Historytime: Why I’m not at school

APUSH students –

As I’m sure you will have realized by the time you read this message, I’m not at school for the first day of class. I’ve never missed the first (or second) day before, so I wanted to let you all know what I’m up to and when I’ll be back.

Last summer, I was chosen to be the head coach of the United States team for the International Geography Olympiad. Some of you may be familiar with other international academic Olympiad competitions – things like math, biology, physics or linguistics. Some of you may have taken qualifying exams for these competitions during your time at LASA.

This year, the iGeo competition is taking place in Beijing, China. Students at the competition are required to take a written examination and to complete geographical field observations which are then used to solve a set of problems relating to both physical and human geography. As I’m writing this, Team USA, along with students from 44 other countries, are finishing the last phase of the competition – a multiple choice examination called the multimedia test.

In addition to the competition and testing, there are excursions to famous Beijing landmarks and cultural presentations from all 45 delegations. By popular demand, Team USA will spend their allotted time tonight explaining to the world the cultural phenomenon that is Donald Trump. On Sunday, with the competition concluded, we will take a day trip to the Great Wall. Monday we will have the gold medal ceremony on the grounds of the former (and future) site of the Beijing Olympic games. I’ll be traveling home on Tuesday and finally in class on Wednesday, ready to start a new year of APUSH.

Hope your first days of the new school year end up going well. We'll get started with a few procedural items and then Reconstruction on Wednesday in class.

- Flowers