As an aspiring historian and a soon to be educator, I wanted to write briefly on the topic of the Thanksgiving holiday that children, adolescents, and young adults will be celebrating across the nation in just a few days from now. In a time and age when myspace, facebook, youtube, NFL football games, and Playstation III will assuredly all be equal parts of the upcoming holiday season, I feel that it will be upon me to bring to light how integral the events were that played out in the woods, just off the Atlantic Ocean on Cape Cod in 1621 (I think...some historian).

By integral I not only mean for the English colonist but also the Wampanoag Indians that inhabited the southeastern shore of Massachusetts at this time. It was the first contact period for most natives and definitely as much for the English, who assuredly only heard tales and saw depictions of the natives as savage beasts.

When we view this event, at this time we are looking at the veins of what would soon be a new nation found, The New World discovered. From these early encounters on, the world in which we all live currently, in which we all succomb to those holiday vices (i.e. Playstations, Guitar Hero's, myspace, instant messaging, and text messaging), well, that world seized to exist by the encounters on that Cape Cod Beach, for us as European and African descendants and most defintely for the natives that lived off of these lands.

No matter where or what the upcoming holiday holds for us, it will be my duty, and one that I am assuredly looking forward to to engage the minids of my students in order for them to gain a real sense of what exactly this Thanksgiving holiday means to peoples everywhere.

Just a thought...Happy Thanksgiving. Someone's cell phone is ringing!

FREEDOM WRITERS

so, moving along with the likes of Educating Esme, the movie Freedom Writers depicts through motion picture the "rookie" year of teacher Erin Gruyell. Known as Ms "G." to her students, this is the true story of how a single teacher had lasting impact on the lives of her inner city students whom that many were caught up in the life of gangs and violence.

by no means the biggest of Hilary Swank fanatics, i felt as though the movie was a good story of what can be accomplised when a single individual shows the determination that Ms. "G" did in attempting to change the lives and educational experiences of her students. although some would probably agree that the story and the setbacks to Erin's life were unrealistic in the sense that she basically chose her students over her own life and that of her husbands, i feel it is more of a story of potential "obstacles" that may be encountered by rookie educators. from the beatup old classroom with little to no equipment with grafitti written all over the desks to coming across certain individual that will only tell you that "YOU CAN'T or "YOU SHOULDN'T"...in many ways this story overlaps with what Esme encountered in her rookie year in the Chicago school system.

i enjoyed the movie. probably both more than i had expected and would like to admit but would have liked there to have been more time devoted to either the classroom discussion of the film or something to the effect that wold have held us onto a standard to watch the film (i.e. writing assignment, quiz, etc.). for me, during a severly stressful academic week...if I knew there would be no grade assigned to watching this movie, I probable would have utilized the 2+ hours slightly different, say perhaps working on this very painful 502 Literature Review...!