Teaching Obama
Whoa, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted here. It’s been hard to come up with stuff that both my year one and two folks can use. Luckily, history was made this week with the election of our first African-American president, Barack Hussein Obama. I have a few resources you all should check out.
NPR has a report titled “How to Teach this Election” that should be available later today. Personally, I subscribe to the NPR stories regarding education to my Google Reader. Year two people should remember our discussion concerning RSS and readers. If any year one folks are interested, I can help you set something up.
Want to see the front pages of newspapers from all around the world? The Newseum is a journalism museum that features the front pages of many newspapers form around the globe. They have a page specifically for this past Wednesday reporting Obama’s win.
For those of you who study political cartoons, cartoonist Daryl Cagle posts his cartoons daily. There are several interesting ones posted after the election. I think the one featuring the Lincoln monument could be particularly interesting to address in class.
Illustrator Patrick Moberg has created a rather poignant image of all the presidents (pictured above). Barack Obama’s image is a striking contrast to those who preceded him. This would be another great discussion starter.
The Big Picture provides larger-than-life images that capture the essence of important news stories. The election is no different. The photos of Mr. Obama are remarkable and fully illustrate the enormity of his victory.
There are even a few great resources for the numerically-inclined educators. For an interactive map of all the national election results, check out the New York Times map.The map makes it possible to see voting results from the national level down to individual counties.
If it’s polls you’re into, the folks at FiveThirtyeight.com explain how the probability fits with determining the election winner. A word of warning regarding FiveThirtyEight: They are rather biased toward Obama, but in the election aftermath, this might not be as big of a deal. You could also ask your students to search out the site’s bias.
Are there any other resources out there that you have used to teach the election?
