Emily, Margo, Katie H. PART 1

1. Will this affect our war(s)?
2. What did Obama say about it?
3. How are Americans reacting?
         Osama bin Ladin's death was responded to in many ways. Some people responded with fear. His NY Times obituary says,  "his greatest hope, he told supporters, was that if he died at the hands of the Americans, the Muslim world would rise up and defeat the nation that had killed him."  In Barack Obama's speech responding to this turn of events, he says, "His death does not mark the end of our effort. There is no doubt that Al Quaeda will continue to persue attacks against us. We must, and we will, remain vigilant at home and abroad." This means that our wars will still go on the way they were before.
          However, there are many people in the United States who are thrilled. There were roaring parties at Times Square and in front of the White House where young people gathered with large American flags and jumped around screaming, dancing, and climbing trees. Some people had funny responses, one Youtube comment on a video of Obama's speech says "does this mean I can now carry full bottles of shampoo on the plane?" Obama's speech was very composed and calm. He described this situation with solemn language. He then explained how Al Quaeda was still a force to be reckoned with, and this would not affect the amount of vigilance we have.

Emily, Margo, and Katie's Interview Responses PART 2

We walked around upper school today and interviewed people about how they felt about Osama Bin Laden's death yesterday. Here's what some of our peers and teachers had to say...

Talk About a Teachable Moment

Mike knows not to wake me up unless it's really important.  It's bad enough that Joey still wakes me up in the middle of the night for "miiiiiilk in a cuppyyyyyy."  I don't need Mike waking me up with his nonsense.  The Phillies win?  Not that important.  Royal wedding?  Not that important.  Osama bin Laden killed?  Holy #*&*!@& why didn't you wake me up earlier?!?!  Needless to say, I was up all night watching my news channels, checking my tweets and surfing the net to soak in every aspect of this event.  This is one of those days that makes me really grateful I decided to be a Social Studies teacher (not that I'm not excited EVERY day!).  I can't think of a better way to spend this day than exploring, reading and analyzing with the Smarties.

All night I was thinking about how to best teach you guys today.  Should we read bin Laden's obituary in the New York Times?  Should we watch President Obama's address to the nation on YouTube?  What about these amazing photographs of people - regular people - reacting?  What about analyzing a Wordle cloud of Obama's speech?  Or a Tagxedo?  How about looking at all the different newspaper headlines? (I especially enjoy the one from the Philadelphia Daily News...it's classic Philly!)

Then, while skimming through my tweets this morning, I saw this one from Alfie Kohn:

This tweet stuck with me all morning and helped me figure out what to do with you today.  Shout out to Alfie Kohn for helping me - wooo!

So here's your challenge.  You can fly solo or collaborate with a group (no more than 3 ppl per group).

• Decide:  What are the three most important questions to YOU about Osama bin Laden's death?

• Browse:  Surf the net for all things Osama.  Look for sources that will answer your questions, or at least relate.  Sources can be text, video, photo, newspaper headline, blog, tweet, whatever.  Trying to figure out how "regular" people are feeling about Osama's death?  You can go interview people in the building to capture their thoughts. Take a Flip camera. Make your OWN primary source!

• Prioritize:  Of the hundreds of thousands of choices, select six primary source artifacts that you think best answer your questions.  You can do two sources per question, or perhaps one is enough for some questions and you can use three for another.  It's up to you.  (Since I know someone will ask, yes, it's okay to use any of the sources I posted above.)

• Reflect:  Is there more than one answer to your question?  Does it matter who is answering?  How do your precious chosen sources answer your questions?  Can your questions even be answered?  Reflect in writing about each question.  No need to be formal with your thoughts.  Just get them out and down.

• Synthesize:  Put your questions, sources and answers all together in one fantabulous blog post.  Post it here to 8-1 smarties. 

You have 90 minutes.  GO!

WW2 POW Bus-Eum

Check out this Bucks Courier Article about the WW2 Bus-Eum coming to NFS this Thursday!

Logan's response

In this image there is a mob attacking this black women. This black girl if trying to get into school, but this mob is stopping her and getting in her path. This shows how much whites did not want to go through with integrated schools. I don't understand how a people could act like this. This black lady has done nothing wrong.

Joshua's political cartoon: The Little Fighters of Little Rock

People Will Be PEOPLE

I have written a poem to represent what The Little Rock Nine went through. They were great heroes in getting schools to be together. They changed history and brought people together even though they were screamed at and threatened. They are an important part of history.

People Will Be PEOPLE
By Haley Huxley

When PEOPLE
Hurt PEOPLE
PEOPLE strike back
Unless PEOPLE
Being PEOPLE
Are too scared,
But when PEOPLE
Have courage
PEOPLE fight back
And defend
What they think
Is right,
Brave PEOPLE
Being PEOPLE
Lived in Arkansas
They were called
The Little Rock Nine,
Together
PEOPLE
Helped fight
Segregation
With guts
And Determination,
Schools were not equal
Schools were not fair
So PEOPLE
Fought for PEOPLE
To be together,
History
Will be History
And History
Was made
When PEOPLE
Sought equal
And togetherness,
Black
White
Whatever the Race
PEOPLE
Will be PEOPLE
Together

George's Response to Little Rock School Integration

Individuals and groups of people can and have shaped history in both positive and negative ways. Many individuals throughout history have made decisions that affected mankind gravely, such as Adolf Hitler, and his decisions throughout World War Two, the leader of Japan, bombing Pearl Harbor, causing America to join the war, causing hundreds of thousands of young soldiers to perish. But many individuals and groups throughout history have affected it positively, such as inventions which changed the world for the better.
During the time leading up to the integration of schools in Little Rock, Arkansas, some groups and individuals affected school integration history negatively, while some affected the integration positively. The government of the state of government, the courts, and the governor all affected the integration in a negative way. Governor Orval Faubus ordered, “The state's National Guard to forbid nine black children to enter the Little Rock Central High School.” A crowd of white people opposing the integration of the school gathered to help the National Guard prevent the nine black students from entering the school. Eventually, president Dwight D. Eisenhower “very reluctantly” ordered the state’s National Guard. Due to the incident, the school was closed for the year of the unruly protest, but the next year, the nine black students were able to attend. The nine kids at the center of the unruly protests affected the integration positively. They didn’t give up trying to go to scool, but continued through the crowd. They also did not fight back at the crowds, which I think affected scholl integration history positively.

In the image, there are white people protesting school integration, picketing in a large group, holding signs, some of which say, “Race mixing is communism.” It’s sad how people opposed school integration and how violently they protested. I think that if it were just a few people protesting the integration that the people would not protest, but not oppose the law because they were cowardly. I think many of the school integration protesters protested because many people were opposing the integration and they thought it was ok. It is great that America finally did integrate their schools, but it is sad that it took so long.

Evan's Response to the Little Rock 9 Questions

Throughout history, choices made by people have usually had some degree of an effect on either common lifestyles or opinions of surrounding people. Group choices usually end up being more effective, due to violent, forceful strategies that are too frightful to others that they immediately switch opinions. During World War II, Hitler and the Nazi Party used the Jews as scapegoats to their inner-country struggles and problems. Did the Jews actually do anything? No. But the choice to blame the Jewish people ended up in millions of Jewish lives lost and the most brutal time in world history, which never needed to take place. This is just one perfect exemplar of a significant occurrence that took place due to a small (compared to rest of world) group choice.

In this case, the desegregation of schools in Little Rock, Arkansas definitely was another example of a group choice whose effect arose into surrounding racial conflict. In this case, the group was the formal State Court of Arkansas. In a source from Amistad Digital Resource, it states that, "Less than a week before the 1957 school year began, the Arkansas state court ordered Little Rock to reverse the city's desegregation plan." This then backfired on the black students who wished to attend "regular" school with whites. What was then done after this State Court decision was Governer Faubus instructed the National Guard of the state to guard the Central High School armed. These guards eventually had the job of stopping the Little Rock 9, nine black students who wished to go into the High School.

What rose out of this situation was pure violence towards black people, including the one black girl, who was surrounded by a mob of whites in the live footage video. Another example of this sort of horrific violence is the well-dressed black man being pushed around and then hit in the back side of the head with a brick. So, the main groups of whites shaped the integration of schools in Arkansas to turn into more unnecessary tensions between whites and blacks. These types of group hatreds against others have, unfortunately, been a common beat in the history of humans.

Jake & Max: Little Rock 9