"Looks like we made it." -Barry Manilow

Here are some notes from my students:

"Thank you so much for the beautiful semester sir, had a really good time with you and I'll probably pick up another history class with you."

"It was a privilege to be a part of your class, professor. I hope you enjoy your break."

"I just wanted to say it was joy to take your class! I truly appreciate your encouragement & understanding during this season we are living in. If no one told you ( but I'm sure you heard this before) You are a great professor who truly cares about their students. Which is very rare. But thank you for your positive words."

"I want to say thank you for introducing me to this study [Critical Race Theory]. I’ve been doing a lot of research, watching many Ted talks, and even asking people their own view on it. My eyes have been opened to how poor our society is structured. This assignment that you gave inspired me to do more research and educate people about it. I never gave much thought to it but it saddens me how horrible the system is for people who are not privileged. Again, I thank you so much for really inspiring me to continue researching about this topic and spreading the knowledge that I’ve learned while completing this assignment. I definitely want to be more involved in change for the society. ONE LAST TIME I thank you Professor for the impact that this assignment has made on me and on the impact I hope to make on others. Have a great rest of your holidays."

Students, I could not have risen to the challenge without your dedication, tenacity of purpose, and unwillingness to quit, regardless of how easy and understandable quitting would have been this semester. 

"So what's the use of voting if the popular vote will not be counted?"

The other day, I lectured on the early political life of Andrew Jackson. He won the popular vote in the 1824 election, but ultimately did not win the White House. The popular vote is nice but ultimately it's the votes in the Electoral College that decide the winner of a presidential election. Well, usually.  Not in the case of Jackson. That's a different story. 

In 1876 Samuel Tilden won the popular vote, but a special committee gave the electoral vote to Rutherford B. Hayes. In 1888 President Grover Cleveland won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote to Benjamin Harrison. In 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote but the Supreme Court, by a vote of 5-4, gave Florida's electoral votes to George W. Bush, putting him in the White House. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but lost the vote in the Electoral College in 2016 giving the Oval Office to Donald Trump. Interesting factoid: in each case the American people wanted the Democrat candidate but ultimately it was the Republican candidate (save JQA) who entered triumphant into the White House.

A student posed the question "so what's the use of voting if the popular vote will not be counted?" Here is my feeble attempt at an answer: Go ask a government professor. Seriously.

Of course your vote will be counted. But voting is more than a number. Voting is empowerment. Voting is action. Canvassing, donating money, placing signs in your yards, volunteering, these are all things you can do to become active during the election season that starts with voting. But voting is empowerment because voting gives you the opportunity to stop and think about the country you live in. Voting allows you to answer that super important question posed by President Ronald Reagan: "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?"

What a great question! Of course, life is more complex than answering a simplistic binary question. There are all sorts of factors to consider in answering that question and those factors are personal to each voter. 

I think I heard a more interesting question recently because this question forces everyone to know something about American history, and, the question is about perspective. A question that could have been asked by President Reagan and President Obama. Here's the question:

"Which side of the Edmund Pettus Bridge are you on?"

Patriotic History is Neither Patriotic Nor History?

Historians have many different ways to examine history. We can use an economic analysis, a political analysis, we can use gender as the lens. We can focus on military history to forward the march of time, or maybe the history of technology. There are different philosophies as to how (and why) to examine history. We call this historiography. French ideas are based more on social history. German historians tend to focus on economics and nationalism, and American historians have used a combination of European ideas as well as coming up with our own, such as Women's history, Queer Theory and Critical Race Theory. What this means is that there is no one way to analyze, interpret, categorize, and disseminate history. But, how we look at history and the significance of history, changes over time. 

Towards the end of the 2020 Presidential election, trailing Joe Biden (D) in national polls, President Donald Trump announced his support for a new type of history, what he called patriotic history, a "pro-American" curriculum. A type of history that will teach "our youth . . . to love America."  Suggesting that young people did not "love America"? Whatever that phrase means, or what loving America would look like, or sound like, or be in a curriculum. 

President Trump made this announcement at the National Archives, on Constitution Day -a day to celebrate the ratification of the US Constitution in 1787, billed as the first "White House conference on American History." Some argued that Trump's call for a new history curriculum was a ploy to gain white voters by downplaying the centrality of slavery in the history of this country.

As reported in the New York Times, "The president focused much of his speech on his claim that American schools have become infected with revisionist ideas about the nation’s founding and history, producing a new generation of “Marxist” activists and adherents of “critical race theory” who believe American society to be fundamentally racist and wicked — and who have taken to the streets in recent months. Mr. Trump said that “left-wing rioting and mayhem are the direct result of decades of left-wing indoctrination in our schools,” adding that “it’s gone on far too long.” He boasted that the National Endowment for the Humanities “has awarded a grant to support the development of a pro-American curriculum that celebrates the truth about our nation’s great history.” 

To me, this seems to have been an attempt to run roughshod over such things as the 1619 Project and Critical race Theory. 

But Donald Trump's knowledge of US history is somewhere between sketchy and curious. In a July 4th speech in 2019, Trump claimed that American soldiers during the War for Independence "took over the airports" as well as:

“Our army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, . . .  it did everything it had to do, and at Fort McHenry, under the rockets’ red glare, it had nothing but victory,”

The reference to Fort McHenry and those rockets' red glare happened during the War of 1812. His knowledge of the War of 1812 was displayed again, in 2018, when President Trump commented to Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau over the phone, "didn't you guys burn down the white House?" First, Canada wasn't a country in 1812. Second, the people who set fire to the White House were British troops (in retribution to American troops burning British government buildings, and other damage, in what was then called York).  

Donald Trump has a history of saying inaccurate, incorrect, or just wrong things about US history and politics. For example, he claimed (repeatedly) that the vote in the Electoral College was the biggest win, outside of Reagan. That is, of course, wildly incorrect. "Only two presidents have received fewer than Trump’s 304 electoral votes since 1972 — Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush. And Trump’s 304 is less than both of Barack Obama’s wins, at 365 in 2008 and 332 in 2012."

Trump claimed that Andrew Jackson would have "stopped the Civil War."  President Jackson died well before the War and was a large slave owner. Unlikely a slave owner would have stopped enslavers from committing treason and attacking the United States. 

Gordon Wood, an award-winning historian at Brown University, said this about Donald Trump's thin grasp of American history: 

"You can’t explain where we are without having some sense of the past. The past created the present. What’s unusual is not unique about Trump — he’s just spouting off the top of his head, the way a guy in a bar room might talk. There are lots of people, maybe even educated people, who might think the way he does, but he’s president. He hasn’t learned the restraint that most presidents have. He’s throwing things off the top of his head.”

Speaking of historians, besides the Secretary of HUD, there were two historians at the "Conference on American History," Wilfred McClay and the Civil War historian Allen Guelzo. McClay wrote a US history textbook Land of Hope and one of the panelists, Theodor Rebarber, a staunch opponent of public education in general, and current K-12 curriculum in particular, argued that a new US history curriculum based on McClay's book should be mandated throughout the US. McClay, who is not unknown on FOX, and the New York Sun (a conservative publication that ceased existence in 2008) is someone who seems to be particularly offended by the seminal work of the (deceased) historian and political scientist Howard Zinn and seemingly anything produced by the (quite alive) historian David Brinkley. 

Land of Hope seems to be a linear narrative lacking critical analysis. A book that states in other words "it is what it is because I say it is." Or, as Michael Kazin explained, "[the textbook] sheds praise on the nation and its people without explaining why and how they accomplished the deeds he finds so worthy of tribute." 

Conservative publications praised the book, while mainstream publications and historians panned the book as an attempt to "making American history great again." A play on Trump's campaign slogan. The book was the "Conservative Book of the Year" award in 2020. 

Finally, McClay possibly did not write the book for the pure sake of history, but to try to counter a popular neo-Marxist history book by Howard Zinn called A People's History. Zinn's book examines US history, flaws and all, using the argument that a small elite have propelled US history at the expense of the masses. 

So, Trump wants a new US history curriculum, based on McClay's book (which seems to be a cheerleader for the far right's belief in a particular type of American exceptionalism). What would be new about this new look at US history?

Nothing.

"Make America Great Again" is not just Trump's election (and reelection) slogan. It's Trump's view on life in the US. A tactical retreat to a time when powerful, white men controlled the destiny (and government and the economy) of this country. It's an attempt to revive the Gilded Age. 

So much of Trump's administration has been a return to the Gilded Age: restricting non-white immigration, economic power in the hands of fewer and fewer, the abyss between the haves and have not growing, a shrinking middle class, the existence of overt racism, and a hands by government. Well, hands off unless a bunch of K-Pop loving Gen Z teenagers use a social media app to embarrass the president at one of his campaign rallies. 
This idea supported by Trump, was known as the Great Men Theory. That outdated, misogynistic, and racist way of ordering history advanced the idea that leaders of industry and politics rule history. That what the President had for breakfast matters more than what factory workers endured at a time without minimum wages, no OSHA, and no tough, smart Texas lawyers ready to sue to protect you rights. That was the Gilded Age. 

We are in a new Gilded Age and Donald Trump's new, patriotic US history curriculum is a tactical retreat to that time when America was "great again," as the slogan goes. Segregation? No Nineteenth Amendment? No Brown decision? No 1964 Civil Rights Act, 1965 Voting Rights Act, etc., etc., etc. 

Patriotism is not about the ability to recite dates, names of presidents, names of corporate leaders, and a focus on feel-good stories while ignoring the warts such as slavery, centuries of racism, women as second class citizens, and immigrants as disposable commodities. 
Patriotism is the knowledge of the linear narrative, how those events happened, why those events happened, the lessons learned, and the historical significance of those events, in context. History is the culmination of the words and deeds of individual people. People like you and me.

 
If Trump's vision comes to fruition, maybe Professor McClay's first lecture could be on the US Flag, to include the color of its stripes, and, the words to the National Anthem.

 

When Great Trees Fall

When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down

in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.

When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.

Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.

And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.

Maya Angelou

"May her memory be a blessing."

I have a hard time beginning, not knowing where to begin, to discuss the life of one of the most important people to equal rights in the last 100 years. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a member of the US Supreme Court since 1993, died last night at the age of 87 due to complications of pancreatic cancer.

She earned the nickname The Notorious RBG, a play on the rapper The Notorious B.I.G.

She had three strikes against her when she entered law school: she was Jewish, a woman, and had a child. People with those characteristics just were not in law school in the 1950s. And, upon graduating from Colombia, her career path was limited to teaching, which she did at Rutgers and Colombia.

She was a volunteer for the American Civil Liberties Union, where she argued several cases before the US Supreme Court on gender equality. Two of those cases involved extending the same rights to men as were already granted to women.  

Antonin Scalia was one of the most conservative judges on the US Supreme Court and RGB's best friend. From having dinner together to hunting together, their bond was strong. There was even n opera about their friendship. And when Justice Scalia died in 2016, Ginsburg said:

 "Toward the end of the opera Scalia/Ginsburg, tenor Scalia and soprano Ginsburg sing a duet: 'We are different, we are one,' different in our interpretation of written texts, one in our reverence for the Constitution and the institution we serve. From our years together at the D.C. Circuit, we were best buddies. We disagreed now and then, but when I wrote for the Court and received a Scalia dissent, the opinion ultimately released was notably better than my initial circulation. Justice Scalia nailed all the weak spots—the 'applesauce' and 'argle bargle'—and gave me just what I needed to strengthen the majority opinion. He was a jurist of captivating brilliance and wit, with a rare talent to make even the most sober judge laugh. The press referred to his 'energetic fervor,' 'astringent intellect,' 'peppery prose,' 'acumen,' and 'affability,' all apt descriptions. He was eminently quotable, his pungent opinions so clearly stated that his words never slipped from the reader’s grasp."

Upon RGB's death, Antonin Scalia's son Christopher Tweeted:

I'm very sad to hear about the passing of my parents' good friend, and my father's wonderful colleague, Justice Ginsburg. May her memory be a blessing. I'd like to share a couple of passages that convey what she meant to my dad.../3

This is from a roast he delivered for her 10th anniversary on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. They'd been colleagues on that court until he went to the Supreme Court; she hadn't joined him there yet—and he missed her.

This is a story that Judge Jeffrey Sutton shares about an encounter late in my dad's life, when he bought his friend Ruth two dozen roses for her birthday. "Some things in life are more important than votes."

Their friendship was not unusual for their time, but unusual for our time of extreme partisanship.

2020 has been a terrible year: 200,000 souls lost to that virus, we lost the civil rights icon John Lewis and the beautiful soul Chadwick Boseman, and now the death of RGB.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on the eve of Rosh Hashanah. According to Jewish belief, those who died at that time were the most precious, the most important and thus God kept them on Earth as long as possible. 

A mourner at the Supreme Court building, 9/18

Back to Square One?

My son started second grade yesterday. Actually, he started second grade two weeks ago. Our school district started with everyone online, and then slowly bringing students, by grade, to campus. He loved his teachers but hated the online environment. At seven, he was too young to maneuver from page to page, from URL to URL, from assignment to lectura (he's in a Spanish immersion program). And so either my wife or I had to be there, assisting him. He wanted to do it himself but needed our help, which only made him frustrated, anxious, and angry. 

The other problem with online learning for my son, was the Spanish immersion program he is in. Yu cannot be immersed in a foreign language over the internet. When together, as a class, the non-Spanish speaking students learned in part by taking cues from the Spanish speaking students. When the teacher asked everyone to "levantate" the non-Spanish speaking kids learn that 'levantate" means to stand up because they saw their Spanish speaking classmates stand up. He needed to get back to school. But, he loved his teachers.

When we told him he was going back to school, that he would be with his friends again, and could take real music and art classes, he threw a fit because he would also be getting new teachers, and he loved his online teachers.

He survived the first day, begrudgingly. We are waiting for the other shoe to drop -and that being the first case(s) of COVID. How long until the school reports its first cases? 

Every state has reported an uptick in positive cases once colleges opened for the Fall semester. Some schools quarantined the positive or suspected students, others shut the campuses down for two weeks, and other schools just called it a day and went to 100% online classes. Some schools never reopened their on campus offerings and others, such as Iowa State University, continued to hold on campus classes as the number of infected students rose and rose and rose until ISU had more COVID cases than any other school.

So what's going to happen at HISD? The largest K-12 district in the area. They will not return to classes until October, and then what's going to happen? 

And what about HCC? We are slated to move those on campus classes from online to onsite. But what about those who are immune suppressed? What about those with child care problems? What about those with severe anxiety or other emotional disorders? How will the transition be for those groups? 

Actually, will there be a transition? I mean, what if HCC decides to push back the start date from online to onsite, or just outright cancels all on campus classes? How will the on campus students adjust to the world of Distance Education? How will I have to change or what will I have to do to help those on campus students in their transition to 100% DE students? [That's what happened less than 24 hours after I posted this.]

There are major differences between on campus and online learning. The skill set needed to succeed in an online setting are different from the skill set needed to succeed in an on campus setting. Just the mindset alone needs an adjustment, attitudes about learning need to be tweaked, and maybe even feathers will need to be smoothed out. There could be anxiety issues with remaining as online students when they didn't sign up to be online students. Of course, that's what happened in the Spring. Remember?

BTW, most of the West coast is ablaze. Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, San Francisco, and all points in between seem to be either on fire or covered in a thick layer of pick (the color of the retardant). Sally is about to slam into Louisiana or Mississippi as a Cat-2 storm. There are four other named storms churning in the Atlantic and we've exhausted the list of hurricane names. It's only mid-September -the height of the hurricane season. Now we start using the Greek alphabet, so the next named storm will be Alpha, then Beta, Gamma, Delta, etc.  Anyone wish to argue that climate change is not real? I mean, besides Donald Trump who blamed the state of California for mismanagement of the forests even though nearly 60% is owned by the federal government. Only 3% is owned by the state. The other day Trump said it's going to get cooler, "you just watch."

Leland Melvin: NFL Player and NASA Astronaut

Leland Melvin graduated from college in 1986. He was drafted by the Detroit Lions. He also played with the Dallas Cowboys. 

After a three-year NFL career he went to work for NASA. In 1998 he became an astronaut and flew on two space shuttle missions to the International Space Station: STS 122 and STS 129. He then became the associate administrator of NASA's Office of Education until he retired from NASA in 2014. 

Listen to how Leland Melvin describes race relations and social justice. 

October Can't Come Soon Enough

So it sounded like Donald Trump has, repeatedly, told his followers to vote twice. More police officers were charged with killing black men, such as Daniel Prude. An article in The Atlantic reports that the Commander in Chief didn't know who the US fought with in World War I, didn't know why anyone would join the US military, referred to those who did as "suckers," allegedly referred to military members who died as "losers" and refused to visit a WWI US cemetery in France fearing the bad weather would mess up his hair. There's a new doctor in charge of the White House's COVID response. His name is Scott Atlas and his specialty is radiology. Yes, like MRI and CAT scans. He has no background in infectious diseases. He does have a background on speaking negatively about wearing masks and social distancing on the FOX network. He thinks people should catch the virus, get sick. Get immune (if they survive). It's called "herd immunity."And those are just a few things that have happened in the last 72 hours.

This is the end of week 2 of the 100% online (to date) Fall semester. Smooth as a baby's bottom. No hiccups. Of course, I've been offering classes online since 2006 so this isn't new to me. New, however, and unanticipated nonetheless, to many of my on-campus students who suddenly find themselves as online students. The plan was to start the semester 100% online, then move back to campus the week of October 4th, provided the numbers are down.

The numbers are down because testing is down, yet the fatalities are rising. Locally and nationally. There are 1,411 deaths as of September 4th in Houston and 188,000 deaths in the US. By the way, Trump did call for Obama to resign during the Ebola pandemic. Three Americans died during that pandemic. 3.

 

My on-campus students cannot wait for October. Neither can I. I have three on-campus classes. In those three classes 100% of the students have voiced their desire to return to the classroom. The problem, however, is that only nine (9) students will be allowed to attend class. The rest will have to log in. Not unlike what they are doing now but instead of me doing my shtick at home, I will be in the limelight in my classroom. And then, in a method that has yet to be determined, those who were online would be able to be in person the next time we meet. The on-campus classes are limited to 18 students, and as the rooms will be limited to nine students, then it makes sense that half of the class will be in person on the first day we meet and the other half will be in person the second day we meet. 

Of course, life is not that simple. There will be times in which students are sick, have to work, take their kids to appointments, and for whatever reason miss "their turn" at coming to campus. So what will be the procedure then? The college is hammering out all of that and will announce the procedure soon, I presume, in order to allow everyone time to adjust to the new order of doing things. If all goes according to plan, we will return to campus four weeks from this Monday -Labor Day.

Monday, September 8th is Labor Day.  Enjoy your long weekend. Keep social distancing. Mask up! 

Labor Day Parade, New York City, 1882

One Strange Trip

This Summer has been one strange trip. The only thing that remained the same was that all of my Summer classes were offered online. I rarely teach on-campus classes over the Summer. 

I wore a mask whenever I left the house, except to exercise around the neighborhood. I even work a mask (with a charcoal PM 2.5 insert) when I went to the gym once they reopened. I wore that mask while I exercised: 60 minutes on the elliptical machine and 30 minutes on the treadmill. I wore that mask when I went to HEB. I did not go to the mall or any other place, except to my barber, once over these last five months. Only 1 person allowed in the shop at a time. The barber wore a mask and so did I. Neither my wife nor my son left the house, except to exercise around the neighborhood. Except, my wife volunteered to be the Treasurer for our son's school's PTA so right before the Fall semester began she went to the school for some training and to hand out school supplies. 

My wife and I were going to share my home office, but our son needed my PC for his summer school work (primarily math and Spanish) so I took my lap top and worked off the kitchen table over the Summer. He is starting the second grade. We did not want him to lose his math knowledge nor his Spanish. He is in a dual language Spanish program so he spent time each day working on math and Spanish. 

He couldn't go to the YMCA summer camp he was accustomed to attending, so I hosted "Dad Camp: COVID 19, 2020." He got a new bike, a basketball hoop, a slip-n-slide, water guns; he planted cucumbers, taught him to tie his shoes, tell time, and wrestle. It was a good camp. Different from the Y, but good. He even got a t-shirt. He was very concerned about that -at the YMCA he always got a t-shirt. 

I spent the entire Summer working on just one chapter of the OER textbook, Our Story. It's the chapter on New Deal culture. I just could not make it work. I would add a few pages, then edit it, then add some new content, then try to figure out an overarching theme to connect the new material. Just a mess. I did not finish the chapter. I've never written so little in so much time. 

But the true weirdness is the rise of QAnon. QAnon is a conspiracy that purports the existence of a "deep state" of satanic, pedophile, cannibals jonesing to remove Trump from the White House. And, that Donald Trump was placed in the presidency by God in order to fetter out those satanic, pedophile, cannibals from around the world, not just the "Deep State." The FBI has identified QAnon as a potential domestic terrorist organization. In August, Donald Trump was asked about QAnon. He said he didn't know much about them, but that he "appreciate[s]" the conspiracy theorists support.

QAnon is not some fringe Reddit group. In 2020 there are at least a dozen Republicans linked to QAnon running for Congress. And while some establishment Republicans have come out against the conspiracy theorists, most Republicans have remained silent.

Donald Trump was impeached for two crimes. The Senate, which refused to hear evidence and allow witnesses, vote to acquit Trump. Turns out Donald Trump and his 2016 presidential campaign was indeed in bed with the Russians. I'll turn this next section over to the historian Heather Cox Richardson in a Facebook post dated August 19th, 2020:

"Yesterday’s Senate Intelligence Report on connections between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russian operatives is beginning to attract the media notice it deserves. Authored by a Republican-dominated committee, the report established that Konstantin Kilimnik, the longtime business associate of Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort, is a Russian intelligence officer. While chairing Trump’s campaign, Manafort both communicated often with Kilimnik in encrypted conversations and gave him sensitive internal polling data from the campaign. The report says Kilimnik may have been directly involved in the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails and handing the stolen files to Wikileaks. The report also establishes that Trump repeatedly discussed the Wikileaks document dumps with operative Roger Stone, then lied about those discussions with investigators.

Washington Post conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin today published an article titled “As it turns out, there really was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.” Norman Eisen, lawyer for the House impeachment managers, told her: “Collusion simply means Trump and those around him wrongly working together with Russia and its satellites, and the fact of that has long been apparent…. Indeed, it was clear to anyone with eyes from the moment Trump asked, ‘Russia, if you’re listening.’… The Senate report is a valuable contribution advancing our understanding, including explaining former Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort’s nexus to Russian intelligence. The report further elucidates our understanding of collusion via WikiLeaks, which acted as a Russian cut-out.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi focused not on 2016 but on the present, noting that “America’s intelligence and law enforcement communities have made clear that the Russian Government is continuing to wage a massive intervention campaign to benefit the President, warning of a ‘365-days-a-year threat’ to compromise the 2020 elections and undermine our democracy.” She noted that the very first thing the Democrats did when they took a majority in the House was to pass H.R. 1, the For the People Act, to secure our elections, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has refused to take the bill up."

Now, back to me.

And then the Postmaster General allegedly began dismantling the post office's ability to deliver mail-in ballots, as Donald Trump claimed, without evidence, that mail-in ballots are ripe for fraud. Interestingly enough, he and his wife vote by using mail-in ballots.

Did you see the Democrat National Convention? Themes of the convention included Joe Biden has empathy, morals, honesty, sympathy, strong family, strong supporter of the military, and gets strength from his Catholic background. Surely the DNC painted Biden as an opposite of Trump. Three ex-Presidents spoke on Biden's behalf, along with three ex-First Ladies. There were several Republicans, many retired members of the US military to include Senator (LTC) Tammy Duckworth a disabled vet of the Iraq War and Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a veteran of the Afghanistan war.

There were a lot of regular Americans as well giving testimony as to how and when Biden touched their lives. My personal favorite was the 13-year-old Brayden Harrington. Brayden spoke about his stuttering and how he met Joe Biden. Biden used to stutter when he was young. Biden reached out to Brayden one day and gave him some advice, as well as his cell phone number. I used to stutter when I was younger. More importantly, my 7-year-old son stutters. When Brayden spoke at the Convention, he got stuck on the "s" and "v", his face would contort as he tried to get the sounds out. My son also gets stuck on those two letters and makes the same facial expressions as he struggles to get the words out. I saw my son's future in Brayden. I was both proud and sad. Mostly proud. Brayden is one brave, eloquent young man.

A lot of other stuff happened this summer such as the price of food (especially eggs, dairy and meat) rose dramatically. We decided to keep our son home for the Fall semester. He will be learning online. I will be offering classes both online and on-campus. I am more than merely worried and anxious about being on-campus until a reliable vaccine is available. Oh, September 2nd (still officially in Summer) is our 20th wedding anniversary. So, I guess the news is not all bad. But, there is that tropical storm (Laura) that might affect us?

Here is my Yelp review of 2020 so far:

Trailer

 Here's a trailer I made (using iMovie) for my US History classes. 

Is it Still March?

How can it be August when just the other day the Mayor and County Judge shut down the Rodeo? I mean, its hotter and more humid so I'm guessing it's later in the year, but I cannot believe we have been in our house for five months now.

I did manage to get a haircut. That was exciting, scary, too. Only one person in the barbershop at a time. Both my barber and I wore masks and we didn't talk except to say "hello" and "goodbye." Otherwise I went to HEB twice a week. I did go to Baybrook Mall when the mandatory mask order was in place, but the Mall either cannot or will not enforce the order, although individual stores did. People walking around with their masks as chin guards, or not wearing masks at all. I'm not going to risk going back. Consumerism isn't worth it. Besides, there's Amazon and other online shopping to cure my conspicuous consumption needs. Etsy is fun. HeroForge for all my Dungeons and Dragons mini needs. 

My wife continued to work from home. I continued to work from home. We traded off using the office, while the other one took their laptop downstairs. Then our son Julius continued his Math and Spanish work through the school district's software programs in the morning, and then "Camp Dad" in the afternoon: basketball, swimming, Nerf gun fights, wrestling, climbing trees, physical stuff. 

The Summer semesters were a blur. Something due every week. Then grade like a whirlwind for two days to provide feedback in time for students to apply the feedback to the next assignment. 

We discovered Dots Pretzels. We didn't go anywhere. I worked over the summer and why would my wife take vacation just to stay home?  Hopefully once March is over, and there's a vaccine for the virus, we will take some time off and go camping and do some fishing. 

And that's what I didn't do on my Summer vacation.

What Frustrates You Most About Online Classes?

In the first week of the Summer semester, I asked my students what most frustrates them about online classes. A lack of communication was their number one issue, which included professors who were slow to respond to emails and unclear instructions in the syllabus. 

In two classes of 61 students, 33 responded to a discussion on the question "What Frustrates You Most About Online Classes?" Eighteen times students stated that communications were frustrating. But then students explained why communication was so important. For example, "communication within the classes can make or break your grade. If communication is done effectively it can also increase motivation. Being able to communicate with a professor and students in the class allows you to gain a different perspective on things and get questions answered. Without communication it makes it hard to turn in assignments on the proper dates and turn in the assignments that fit the criteria."

Poor communications can negatively effect students' grades. "There might be misunderst[andings] about the material that we wouldn’t find out until we did the assignment wrong." Another student noted a similar sentiment but adding that on face to face communication is superior to emails: "I believe that professors can get their point across clearer face-to-face, especially when it comes to how an assignment should look like. If there is any confusion, a student can easily raise their hand for more clarification. However, in an online classroom, the student could misinterpret what the assignment is and could receive a potential zero." All of this suggests that maybe there is a problem with the instructors not responding in a timely manner. As one student said, " The thing that frustrates me most about online class is the lag time in which I ask question and receive answers, if I receive an answer at all."

And students know when their professors are not ready for online teaching. "My professors' effectiveness dropped dramatically upon the change over to the online format." And another student said, " I think the most difficult part was unclear directions, but it was mostly because my teachers didn't know how to use Canvas." 

Some students missed the ability for group work or working in pairs. "[I]t is harder to discuss ideas with classmate for more inspirations. Discussing ideas virtually [with classmates]  feels different from face-to-face interaction. I agree that communication is different. My hope is that with the help of the Discussion section on Canvas, there can be more communication and something like a virtual community."

Students used the word "relationship" to discuss their status with their professor and classmates. In an online environment, students found it difficult to create relationships with those two groups. For example, "It's easier to build a relationship with people if you are able to interact with them face-to-face and it allows for a more open line of communication that is immediately versus waiting for the other person to receive the messages/ email and respond. It also allows students to interact with each other and get to know each other on a more personal level, which opens the lines of communication for the students to discuss topics, see things from each other's perspectives which ultimately helps with the assignments."

Some were unprepared for the shift to 100% online and thus saw the online class itself as an issue but not just the lack of the physical classroom itself, rather the issues resulting from not having those on-campus classes. Such as, "Not being able to work in a classroom/school setting [because]  there are more distractions at home." Another student commented, "the home distractions can definitely be frustrating. I've started setting time aside when everyone in the house is asleep, or if I have a slow night at work, I will work on schoolwork around 3am during my shift or as possible." 

Nevertheless there are distractions at home that do not exist on-campus and I too feel them such as the dog that needs to be talked, my seven-year-old who wants to show everyone his new kitten (instead of doing his Spanish homework) and Netflix. Students report the same distractions: pets, family members and television. 

There was a theme of the superiority of on campus classes versus on line classes for a myriad of reasons such as fewer distractions, office hours, the ability to speak with the professor before or after class, and the ability to get clarification during lectures. One student noted the dialogue angle:

"I believe that professors can get their point across clearer face-to-face, especially when it comes to how an assignment should look like. If there is any confusion, a student can easily raise their hand for more clarification. However, in an online classroom, the student could misinterpret what the assignment is and could receive a potential zero." 

Four students noted tech as the most frustrating aspect of online learning. "This is because the process of dealing with the issue is deceptively different from actually solving the issue. I believe that such issues can cause anxiety in students who are not very adept with technology yet are trying out a course that appears to offer more flexibility. Even if the student resolves the problem him or herself or with the help of technical support, much time is spent on something tedious instead of studying or preparing for an exam. That being said, I understand that this frustration might be felt on different levels or not at all--I can easily adapt to submitting work online. However, I empathize with students who may make a submission mistake such as including the wrong attachment. The logistics of managing technology and being a productive student may be a bit overwhelming for others." Then, stuff happens. I wonder how many students are prepared for interruptions with their internet service or computer issues?  One student simply reported, "I'm not completely comfortable with technology." 

One student noted the different skill set needed to succeed in the online environment: "Online classes require more self-discipline to stay motivated and keep up with assignments. It requires a lot of checking emails, messages, and announcements. Staying focused can sometimes be a struggle. Knowing what the syllabus says becomes more important than ever when taking online classes."

Overwhelmingly, the students who engaged in this discussion seemed to be taking online classes only because that was the only option. Their collective sentiment was summed up by one of their classmates. "I am definitely looking forward to having in-person classes again in the near future."