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We've been looking at some of our American heroes and finding flaws. Jefferson, who promised his dying wife he'd never remarry made a young slave his concubine. Was he aÌývictim of the time? Our children all understand that classic excuse for bad action, "Well, everyone else was doing it." But some Americans got it right and, mostly, they have been eliminated from our history books. ÌýA History of US has tried to include some of them. ÌýRead about William Johnson who married a Native American woman and treated her publicly asÌýhis wife (she happened to be amazing). Johnson was a key figure in his time. He won a major battle during the French and Indian War. You could argue that there mgiht not be a United States if that battle had been lost. So why isn't he in most books? Read his story on page 25 of "From Colonies to Country" and answer that for yourself.

AÌývery rich Virginian, a contemporary of Jefferson and Washington,freed all his slaves because his beleif in God told him to do so--andÌýgot written out of most history books. You can read about him on page 142 in "The New Nation."

I was a beginning teacher in a very old inner-city Baltimore school.
One day, wandering in the school's basement, I pushed an unlocked door and saw books, mountains of books, that may have been undisturbed for decades. After blowing dust from a stack of old readers I lugged them to my classroom. I suggested that my students pretend to be time explorers. "Let's try these books and see what school was like for your grandparents," I said, not knowing how they would respond. They began reading.
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One of the stories was John Ruskin's 'King of the Golden River." First published in 1841 in England it became a Victorian classic. It's a tale of good and evil on a mountain where amazing things happen. (To reassure you: good wins out.) The author used very big words; the characters were outrageous. The tale seemed to come from another world, which we all thought appropriate for a make believe story. My students loved it.
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After that I discarded our reading text and made copies of some of my favorite reading fare. We read (and loved) T.S. Eliot's poems about cats; all agreeing that Macavity the Mystery Catwas the best of the litter. We never went back to the assigned commercial reading text. The basement books and library books (chosen individually and shared) kept us occupied. A supervisor encouraged: she was happy to have us reading and writing. We wrote stories and published a class literary journal that was placed in the library. We were proud.

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Schools like to have authors talk to their students and, as someone who writes books for the ten and up crowd, I often oblige. So there I was in a well-regarded Montgomery County school, talking to bright middle schoolers, when I asked a question.
'What is gravity?" I asked.
The answer was immediate and in unison, 'It's a force."
I gasped. We've known for 100 years that gravity is nota force.
Before that we were wed to Isaac Newton's gravity.Ìý Newton not only said that gravity is a force that acts at a distance and instantaneously, he gave us an easy formula to measure gravity. That formula works…at Earth speeds and in most instances we encounter here on Earth. But Newton knew he didn't have it right. In a letter he sent to the Reverend Richard Bentley, he called gravity an "absurdity" and asked that Bentley "not ascribe gravity to me."
In his words: "That gravity should be innate inherent &Ìý{essential}Ìýto matter so that one body may act upon another at aÌýdistance through a vacuum without the mediation of anything elseÌýby â€� which their action or forceÌý{may}Ìýbe conveyed from oneÌýto another is to me so great an absurdity that I believe no manÌýwho has in philosophical matters any competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it." Umm, really? That was Isaac Newton?
Yes, there was a problem with gravity that Newton couldn't figure out. Nor could the amazing Galileo. All objects in a gravitational field fall at the same rate. Can that be explained? Yes. Albert Einstein managed that 100 years ago when he came up with General Relativity, which is a theory of gravity. Not an easy one. An explanation usually starts with a stretched rubber sheet dented by a bowling ball. The sheet is time and space (or four-dimensional spacetime). The sun is the bowling ball. Gravity is a response to the dent. (Roll a marble on the dented sheet, where does it go and why?)
Can this be explained to middle schoolers? My experience tells me yes, but teachers need to understand the science first.Ìý And, mostly, we've taken the easy route in science education. The new national science standards don't even try, they call gravity a "force."
I came home from my classroom experience and made some calls. I found that some schools in the DC area get it right. The ones I found were independent schools. As a believer in the importance of public school that was disturbing.
I looked at the NGSS. There was gravity—as a force.
I talked to a science teacher with impressive credentials about the new science standards. She said she has seen many new science teaching efforts. "They get a lot of hype, but never seem to lead to real change."
Juliana Texley, a former NSTA president, and my personal candidate for "best educator of the century" says the new standards are an improvement over what we had, which I didn't read as passionate enthusiasm.
A master California teacher told me the same thing.
But David Evans, the very personable chief of NSTA, was passionate when discussing the new standards. He sees them revitalizing science instruction. NSTA has already produced manuals and books aligned to the standards. So have the major textbook companies and others who will cash in on the change of standards.
What's to do? Maybe it is time for the scientific community to pay more attention to what and how we teach science in our schools. Right now we do a pretty good job of providing skills for future scientists. As for science's big ideas and its big stories? Mostly, aside from our scientists, we have an educated population that is scientifically illiterate. The NGSS may help a bit, but mostly it is the same approach to science instruction wearing a new dress. Ask your neighbor, or yourself, "Why isn't gravity a force and if you don't know, you might want to watch the PBS special narrated by Brian Greene on gravity and special relativity.
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Narrative non-fiction (that means stories about real people and real events) is the reading form of our time. This is theÌýinformation age. Non-fiction is what we adults choose to read most often. We all loveÌýa good novel once in a while, but Ìýnonfiction is reality. So why, after 3nd grade, do we continue to mostly teach reading with make believe stories? Real stories, about real people are what grip middle school children and all of us. SomeÌýfirst graders really believe rabbits can talk (an innocence to be cherished), but the 10 year olds that I know are amazingly well-informed--andÌýinterested in the real world and its stories.

In a classroom test, where AHistoryofUS replaced the reading text, reading scores rose 10% and more.

Here's a link to Jay Matthew's WashPost article on my work in history and science.

The point of the article: NGSS (the new science standards) are a step forward, but they aren't enough. We need to tell our kids science's stories.

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Michael Dirda, who is just about everyone's favorite book critic, cites "The Story of Science" and "A History of US" in a Christmas book list published in the Washington Post on November 29th. It'sÌýa great list that includes books you may not know; if Dirda recommends them they are worth pursuing. One that sounds especially intriguing is "The Writer's Map: An Atlas of Imaginary Lands" Ìýwith essays by Philip Pullman and others. Another is "For the Sake of the Game: Stories Inspired by the Sherlock Holmes Canon," editd by Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger. I'm awed to be in this exciting company. Dirda calls "The Story of Science" an exhilerating three-volume survey...

A notice from a Denver Jewish organization:

Beginning on Monday, November 5, the Entrance Ìýwill remain locked throughout the day and will not be accessible, even to those who ordinarily enter using their FOB. You will need to enter the building via the Main EntranceÌý...

In addition, beginning on Monday, we will have a security guard present with our precious children during their playtime on the front playground.

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How and whyÌýhave we allowed American gun zealots to turn us into an armed state and threaten "our precious children" and all of us?

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A notice from a Denver Jewish organization:

Beginning on Monday, November 5, the Entrance Ìýwill remain locked throughout the day and will not be accessible, even to those who ordinarily enter using their FOB. You will need to enter the building via the Main EntranceÌý...

In addition, beginning on Monday, we will have a security guard present with our precious children during their playtime on the front playground.

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How and whyÌýhave we allowed American gun zealots to turn us into an armed state and threaten "our precious children" and all of us?

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"The following statement is not a joke: Many writing classes discourage much writing. The nonprofit Education Trust found that only 9Ìýpercent of 1,876 literacy assignments in six urban middle schools asked students to write more than a single paragraph."

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Matthew writes of Will Fitzhugh, who publishes the Concord Review, all written by high school students, and who says this, "Sadly, English teachers don't have time to handle lengthy researched essays. They cringe at what Fitzhugh calls his Page Per Year Plan: a five-page paper in fifth grade, adding a page each year until everyone does a 12-page paper in 12th grade. He wants students to address issues they have read about, maybe even tackling a nonfiction book or two, very rare in schools."

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My experience tells me that writing in schools often means writing about "your inner feelings," or writing fiction. That's tough for most kids. Writing narrative nonfiction is a whole lot easier and it teaches important research skills. Besides, narrative nonficiton is the art form of our information-centered times.

A 1499 map of the new world turned up recently in a rolled-up parchment in the UK's National Archives. Included were details on a reward William Weston received from King Henry VII for drawing the map. That was in 1500, just a year after England sent its first British-led expedition to "Terra Nova" (the so-called New World).

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TheÌýreward (30 British pounds sterling) was hefty. ÌýWilliam Weston was a Bristol merchant who traveled on the 1499 voyage. ÌýThat sum of money was the equivalent of about six years' salary for a laborer. King Henry VII must have been pleased. The map would help with later British claims to discovery of the New World.

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In 2018 explorers at the National Archive discovered theÌýparchment detailing Weston's payment. They had to useÌýultraviolet light to see what the text said.