April 16

I think the simulation was a good idea, but it could have been executed better. It is a very large room, so it makes it difficult for everyone to see everything. Maybe if the students who represented West Berlin had stood up it would have been more effective. Also, I accidentally cut the rope that symbolizes the Berlin Airlift too short so that might have made it more difficult to see.

They seemed to really like the story about the Candy Bomber. Concrete stories seem to work really well with them, so I have been reading snippets from speeches and stories. I know that real life stories are easier to relate to but since I do not have the benefit of living through this era I find that it is best to use others’ stories or speeches.

I was surprised at how much the students remembered from Friday’s class.

The way the class is set up (as in the routines) makes it very difficult to get a lot of teaching in. A good twenty minutes or so in the beginning of class is used for a grammar exercise and the accompanying discussion. So when we had the 23 minute video it made my teaching time mush shorter. It is very frustrating.

Dr. Seuss’ Butter Battle Book is a great video to show for this era. I had never seen it before, but it was well placed. It really shows the severity of the arms race, and now the students have a concrete idea to think of when they remember this time in history.