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For Lori: The Styx

Elsewhere on this site:
First Americans
Columbus
Age of Discovery
The Explorers' Map
John Cabot
Juan Ponce de Leon
Hernan Cortes

1588 Spanish Armada

The Puritans
The Pilgrim Story
The Real Pocahontas
The Mayflower Compact
Squanto's Story
The Protestant Reformation

Ben Franklin
Bill of Rights
The Patriot (Yep, the movie)
Governmentium

Thornburg-Real
Education Reform

The Five Ws:
Who
What
When
Where
Why
Put 'em in paragraph form and you have yourself an essay.

Term One review

"Where you stand depends on
where you sit."
--AFK Organski

"Trust, but verify."
--President Reagan

Occam's Razor states that the simplest solution is usually
THE solution.

Dennis Yuzenas standing on the very spot the English finally established a colony in North America in 1607. A mere dozen years later the first African slaves in the English colonies would be standing here, too.

Napoleon had it right when he asked, “What is history but a fable agreed upon?” Here in Florida there is talk of developing a history component for our high stakes standardized test, the FCAT. This should be fun. Like watching a car wreck 0n I 95.

Over the next couple of weeks I'll be teaching my eighth grade gifted students all about Hernan Cortes (and his deadly ally smallpox) taking down the Aztec Empire, Queen Elizabeth and the Lost Colony of Roanoke, Juan Ponce de Leon and the "Fountain of Youth," John Smith and the terrible little fib he told about his relationship with Rebecca Rolfe (aka Pocahontas,) and everything you ever cared to know about Sqanto and the people we call the Pilgrims.

Be warned: This is not your father's version of US History. Oh, don't worry, the mythology will all be there. It's just that primary source material will be used to present a slightly different version of what loosely passes for history these days. Click on The Pilgrim Story on the left there for a quick sample...

The introductory paragraph spoke to a car wreck. Who is able to develop a history test worthy of inclusion in the FCAT? I've met some of the people that have have had input in the present test's design. Remember the car wreck? I've seen the drivers and it'll take more than a tow truck to get this mess untangled. Why? Because it's really hard to decide which version of history to include in textbooks, our national mythology, and any standardized test.

Voltaire's observation that, “History is nothing but a pack of tricks that we play upon the dead,” should be revised to include the living. The living include teachers and students that will have to deal with what exactly history is...

Mr. Dennis Yuzenas' class site for Gifted US History students at the internationally recognized Bak Middle School of the Arts.

For Parents that want to DO SOMETHING:
National Association for Gifted Children Legislative Action Network
Join our grassroots network that focuses on educating Members of Congress on the needs of gifted students. Click here for more information.

WebMD Health News
Math + Chewing Gum = Better Grades?
Here's a paradigm breaker! A new study says chewing sugarless gum during class and while doing homework may improve academic performance of adolescents.

The research was underwritten by the William Wrigley Jr. Co., the Chicago-based chewing gum giant, but scientists from the Baylor College of Medicine say that didn’t influence the study’s design or its outcome.

And scientists who had nothing to do with the study say it’s likely that chewing gum can reduce stress, leading to enhanced concentration and thus better academic performance.

The results of the study, by Craig Johnston, PhD, an instructor of pediatrics-nutrition at the Baylor College of Medicine, were announced at the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition’s Scientific Sessions and Annual Meeting at Experimental Biology 2009. Really smart people say we should chew gum in school.

Paradigm Shift:
REAL Education Reform
Perhaps you've heard the uproar from teachers and parents about the way certain "education reforms" are playing out in Palm Beach County. How are other countries viewing education reform?

Here's a view from across the pond that we here at WhatDoYaKnow.com find interesting:
http://blog.dearbornschools.org/alvarac/2009/05/12/why-we-need-a-new-school-paradigm/

The FPL fight in Wellington, Florida

Many of our internet visitors want to keep up with what's going on in the battle to preserve the urban forest that makes up most of the Florida Power and Light easement that runs parallel to Wellington's northern border. Here's the latest in WhatDoYaKnow.com's foray into saving the planet. Click on the text to jump to the FPL Update.

What's changed since this was written almost five years ago?
Microsoft’s Gates slams U.S. high school quality

WASHINGTON — Addressing the nation’s governors, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates delivered a scathing critique of U.S. high schools Saturday, calling them “obsolete” and saying that elected officials should be "ashamed" of a system that leaves millions of students unprepared for college and for technical jobs.

Gates spoke at a National Governors Association meeting devoted to improving high school education across the country.

“Training the workforce of tomorrow with today’s high schools is like trying to teach kids about today’s computers on a 50-year-old mainframe,” said Gates, whose $27 billion Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has made US. education one of its main priorities.

Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, a Democrat and chairman of the nonpartisan association, said high school education is in need of an overhaul to raise standards and to closely align instruction with the requirements of colleges and employers.

The governors’ winter meeting coincides with a push by President Bush to extend elements of his No Child Left Behind initiative from the primary grades to the high school level. [Note: That has happened. Some estimate that over 80% of this country's schools will not meet federally mandated standardized test score gains in the next three years.]

The governors painted a dire picture of the state of public high schools, releasing statistics that show only 68 percent of ninth-graders graduate from high school on time.

But, measuring a different way, U.S. government statistics show steady increases in high school graduation rates, particularly among whites and blacks, although less so for Hispanics.

Behind the national numbers, there is general agreement that wide disparities exist among high schools, and that geography, income, race and ethnicity affect the value of a diploma.

“Only a fraction of our kids are getting the best education,” Gates said.

[From the Palm Beach Post Sunday, February 27, 2005 23A]

Dennis Yuzenas exploring London. He claimed it all for Lithuania...

Just Think...
If we hadn't won the Revolution we'd still be speaking English today!
To study American history before the Revolution is to study English, Spanish, Portuguese, Latin American, Dutch, Mexican, Brazilian, Italian, Greek, German, French, Chinese, Japanese, and a bunch of other histories. It's all about context.

It's ironic that the stereotypical American is so ignorant of World Geography and World History. How better to know ourselves than to get to know others?