This is a website that I will definitely reccomend to the other teachers at my school. Especially those that teach history. I sat here watching an incredible video of the historian David McCullough, author of 1776, talking about George Washington. History is so often poorly presented to students but McCullough made the times that Washington lived in come alive.
Then I watched a special about Pearl Harbor. Using maps, photos, and narrative the "Day that would live in Infamy" were real.
Maybe I am uninformed but this is the first educational website that I went on that was in both English and Spanish. A quick click at the top of the page was all it took.
Tech support was clearly indicated.
I found the site to be easy to navigate and each site or page that I went on was available.
This site seemed to be directed more for parents and educators. I don't think students - at least young ones - would access information easily without guidance. I liked that lessons were offered to parents to use over summer vacation. Lessons using the local library were very good.
The site is easy to read and visually appealing. It was current and up to date.
There was an excellent section on Black History month. I liked the fact that the science section had information on minority scientists which my students are always searching for. Usually with difficulty.
It is probably not a site that I would put my middle school students on but their teachers and parents - yes. My students love sites like mathplayground or funbrain. Those are more interactive and "fun". But I would suggest this to teachers and parents.

That's not Jesus

Visitors are stunned when they walk into our school at Christmas and see Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and four shepherd boys standing perfectly still in the atrium outside of the Media Center. After all this is a public school.

This year I added a Christmas tree. It was decorated by Thai Her, a 6th grade Hmong student, who had never decorated a tree in his entire life. He begged to decorate this one. Thai is very short -even for a 6th grader - so the lights and ornaments mostly covered the bottom half of the tree. The true Christmas Star was the bright smile on Thai's face.

Jesus and Mary were two 8th graders and the shepherd boys were mostly my library helpers and a few other carefully chosen for their promise to stand perfectly still for two hours.

Jesus was the only problem. Mary handed the baby back to me. "That's not Jesus, Mrs. Mann."

I have the same problem every year. I shop carefully at Toy R' Us for a black doll and every year he is handed back to me. Jesus is not supposed to be black.

I explain that Jesus could not be a blue-eyed, fair skinned child considering the place he was born. He most likely looks more like the people who own the party store down the block. Eventually they accept my black Jesus.

Last year our Art teacher, a very devout Jew, complained that our Christmas nativity doesn't represent her faith so I encouraged her to put up her own holiday decoration.

I also asked our bilingual teachers, Mr. Kue and Mr. Vue, to do the same.

Neither did.

Our school is 90% African-American and 10% Hmong. The Hmong are a group of recent immigrants from Laos wherere they are mostly farmers and their adjustment to the east side of Detroit has been a challenge. They are a group of students who are rarely a behavior problem, and are rarely absent or tardy.

Their parents don't speak English but they come to conferences. At Osborn High last years Valedictorian and Salutatorian were both Hmong students.

Does culture matter? Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't.
I don't believe my annual live nativity would work at most suburban schools. But here our largely African-American culture is comfortable with religion and are not afraid to display their faith. We have gospel choirs and we often pray at school events.
But I don't think the biggest culture problem is the color of Jesus or the fact that my Hmong students raise chickens in their Detroit backyards. The biggest problem we have is our culture of violence and culture of failure.
My students are very bright but they don't challenge themselves and we don't challenge them enough. We accept mediocrity at all levels of education - school board, administration, and our teaching staffs.
Violence permeats the lives of my students. How can they focus on school when the walk home is perilous? Or life at home at often a dubious proposition.
I think this is a problem that is frequently buried under MEAP scores and endless testing.

On the Shores of Gitchiegoomie

Grand Marais is a picturesque village of 300 people on the very top of Michigan's Upper Penninsula about 500 miles north of my Detroit area home. It was here, in the 6th decade of my life, that I completed my first (and only) Triathlon.

I am an avid bike rider, a fair runner, and a lousy swimmer. My plunge into the icy waters of Lake Superior (Labor Day temperature 54 degrees) sans wetsuit, water depth 60 feet, knowing the reputation of Superior from Edmond Fitzerald lor for not "giving up her dead", convinced me that I was soon to be fish food. I wasn't. But I was the very last person out of the lake.

I remember my sister standing in the back of the pick-up filming the entire thing, me running up the beach to my bike calling out "I am not dead"!!! Then 18 miles of hills on a bike.

I had just started my run when a man flew by me finishing his.

"Don't give up," he called out. "You're doing good!" He was 75 years old.

I won a Silver Medal. Sounds impressive. The truth? There were only two people in my age group.

Why am I telling you this and what does it have to do with educational websites?

It has to do with motivation- the biggest problem I have with my students.

I have found a great website that is changing the lives of my students and our school. It is http://www.oambassadors.org/. This is a new site. It is a joint project of Oprah's Angel Network and Free the Children. I completed a lengthly application process and last fall we were accepted. So far we are the only DPS school to be an OAmbassador school. The program sent me lesson plans and materials for 35 students plus more activities on their website. Right now we are raising money for a school in East Africa.

My middle school students are not very global. They think a foreign country is the "west side". But now they are learning geography, social studies, and are reading incredible stories on their website. This week the Roots of Action tour came to our school and showed films and talked about child labor, poverty, education and health issues around the globe. One young man from Sierra Leone told our students about his village being attacked by rebels and his mother and sisters being raped. It was very moving. Our students were very affected.

We are planning several fund raisers - our African-American History Program, a basketball game between staff and students, a fun run, and a talent show in the Spring. It amazes me that our students are reaching into their pockets to help children in another continent.

When children can find a website that is colorful, fun, challenging, and easy to manuever they will use it. I think this is one that can change their lives forever.

I think about that 75 year old man. He ran faster, rode faster, and easily left me on the shores of Gitchiegoomie. His message was clear. Don't give up.

In all this talk about generations it is easy to forget one thing. We are sending our children into the future - a place where we cannot go. We must give them the foundation they need to get there and hopefully to make the world a better place.

My grandson, Christian, was suspended from kindergarten. He was 5 years old. His crime? He pointed his umbrella at a classmate and said, "I am going to kill you." He got three days at home.

I spent a good part of my childhood with a pair of six shooters strapped to my hip shooting up my classmates and they quite avidly fired back at me. It seemed like harmless fun in a time when television was filled with cowboy shows. We received guns for Christmas and our birthdays and ran around the neighborhood killing each other. It was great.

It has been 40 years since I graduated from high school and I have never killed anyone nor has any of my classmates. Viet Nam veterans don't count. The government made them do it.

This is the biggest change I have seen between the generations. It doesn't make a lot of sense.
We punish children for their immaturity. They are supposed to be immature. They are kids.

I am afraid to hug my students and when they try to hug me I usually back away. I don't drive them home from school or allow them into my classroom by themselves. I always keep my door open. Teachers today are afraid and they never were before. I know there have been incidents widely publicized of teachers having relations with students. It happens. It may be rare but all of us suffer from the suspicions of the public.

Sex between consenting teens can put the boy on the sex registry for life. Or in prison. Imagine going to prison for what we once thought was some Saturday night fun in the back seat of the Chevy.

I am not naive about life. I know that bad things happen. I grew up Roman Catholic and I never imagined that the good priests of my youth could have been guilty of what they were later accused of. I admit I was shocked.

Are we over- protecting this generation of children? Or are we over-reacting to the experimentation and excuberance of our youth? It seems that we are constantly looking over our shoulders.

One of the male teachers at my school told me recently that when his female students lean over his desk he isn't sure where to put his eyes. Our students wear uniforms but some of the girls leave top buttons undone, wear tight shirts, or are simply just 'large'.

There are a lot of reasons that teachers leave the profession - nearly 50% in the first five years of teaching. But I believe that one reason is the constant fear of liability. Most of us are simply trying to be good teachers but the fear of a lawsuit can stop us in our tracks.

I saw all of this mentioned only fleetingly in the articles I read in this weeks articles. But I think it is important.

Slightly off topic, but I think the biggest difference in learning is not generational but relates to gender. Boys learn differently than girls. Last year when our staff convened to discuss the coming year I suggested dividing our classrooms by gender. Almost all of the teachers thought this was a great idea. My principal did too but it was never implemented. This spring I am going to bring it up again. I think the boys are more active and need more movement and hands-on learning. In middle school same sex classrooms could be more focused without the distractions. Many schools across the country are doing this - Atlanta Public Schools is one. It has proven successful.