Well, I guess I do not have to wory about finishing up my Christmas shopping by this Friday. Circulating AJ's weather forecast around the offcie...Too funny!
:? 8) It's all very funny, but I have scared kids asking me every day if the world is "really" coming to an end on Friday. I feel so bad for them! Poor young tykes having a superstitious old Irishman for a teacher... I always answer them, "Of course it's going to happen!" "Did you ever hear of a Mayan who was wrong?" "We're doomed!" "Turn out the lights!" "This planet is cashing in it's chips and checking out!" That's what they get for not asking their science teacher. Wait till I get to St. Patrick's Day...tomorrow is my PowerPoint presentation on Santa Claus. Some of my students have noted that I'm not like their other teachers...heh...heh...heh.
So wait... you're a history teacher who can't discuss Jesus even though there is significant historic substantiation for his existence, but you get to do a power point on Santa Clause? Seriously.....? dafuq
8) I also do a PowerPoint on St. Patrick's Day explaining how the Fir Bolg were driven underground by the Tautha De Danann in ancient times, hiding their gold at the end of the rainbows and using their magic powers only when cornered... There is no law against answering student questions. Yesterday, a student ask me, "Why do people put a star on top of their Christmas tree?" Try answering that one without mentioning Jesus! Every question represents an opportunity to tell the truth, which is what a history teacher is in business for. My state is currently in the process of abolishing the Revolutionary War from our textbooks, and we already have marching orders that we must teach about homosexual/feminist/labor heroes etc. Not to fear! My PowerPoints are creative/entertaining, while my classroom contains more props than Pee-Wee's Playhouse. The truth will survive...
What if someone asks about a potentially gay hero (or villain) of the Revolutionary War? Thank God you guys sent me to private school, or that I'm not kid in public school today. I'd bring these classes to grinding halts. I remember Mr Stets' Ethics classes at Damien. He was a hard line, fire and brimstone, Latin mass Catholic with a solid K through Grad School Jesuit education. I was literally known as "The Devil's Advocate." Any day the guys didn't feel like sitting through his lectures, they'd let me know and I'd what if and why that poor SOB grinding the entire thing to NYC rush hour traffic. It got to the point that he wouldn't address my questions anymore. I'd have to pass notes to other guys to have them ask the questions, and follow ups. Finally, he figured out that dumb guys were asking theoretical questions way beyond their resources and he'd just declare lecture days. Those were the days we broke out the miniature crazy balls that could just bounce forever. This crap my son sits through (he doesn't have the benefit of JOCO as history teacher), would drive me insane.
Last I heard the modern view of Baron Von Steuben was a little light in his loafers. He apparently wasn't really a Baron and maybe some of the rest of his life was a lie too. He was a true patriot who did a lot to whip the Continental army into shape coming out of Valley Forge.
As usual, Mike is way ahead of the game. I've been teaching about homosexuals in history for years, and the Baron von Steuben is right at the heart of the Revolution...and yes I teach that he was a hero, because he was. He mysteriously appeared out of nowhere one snowy night at Valley Forge. He claimed to have been a general in the Prussian army who had come to America to assist Washington and the revolutionaries. He also offered to train the American army and bring it up to German standards, which Washington was familiar with and he was given permission to proceed. The results were amazing. Taking a starving army of teenage boys who were deserting almost as fast as they were dying of desease, he turned them into a real military organization, that knew how to maneuver; attack; retreat; forage; and construct fortifications. The "baron" also wrote a basic training manual which remained the basis of all training for the U.S. Army until the War of 1812. http://www.amazon.com/Baron-Steubens-Revolutionary-Drill-Manual/dp/0486249344 Von Steuben remained one of Washington's most trusted generals until the very end of the Revolutionary War, commanding the main American Army at Yorktown, where the British were finally forced to surrender... So many foreign fighters came to America during the war, offering to help, that nothing was thought of the mysterious "baron" until after all hostilities had stopped. It was only then, after the war, that curious writers began asking questions about some of the great heroes who had come from far off lands to fight for liberty. When they tried doing biographical research on the "Baron von Steuben" they came up empty. There was no such "baron" anywhere in Germany, Austria, Prussia...nowhere. There was also no royal name "Steuben." This means that no person with that name was entitled to use the "von" in front of the name, which denotes nobility. All they could find was a drill sergeant who had been dismissed from the Prussian army for molesting his young, male recruits. This fellow had then wandered the world, offering his services to France, Austria, Great Britain...and finally landing in America, where a desperate George Washington was only too happy to accept his story and put him to work training troops immediately... Whoever he was, he was a hero to our country at a time when heroes were needed and in scandalously short supply. He died a rich and honored man; his fame exceeded only by the likes of Washington, Hamilton and Lafayette. He was never accused of any crime here and he earned his honored place in our history......and that's the way I teach it. Of course......I have to tell the stories of Valley Forge and Yorktown to teach about the Baron von Steuben....don't I? Heh...heh...heh...
Hmm, family legend says that the "giver" of my family name standing 5' 6" and blind in one eye was not eligible for the Continental Army so he was contracted as a mule wagon driver to haul supplies in Yorktown. I wonder if he ever ran across Von Steuben and knew enough to "not tie his shoes" in front of him....
If he was at Yorktown, then he probably ran into all of them: Washington, Baron von Steuben and all three musketeers... Hamilton, Lafayette and Laurens. At 5'6" he was not too short, so the bad eye is what probably forced him to serve with the teamsters. These armies weren't that big, so it's safe to say that he most likely saw or took orders directly from at least one of them... PS. Thanks guys.