Obama seems to have missed another opportunity in a major address that he gave about the BP oil spill last month (June 15). Earlier he was right to call the Gulf Oil Disaster our environmental 9/11. Both are life-changing disasters that have many of us asking where we need to stop compromising.
On Teachers Teaching Teachers this summer, we are asking what needs to change in our schools and in our lives as teachers. We hope that Thomas L. Friedman’s comments in May 2010 won’t be the last word on the 9/11 comparison. “Sept. 11, 2001, was one of those rare seismic events that create the possibility to energize the country to do something really important and lasting that is too hard to do in normal times.”
On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, we talked about what we can do now that we might not have done before this disaster or failure. This is the second of a series of shows we will be doing on the Gulf oil disaster.
In the previous podcast (TTT 204), we had a thoughtful, productive conversation with history teacher Diana Laufenberg about responses in our curriculum to the Gulf Oil Disaster. One of her ideas was to set up Skype connections for our students with people in Gulf states to personalize and more deeply understand the impact of this ongoing disaster. To move this idea forward, we were joined by teacher-consultants from the Southeastern Louisiana Writing Project — Carolyn Kirk, Tasha Whitton, and Ellen Steigman — on this podcast.
On this podcast, we wre also be joined by teachers Matt Montagne and Andrea Zellner — two of our favorite angry, young environmentalists!
Won’t you join us too? We will continue our conversations about what needs to change all summer on Teachers Teaching Teachers. We want to know what you are thinking. Join us in the chat room or get ready to join us on Skype at http://EdTechTalk.com/live at 9:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm Pacific USA Wednesdays / 01:00 UTC Thursdays World Times
Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.