Things Change: Memories and Lessons of a Baby Boomer Farm Kid, Life Long Student, and Forty-Year Educator

For this book, I drew upon my childhood and coming-of-age influences. The deaths of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and so many others served as wake-up calls to me. Things change, sometimes for the better and sometimes not. However, we can learn from the important lessons of the past. We can work to improve the world around us while preserving the values of past generations.

Throughout my forty years as a social studies teacher, students have told me they loved my history classes because I made the material meaningful by teaching through his-stories and her-stories. In this book, I share a wealth of stories and insights as to how the reader can make sense of—and make a difference in—a world where things constantly change.

In anticipation of her wedding, my daughter asked me if I had any words of wisdom for her. I took her request seriously. As I gathered my thoughts, I kept running into one reality-that is, things change. As a baby boomer farm kid growing up in rural Wisconsin, I learned the value of hard work and the importance of family. I heard stories of my grandparents and parents about the Great Depression and World War II. During the Cold War, I often felt my childhood was spent under the shadow of the bomb. I attended college during the antiwar riots of the late 1960s and early 1970s.