Tuesday, March 01, 2005

theme of the month

February is Black History Month. March is Woman's History Month. I didn't do any special posts on Black History nor will I blog specially about Women's History this month because I am of the obnoxious opinion that both topics are something we should think about every day, not just 28 (29) or 31 days out of the year.

What's really exciting about this obnoxious opinion of mine is that it's now possible. Students who land in my classes may not know how to use the apostrophe correctly, but nearly all of them are at least generally familiar with some important men and women of all colors. I know that this wasn't true 10-15 years ago.

It's my job to broaden what students know. Many have at least heard of Sojouner Truth and her work on the lecture circuit. Few know that she was born a slave in New York, successfully sued to recover a son who had been sold illegally, and lived for a time as the cook for a religious community with some unusual ideas and practices. This means that she's great as an example of several critical trends, movements and changes of teh period, as well as being a woman worthy of attention.

OK, OK, so I did sort of combine the two themes for today's post, but Truth is someone I'd post about in May or Ocrtober, just because she was very cool.

Words Written: zero
Lessons Graded: zero - not good
Books on Floor: one

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