Context: trying to tell the larger story
S.E. Paxson’s (1852–1919) rendition of 1855 negotiations between Isaac Stevens and chiefs of the Salish, Kootenai, and Pend d’Oreille tribes at Council Grove.What was important about America was the...
View ArticleWhat we choose to spend time thinking about
The story of the McDonald family is a wonderful way to explore the complexities of history in this place. It includes all the big events, but in the context of actual, specific people. Many of the...
View ArticleHeritage and history: What are we doing?
Marvin Weatherwax and Jerry Buckley from Browning tell the story of what happened for students from Simms High School visiting the Marias River Massacre site.A distinction I find useful is that between...
View ArticleContextualizing Tribal Sovereignty
A nation within a nation creates endless opportunities for conflict or for negotiation.I think the materials presented in class about tribal sovereignty are good and useful–they present the tribal...
View ArticleChanging geographies of possibility
Bison at the National Bison Range on the Flathead Indian Reservation.Sense of place as an aspect of mind–paying attention to old stories heightens our sense of place, emphasizing at once cultural...
View ArticleWill CCSS survive its implementation?
Schools are remarkably resistant to change. I like the specific content knowledge that the tribes’ Challenge to Survive series makes available. Using such materials fits quite well into my...
View Article*The Lower Flathead River* is a beautiful and useful book
The Flathead River, below Dixon–shot on a return trip from Seattle. Home at last. I quite like The Lower Flathead River and find it an easier resource to use than some others because it’s less...
View ArticleA moral compass in a political wilderness
Lincoln’s epic struggle to understand the conflicts between what is good and true on one hand what is political reality on the other constitutes one of American history’s most engrossing case studies...
View ArticleDigital natives, constructivism, etc
I’ve been following for a long time both the impacts of technology on education and on young people generally, as well discussions of constructivist approaches to teaching. Both have become somewhat...
View ArticleBeyond good and evil: complying with the Montana Behavioral Initiative
Monitoring and surveillance is becoming the dominant interest of today’s “evidence-based” school reformers. Yesterday was spent listening to school reformers against the backdrop of breaking news about...
View ArticleThe limits of equality: hierarchy and order
In the film Lincoln, Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) speaks to the point: one can believe in equality under the law without believing in equality in all things: The idea of equality is a toxic...
View ArticleDifferences between science and religion
Adam S. Miller follows Bruno Latour in arguing that the field of religion is immanence while the discipline of science is transcendence. According to Latour: When the debate between science and...
View ArticleWas the world more beautiful 100 years ago?
Was the world a better place 100 years ago? Glenn Reynolds links to the photographic evidence, but one of the things I enjoy about many films set in the early 20th Century is how beautiful that world...
View ArticleA lynch mob is an extreme form of gossip
Communications technologies magnify destructive as well as constructive information As our power increases, we often need to develop better discipline if we want to avoid self-destructive patterns. As...
View ArticleThe long, slow crisis of the humanities
. . . When God answers it is not as God would answer if men could make Him. He stands in the circle around the fire, takes His turn, tells a story. It isn’t loud. No one has to believe It. (“Letter to...
View ArticleIrony and multiculturalists and a sense of place
I’m sometimes prone to a quixotic hope that knowing and loving a particular place might be an adequate antidote to modernity. Theories are always simpler than reality, and thus wrong. I’ve played with...
View ArticleLoyalty to family and place?–or to career and calling?
Choice, Part 1 What is most important–to eat food or to fulfill one’s duties? It’s easy to imagine a situation where one is hungry but also obligated to some task that interferes with grabbing a bite...
View ArticleFree ebook on placemaking
Building a swimming holeThere’s something–quite a lot, actually–to be said about teaching and placemaking. Wendell Berry commented that the best meaning of work was to make the world a better place,...
View ArticleThe Unwinding: an inner history of the new America by George Packer, review
George Packer, author of “The Unwinding”–a study of ordinary Americans after the financial collapse of 2008.The Unwinding by George Packer is a work of narrative journalism that is a lament that...
View ArticleWhat does “The Butler” teach about America’s racial experience?
If there’s nothing higher than the White House, there’s little hope. The Butler doesn’t extend beyond the “progressive narrative” of American history. In this narrative, racism is pervasive−the major...
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