May starts out SO great! The end of the school year is coming! Fun end-of-the-year events! Summer is near!
Then you actually attend all of those events, finish up final projects, plan summer activities, and CRASH! Total exhaustion!
Anybody get sick at the end of the school year?
<raises hand>
Get sick right after school gets out?
<raises hand again>
I think the exhaustion just builds and builds and then our bodies cry uncle!
Summer is here for me now, though, and I’ll be revising lessons, planning out big-picture projects for next year, and RELAXING some. It’s a nice balance.
Hopefully my students are also finding a nice balance of relaxing, earning some cash, recharging and tackling some of their big projects while they have some summer flexibility. (Can you say EXTENDED ESSAY?? How about ACT AND SAT PREP?)
Crash Course does not break for summer vacations, but in the May-hem that is a teacher's life in the spring, I got behind in blogging about the new episodes.
Episodes 5 and 8 cover topics about how Europe's interaction with the world after the opening of the Atlantic Trade Economy impacted Europe and the world. Episode 6 and 7 are about the Reformation, its spread and the religious wars that broke out in the immediate aftermath.
So much for the advice to never talk about politics or religion, eh? We went ahead and threw race in there too. I truly believe that learning to talk about race, politics and religion is KEY to productive conversations, personal growth and societal evolution. Gone are the days of pretending that everybody is color blind. That didn't help any of us, particularly not those who were part of marginalized or persecuted groups.
Crash Course is, of course, a "crash course." We can't finish conversations in 14 minutes. Hopefully these episodes (and the series as a whole) will shed some light on Europe's part in the violent divisions that have caused lasting violence.
Episode 5:
Episode 6:
Episode 7:
Episode 8: