Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Mean Girl Geography!!

Today, they asked me, seriously, if Amsterdam is in Canada and The Ukraine is in Japan. Now, foolishness aside, I know they want to know about Amsterdam because of, well, weed. But The Ukraine? What do they know about the region that they could possibly link to Japanese culture?

We eliminated Geography on the curriculum for what...Oklahoma History? Here's the quick version of Oklahoma History.

Land Run, displaced Native Americans, Trail of Tears, Alfalfa Bill Murray, Statehood, um...Trail of Tears, Wiley Post, Will Rogers, Red Diaper Babies, Dust Bowl, Woody Guthrie, Invention of shopping cart and parking meter, Maria Tallchief and the Cherokee Ballerinas, Rogers and Hammerstein, Tulsa Race Riots, Oil Boom, Oil Bust, Wilma Mankiller, Oklahoma City Bombing.*

...and that's more than you might get from the long course.

The upside came in a link from my Language Arts coordinator, it seems simple grammar can be taught to songbirds!

And if we can teach them to bubble an answer sheet, I plan to test them next year.

*Apologies are in order if I have missed a vital part of the history of our Great State.

2 comments:

Susan said...

What about the part where the Sooners cheated on the land rush? Or where the folks from OKC snuck into Tulsa and stole the state constitution and brought it back here?

Those are my favorite things about this state.

"Ms. Cornelius" said...

The folks from OKC snuck into Guthrie and stole the state seal, don't forget the corrupt governors, the war with Texas over Kiowa county, the Robbers' Roost period, the hanging judge of Fort Smith who them bad'uns to justice, the invention of doppler radar and tornadoes!!!

I'd rather teach OK history than Missouri history-- it's more colorful.