A New Year

August 10th starts the new year for us; the new school year, that is. My wife and I have been working in my new classroom to get it all ready for the kids and it is starting to shape up pretty well. I'm excited about this school year. It means I get to meet new people and it marks the start of the seasonal movement toward my favorite season, winter. I bought my hunting license and permits today. I'm legal to hunt everything that I want to include Brown Bear. I can't wait.

I just got back from Colonial Williamsburg's Teacher Institute. The folks at CWTI really know how to put on a show. We were going fourteen hours a day for seven days. It was hot and muggy the whole time, but the heat could slow my enthusiasm. You know, I thought I knew some stuff about the period between 1607 and 1783, but I was mistaken. I learned more about the day to day life of the people than I thought was possible. For everything I was taught there was a primary source to support the information. The whole CWTI program is run by primary sources, which gives us the feeling that what these folks are telling as close to the truth as possible. The only problem with that system is that the people who had no written language and were not important enough to make the news papers, have been written out of history all together. Such is the way of civilization. One of our speakers was the guy who plays Thomas Jefferson. He gave a speech the was wonderfully eloquent. As he talked about all of the reasons that the colonies had to revolt against the British Crown, it sounded eerily like our modern day arguments about what is going on in our government today. SCARY!!!
The experience made me want to get more involved in government. I don't think I want to run for any office, but being in contact with my elected officials might be a good idea. I don't feel that they have my best interest in mind and they don't know what's on my mind. They need to do my bidding just as the system was designed. "Of the people, by the people, and for the people."