logy Instructional Techno Social Studies5-12

Volume 1, Issue 5 February 2013

BVCPS

Black History MonthThe Unknown Contributors

Sister Rosetta Tharpe: The Godmother of Rock & Roll was an AfricanAmerican gospel singer and guitar virtuoso (19151973) who will be featured in an upcoming episode of American Masters. Southern-born, Chicago-raised and New York-made, She could play the guitar like nobody else nobody. During the 1940s-60s, Sister Rosetta introduced the spiritual passion of her gospel music into the secular world of rock n roll, inspiring the male icons of the genre. One of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Tharpe may not be a household name today, but the flamboyant superstar, with her spectacular playing on the newly electrified guitar, had a major influence on black musicians, including Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Isaac Hayes and Etta James, and also on white stars such as Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins. of a former slave who had moved to New Haven, Connecticut. Only three schools there accepted Black students at the time, so Bouchet's educational opportunities were limited. However, he managed to get admitted to Yale and became the first African American to earn a PhD and the 6th American of any race to earn one in physics. Although segregation prevented him from attaining the kind of position he should have been able to get with his outstanding credentials (6th in his graduating class), he taught for 26 years at the Institute for Colored Youth, serving as an inspiration to generations of young African Americans. her mother with the laundry she took in. But Bessie didn't let any of it stop her. She educated herself and managed to graduate from high school. After seeing some newsreels on aviation, Bessie became interested in becoming a pilot, but no U.S flight schools would accept her because she was Black and because she was female. Undeterred, she saved enough money to go to France where she heard women could be pilots. In 1921, she became the first Black woman in the world to earn a pilot's license.

Inside this issue:

Feature Article: 1 Black History MonthThe Unknown Contributors

An Unusual Technique for Teaching History

Benjamin Banneker
developed the first clock built in the United States, He spent two years designing the clock and carving each piece by hand including the gears. He taught himself astronomy and mathematics and was able to predict events such as solar eclipses and sunrises and sunsets. In 1792, he developed his first almanac, and sent a copy of his book to Thomas Jefferson, at that time the Secretary of State. This began a long correspondence between the two men. Helped to

Bessie Coleman
(1892-1926) was one of 13 children born to a Native American father and an African American mother. They lived in Texas and faced the kinds of difficulties many Black Americans faced at the time, including segregation and disenfranchisement. Bessie worked hard in her childhood, picking cotton and helping

Edward Bouchet
(1852-1918) was the son

Black History Month (cont. from pg. 1)

create the layout of the building streets and monuments for the Nation's Capitol - Washington, D.C. After his death in 1806, nations around the world mourned his passing, viewing him as a genius and the United States' first great Black Inventor. the first African-American ever to receive the honor. A year later he was honored with the Black Engineer of the Year President's Award and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. In 2001, he was tapped to be a member of the National Academy of Engineers. helped her found her new hair product business. They divorced two years later leaving her to run the business with the help of her nowgrown daughter Lelia. The company was a success and Sarah used this success to found the Lelia College in PA which trained women to sell her products door-to-door. In nine years she went from having $2.00 in her pocket to becoming the first Black female millionaire. The above information includes direct quotes and paraphrases from the following sources: http://www.pbs.org/about/news/ archive/2013/black-history-month/ http://giftedkids.about.com/od/ giftedminorities/a/Little-KnownAfrican-Americans.htm http://www.blackinventor.com/

Mark Dean was born in 1957 and

showed an early aptitude for building. After college he became an engineer for IBM and, working with Dennis Moeller, developed the new ISA systems bus which allowed periperals such as printers and modems to be plugged directly into computers. He is also the inventor of the color PC monitor and the first gigahertz chip. He holds 3 of IBMs 9 original patents and has over 20 patents associated with his name. He has a doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford. In 1996 he was named an IBM fellow,

Madame C. J. Walker (18671919) was born in LA to former slaves working as sharecroppers who died when she was still a child. When she was 20, her husband was murdered by a lynch mob leaving her alone with a 2 year old daughter. She found work as a cook and housecleaner, but stress made her hair fall out and none of the available products had any effect on her hair loss. One night she dreamed about a formula that would restore her hair. The formula worked and she shared it with friends who had similar success. In 1906 she married C. J. Walker who

An Unusual Technique for Teaching History

Part of an article by Dian Schaffhauser, THE Journal, 2/4/13 In the third and final keynote at FETC 2013, Institute of Play Executive Director Katie Salen offered her view of how gaming connects to learning. To illustrate those principles in action, Salen offered the example of a seventh grade teacher who needed to teach her students about the American Revolution. Working with the curriculum and game designers, the teacher laid out the interesting questions she thought the instruction should address, with a particular emphasis on how history is told with a particular point of view. The Quest to Learn team developed a game called Ghost vs. Ghost, a 10-week piece of curriculum featuring eight different ghosts, all of whom have experienced the same event but from very different roles and viewpoints--a slave, a homemaker, a soldier, and so on. As Salen explained, these ghosts are trapped in a "sub-sub-subbasement in the natural history museum. All have experienced the Revolutionary War." The job of the students was to help the ghosts "resolve their differences." "What we really wanted students to learn is that a multiplicity of viewpoints is a very human thing and that they weren't going to be able to resolve those conflicts," Salen said. Along the way the students were challenged to perform a number of activities, such as choosing a ghost and writing a memoir for that character. For the summative assessments, students were paired off, and together they had to write an essay exploring the relevancy of their opposite's point of view. This approach to the subject, she added, had kids "engaged in the ways they went deep into this context." Ultimately, Salen concluded, when students persist on a problem, "it's much more likely that they're going to have success within an academic context, not to mention life more broadly." The injection of play into learning not only encourages them to persist through the processes of design, prototyping, and iteration, but it teaches them to view learning and life as a process--"always changeable, always able to be made better."