history – Page 9 – Montessori Muddle

Gay marriage and civil rights

World homosexuality laws (from Wikimedia Commons).

Gay marriage is one of those current issues that allows for a fascinating perspective on civil and human rights. Although in many parts of the US racial discrimination and prejudice are still alive and pertinent, the issue has been decided; arguing for racial discrimination has no place in government policy and in the vast majority of society. The right of gay people to marry, however, still splits the country.

Terry Gross’ NPR interview with reporter Margaret Talbot is an excellent introduction to the topic based around the court case being argued in California right now. It starts with a discussion of fact that one of the lawyers arguing for marriage rights is a conservative, while the other is a liberal. This fact allows for a discussion that is much broader than a simple left-right political argument.

The interview also goes in to the role of the supreme court and its interpretation of the constitution in assuring civil rights for minorities. Loving vs. Virginia, the case striking down bans on interracial marriage, is a precedence that is key to the arguments of supporters of gay marriage.

Gross and Talbot also talk about the “orginialist” position that many conservatives take, where the Supreme Court must interpret the Constitution based on what the people who wrote it believed rather than allowing for the changes that have occurred over the past two centuries.

It’s a fascinating interview, that delves into a number of topics relating to government, courts and human rights, and uses intelligent, challenging, but not impossible language. Our next immersion trip deals with civil rights, and I plan on playing this podcast on the drive to our camping site. I suspect the students may not be too happy about this, but if it puts them to sleep, at least they’ll be well rested when we get to our destination.

Best science fiction? (without John Wyndham and The Chrysalids?)

triffid_nebula — Triffid nebula (from NASA).

I discovered science fiction in my early teens but it was always hard to find the great stories in the midst of a lot of drivel. This list of 100 good science fiction and fantasy books seems to be a good start. Most of the books on the list are worthy, but it completely misses John Wyndham (The Chrysalids among others) and Brian Stableford (e.g. War Games). There are also a few that bored me to tears (Bradley’s Avalon) and some that I did not think were very well written (Crichton’s Sphere).

I like science fiction because it tends to deal with some of the big issues that adolescents are facing. Who am I, what’s the future going to be like, what does it mean to be human, what’s my place in society, and of course, wouldn’t it be nice it everyone just disappeared and I had the world all to myself? You also get to tie it in to the Natural World and Social World curriculum.

The Chrysalids is a great example. A post-apocalyptic novel, it looks at, among other things, institutional discrimination, the conflict between science and religion, and evolutionary theory (with it’s darker side eugenics). Wyndham addresses these issues with interesting characters and wonderful, intelligent storytelling (with a heroic journey). I’ve used this book as part of the life sciences curriculum for the tie-in to evolution, and to the history of the Cold War. But I also bring it up when we discuss human rights and discrimination.

The Galilean moons of Jupiter

Io over Jupiter taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

400 years ago, on January 7th, Galileo Galilei made his first observations of Jupiter. You can see his notes below. The big circle is Jupiter and the small dots are the specks of light he observed adjacent to the planet. Later observations showed that the specks did not stay in the same place, and lead him to realize that he was seeing moons orbiting the planet.

Galileo_Journal — Galileo's notes from Jan 7, 1610.

Galileo_Transcript — Translation of Galileo's notes (from NASA).

Galileo used a 33x telescope, which is pretty weak by modern standards, in fact you should be able to see Jupiter and it’s moons with a good pair of binoculars. Since the Catholic church at the time preferred the view that the Earth was the center of the universe, when Galileo published his observation he got into a bit of trouble. In his publication Galileo wrote:

On the 7th day of January in the present year, 1610, in the first hour of the following night, when I was viewing the constellations of the heavons through a telescope, the planet Jupiter presented itself to my view, and as I had prepared for myself a very excellent instrument, I noticed a circumstance which I had never been able to notice before, namely that three little stars, small but very bright, were near the planet; and although I believed them to belong to a number of the fixed stars, yet they made me somewhat wonder, because they seemed to be arranged exactly in a straight line, parallel to the ecliptic, and to be brighter than the rest of the stars, equal to them in magnitude . . .When on January 8th, led by some fatality, I turned again to look at the same part of the heavens, I found a very different state of things, for there were three little stars all west of Jupiter, and nearer together than on the previous night.

The above quote comes NASA’s page on the discovery of the Galilean satellites (for a full translation of the entire document go to: The Starry Messenger). The NASA page also has another neat quote, from Simon Marius describing how the moons got their names:

Jupiter is much blamed by the poets on account of his irregular loves. Three maidens are especially mentioned as having been clandestinely courted by Jupiter with success. Io, daughter of the River, Inachus, Callisto of Lycaon, Europa of Agenor. Then there was Ganymede, the handsome son of King Tros, whom Jupiter, having taken the form of an eagle, transported to heaven on his back …

For perspective, the image below, of Io’s surface, was taken by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft. Click on the image to get to the high resolution version.

The Galileo Mission website is a great resource about the mission to Jupiter and about Galileo Galilei himself. You can also find out what NASA’s up to with respect to Jupiter here.

Uganda and the human rights of gays

These last few weeks we’ve been talking about human rights, and today I heard a poignant article on NPR about the anti-homosexual bill being debated in Uganda. It touches on so many of the rights issues we’ve been discussing in class and more. Incitement by American evangelical pastors, whose invective against homosexuality is subsumed by the more tolerant US culture, can sow viscous seeds of hatred in a less liberal society. The Ugandan law being debated would increase the institutionalized discrimination to the point of including execution for gays and prison sentences for people who do not inform on them.

But the article also addresses Ugandans’ instinctive animosity against colonialism. Since homophobia has taken an important place in the Christian mythology of Uganda (in 1886 two dozen Christian palace pages were executed for not engaging in homosexual acts with the king). When foreigners (NGO’s and liberal governments) say homophobia is a violation of peoples’ human rights, the Christian Ugandan proponents of the bill claim cultural imperialism and colonialism. Note the phrase “Christian Ugandan” and consider the irony.

As an added bonus, there’s also Rick Warren, the American mega-church pastor, quoting Edmond Burke, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing” in his late-in-coming but nice to hear condemnation of the bill. It raises the question of moral conflict, as sincere opponents of gay rights see their works taken to their scary extreme.

Adolescents often need help to realize that words have power, sometimes much more than you realize.

Though it’s not emphasized, the article also has a lesson on checks and balances in a democratic government; the Ugandan president now opposes the bill. It also teaches about international relations and the power of diplomacy. Sweden has said it will cut international aid to Uganda and the issue is overtaking other international issues. The BBC article on the topic has a great quote from President Museveni:

“The prime minister of Canada came to see me and what was he talking about? Gays,” he said.

“[UK] Prime Minister Gordon Brown came to see me and what was he talking about? Gays.

“Mrs Clinton [the US secretary of state] rang me. What was she talking about? Gays.”

Geometry and the height of the mountains on the moon

Galileo's image of the moon — Galileo's map of the moon.

Galileo Galilei matched careful observation of sunlight and shadows on the moon, with some beautiful geometry to estimate the height of lunar mountains, in 1609. He needed the Pythagoras’ Theorem and the quadratic formula, both of which middle school students should be familiar. Larry Phillips has a nice post describing how Galileo did the math. The image below (from Pioneers of Science shows how to get started.

Mountain height on the moon. — From the Gutenberg Project eBook of Pioneers of Science by Oliver Lodge.

A sailing game that explores the trans-Atlantic triangular trade

Wind patterns over the North Atlantic Ocean had a huge effect on the colonization and history of the Americas because, after all, all they had were sailing ships. The circular, clockwise winds meant that it was easiest to sail south and west from Europe, and when you did, the first place you arrived at in the New World was the Caribbean or the northern edge of South America. This helps explains the first settlements of the Portuguese and Spanish, and why the latecomers, like the British, ended up further north up the coast of North America.

Using wind data from the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) and Google Maps I created an online sailing game I call Mariner AO. The game is pretty simple (basic instructions are here), you tell your ship which direction to go, starting off near Lisbon in Portugal and sail the Atlantic. What makes it interesting is that you can go wherever you like and make your own objectives. All that limits where you can go is the fact that you can only sail within 90 degrees of the wind. It’s very Montessori in that you have choice within limits.

The game is most interesting, I think, if you set objectives like trying to sail the triangular trade route, Europe (Portugal) to Africa (Dakar) to America (Charleston) and back to Europe again. The general clockwise wind pattern is persistent throughout the year, but sometimes you need to wait until the wind changes to be able to reach your objective.

Alistair Boddy-Evans has a nice article on the triangular trade of European manufactured goods to Africa, African slaves to the Americas, and plantation crops back to Europe.

I really like this game because it integrates so much. Atmospheric circulation, slavery, colonization, and even the physics of sailing if you can and want to get into it. In fact, I think it’s enough to base an entire cycle of work around. I’m still taking comments about how to improve the game.