Class Antics – Inside Elementary Education

Original poem, FREE poetry worksheet!

In honor of Poetry Month, here is a FREE poetry reading comprehension worksheet written by a National Board Certified Teacher’s…little sister.  The worksheet and poem are very good!

My sister wrote “Math” to help my students with their poetry reading comprehension.  It is an adorable poem about a romance that blossoms in math class.  Really, it’s a shame that she wrote it just for the worksheet.  I hope you and your students enjoy the math puns and the genuine emotion in the poem.

Click here for the worksheet and read on for the poem!

Math

Your obtuse manner isn’t helped
By your acute smile,
And you’re a total square
From your toes to your hair roots.

I’m sorry, but you + me
Just doesn’t equate.

A simple problem, to which there are
Not one, not two, but
No solutions.

Still, you made point after point
While I kept feeding you the same lines.

Then, when
            I couldn’t make ends                            meet
            And my life was

                                    Decaying

                                                             Exponentially

            And there wasn’t a ray of sunshine to be had,

You were the only real number
I could call.

It all started to add up:
As I dialed your number,
All sines pointed toward you.

Take some time this weekend to teach your kids about Jackie Robinson, the brave man who broke the color barrier in baseball.

Every team in baseball has retired Jackie’s number, 42, and on Sunday every team will celebrate Jackie’s legacy. You might enjoy the special Jackie Robinson Day section on MLB.com. It has a biography of Jackie, interesting pictures, and videos about Jackie and his legacy.

Read some interesting books about Jackie. My favorite is Teammates by Peter Golenblock. It focuses on Jackie’s relationship with white teammate Pee Wee Reese. The moment when Pee-Wee put his arm around Jackie Robinson is one of the most memorable in baseball, up there with Lou Gehrig’s farewell speech.

You will also enjoy Jackie’s Nine: Jackie Robinson’s Values to Live By. This book will help your students apply the lessons from Jackie’s courage and wisdom to their own lives. It is written and compiled by Jackie’s daughter, Sharon Robinson.

I paid tribute to Jackie Robinson by making him the hero to Connor, the baseball-loving protagonist in my newest children’s novel, Double Switched.  Every time Connor faces a difficult decision, he thinks about how Jackie would have handled it.  Connor knows he does not always live up to the example of his role model, but ultimately he finds his personal strength and makes things right.  I hope you enjoy reading about Connor’s (hilarious) misadventures as he learns to follow Jackie’s example. (Available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle editions. Read Chapter 1 here.)

Happy Jackie Robinson Day and Play Ball!

Watch the clip of Judy Garland and Fred Astaire performing Irving Berlin’s classic song “Easter Parade” and teach your students a little history!

Easter Parade is a classic MGM musical. It is a Pygmalion story about a famous dancer who is abandoned by his dancing partner and bets that he can turn anyone into a better partner than she was. His random protégé is Judy Garland, so you know that the singing-and-dancing act will (eventually) turn out well. Of course, Fred and Judy’s characters fall in love, and the finale finds the happy couple walking in New York’s Easter Parade.

Teaching Tips: New York’s Easter Parade on Fifth Avenue was an important institution for decades. It began as in impromptu event in the 1870s as couples showed off their finery while admiring the Easter flowers at the sanctuaries of the city’s most beautiful churches. Over the years, the floral displays and elegant dress grew more and more ornate. By 1947, the Easter Parade drew over a million people.

Your students will be interested to learn that both Easter parades and new clothes for the holiday have a long tradition. Easter processions have been a part of Christianity since the first Holy Week., and Christians in Eastern Europe would gather together and walk in a solemn procession to church on Easter Sunday. The clergy have long worn special garb for Easter, and in Tudor times, superstitious parishioners believed that if you didn’t wear new clothes for Easter, moths would eat your old threads.

When I teach my class about the classic “Easter Parade” song, I never lose sight of a very important lesson: teaching students to analyze just how Judy Garland gives another stellar performance. Not a move, gesture, or vocal intonation is wasted. She is a star for the ages!

*Fun Fact: Sydney Sheldon, author of many novels of suspense, wrote the screenplay for Easter Parade.

**Fun Fact: Irving Berlin first used the tune for “Easter Parade” in a song called “Smile and Show your Dimple.” The song flopped, but he later salvaged the tune and made it into a classic. The stick-with-it lesson, perseverance, is an inspiration for all of us.

Here is a FREE April Fools Day worksheet written by a National Board Certified Teacher. Students will build comprehension skills and practice critical thinking as they learn about the origins of April Fools Day.

You can use this worksheet every year, but in 2012 you get a special break: you can have fun teaching about April Fools Day without having to actually suffer through pranks on a school day!

April Fools Day began with a calendar change in 19th century France. King Charles IX moved New Year from April 1st to January 1st. News spread slowly through the countryside, so some folks celebrated on the wrong day for years before they learned of the change. Others refused to change and became known as April Fools. It became a tradition to play pranks on them.

Click here for the FREE worksheet.

More April Fools worksheets are available from Classroom Jr. Click here to access them. There is a reading comprehension activity, a writing activity, and a word search. Build reading fluency with these fun and ready-to-print April Fools poems.

Teachers know it: money math is difficult for many students.  This has been true a long time—after all, money math relies on decimals, fractions, and a firm grasp of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.  I think today’s kids have an even harder time with it because so many transactions now are done with credit or debit cards, so there are fewer opportunities to touch and count money.

Here are some online games to help your students with money math.

Counting coins

 This game is perfect for figuring out which coins you need to make a certain amount. I wish I’d found it during our money unit this year. The kids would have loved it!

The next level up is to look at a group of coins and figure out how much money it is. One of my students had trouble with that skill, and this game might help.

 Making Change

 I think making change is the ultimate money-unit challenge for students.  Kids can get through a standardized test by just subtracting, but they are so proud when they master the skill of making change by counting up.

 This making change game lets you click on pictures of coins to make change. It’s fun!

This one is also good. It has more of a fun, cartoon kind of look. Unfortunately, that also makes the coins a little harder to recognize.

Here’s another making change game.

Money Math Seatwork

Math-Aids.com is my favorite site for money math worksheets.

Dad’s Worksheets has a nice section on Money Word Problems.

An occasional series with sample pages from the Best Multiplication Workbook EVER!

My publisher is running a limited-time-coupon for $10 off Best Multiplication Workbook EVER! to help your class prepare for standardized testing.  Use Coupon Code NGUTA5C6 and click here to order.  The offer expires April 15, 2012.

More than just a workbook, Best Multiplication Workbook EVER! is a comprehensive curriculum that makes learning multiplication easy, enjoyable and relevant to real-life situations. Written by a master teacher, it addresses how kids really learn.

> Multiplication facts: scaffolded, comprehensive approach helps kids memorize their facts and cement their learning.

> Word problems (lots of them!) help students see the relevance of multiplication. There are word problems for each times table, level of multiplication, themed word problems, and long-multiplication word problems.

> Standardized testing content boosts students’ confidence and courage as they face the stresses of the standardized testing environment; answers teach strategies for getting it right!

> FUN! Friendly animals guide kids through the lessons. Certificates acknowledge achievements. Real-life word problems show how multiplication helps in sports, movie making and beyond!

The FREE standardized test prep worksheets never expire. This sample is Part 2 of an occasional series with sample pages from the Best Multiplication Workbook EVER!

Tip # 2: Determine what must be in the ones place

This is a really simple trick that lets you quickly eliminate wrong answers. Check just the ones digit of the problem. Multiply quickly in your head, and you will know what the ones digit must be in the correct answer. This trick works when you multiply by 2 or 3 digit numbers (and even bigger numbers) because the when you do your hugs and kisses, you never put any new numbers in the ones place.

Example A: 48 x 3: since 3 x 8 is 24, you know 4 must be in the ones place. Eliminate all answers with a different digit in the ones place.

Example B: 246 x 316: 6 x 6 is 36, so you know 6 will be in the ones place. Eliminate all answers with a different digit in the ones place.

Click here for FREE worksheets about this skill, straight from the Best Multiplication Workbook EVER!

The 2012 spring equinox falls on March 20^th.

Teachers, here is a FREE equinox worksheet written by a National Board Certified Teacher. I hope you and your students enjoy it!

The spring equinox presents a wonderful opportunity for a mini-lesson incorporating science, social studies, and (thanks to my worksheet) reading comprehension.  A basic lesson on the equinox helps students understand why we have seasons, and how the equinox marks the beginning of spring and fall.  If you have time, teach students about cultural traditions surrounding the equinox.  (St. Patrick’s Day and Easter immediately come to mind—read this article for more details.)

To help students remember the difference between equinox and solstice—and which seasons they mark—I explain that the solstice marks the beginning of “extreme” seasons: summer and winter.  The equinox marks the beginning of “transitional” seasons: spring and fall.  See if this helps your students!

Resources for Teaching the Equinox:

> Incorporate reading comprehension and introduce your equinox lessons with my FREE worksheet about the equinox.

> The YouTube video (shown above) is like an animated model that shows the earth’s orbit around the sun, so you can show students the equinox, solstice, and the seasons.  You might mention that the earth spins one complete rotation on its axis 365 times during a year’s complete orbit around the sun.  Explain to students that one day is the time it takes the earth to make one complete rotation around its axis.  Note that the earth appears to be rotating more slowly in this video.

> This animated graphic shows the revolution/rotation very clearly.  You can adjust the speed of the earth’s revolution around the sun while you explain to the class.

> Teach students about cultural traditions relating to the equinox with this article from About.com.

> The spring equinox is considered a global holiday by the United Nations.  Read this article to learn more.

> A quick Google Image search for “equinox diagram” yields helpful visual aids for your students.

> Your students can learn about the equinox—and practice with articles—using this worksheet from insideout.net.  Click on student’s worksheets for the pdf.

Part two: ideas and resources for the classroom

The National Assessment of Educational Progress—commonly called “The Nation’s Report Card”—tells a dismal story: Only 2% of high school seniors in 2010 could answer a simple question about the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision.

This report certainly matches my experience as a teacher. Every year, I am shocked at how little students know about the civil rights movement. (You’d think I would learn, but I’m shocked every year.) The students—if I’m lucky—have hazy memories of learning about Rosa Parks and Dr. King.

Earlier, I posted a blog entry about the Southern Poverty Law Center’s study, Teaching the Movement: The State of Civil Rights Education 2011, which examined state standards and curriculum requirements related to the study of the modern civil rights movement in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.

It’s interesting that the important concept the SPLC’s report noted was lacking in state standards—opposition encountered by activists—is the concept that helps kids understand the civil rights movement.

When you teach students about the racism, violence, and hate African-Americans lived with every day, students understand “why we find it difficult to wait.” Here are some suggestions for how to teach the civil rights movement at an elementary school level:

> Read “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Dr. King. His descriptions of the pain of segregation always tear at students’ hearts. This is a good lesson to present early in your unit on civil rights.

>Read “Ballad of Birmingham,” about the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 in which four girls were killed. Of all the lessons I present about civil rights, this is the most emotional and memorable for students.

> Really analyze the “I have a dream” speech. You can use the teaching notes I created to help you. Running alongside the speech, my notes explain important historical references, vocabulary terms, allusions, and examples of good rhetorical techniques. If you teach students about the speech before you show it on video, the students will be utterly entranced. They won’t forget how they felt the first time they heard it. My students always thank me, because they know I gave them a gift when I showed them how to appreciate the speech. Click here for an excellent DVD with the “I have a dream” speech and related documentaries.

> Watch “Our Friend, Martin,” an excellent animated movie that has real footage from the era. It’s voiced by an all-star cast including Whoopi Goldberg and Angela Bassett. The movie is very expensive, but you might be able to borrow it from a fellow teacher, your district video center, the public library, or Netflix.

> Read “Teammates,” a picture book about Jackie Robinson’s rookie year in Major League Baseball. With elegant and simple language and illustrations, this book shows the indignities faced by African-Americans and the hate they encountered.

> Listen to music from the era—starting with “We Shall Overcome.” Listen to it performed by the Morehouse College Glee Club on YouTube. You can also listen to other music about the era. My students love “Pride (In the name of love)” by U2.

> Teach students about Brown versus Board of Education. Note: modern parlance has led to the need to explain to students that “Brown” refers to the lead plaintiff’s name, Linda Brown, not the skin color of the plaintiffs. (My Mexican-American students were confused by this at first.) You can read an overview of the case, brush up on myths versus truths, and request free activity booklets to help you teach students about the landmark case.

> Watch the Disney movie Ruby Bridges. This movie pushes the envelope enough to really show the stakes, but it keeps things appropriate for school. Your students will be shocked at the brazenness of the white opposition—particularly the crowds outside Ruby’s school each morning. The movie addresses so much more—Ruby’s father’s experience in the “integrated” military, anti-Semitism in Ruby’s neighborhood, and the opposition her white teacher faced for standing by Ruby. Read my blog entry about the movie.

> Read everything you can! I set out my own collection of books and pictures books about the civil rights movement, and I check out titles from our school library for students to read. Once you get them interested in the civil rights movement, they will continue to learn on their own. Black History Month will continue all year.  It is a proud moment for the teacher when students tell each other about what they have read.

> Check out the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching Tolerance program. You can request teaching kits, subscribe to Teaching Tolerance magazine, and get ideas for classroom activities.

“An educated populace must be taught basics about American history,” said Julian Bond in his preface to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s report. “One of these basics is the civil rights movement, a nonviolent revolution as important as the first American Revolution. It is a history that continues to shape the America we all live in today.”

Part one: Study shows more than half of states fail at teaching civil rights movement

The civil rights movement is one of the defining events in U.S. history, but most states fail when it comes to teaching the movement to students, a first-of-its kind study by the Southern Poverty Law Center has found.

The study, Teaching the Movement: The State of Civil Rights Education 2011, examined state standards and curriculum requirements related to the study of the modern civil rights movement in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. It includes a foreword by noted civil rights activist and historian Julian Bond. Click here to read the report.

In his foreword, Julian Bond writes that he feared he was “talking down” to students in civil rights history sessions at some of the nation’s most prestigious universities, so he created a simple quiz. He need not have worried. None of the students could tell him who George Wallace was. (Answer: the segregationist governor of Alabama who stood in the door of the University of Alabama to prevent it being integrated. He ran for president.) Students knew sanitized accounts of the lives of Dr. King and Rosa Parks.

The study compared the requirements in state standards to a body of knowledge that reflects what civil rights historians and educators consider core information about the civil rights movement.

Interesting findings:

> 35 states received grades of F

> Of those, 16 states, where local officials set specific policies and requirements for their school districts, have no requirements at all for teaching about the civil rights movement

> Only 3 states received an A—Alabama, New York, and Florida.

> Generally speaking, the farther from the South—and the smaller the African-American population—the less attention paid to the civil rights movement. Most states receiving a C or better are in the South—suggesting the civil rights movement is viewed as a regional concern rather than a national interest

> Civil rights lessons tend to focus on a few leaders—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks, rather than obstacles civil rights activists faced, like racism and resistance.

“For too many students, their civil rights education boils down to two people and four words: Rosa Parks, Dr. King and ‘I have a dream,’” said Maureen Costello, the SPLC’s Teaching Tolerance director.

My newest novel, Double Switched, has a strong civil rights theme and a funny scene that illustrates just how little most students know about the civil rights movement. I assure you that in my experience as a teacher, the scene is very realistic.

Background: Connor and his friends do a group project about the civil rights movement. Connor presents information he learned from interviewing his father, who grew up in the (recently) desegregated South and went on to play for the New York Yankees. Tyler presents a report about Dr. King. Connor accidentally interrupts Tyler’s report, and then both boys step on each other as they continue presenting.

The class is utterly confused. To the kids, Dr. King and Connor’s dad are switched. Sample questions from Connor’s classmates:

> What position did Dr. King play?

> What was his ERA?

> Why do you keep calling him Doctor if he didn’t finish college?

> Who got a C in public speaking?

> Whose mom worked for a white family?

> When was Dr. King a Yankee?

Prevent such a mix-up in your class. Teach the civil rights movement!

Fun Reading Comprehension and Leap Year Math

Teachers, here are FREE Leap Year worksheets written by a National Board Certified Teacher. I hope you and your students enjoy them!

Here is an enjoyable reading comprehension worksheet called “Fun with Leap Year and Leap Day.” The passage and questions are indeed fun. What other worksheet challenges you to figure out what Pope Paul III and Ja Rule have in common? (Answer: they were both born on Leap Day.)

You and your students will enjoy learning about Leap Year luck (or lack thereof), Leap Year marriage proposals in Ireland, and the quandary posed by a Leap Year birthday in The Pirates of Penzance. The questions are all opinion based—and in my opinion, you shouldn’t grade them! Give students credit for completion, then go home and kick back to enjoy the rest of Leap Day.

Next is my fun “Was it a Leap Year?” worksheet that lets students apply their knowledge of divisibility by 4. Hints for determining divisibility by 4 are at the bottom of the page. The worksheet teaches a special case: century years. Because a revolution around the sun does not quite take 365.25 days, only century years divisible by 400 are Leap Years. The worksheet gives a student-friendly explanation and challenges them to determine if a century year was or wasn’t a Leap Year.  I also have provided an Answer Key as a separate download.

Don’t forget to download the other two worksheets in Free Leap Year Worksheets Part One.

Happy Leap Year!

Reading Comprehension and Writing Nonfiction

Teachers, here are FREE Leap Year worksheets written by a National Board Certified Teacher. I hope you and your students enjoy them!

The first one is a reading comprehension worksheet about Leap Year.  It’s a good, basic introduction to the concept of Leap Year that is appropriate for third grade and up.

Next is a writing worksheet about how and why Julius Caesar created Leap Year and rearranged the calendar. To shake things up a little, this worksheet challenges students to write a newspaper article about the event. The article gives “notes” our fictitious reporter took at the press conference—in a handy who, what, where, when, why format.

Stay tuned for Free Leap Year Worksheets Part Two: Leap Year trivia reading comprehension and Leap Year math!

An occasional series with sample pages from the Best Multiplication Workbook EVER!

This tip comes straight from my Best Multiplication Workbook EVER!  The section on teaching 2 digit multiplication is very helpful for teachers looking to scaffold learning.  I break long multiplication into 3 sections—multiplying multidigit numbers by 1, 2 or 3 digits.  Within each section, a dozen or more lessons teach the process step by step.

Please use these two FREE sample pages with your class to introduce 2 digit multiplication.  This introductory lesson lets your students learn the Hugs and Kisses method to keep their numbers lined up when they have to put in that place holding O.  (The place holding O is the hug.  You put an X, or kiss, over a number to kiss it goodbye when you are through with it.)

The workbook lets students practice Hugs and Kisses by beginning with multiplying times 11.  This isolates the Hugs and Kisses skill, allowing students to focus on the procedure, not the math.

I wish I’d learned multiplication this way when I was a kid!  I hope this and other lessons from the Best Multiplication Workbook EVER! help your students.

Part four: the Smithsonian helps you teach about the Tuskegee Airmen

The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American aerial combat unit.  Deployed in Europe during WWII, they painted the tails of their planes red and became known as the Red Tails.  To the Americans, they were the Red Tail Angels.  To the Germans, they were the Red Tail Devils.  To all of us, they are heroes who sought a Double Victory: victory in the war abroad and victory over prejudice, segregation and Jim Crow laws at home.

This is part four of a series about the Tuskegee Airmen to coordinate with the January 20 release of Red Tails, the Lucasfilm action movie.  Go see it!

The Smithsonian’s National Air and SpaceMuseum created a 50 page teacher’s guide about African American Pioneers in Aviation (pdf).  It is every bit as outstanding as you’d expect a Smithsonian publication to be.  You will love the detailed biographies, helpful lesson plans, ready-made worksheets, and primary sources.  

(Remind your students that the Tuskegee Airmen came to the rescue in the movie Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian)

No Tuskegee Airmen lesson could be complete without a lesson about the pilot shown in the photo above: Benjamin O. Davis Jr.  He was the first African-American general in the U.S. Air Force, son of the first African-American general in the U.S. Army. 

Benjamin O. Davis Jr. was the first African American to graduate from West Point in the 20^th century.  During his four years at West Point, he was completely ostracized by his classmates.  He never had a roommate.  He ate by himself.  Fellow cadets only spoke to him when official duty made it necessary.

“It was designed to make me buckle, but I refused to buckle. They didn’t understand that I was going to stay there, and I was going to graduate. I was not missing anything by not associating with them. They were missing a great deal by not knowing me.”—Benjamin O. Davis Jr.

Benjamin O. Davis Jr.’s leadership was invaluable to the Tuskegee Airmen.  When he led the 332^nd Fighter Group in their mission as fighter escort pilots protecting bombers, he insisted that they stay with their bombers at all times, at all costs.  The Tuskegee Airmen never lost a bomber and won the admiration of American bomber crews and the German pilots who flew against them. Of Davis, a Tuskegee Airman said “it was because of the discipline he exacted that we were able to make the record we did.”

Benjamin O. Davis Jr. knew a thing or two about unit pride and public relations.  He thought of painting the tails of their P-51 Mustangs red so the bomber groups would know who was escorting them. Read Benjamin O. Davis Jr., American : An Autobiography

This past weekend, I was excited to meet Tuskegee Airmen in an event to honor their legacy.  I was thrilled to pose for pictures with three Tuskegee Airmen.  I am posting a picture for each entry in this miniseries.  This photo is Tuskegee Airman Lt. Col. Asa Herring and me.  (The photo is a true snapshot—in my mind I was exactly next to Lt. Col. Herring and in the photo I block him.  Sorry.)

Asa Herring graduated from high school at 16 and passed the U.S. Army Air Corps Aviation Cadet written examination at age 17.  He had to wait until he was 18 before he could be inducted and begin flight training.  During his 22 years of military service, Asa served in England, Korea, Germany, Vietnam, and other temporary assignments worldwide. He was the first Black Squadron Commander at Luke Air Force Base*, Arizona, where he trained pilots in the F-104G Advanced Jet Fighter Gunnery Program. He was officially appointed an honorary Command Pilot in the German Luftwaffe.  Click to read a fact sheet about Lt. Col. Herring, provided by Luke AFB.

*Incidentally, Luke AFB is home of the Emerald Knights, one of my dad’s old squadrons and the one I remember most clearly.  They were based at Homestead AFB near Miami when my dad flew with them.  Visit my about the author page and scroll down to see a photo of my dad’s last flight.

Tuskegee Airmen, Part 1 – Tuskegee Airmen, Part 2
Tuskegee Airmen, Part 3 – Tuskegee Airmen, Part 4

Part three:  A glowing review of Red Tails, the new George Lucas movie

The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American aerial combat unit. Deployed in Europe during WWII, they painted the tails of their planes red and became known as the Red Tails. To the Americans, they were the Red Tail Angels. To the Germans, they were the Red Tail Devils. To all of us, they are heroes who sought a Double Victory: victory in the war abroad and victory over prejudice, segregation and Jim Crow laws at home.

This is part three of a planned four-part series about the Tuskegee Airmen to coordinate with the January 20 release of Red Tails, the Lucasfilm action movie.  I just got back from the movie and I feel that I MUST write about it.

Red Tails is an awesome movie!  The special effects are amazing—you really feel like you’re in the P-51 Mustangs with the Red Tails.  The dogfighting sequences make you think of Top Gun and Star Wars.  I read that George Lucas spent three years getting the action sequences just right, and it was worth the time and expense.  Red Tails is very, very generous with exciting action sequences.  There are more in this movie than any other aerial combat movie I’ve ever seen, which makes Red Tails the coolest dogfighting movie ever, imho.

 The exploits shown in Red Tails are so amazing that they are hard to believe.  I heard fellow theater goers wondering aloud about whether the Red Tails really sank a destroyer.  Yes, they did!  In 1944,  Lt. Gwynn Pierson, Lt. Windell Pruitt and four other Tuskegee Airmen attacked a German Destroyer in 1944.  Accurate machine gun fire hit the powder magazine and sank the ship, and Pierson and Pruitt are credited with the destruction of an enemy ship using only machine gun fire.  You can read about it here.

I also heard people wondering if the Tuskegee Airmen really shot down German jets.  Yes, they did!  It happened a lot like in the movie, on their longest escort mission all the way to Berlin.  Charles Brantley, Earl Laneand Roscoe Brown shot down German jets over Berlin that day, earning the 332nd Fighter Group a Distinguished Unit Citation. Read about it here.  That mission was led by Col. Benjamin O. Davis Jr., commander of the Tuskegee Airmen.  Terrence Howard’s character was clearly based on this remarkable man.  I will write more about Benjamin O. Davis Jr. in Post Four, which also includes the last of the pictures I took with Tuskegee Airmen.

 The last thing I heard people wonder about was whether it was realistic for a Tuskegee Airman to strike up a relationship with an Italian woman.  I don’t know much about the personal lives of the Tuskegee Airmen, but I do know that in Lucasfilm’s Double Victory documentary, the pilots explain that Italian people viewed them not as African-Americans, but simply as Americans.  Double Victory has some neat pictures of Tuskegee Airmen clowning with kids and spending time with Italian families. Since I lived in Italy, I found it enriched my movie experience to understand what Lightning’s fiancée said to him, especially when they first met and neither spoke the other’s language.

Here is a clip showing a special screening of Red Tails for cadets at the U. S. Air Force Academy.  The cadets loved it!  (By the way, my dad is a USAF Academy graduate—the Air Force calls them Zoomies.  My dad is also a retired fighter pilot, and he said Red Tails did a great job of showing dogfights.)

Tuskegee Airmen, Part 1 – Tuskegee Airmen, Part 2
Tuskegee Airmen, Part 3 – Tuskegee Airmen, Part 4

Part two: Double Victory

The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American aerial combat unit. Deployed in Europe during WWII, they painted the tails of their planes red and became known as the Red Tails. To the Americans, they were the Red Tail Angels. To the Germans, they were the Red Tail Devils. To all of us, they are heroes who sought a Double Victory: victory in the war abroad and victory over prejudice, segregation and Jim Crow laws at home.

This is part two of a series about the Tuskegee Airmen to coordinate with the January 20 release of Red Tails, the Lucasfilm action movie. Go see it opening weekend!

George Lucas wanted to make a movie about the Tuskegee Airmen for over 20 years. He funded Red Tails himself, first with $58 million for production and then $30 million for distribution. Red Tails is an action-packed movie that tells the story of the Tuskegee Airmen protecting bombers flying over Germany. Lucas produced a documentary, Double Victory: The Story of the Tuskegee Airmen in Their Own Words. The documentary has screened at numerous events honoring Tuskegee Airmen. I hope you get to see it!

The Tuskegee Airmen faced prejudice, discrimination and segregation at every step. Before WWII, African-Americans were barred from flying in the U.S. military. Civil rights organizations and the black press put pressure on Washington, ultimately leading to the formation of an all African-American pursuit squadron based in Tuskegee, Alabama. The fledgling program got a boost from First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who visited the site and took a much-publicized flight with African-American chief civilian instructor C. Alfred “Chief” Anderson.

While stationed in Italy, bomber groups that the Red Tails protected did not know the pilots were black until a B-17 had to make an emergency landing at their base. In the Double Victory documentary, veterans describe how some in the bomber crew accepted the Tuskegee Airmen, but a few men chose to sleep in their plane rather than stay with the black pilots and crewmembers. Temperatures dropped so low that those men knocked on the barracks door in the middle of the night and then stayed with the Tuskegee Airmen for days. Censors found a letter home in which a recruit asked his sweetie to “forgive him” for staying with the black airmen for three days.

When the Tuskegee Airmen returned home after the war, they did not receive the hero’s welcome their white counterparts enjoyed. They faced segregation, Jim Crow laws, and discriminatory employment practices. You can trace the impetus for the Civil Rights movement resulting from how African-American veterans were treated after WWII through President Truman’s signing of Executive Order 9981 ending segregation in the military.

Here are some resources you can use for your own learning or in the classroom (depending on the grade level you teach).

PBS Home Video: The Tuskegee Airmen: This is an excellent choice for the classroom. It his educational, entertaining, and the PBS brand is above reproach from parents or administrators.

The Tuskegee Airmen: An Illustrated History: 1939-1949

The Tuskegee Airmen Story

Wind Flyers

Don’t miss the 1995 movie The Tuskegee Airmenstarring Lawrence Fishburne and Cuba Gooding Jr.

Georgia’s Kennesaw State University created an excellent Teacher’s Guide about the Tuskegee Airmen

This past weekend, I was excited to meet Tuskegee Airmen in an event to honor their legacy. I was thrilled to pose for pictures with three Tuskegee Airmen. I am posting a picture for each entry in this miniseries. This is  Tuskegee Airman Charles Cooper with me. Along with Hannibal Cox and Charles McGee, Charles Cooper shares the distinction of having flown combat missions as a fighter pilot in WWII, the Korean War and Vietnam.

Tuskegee Airmen, Part 1 – Tuskegee Airmen, Part 2
Tuskegee Airmen, Part 3 – Tuskegee Airmen, Part 4