Before the 20th century, some scientists thought that humans arrived in the New World around 1000 BCE or so. It was only when the Folsom Site near Folsom, New Mexico, was excavated that evidence of Native Americans were found that confirmed they were here during the last Ice Age. That might never have happened without George McJunkin.
George McJunkin was born enslaved in Texas and became a cowboy after the Civil War. He was also a self-taught archaeologist and naturalist who was always on the lookout for bones and artifacts in the scrublands of New Mexico, where he managed a ranch. In 1908, a heavy rain flooded the arroyos. Surveying the damage, McJunkin noticed bones that had been unearthed by floodwaters washing away the soil. They were bison bones, much larger than any existing bison. He took some samples of what turned out to be an extinct species that died out at the end of the last Ice Age. McJunkin died in January 1922. He didn't live to see the Folsom site excavated and studied, but he spent the last 14 years of his life trying to convince others of its importance. There is some question about exactly who found the arrowhead embedded in the bison bones of the extinct species, but that discovery reset the narrative over the historical timeline, showing that humans were in New Mexico at least 11,000 years ago.
Read about the life and discoveries of George McJunkin at Sapiens. -via Atlas Obscura
Comments (1)
"Reader's Digest has an excerpt from another one of Frank's memoir"
memoir*s*
I will grant that it was a very creative way to get their minds working, but what might he have accomplished with students who already possessed the minimum skills expected of them?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/books/20frank.html
McCourt began teaching at Ralph McKee in 1958, meaning this remembrance dates to circa 1961.
So, basically, it sounds like you're upset at the students' prior knowledge, which wasn't under his control (nor was it necessarily under the students'). Perhaps you think it's wrong that Mr. McCourt should have "had to backtrack" by actually teaching to the level of his students, just because that level isn't what you'd have expected them to know already. All the while you're condescendingly criticizing Mr. McCourt for "moving the goalpost closer," implying that he's giving up and letting them have it easy.
But it sounds to me like he was changing his approach when he saw it wasn't working. Sticking with an unsuccessful teaching style because you believe it's the best and therefore students should be able to do it - to me that would be giving up. Mr. McCourt was working with what he had, with the goal of reaching his students however he could.
***By the by, the article doesn't say the students couldn't write 200 words, it suggests that they were reluctant to. That might be an issue of motivation rather than lack of skill. We can't know for sure.
I'd have thought that everyone who knew McCourt would know that he was a teacher too - it's not like he ever kept quiet about it.
I'm unsure of what the story is here; an excerpt from his book is hardly breaking news, and this teaching method is practically textbook among English teachers (it has provided me with some of my best creative writing lessons). Maybe in the 70's it was new and unheard of, but now it's pretty old hat.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of McCourt's and I'm sure he was an incredible teacher, but this seems like scraping the barrel as far as stories from a man with such an incredible life go...
the dean was so entertained he walked us to class.