Brittani M. Wilton's Teaching Portfolio

This past weekend I went to Chicago. While visiting I was able to go to the Field Museum. While in the museum thee was a special exhibit going on about natural disasters. This is the link to the description if you are intrested http://www.fieldmuseum.org/exhibits/nature_tempexhib.htm. When I was walking through the exhibet the section on tornadoes really caught my attention. It focused on Greensburg. Walking through the exhibit there were letters from children about their feelings that day, pieces of debris, and scientific demonstrations to how tornadoes work. The most intresting thing for me in this experience was the reactions I heard from other people walking around. At one point in the exhibit there was a 360 degree screen room that gave you the feeling that you were in a tornado. While in there people were saying things like, “Why would anyone want to live in Kansas”, and  ”People are stupid for living in tornado ally”. These comments made me angry. I feel that Kansas gets a bad name for itself from it’s weather patterns. People think that the entire state is hit by tornadoes often, where they are really just assuming.

Around the exibet there were images like this one:

Next to the images there were actual pieces of the debris. One piece that really caught my attention was a street light with a tiny piece of wood speared through the metal. 90% of the town was destroyed in this disaster. My question is although press of the event helps bring aid to the town, is it really good for Kansas. Many time the only press you hear about Kansas is  bad press, therefore giving us a bad name.

This article out of the Topeka Capital-Journal outlines the issues of segregation that still exist in society today, well at least in 1986 when this article was written. The article highlights one of the plaintiffs in the Brown v. Board trial and how she has dealt with segregation and the issues surrounding it, and also how she is dealing with segregation in the ‘80s with her own children.

            After reading this article it got me to thinking about today’s school system. District lines are often drawn by neighborhood and rarely go outside a conjoined area of housing developments. When this happens there is a tendency to have many children from the same socio-economic, racial, and ethnic backgrounds in one school district because many times people live around people they can relate to or homes they can afford. Although there may not be strict regulations on how to draw district lines for segregation, it does create it in varying forms. Many times lines are drawn in order to bring in the most tax money for the school, thus keeping some of the higher income families out of certain schools, and grouping them together. I believe that this is in fact a form of segregation. The schools that do not have the higher income tax payers are suffering from the district lines.

            To enroll your student in a non-district school poses many problems for some families. Schools make it difficult to go outside of district lines due to tax money and political happenings. I would like to see if today a case like Brown v. Board would take place. There are many people out there that uphold the notion that segregation does not exist anymore, but in reality it is in our every day lives. 

This letter from Howard Bucknell, president of the Jewell County Farm Bureau shows the desperation some farmers had with matters relating to the drought. It is described in this letter that water resources are almost completely depleted, leaving no water to live on and feed livestock. I can only imagine how depressing and stress full the living situation at this time must have been. I can only relate the situation best to a few years ago when Chicago had a drought. We were limited to only one shower every other day, no watering of plants, laundry could be done once a week, and only two loads, and so on. My experience with a drought is nothing comparable to the hardships people went through during the Dust Bowl era though. 

 This letter shows the desperation of some counties for help. The line that states “do all in your power” shows how people were on their last attempt. I really start to wonder how something like the Dust Bowl would affect the people of today. If you were going to tell someone that they had a minimal water source, how would they handle it? People get frustrated today when there is a thin layer of dust on a TV, or shelf. When the entire household is covered in dust it must be an exhausting task. Like we discussed in class, it was a big deal for some farmers to ask for help. Asking for aid meant that they could no longer deal with or control the situation at hand. This must have put an emotional damper on some farmers. Their self image and ego must have been hurt. Many farmers though maybe were just so relieved to finally be getting some help that their crops were not really the downfall they may have believed. The hope of finally getting water for livestock and their family may have provided them with enough of an emotional pick up to get by.

http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/210784/text 

The link above is to a diary of Mabel Holmes, a housewife during this time. She describes some of the cleaning and general impact that the dust storms had on her life. In almost every diary entry the blowing, dust, or affects of the storms are mentioned. She describes the strong winds often, how they made it hard to live normal life. I can only imagine how horrible these times must have been. It is interesting to see how that even cars were forced to stop due to the dust. I really would like to know how today’s culture would respond to such an event as the Dust Bowl.

The flier found at http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/290/page/1 is a great way to depict the health concerns of many during this era, the 1920s. The flier uses the common “Jack and Jill” riddle to get the process of Typhoid Fever contamination across to the public. This is a really clever and creative way to help the general public realize how they can get sick, and how to avoid it. When I first saw this flier and even the ones we looked at in class describing the problems with flies, I made an immediate connection to today. Now whenever you look in a magazine or on TV medication and sanitization products are sold in a very similar way to these fliers. Companies use catchy jingles, recognizable figures, and cartoon characters to catch and grab the public’s attention. The ads of today are appealing to the mass public just as they did in the past. You do not need a higher education, or medical knowledge to understand these ads, thus making them available to everyone. This aspect of the ads is one of the most important. The ability to take a complex idea such as Typhoid Fever and explain it to the masses in a simple flier will ease confusion and contamination by lack of knowledge. 

 Looking at these ads makes me start to wonder if something exactly like these ads would help today. Maybe resorting back to the simpler way of getting the point across will help people understand AIDS and other unfortunately common, but preventable diseases. What do you think?

This week I have decided to do my post on the Nicodemus colony in western Kansas. I found it interesting in class when we talked about the Nicodemus colony and the drive people had to come to the colony, but the upset many of them had when they arrived. I decided to look up an ad for the colony to see the descriptions that were put out for people to view in order to hype up the new settlement. The add is from a man named W.R. Hill advertizing the land and location at the settlement. This add also goes into detail about the location of the settlement near the Solomon River, and how it is beautiful country.

            What I found particularly interesting were the descriptions of the town, structurally. The ad states that many community, mercantile, and residential buildings in place, but it states clearly that saloons and buildings that will be of less morality will not be prohibited. I found that it was interesting to see this in an add because as we have learned later in history, especially around the cowboy era, saloons and brothels became the main workings of some towns. Was this already becoming an issue so much that they needed to put it in the advertisement?

            It always amazes me how in every advertisement the person doing the ad always glorifies the product to the extreme in order to sell it to the consumer. Little did these people know that when they got to this area of Kansas it would be barren, and challenging in many other aspects. I would really like to know if people wrote to friends or family members not living in the colony and “warned” them of the conditions that they would be enduring if they decided to come out to the new colony. The ad that I used to spark my ideas for this post came from http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/210499. 

This week I have decided to do my blog on a primary source I found on Kansasmemory.com. The source I chose to read and write about is a document written by a chief’s son in the Shawnee tribe. The document starts out by the man describing how his people came to be, and their beliefs of tradition and being. The man is named Bluejacket. In the beginning of the story he is referring to some of the white men as father, and friend. How he could confide in them and call them equals. As the story progresses you can get some insight into the government policy and happenings of the time. He talks of the battles and horrible things that are happening to his people. Here is a passage that includes some of those details.

“My father show me many many scalps from that big battle. My father told me too that all the tribes now much angry and make all ready to go on war-path over the Great Se-pe (Ohio River) into Ken. [Kentucky] but Simon Girty (a renegade white man) tell them another big army coming, so our warriors stay home and wait.
”*

Although this passage states the time before these tribes were moved west it shows some of the hardships they were already encountering. The story provides us, the readers of today, with great feeling and experience behind the events these people endured. I wanted to find some personal experiences about these hardships after lecture today about the political and government mishmash that the Indian’s were going through. One of the most powerful passages, I think, is stated at the end of the story.

“We take what our White Father gives us. Now we must go to the new land. Soon more times we will have to move again. Soon there will be no more Shawanoes. Our hearts (are) full of sorry (sorrow) for all the tribes.”*

Within this passage the reader is given the impression that these people have given up, they are exhausted of the journey they have been forced on. I feel that reading articles and stories like these provide a greater lens into the past. First hand accounts like this provide more of a feeling to the events. The government may  have believed that “providing” these people with food and some of the modern comforts of the time would make them “happy”, but if they were to actually listen to some of the things the people had to say they would realize that there was great sorrow and despair.

*http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/210156/text

2) According to www.thefreedictionary.com, nationalism is defined as: “1. Devotion to the interests or culture of one’s nation, 2. The belief that nations will benefit from acting independently rather than collectively, emphasizing national rather than international goals, 3. Aspirations for national independence in a country under foreign domination.” Based on this definition, is the government’s policy on Indian removal an example of American nationalism? If so, why?

The Indian Removal would not be a good example of nationalism because even in the definition it is defined as being devoted to the culture of a nation. The culture of a nation is not merely defined by the people that come to inhabit the land, but also the people that have lived on the land long before the settlers. True nationalism would have been if the settlers had embraced the culture and ways of the native people. The people that have come to this new country may believe that they are acting in the best interest of the new country, which is one of the aspects one could add into nationalism, but were they really taking all aspects into consideration on the “best interest”, were these actions in best interest for the native people? Culture is not only defined by the traditions, and ways in which a group of people act and believe in a given area, but also what traditions, and belief structures were already present, and how they interact and coincide with the new people to the area.

         Nationalism may have been exhibited during this time in the aspect that the government was focusing on the national stance of the country during this Indian removal, not focusing on international ties and policies. One of the reasons to look at this as not being a form of nationalism would be that the settlers did not see the natives as part of their nation. Due to the difference in culture and ways of life it was hard for the settlers to understand and accept the native way of life. If there was less of a culture gap between the many groups it may have been easier to mesh the cultures together more harmoniously, in a more nationalism sense