Introduction

I didn't really share a lot about myself in my first post, and really didn't mean for that post to be my "introduction," so I'll officially introduce myself now.

I teach at Hoover High School in Hoover, Alabama.  Hoover is a suburb of Birmingham and is south of the city.  I live in another suburb a little farther south: Helena (which of course in Alabama is pronounced hell-E-na.)

I teach Modern United States History which is the 11th grade history class in our state curriculum.  This is one of my favorite classes to teach, since as the year goes on, it becomes more and more "real" to them.  For example, it's pretty cool to talk about the Civil Rights Movement with my class since they can go downtown and see the places so many of these events happened.  Our school is pretty diverse, ethnically and economically.  That makes class discussions about race and especially my state's history pretty interesting.

I also teach an elective called US History Through Film.  We watch movies and them discuss their historical accuracy.  We also talk about how when the movie was made colors the way the movie portrays the history.  For example, we are starting an "Iwo Jima" unit.  We will watch the John Wayne film The Sands of Iwo Jima and then the two Eastwood films Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima.  We will compare and contrast them.  Honestly, I feel like I've won the lottery because I get paid to watch movies twice a day.

I've been married to my best friend, Rhonda, since 1997.  We have 2 children- Bowen (who is 10) and Emma (who will turn 5 in a few weeks)

Here we all are in Gulf Shores, Alabama last summer (and if you are a beach lover, you haven't seen a prettier beach than the ones in Alabama and the Florida panhandle.)  I'm honestly not a huge beach fan, but after this winter, I'm ready for the weather to get hot (we don't get "warm" in Alabama.  We go straight from cold to hot.)

I look forward to learning and growing with each of you.