It's been 150 years since President Abraham Lincoln delivered one of the most famous speeches in American history, and while the Gettysburg Address remains a prominent topic in history classrooms, students have never been able to see exactly how those influential words looked on the author's page...until now.
Google, via the tech firm's official blog, is making all five hand-written copies of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address available to everyone. Google has posted a statement that, in part, reads, "Three new exhibits now available on the Google Cultural Institute focus on President Lincoln and the 272 words that shaped a nation’s understanding of its identity. Thanks to our friends at the White House, the Lincoln Library, Cornell University, Dickinson College and the Library of Congress, you can browse high-resolution digital versions of all five Lincoln-handwritten copies of the address."
In addition to viewing the speech copies, visitors can compare them to see how they differ, as well as read the 272-word reflections of contemporaries like former President Jimmy Carter, former chairman of the NAACP Julian Bond, and Google's Eric Schmidt on the legacy of Lincoln and his address.
![]()
Note: The following blog is the first of a three-part series on teacher inquiry.
It might sound cliché but you’ve likely heard the phrase that a teacher should be a life-long learner. Ayres (1989) wrote that “teaching involves a search for meaning in the world. Teaching is a life-long project, a calling, a vocation that is an organizing center for all other activities.” Whatever your philosophy, it’s hard to argue that engaging in teacher inquiry provides many...

This year's tree was especially of interest to me because it came from a town near me and where I went to college . . . Oneonta, New...
![]()
Americans chose to elect a billionaire businessman, an outsider with no government experience, over Hillary Clinton, the candidate of the establishment. What economic and social forces might have prompted this upset in...

“The biggest surprise has been how little importance large portions of the electorate placed on whether statements made by candidates (or their surrogates) accord with the facts.” — Howard Gardner
Ever since he went to Wyoming Seminary secondary school, Howard Gardner says he has been captivated with...

On December 1, 1955, a tired seamstress living in Montgomery, Alabama, made history. Rosa Parks was an African American woman who broke the law when she refused to give up her seat on a crowded bus for a white passenger. Her act of civil disobedience resulted in her being kicked off the bus and her arrest! She was charged and found guilty of violating the segregation law of the city...
What do I do when they finish their work early?
This is a common question posed by teachers when it comes to gifted students. But it really shouldn’t be a problem—if you have the right training, the right philosophy and some “go-to” strategies in your teaching toolbox. Some teachers simply give gifted students more of the same work. The student finishes the assigned math problems—so have them complete 10 more of the same type of problems. In other classrooms, teachers ask gifted...
Teachers in U.S. public schools are educating students who more racially and ethnically diverse than at any other time in our history (Levin & Nolan, 2014); any other time in history. In 2008, 44 percent of students were from minority ethnic groups. By 2040, this number is expected to grow to more than 50 percent (Levin & Nolan, 2014).
What does this mean for teachers? For starters, the challenge to meet the needs of diversity in the classroom are massive—and are not...
![]()