Philosophy, student feedback, a sample assignment or two, syllabi/course descriptions, certificates of attendance at relevant professional conferences, photos, playbills, anything that gives a sense of what you offer as a teacher. Happily, we had some time during the retreat to draft a Statement of Philosophy or personal Mission Statement to articulate what we set out to accomplish in our work. It was very valuable to reflect on my work as a teacher and those elements of it that are most important to me.

I am also grateful to have had the opportunity to step back a bit from the pace of teaching and to be reminded of its importance. I feel proud to be part of this important work--and to be in the company of such fine colleagues.

I hope to make some time at an upcoming Department Meeting for all of us to write Mission Statements as teachers. Don't worry: these won't be published anywhere but it's useful and kind of refreshing to be reminded of our ideals. One of the participants shared that she does in fact keep her Mission Statement posted near her desk and on her computer. She reflects on it often, changes it sometimes and refers to it to be inspired and guided as she creates her classes.