President's Day today- replaces Washington and Lincoln but recognizes neither.

Do you remember when there was a Lincoln's Birthday Holiday on February 12th, and then a few days later, February 22nd, the Washington's Birthday Holiday rolled around?   It was a day off from school back then but now we seem to have too many holidays to separate these, and, besides, who wouldn't want another 3-day holiday weekend?

So now it's President's Day that includes ALL presidents and Lincoln and Washington among them but the recognition and honor really seems to me to go to no one by this all inclusive approach. Would your children feel more honored by having the birthday party for each one on the anniversary date of their birth, OR, would it be a better approach to celebrate the birthday of all your children on ONE day each year, with a big party, of course?

So, I think keeping it individual does the best job of recognizing anything, including presidents.  

LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOL- named after "who'?
I have criticized the alma mater for not making use of the Lincoln's birthday in the past to promote knowledge and that's what scholl should be doing, right?   A "learning" experience here.  When I was there teaching at Lincoln not tht long ago, I was really dissppointed by how many students were unaware of the namesake of their school.    You have one person to learn about as a basic task, I would expect, but that holiday period passed without much special attention from the school.

I think a few times the Alumni Association made efforts to recongnize Lincoln as one of the display cases by the main office was given the Lincoln recognition treatment.

I think that the school has, in the transformations going on from a single school to small learning communities, has forgotten to give attention to simple things as they constantly face evaluation based on test scores used to determine student performance levels.

Well, that's just something I thought would be useful to change but I don't have a current picture of the state of Lincoln's day to day heppenings and maybe I am wrong now.  Since there's no "Brown Act" requirement for school operations like there is for public meetings in government, I have no convenient way to see what's new or what planned, other than the press releases or bulletins that the school or the LAUSD puts forth.

And the other part of the concern here is that learning about President Lincoln is very easy- there are lots of books about this and the times in which Lincoln lived are some of the most crucial years in the history of the United States, the Civil War period.  Combine that with the sadder aspect of Lincoln's term, the assasination in office, we have a very important area for examination.

If we had a different president as our namesake, the features might be less visible and more obscurity in history would still leave us with not much in the way of positive or distinctive elements to learn.  But that's not the case and still, more students might have some pride in the school if they knew a lttle more of what's out there.  It couldn't hurt.

Abraham Lincoln's Birthday Comes and Goes- Unnoticed at LHS?

An Unnoticed Day at Lincoln High School- Again?

I think that it's become a tradition at the alma mater to let opportunities for any gains in knowledge to slip through the fingers of those who try to assure us that our students are learning all that they can.

Lincoln High School, as the namesake of one of the greatest presidents in the history of this country, seems not to be able to make any progress in informing the students attending the school of any of the history of Lincoln.

I have come not to expect very much at these times that the students could become engaged in learning even a minimal amount of history from an abundance of sources.

A bit of celebration of the life of Lincoln might go a long way to instill a little knowledge and pride in the school. For many, I think the test scores have become the singular interest in their being and what really could do a bit to advance education and character simply falls by the wayside.

As usual, I have to add that, "I could be wrong." Maybe there is some focus on the life, times and accomplishments of Abraham Lincoln individually by some teachers, but the entire school is not involved in any common recognition as I determine from searching the LHS web site. There might be some large benefit with not much outlay of effort if each February there was a focus on this president. They have a year to try to do better in 2012.

I think that we have an easy job to find out so many things about this person in comparison to less prominent presidents and smaller figures in history that have high schools named after them.

I think that this blame falls to the leadership of a school. At Lincoln, it seems that the ills that plague the entire LAUSD operation are similarly present at the school where test scores, achievement measures and a number of theories have all the attention, along with so many efforts at recognizing "diversity."

It's all disappointing that these times come and go with little notice. Instead, there should be much, much more attention given to use this as an opportunity to involve students in some common theme especially directed to LHS as the district's high school uniquely bearing the name of Abraham Lincoln.

SOME LINCOLN FACTS -

Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809.

President Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States.

He was assassinated on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, by John Wilkes Booth while attending a play entitled Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre.

This was the first Presidential assassination in American history.

The first formal observance of his birthday took place in 1866, the year after his assassination, when both houses of Congress gathered for a memorial address. While Lincoln's Birthday did not become a federal holiday like George Washington's, it did become a legal holiday in several states.

-From http://www.calendar-updates.com/info/holidays/us/lincoln.aspx with links to other Lincoln sites.

Also on this site is the Lincoln's Gettysburg Address
Delivered at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg
November 19, 1863
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MORE ABOUT LINCOLN FROM his place among the U.S. Presidents at http://www.whitehouse.gov/ below:


ABRAHAM LINCOLN
http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/abrahamlincoln