Dear Parents,
We are now 3/4 of the way through Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. We have been focusing on Jim Crow laws in the southern part of the United States that were used to disenfranchise African-Americans. I’ve been emphasizing the suppression of black votes in the 1930’s as it remains a relevant issue today. We have also completed painting our scenes of the novel which will be permanently displayed in the corridor leading to our classroom.
We’ve also been following the presidential election closely, using polling information from a variety of sources including Real Clear Politics, 538 and Rasmussen Reports. After digesting all of the polling information available to us, we predicted on Monday that Joe Biden would win the election with the following Electoral College totals:
Biden – 349
Trump – 189
As things stand today, we do not yet know where we stand. We did watch a video Friday morning in an attempt to sort things out from DW News. I used DW News because it emanates from a foreign country (Germany) that has no clear stake in our election. I find that the three major news networks, Fox, CNN and MSNBC demonstrate some degree of bias (either left or right) in their reporting. Here is a link to the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUYKkBesHfU
We’ve also begun studying the Civil War. I believe it is important that we understand the American Civil War if we are to better understand To Kill a Mockingbird in that it provides context for explaining the type of virulent racism that permeated the deep south following the war. I believe it is also important that we understand that slavery was what many call America’s original sin in that when we formed this nation we permitted white human beings to own black human beings while concurrently declaring that all men are created equal and how the ramifications of that decision are still felt in our society today.
In Math we worked on percent all week. We began by learning how to tip a waitress 20% and continued by determining the percentage of males in our class to females. Next week, we will expand upon with percentages and move on to ratios.
In Science, we looked into the causes and effects of the wildfires that devastated the state of California earlier this year. We also looked at a device called a “smart ring” that helped keep NBA players safe as they finished a season suspended by the Covid-19 virus. We also investigated how animals seem to practice their own version of democracy in the wild.
Take care and have a stress-free weekend.
Dr. Michael