Teaching History at Las Montanas–Mr. Macauley
After lunch is a tough time to teach. Yet a 56-minute lesson does not seem to faze James Macauley. The 28 tenth graders, sitting in parallel rows on either side of the room face one another with Macauley in the middle. He is energetic, dramatic in gestures, and, to me sitting in the rear of the classroom, charismatic. Seemingly, they share my opinion because their attention hardly flags as they listen, respond to Macauley’s questions, and work on assigned tasks. And this at 1:30 in the afternoon.
The World History class is midway through a unit on Nazi Germany that involves a simulation on authoritarian and democratic governments. After collecting and assigning homework, Macauley moves to the day’s lesson on Hitler taking over the chancellorship of Germany in 1933. He asks students to take out their notebooks; two students raise their hands that they forgot theirs–he asks them to leave class and stand outside the door for five