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A peek at the next generation's classrooms SUNY New Paltz students shake the Web for lesson plans
Feburary 17, 2005 Student Rebecca Leone talks to Andrea Noel, center, and Barbara Chorzempa. There is the well-known M.C. Escher print of a hand drawing a hand drawing a hand (for the uninitiated, see www.mcescher.com). Now consider this: teachers teaching students who will be teaching students. At the State University of New York at New Paltz, seniors in the teacher education program assembled recently to present integrated thematic units as they would teach them. The final project was for the class "Teaching language arts and social studies in the elementary school." As early as this fall, students will benefit from these lessons.
Faculty members Andrea Noel and Barbara Chorzempa team-teach the class to develop skills in blending subjects, using primary documents, thinking critically and meeting the needs of diverse students. They teach them how to evaluate Web sites. The teachers are learning right along with the future teachers. Education is a lifelong work of art. "To have us model it is important to them — we practice what we preach," said Noel. "I'm learning social studies aspects I hadn't been exposed to before," said Chorzempa, whose bailiwick is language arts. Noel and Chorzempa, both members of United University Professions, made a presentation on curriculum development at last fall's Conference on Inservice Education sponsored by New York State United Teachers and the State Education Department. When students discover primary documents on the Web, they are encouraged to reproduce them to appear original: tea-staining documents to look old, laminating them, using old-style typefaces, or getting a journal and writing in it to reproduce historical diary notes. Here's what the next generation of teachers is up to:
This lesson plan focuses on the photography of Lewis Hine, who documented children working as sweepers, laundry workers and cannery workers. His photojournalism opens the door to industrialization and immigration. Corresponding literature is "The Bobbin Girl" by Emily Arnold McCully. Using the Internet, Leone found songs that mill girls sang to get through the day. Primary documents include a list of factory rules, which state the mills will not employ anyone "guilty of immorality or skipping church." A work table from 1853 revealed that the girls' 11-hour day began with a bell sounding at 4:30 a.m. Activities include having students be photojournalists. They research work practices of today's mills. For a math tie-in, students figure how much mill girls earned ($4 a week) and how they budgeted for items such as cheese, a quart of milk, shoes, and room and board. Leone drafted a timeline on this era, with highlights such as the industrial revolution, the Civil War and the children's crusade of coal-mine labor organizer Mary Harris ("Mother") Jones. The timeline is made with Velcro, so students match events by affixing them in the correct years.
This unit introduces students to women in baseball leagues during World War II, when male players went off to war. "It changed the image of women in the United States ," said Newman. Stern found a requirement that women attend "charm school" before joining the league, and wear skirts to play. She has documents showing how the women's leagues started out with small fields and large softballs, but women proved they could play with standard-sized baseballs and regulation-sized fields. For primary documents, Newman found letters, propaganda and advertisements, including the famous Rosie the Riveter "We can do it" poster. Students analyze the working women's posters for cause, audience and message.
Students love to download music. Skidgell found a bouncy tune called "Remember Pearl Harbor," and a recording of a somber President Franklin Roosevelt addressing the nation after Pearl Harbor as "a day which shall live in infamy." With this, she uses a copy of Roosevelt 's original speech — with marked corrections. For other primary documents, she found a telegram that came four hours after the attack: a warning that was too late; along with radar signals. Her literature connection is "One Sunday Morning" from the "Dear America" series for young children, along with a historical fiction book Journey to Topaz by Yoshiko Uchida about the change in a Japanese girl's life after Pearl Harbor . Students compare the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America to Pearl Harbor .
Although there were icebergs known to be crossing the Atlantic , the captain of the Titanic wanted to make record time for the massive ocean liner. Elzweig has elementary students brainstorm how procedures could have been changed to save more lives, after they see a letter from an employees union criticizing evacuation procedures. A menu from the ship's restaurant, a telegram about the collision, a boarding pass and a list detailing the cost of articles a passenger lost are among Elzweig's treasures. "Language arts can be found in anything — journals, newspaper clippings, books," Chorzempa said. Items from the Titanic personalize the story of the wreck. For added effect, Elzweig made a board with portholes; when opened, eachreveals the face of a person who died aboard the ship. "Today, more and more teachers have the ability to use technology to bring primary sources right into the classroom," said NYSUT Vice President Dick Iannuzzi. "The SUNY New Paltz program is a great example of how higher education, teacher centers and school districts can work together to improve education for students, teachers and the teachers of teachers." - Liza Frenette |
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