Rundown:

Suffrage lesson went well. I didn't feel like the morning classes were getting much from the discussion we did in the beginning, so in the afternoon I pretended to be a woman who didn't believe in women's suffrage. See me in action on the class blog. They did some deep thinking about y argument--why women would think this at the time, why men would think this at the time, what societal conditions or cultural conditions would lead people to feel this way. It was really cool to see their wheels turning, and they were able to put themselves in the time more easily.

They liked the power point and all of the cartoons. I included one of a suffragette's home, which they recognized as propaganda, in which this hard working husband had come home to his children asleep on and under the kitchen table, and the house was a total mess. I also included one of celebrating suffragettes, with the lolcatz lettering over them that said, "We can has votez?" They really loved that one!

We ended with a very interesting discussion about Sandra Day O'Connor, who became the first female Supreme Court Justice, but 60 years before that, women couldn't vote!!! What could my kids do today that they couldn't do 60 years ago? Or what do they see as a struggle for a group today that they'd like to see change for in the future. A lot of people brought up gay rights, and we had this great discussion about the parallels.

The lesson ended there; we only have 55 minutes a day. I really can't stand that we don't have more time to get into these meaty discussions about issues that pertain to them right now, today, because my teaching philosophy is to always try to connect my students to the past, and always try to connect the past to my students. I really, really wish that we had more time. But such is life. If I teach upstate, most of the classes are about 70 minutes long, and I'll probably complain about that being too long or something. :-)