History classes covering Middle East and U.S. political background

I had a really exciting 3rd quarter of studying American History with awesome groups of sophomores and freshman. It was really neat to see how much they have grown in their skills of studying history from the last time I had this group of students during the first quarter. I can’t wait until next year when I have the opportunity to teach these groups in totally new classes that I am in the process of creating a curriculum for.

As for fourth quarter, I have two sections of an awesome World History class along with an eager group of freshmen for Early American History. In World History we began in the region of the Middle East studying the different schools of thought on evolution vs. creationism. We looked at evolution through studying the Stone Age where students were able to explore through the advance of technology and agriculture that society began to develop religion, government and a social hierarchy. This was most evident to the students through the comparison of the Code of Hammurabi to Wisconsin State laws of today. We are continuing to focus on the region of Middle East for the next couple weeks getting into more current events such as the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) and terrorism.

For American History, we just finished covering the French and Indian War as a lead-up to studying how America became the United States instead of being the 13 British colonies. Students are expected to know how to study a war by making a comparison to how students study the elements of a short story in English classes. Students have to know the Causes, Initial Battles, Turning Point(s), Later Stage Battles and Conclusions. We are also going to be studying the origins of our first government and the rise of the first political parties of the United States and how they are similar to the Democratic and Republican parties of today’s American politics.

- Mr. Kyle Damask