Cynthia,
I am undecided what to study in additional courses. History would be one
option, as would additional work in online pedagogy. The main purpose of the
Famous Americans is to provide a resource to primary students, and special
needs students, which is why Nat Turner was not originally included. He is
not studied by the K-5 crowd.
If you looked at my sources for Nat Turner you would have known that I got
it from more than Wikipedia. PBS has a good site on him as do several
African-American sources. To me, it makes much more sense to use
African-American sources for an African-American than to just take the word
of those who paid little attention to the man until after he exploded.
From a psychological point of view, Nat Turner is, perhaps an excellent
study in what it takes to make a person explode. Was it the indignity of
having been sold a few times that caused him to lash out? Was it the
constant friction between his intelligence and the perhaps lack of same in
his owners that eventually caused him to boil over?
And, if you are supposed to look at the consequences of the event, you can
look at the morality of those who inflicted more deaths to slaves than there
were deaths to avenge, and those who chose to ignore the message as an
indictment of the inhumanity of slavery and imposed harsher laws. You may
want to have your student examine the response of the slaveowners and
legislators from a moral standpoint. Being given a clear message that
slavery resulted in a savage outburst, was theirs the moral action?
I hope you will not allow your students to conclude that the action of the
legislature was justified, and that Nat Turner "brought this on his own
kind".
You may ask your students to compare this desperate act with the violent
riots of the 1960's that were the impetus of Civil Rights legislation. You
may ask your students to compare the response of legislators for both
events.
There is much that a teacher with the time and the intelligence of students
on her side can do with this event. It could be to the benefit of your
students to have them explore this event in a larger context than you are
doing. Don't stop at examining only the consequences, as if they were
inevitable, but look at what the consequences tell us about those who
enacted them.
You may even ask your students to compare the consequences with Jefferson's
quote about slavery - having "The Wolf by the ears" - being unable to either
hold the wolf nor turn him free.
Anne
Anne Pemberton
[log in to unmask]
http://www.erols.com/apembert
http://www.educationalsynthesis.org
----- Original Message -----
From: <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2008 6:56 AM
Subject: Re: And Now Nat Turner
> Anne,
> No self-respecting historian would use Wikipedia as a legitimate
> source.
> You need to go to graduate school and learn about historiography and the
> methodology of writing history. Your research methods are lacking. My
> 11th
> grade students know not to use Wikipedia.
>
> Cynthia Hasley
>
>
> In a message dated 11/13/2008 11:45:23 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
> [log in to unmask] writes:
>
> Tom,
>
> A friend made a new blog and asked me to try is out. My first entry was
> an
> examination of what should be taught to children in elementary and
> secondary
> school about those people who live good lives and then do one bad thing
> vs
> those who live a bad life and do one or two good things. (Nat Turner the
> former and John Paul Joes the later). The friend who asked me to do the
> blog
> responded with the suggestion that I include another site for "Infamous
> Americans" and put those questionable people under that heading.
>
> Maybe that is the solution to the problem. Include those with infamous
> activities in their lives on the Infamous Americans site perhaps with a
> cross link to where they are included under the Famous Americans.
>
> I need to mull this over for a bit to make a decision to have a parallel
> site. It will take a lot of work to round up enough Infamous Americans to
> make the site worth visiting. And, I have other things on my plate
> including
> coding math sheets for random numbers and more universal applications.
> Usually I do one or two Famous Americans every month or so. So if I start
> it, it will not be overwhelming to begin with, but a small start with a
> few
> people, like John Paul Jones, Jefferson Davis, Harry Byrd, and Nat
> Turner,
> all of whom did some good in their lives, but did the bad as well.
>
> Anne Pemberton
> [log in to unmask]
> http://www.erols.com/apembert
> http://www.educationalsynthesis.org
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Excalibur131" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2008 10:20 PM
> Subject: Re: And Now Nat Turner
>
>
>> Would Nat Turner be a "Famous American" or an "Infamous American?"
>>
>> Was Nat Turner a "Famous American" or "Infamous American" at all,
>> considering his only qualification was his methodical slaughter of white
>> civilians during the uprising?
>>
>> Tom
>> South Central Virginia & More
>> http://socenva.com
>>
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