Lesson  Launch  

With the cooperation of the four major networks (CBS, NBC Blue, NBC Red, and Mutual), the White House regularly scheduled Fireside Chats in the 10 pm Eastern timeslot. On the East Coast, listeners were still awake while western listeners had finished supper and were ready to relax for the evening.

FDR’s presidency of nearly eleven years was unprecedented. It straddled two profound crises—the Great Depression and World War II. There was increasing criticism of his big government approach to solving the nation’s problems. The public was weary of rationing and the shortages of a war-time economy.

Of course, this does not include the maiming and loss of life of thousands of U.S. fighting men around the world.

My World History class (10th grade) spent an entire nine weeks preparing for and participating in a Little United Nations Assembly (LUNA). I was a member of the West German delegation. The culminating experience occurred when all the students in World History participated in LUNA. Students gathered in a large gymnasium and for two full school days we proposed, debated, deliberated and voted upon an array of resolutions.

We have reached that point in the academic year!

The honeymoon period is over and the novelty of the new school year has waned for both teachers and students. Autumn has arrived and, along with it, the heart and substance of the academic year. Inevitably, challenges are surfacing, the schooling bureaucracy is frustrating, and some students are struggling.

On a country road in southern Mississippi, Jesse Brown waited patiently to exact revenge.

In the distance, Jesse heard the unmistakable sounds of the school bus approaching. As he knew all too well, the rattling of the engine would soon be drowned out by noises more hostile—taunting, cursing, and spitting.

While Jesse anticipated the vehicle’s approach, the students on that bus would soon spot their next victim.

The year was 1939.

Recently, talk of secession has re-emerged, for vastly different reasons, in the states of California and Texas. Likewise, several Hollywood stars have threatened to become expatriates (a kind of personalized secession) because of their discontent with the result of the most recent presidential election.

In spite of the currency of this term, secession (withdrawal from the union) has been singularly and, therefore, erroneously connected exclusively with the Antebellum South in the minds of many students and the broader citizenry.

Johnny Graves, a gunner in the U.S. Army Air Service, was struggling for survival in the frigid sea!

In the early evening, his bomber was returning from a sortie over German held territory during World War 2, but it had been badly damaged. It was clear the plane would not be able to return to England, but would have to ditch in the North Sea.

In late October 1942, the celebrated Eddie Rickenbacker along with two other passengers and five crew members were castaways adrift in a vast ocean. As a result of a confluence of navigational issues, their B-17 was lost and ditched shortly before it ran out of fuel. The life rafts had saved their lives—at least in the short term, but they had run out of their only ration (four oranges). Moreover, sharks, the elements, the enemy (the Japanese), and—most of all—thirst remained threats to their survival.

The plane carried five crew members and three passengers including the celebrated Eddie Rickenbacker--retired race car driver, past owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, World War One "Ace of Aces!" and Medal of Honor recipient, and, then, President of Eastern Airlines. The Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, had commissioned Rickenbacker to travel to the Pacific theater on an inspection and evaluation tour. He also had a secret message to "personally communicate" to General Douglas MacArthur from the Secretary of War.