Dr. J. Franklin Williamson

Yes, we’re trying to go as low-tech as possible. Which makes CB’s decision to make all AP exams digital more frustrating, because I feel like I have to balance low-tech with typing practice.

Also: they don’t like writing and try to avoid doing it. Or maybe they write amazing essays for practice/homework but have trouble in a timed, in-class/test setting

“Engines sold separately” is like incompetent grown-up version of “batteries not included.”

Which better symbolizes resistance: inflatable Halloween costume or foot long sub sandwich?

I had a POLS professor in college (20+ years ago) say nearly the same thing about North Korea and its approach to communicating and interacting with the rest of the world.

How is this not copyright infringement? Serious question.

Also: dialogic vs. consumption-oriented education. Many students are trained to just write down/ memorize “the right answer” so that’s what videos give them.

Might be okay sometimes but frustrating for humanities and social sciences, when there’s multiple ways to find or justify a good answer.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that Lincoln asked McClellan if he (Lincoln) could borrow the Army of the Potomac, as long as McClellan wasn’t using it for anything

Also: if you are the person in charge, you can’t call your own actions a protest against anything

So the idea that the Rs who lost their minds about Confederate statues in 2015 are not saying much about the White House in 2025 tells us less about American History and more about the contemporary Republican Party. 5/5

In other words, monumental architecture does not control how the public interprets the past unless the public agrees to go along with what the architecture suggests. 4/x

However, buildings and monuments do tell us a lot about the people who built (or restored, or demolished) them, and what version of history those builders (or restorers, or demolishes) want the public to have in mind. 3/x

As an historian of collective memory, I can confidently say that this assertion was incorrect then and still would be now: buildings and monuments are not, themselves, the sole way to access and understand the past. 2/x

So back in 2015, Rs lost their minds over Confederate statues coming down because such a move, they said, “erases history.” 1/x

Kinda the whole PR strategy for this regime, it seems.

Also probably not hot “fast” but definitely “hot” incendiary.

Hot take but not wrong: AI is “…for first-world elites who have given up on thinking themselves.”

Also how carnival barkers operate. Go figure

This is basically the way right-wing talk radio works: the host has “brilliance” that “nobody” recognizes and so the host demands callers try to debate, just so that the host can belittle them and show intellectual “dominance.”

Please, let’s hear about the War of 1812. It’s one of my favorites.

On a much-needed lighter note, I was helping my 8th grader with a GA History activity that included primary sources, and she complained about the language of 18th-century authors, because they “talk like old people,” with all their “thee” and “thou” business.

Yeah, not sure they’re gonna want to come back

Dude

I am so sorry to read this. Hope you and your family are able to enjoy memories of the good times y’all had together.

Uh, do you think DHS knows that there were Indigenous peoples in North America before the white people (“aliens,” if you will) arrived (“invaded”). If they had a Time Machine, would DHS be working to stop Manifest Destiny?

Change last sentence to, “But why does the US still have a problem with left-wing bias in its media?”

Also, I think we can’t fully separate late night TV from the more general decline of live TV and the rise of streaming. I don’t know the numbers but I mostly catch everything on DVR or online at a later date, except sports. Still sucks to see Colbert cancelled though.

Yes, phones and social media are a problem but also the myopic embrace of all things technology to use for instruction is also a problem. These kids can’t curl up with a good book even if they wanted to because many of them just don’t encounter books in their everyday life.

Nothing longer than 3-4 pages because that means 300-400 pages of paper I have run through the copier. Each. Day. (Which is bananas.)

Fast-forward to now and I am teaching in high schools where there are almost no textbooks in use outside of AP courses, and the most I can do is print a few pages for each student to read and use to complete an in-class activity each day.