NYC

This weekend I had a nice break from it all. I bussed up to NYC for Memorial Day weekend to hang out with some friends from Macalester College.

I stayed in Brooklyn and we got up to lots of trouble.

We caught the last few innings of the Yankees beating the Mariners. It was cool to be in the "house that Ruth built," since this is the last year the Yankees will spend in the Stadium. The new one looks to be very far developed already and is right next to the old one. It looks to be a fitting stadium for the city that is our day's embodiment of the Roman Empire.

Afterwards we headed to the Met in Central park. It is always amazing and it was especially nice to have a beer in the rooftop sculpture garden overlooking the park.

We also went to the Brooklyn Museum of Art and saw the Murakami exhibit. He is a Japanese artist and quite wild. He did the album cover for Kanye West - a sort of hybrid form of art that I think is most similar to Japanese Manga and anime art. You can look him up, though I caution that some of his work is explicit. He also does Louis Vuitton bags.

And of course the nights in the city were a great time, but I won't go too far into them here. I am a big fan of Studio B in Brooklyn.

It was good to get away for the weekend.

Fresh Start

Here goes the blog...

I teach social studies to middle schoolers in Washington, DC. It's wild and I love it.

I plan to share insights on teaching in the city, keeping my kids engaged, community organizing, and politics in general.

Today I had an excellent field trip to four museums downtown - a whirlwind tour:

1) National Museum of African Art

2) Lunch at the Air & Space Museum

3) National Museum of the American Indian

4) National Gallery of Art

5) Back to the Air and Space Museum because that's my students' favorite.

I had ten 8th graders on the grip. I bought these mini-clipboards (1.39 at Staples) and had a little worksheet packet for them to do (I used "landscape" format, two columns, and then cut the pages in half so the pages would fit on the mini-clipboard). For each exhibit we went to, they just had to find one thing they were interested in and and answer some subjective questions. I just wanted to have something to get them to think about, but mostly I wanted them to just enjoy looking at things.

And they loved it. They thanked me many times throughout the day and let me know they were having a great time. I had brought 10 students that had done very well for me this year and the other 8th grade social studies teacher took my students that did not come along. Anyhow, it made for a great day for all that went.