Yes, the site has changed one more time, but it may be temporary. A few people thought that the black background with light text was hard to read, so I have implemented another look for the site. You can vote in the poll on the right, if such aesthetic concerns matter to you. 🙂
This is my eleventh year at Helena High School,where I teach English III AP Language, Debate, and Speech. In my spare time, I enjoy grading essays, watching
the San Diego Padres, and buying more books than I could ever hope to read.
I came to Helena High after a period of wandering that included attending law school for two days, coaching debate at Carroll College for four years, and teaching in Great Falls for nine months, but the real decision to become a teacher probably began in a theater in Billings, Montana, when I saw “Dead Poets Society” for the eleventh or twelfth time. As ridiculous as it sounds, that little movie helped me understand that my passion for language and literature was something that could be shared with others.
I believe that education is about challenging people to see the world in a way they never imagined before, using dialogue and discussion. As Paolo Freire wrote, “Only dialogue, which requires critical thinking , is also capable of generating critical thinking”. Every minute of our lives is an opportunity for education, if we are only willing to let it be.
Links
- What Do I Listen To?
- What Did I Take Pictures Of?
- What Do I Believe About Teaching?
- What Am I Reading?
- What Did I Find Interesting On the Web?
“It is because modern education is so seldom inspired by a great hope that it so seldom achieves great results. The wish to preserve the past rather that the hope of creating the future dominates the minds of those who control the teaching of the young.” –Bertrand Russell
Readers Guides to Works for AP English IV
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A reading guide for the classic text of Anglo-Saxon literature, including resources about Old English, the poem, and the culture of the Angles and the Saxons. Lof geornost! |
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A readers guide for Ralph Ellison's classic Invisible Man, including resources about music (jazz and blues), the history of the time of the novel, and the existential philosophy that inspired Ellison. |
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A readers guide for Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera, featuring information about Marquez, cholera, magical realism, and the film based on the movie. |
A little rough towards the end, as the specific details of his life as a butcher seemed to overwhelm the author and certainly overwhelmed me, but overall, a funny, interesting look at a couple of worlds that few of us get exposed to: the inside of an elite restaurant's kitchen, and the kitchens where Italian was born and continues to thrive today.
Recommended.
I've recently finished my favorite book by Leo Tolstoy, Resurrection, and once again, have been struck by how powerfully Tolstoy's critique of the banality of evil resonates today. There are so many powerful passages in this novel, but I wanted to highlight a few that I thought were especially thought-provoking.
On Rounding Up Prisoners or People Suspected of Crimes
These people were dealt with like fish caught with a net; everything that gets into the nets is pulled ashore, and then the big fish which are required are sorted out and the little ones are left to perish unheeded on the shore. Having captured hundreds that were evidently guiltless, and that could not be dangerous to the government, they left them imprisoned for years, where they became consumptive, went out of their minds or committed suicide, and kept them only because they had no inducement to set them free, while they might be of use to elucidate some question at a judicial inquiry, safe in prison. The fate of these persons, often innocent even from the government point of view, depended on the whim, the humour of, or the amount of leisure at the disposal of some police officer or spy, or public prosecutor, or magistrate, or governor, or minister. Some one of these officials feels dull, or inclined to distinguish himself, and makes a number of arrests, and imprisons or sets free, according to his own fancy or that of the higher authorities. And the higher official, actuated by like motives, according to whether he is inclined to distinguish himself, or to what his relations to the minister are, exiles men to the other side of the world or keeps them in solitary confinement, condemns them to Siberia, to hard labour, to death, or sets them free at the request of some lady.
They were dealt with as in war, and they naturally employed the means that were used against them. And as the military men live in an atmosphere of public opinion that not only conceals from them the guilt of their actions, but sets these actions up as feats of heroism, so these political offenders were also constantly surrounded by an atmosphere of public opinion which made the cruel actions they committed, in the face of danger and at the risk of liberty and life, and all that is dear to men, seem not wicked but glorious actions. Nekhludoff found in this the explanation of the surprising phenomenon that men, with the mildest characters, who seemed incapable of witnessing the sufferings of any living creature, much less of inflicting pain, quietly prepared to murder men, nearly all of them considering murder lawful and just on certain occasions as a means for self-defence, for the attainment of higher aims or for the general welfare.
On The Treatment of Prisoners
His duty was to keep political prisoners, men and women, in solitary confinement in such a way that half of them perished in 10 years’ time, some going out of their minds, some dying of consumption, some committing suicide by starving themselves to death, cutting their veins with bits of glass, hanging, or burning themselves to death.
The old General was not ignorant of this; it all happened within his knowledge; but these cases no more touched his conscience than accidents brought on by thunderstorms, floods, etc. These cases occurred as a consequence of the fulfilment of regulations prescribed “from above” by His Imperial Majesty. These regulations had to be carried out without fail, and therefore it was absolutely useless to think of the consequences of their fulfilment. The old General did not even allow himself to think of such things, counting it his patriotic duty as a soldier not to think of them for fear of getting weak in the carrying out of these, according to his opinion, very important obligations.
Certainly interesting sentiments to have been written over one hundred years ago, aren't they?
