1960s reflection

I thought that all the activities were really great, and the food we got almost everyday was excellent. They really kept my attention with all the activities because it made me stand up and move around and even have something to look forward to. They were all well prepared and had alot of things to show to the class.
I thought how intense the hippies were, was really surprising. I knew that hippies were really "weird" in modern day terms, with having sex anywhere, anytime, anyone. How they would spend hours just sitting in a parking stall sleeping, etc... But the thing that surprised me the most was that there weren't that many hippies in the time. I always thought that hippies ruled the U.S. in the 1960s, but that wasn't true. It was a small percentage, and most of the people in the 1960s were "civilized" in modern day terms.
P.S. i loved those reeses cupcake stuff char made. they were really really good

1950s reflection

This was my class and i have to say, its really difficult to teach a class. I got lot of research, but it didn't seem like it was enough during class, and i just wanted the time to end. I was always worried that we wouldn't have enough things to do that takes up the whole class. We tried to get some fun activities, but its hard to plan out whats going to happen in the class, like whats going to be said and how long discussions are going to last.
It was really hard to get people to learn things when you don't know everything about the 1950s, but all in all it was pretty fun to try teaching out. Mr. Cheever and Mr. Mindich was a great help when we had discussions because they had so much little small information that relates really well to the topic. For future groups who plan to have discussions, they'll save ya.
Maybe we had such a difficult time because it was mainly just me and eric doing all the work, when its suppose to be groups of 4-5. We had a really lacking group and so we didn't really get things that really were in depth of our topic, but we really did try.
For example, we didn't know what the beatniks were at all. We tried looking up information on it, but we couldn't find anything that would help too much. We even tried asking some other history teachers, but we only got 5 sentences worth of information, like everywhere else.
It was nice to get compliments of being good teachers.

1940s reflection

This group truely put a lot of effort in the class. With multiple videos and slideshows.
I thought it was really interesting how the affects of the War, which America believed they had won, were actually quite devestating. War isn't just a who won and who lost, and what they lost and won. The people who fought in the war, live for the rest of their lives being praised for watching their friends get killed, blowing up enemies they don't even know, or living in a ditch for a couple of months. In the poem we read, the tone of the poem was so sad, i could feel the depression and the pain the author was expressing.

1930s reflection

I was only here for the first day because i left for Spring camp, but i do remember the piece of literature we read on difficulty of getting and keeping jobs during the depression. It's scary to live at a time where you don't know whether or not you'll make enough to feed your family, and knowing you don't have much power to change anything about your life. I was kind of curious, whether all employers were really that cruel. Many employers are portrayed as evil selfish people, but people do have hearts and care for their employees to a certain extent. Isn't it possible, that because of the Great Depression, the employers were forced to pay low wages and had to look out on themselves because of the hardship for all.
I remember commenting on the the cotton bags they sold and how the workers would make use of the bag from a bag, sheets, and even clothes. How resourceful these "uneducated" people are and how nature brings out the true potential of a human when he/she are cornered and does anything in order to survive.


All in all, I thought the class for this one day went very well. The time seemed to fly much faster than usual and they did great for the first group. They set the bar pretty high for the rest of us.